Queen’s Speech

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, in returning to the debate on the gracious Speech, I apologise to the House for my discourtesy in attempting to speak earlier. I have apologised to the Minister concerned—the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. I was not aware that the House would be going straight into the Statement but I feel that I should apologise.

The gracious Speech had one paragraph on defence. It came two-thirds of the way through the Speech and I am not sure that that creates a feeling of priority for what is a very important issue. This morning the Minister put some flesh on the bones of that paragraph and talked about areas that would be improved for Armed Forces personnel, as well as matters relating to compensation and other areas. While referring to that, I welcome the Minister back to his portfolio. We are delighted to see him there in the new but very insecure Government. I do not know how long he will be sitting in that seat but it is good to see him there.

That paragraph referred specifically to two points. One was the 2% contribution to NATO and the other was the Armed Forces covenant. As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, the 2% contribution to NATO has honed in on the defence debate, and I agree with people who say that it can be a distraction. However, we need to remind ourselves that the contribution should be at least 2%, and from my point of view it should certainly remain at that level. Depending on what figures you look at, the Treasury said that in 2015-16 it spent 1.9%, but many of us would say that that includes war pensions and items that should not be included, which means that really the figure came nowhere near 1.9%. The 2% contribution is crucial.

In general terms, I think we all accept that we live in a very insecure world. If anything has proved that over the last few weeks, it has been the terrorist attacks. If we think that only our internal security services can protect us from that insecurity, we are misleading ourselves. The role of our Armed Forces and our defence overall are crucial. I suggest that defence lies not just in the capability contained in the hardware and computer software; crucially, it also lies in our service personnel. They are a crucial element in all this, and certainly the Armed Forces covenant is central to it.

I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, when he talked about personnel. I was delighted to hear what he had to say because I do not think that we spend sufficient time on personnel issues in the defence area. We talk more about the hardware, and that is important, but our service personnel are key. We have the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body, which a long time ago I was honoured to chair. Its recent reports, the last one in particular, talked about low morale. The Armed Forces have been limited to a 1% maximum pay increase over the past years, and yet the review body is supposed to be independent.

The Minister talked about recruitment and retention. On recruitment, we have been losing more people than we have been able to recruit in recent times. That is a danger. We need steady recruitment and we need to make sure that the money for young men and women is at the level that has been agreed. On retention, we were told last week that since the Brexit vote there has been something like a 96% drop in the number of nurses coming into our health service. If we continue with the austerity measures relating to personnel, recruitment and retention will become even more difficult.

It is difficult, too, for defence personnel because, unlike nurses in the health service, teachers, doctors and those in other professional services, they cannot demonstrate down Whitehall. They cannot say, “We want this 1% to go”. They do not have representation as other sectors do, other than the reports of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body. It is incumbent on the Government to look at this and to accept that one possible reason for the outcome of the general election was that the public think austerity has gone too far where people are concerned. We need to review it.

In the short time I have, I should like to ask the Minister to comment on a number of matters. Will he agree that the Government will look at the 1% and give back independence to the role of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body so it can carry out an independent review annually and make recommendations to the Government? Will the Minister comment on the view that is now generally held—not just by Members in this Chamber but by those outside, among our suppliers, our Armed Forces and their officers—that the defence capability we now have in this country is substantially weaker in conventional weapons than it was 10 years ago, and significantly less than at the time of the Robertson defence review in 1997?

Will the Minister also comment on a story that is going round? Is it correct that a capability expenditure initiative is being carried out by the Permanent Under-Secretary at the MoD and that, following its conclusion, the Secretary of State will hold a further 90-day review on defence spending? Against that background, will the Government confirm the Conservative manifesto commitment that 0.5% above inflation will be paid each year until 2022—assuming that this Government are still in power then—and that they will not use that confirmation to seek cuts elsewhere in defence spending?

Reference has been made in our debate to terrorist events—we have just heard a Statement from the Minister—and the response of our emergency services, which has been above and beyond the call of duty. That has rightly been expressed, time after time, by most people. Our young men and women in the role of defence face equal danger, day in and day out, albeit in a different way. They put their lives on the line, as we have seen time after time. If the Government were to review the issue of 1% of defence expenditure, they would find no opposition on these Benches. We support Trident and spending on defence, and we support the fact that defence needs more expenditure.

In the coming time, Brexit may occupy many hours of this Chamber and next door. However, we must not lose sight in those debates of the fact that defence is crucial for us and that we are, at the moment, probably not giving it the expenditure and support it deserves. If that continues, it will be to the cost of this country.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, in the reduced time available I shall concentrate my remarks on the defence aspects of the gracious Speech. It would be remiss of me as chairman of the Back-Bench Armed Forces defence study group in the House if I did not register our sincere thanks for the work that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, and the coalition Government have done over the last five years. The noble Lord made sure that all noble Lords across the House were kept up to date and briefed, and had meetings. We very much appreciated the way in which he approached his work. We are delighted that his replacement is the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who carries much respect in this Chamber, and has the broad shoulders that he will need in the forthcoming debates about the strategic defence and security review.

I want to concentrate my remarks on that. In 2010, the review took place, and it was generally, but perhaps not unanimously, agreed that it was superficial, cost-related—the costs had almost been decided before the review was conducted—and that the outcome was less than satisfactory. You can look at morale in a company to see how it is doing. For the first time I can remember, in the last couple of years we have seen the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body’s annual report refer to the diminished morale among the Armed Forces. We depend on those personnel for our defence policy. Of course equipment is important, but it is the young men and women, and their families who support them, to whom we have to pay due attention. I hope that that will be a priority for discussion in this review.

The noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned that the work would be done and the report will be presented. I hope that that is not the process. I would welcome comment on that when the Minister winds up the debate. That was one of the problems last time: it was done in a hurry and there was not much external input into the report. The report was drawn up at a time when no one had any idea or expectation that we would have such incidents as Syria, Ukraine, Libya and the almost daily flying right up against our borders by Russian military planes. It is not an incursion of our air and sea borders, but they fly right up against them.

The noble Earl said that we live in an insecure world. He is absolutely right. I do not agree with people who think that we should just look inwardly. In this changing world, our internal security depends so much on what is happening outside our borders. So the strategic defence and security review is very important. It was the penultimate paragraph in the gracious Speech; I just hope that they were not listed in order of priority. I would have some concern if they were, but I choose not to think that. We will debate this issue and we need to look at how that 2010 review worked out. Quite apart from the additional operations, we had a reduction in our full-time service personnel, who were to be replaced by the reserves. That has not worked: we have not recruited the numbers that we were told we would.

There are two other promises that the Prime Minister may perhaps be forgiven for thinking, when he made them, that he would not be in the position he is in today. The first was during the NATO conference, where he urged all nations to spend 2% of GDP on their defence budget. There is a difference of opinion over whether we find and pay 2%. I do not believe that we do. I would like to be proved wrong, but that is something we need to address. It is no good urging other nations to do it if we do not.

The other promise that I would welcome comment on is this. When the very cutting 2010 review took place, part of the deal—I am a trade union negotiator so I can use only the word “deal”—between the MoD political people and the Chiefs of Staff was, “If you can deliver this successfully, I, the Prime Minister, tell you that come 2015 you will see a real increase in the defence budget and spending”: in other words, with the new Government. The Prime Minister, in the position that he is in and as the person who made them, now really needs to deliver those two promises. That is something on which we will hold the Government to account. If the Government assert that they are spending 2%, they need to establish that they are; we would like to see the figures.

I look forward to the debates that we will have and I certainly look forward to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, leading on behalf of the Government, so ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, who, until he was taken into government, was the secretary of our defence group.

United Kingdom and China

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, I join other Members of the House in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, for initiating this debate; he introduced it in a very positive way, while at the same time being realistic about the challenges that face us in our relationship with China. We have had two excellent maiden speeches, enjoyable and full of the experience of the two new Members of the House. I wish them well and look forward to their future contributions.

The UK exports more each year to Ireland than it does to China. China has a population of 1.5 billion. That is quite a statement and it demonstrates the challenge that we face. We have barely 1% of China’s imports, and Germany has 5%. We have got quite a long way to go. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, in his period at the department has done a lot, not only to encourage, but to push things forward. I know this from personal experience; I went to see him about air traffic services. I am on the board of NATS. He personally made some changes which have helped the development of that organisation and it is now in 32 countries throughout the world. Unfortunately, it is not in China. I ask the noble Lord, in the short time he will still be at the department, if he would make sure that we have a role there, on trade missions. Certainly, aviation is expanding at an enormous rate in China. For an island, our connections with the companies and countries that we export to are crucial. The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, was right in what she was saying, as a number of other Members have been.

The multinational companies have been doing quite well, but of course Britain is made up substantially of small and medium-sized companies. We have not been doing so well in that respect and I suggest that we need to make a concerted effort. The UK has got enormous opportunities of leverage, in the strong positions in our design, innovation, and environment management; in particular, healthcare; life sciences and green tech, as well as aviation.

I would like to concentrate on the role of higher education and the assistance that it can, and does, give, and could continue to give. Many of the Chinese elite were educated in this country; many of them still continue to send their children to our fine UK universities. I support what noble Lords have said, in particular what my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe said about visas. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here; you talk to the civil servants and they say “There isn’t a problem”. But we know that there is, and somehow that disconnect has to be addressed. Bo Xilai sent his son to Harrow. There are education connections which we could build on; we have very few expats living in China, yet half a million Chinese people who have been educated here are now back in China, and they are certainly people we could have a good relationship with.

I need to declare an interest; I am on the council of Nottingham University, which was mentioned this morning. We have a university at Ningbo. It is a partnership, but it is actually called the University of Nottingham Ningbo. It is run by Nottingham, and when the university was built less than a decade ago, it was built on farmland. Next year is its 10th anniversary. The city has grown in population from 5 million to just under 10 million in that short time. The university has 6,000 students, 10% of whom are international students, while the rest are Chinese. They are being taught to a degree which is Nottingham University UK accredited, and they are taught in English. The capital assets of the university are held in partnership with the Chinese city fathers. The chairman is a local Chinese woman, and the governing council has Chinese members on it too. But the academics are not Chinese—they are international academics, drawn from all over the world. I was there a month ago and met with many of the students and alumni. They are hungry for education. In parallel with that, they are determined to succeed. When you talk to them, they do not necessarily see themselves remaining in China.

As part of that trip, when we went to Shanghai we visited Fudan University, where we were told that it has been decided in the past few months that by 2020 every student must spend one year of their education outside China. That is quite an opportunity for us. It also clearly demonstrates their ambition. I felt a great deal of pride in listening to our pro-vice-chancellor Christopher Rudd make a speech off the cuff in absolutely wonderful Mandarin. That went down very well with our Chinese guests.

Over the past few months we have seen Ed Davey—he was at Fudan when we were there—go to China to talk about the environment; we have seen the Chancellor go; and, in a few weeks, I gather that the Prime Minister is going. I give the Government credit for that. It clearly demonstrates an energy which we need in developing our relationships with China. Indeed, if the Prime Minister had the time to see Nottingham in Ningbo, he would be very welcome indeed. Maybe the Minister would consider putting that on his desk.

We have a lot that we can lever in China. We have to be realistic and pragmatic about it. We have to accept that it is a two-way stretch: it is not just us telling China but us learning from them. Until January this year, the chancellor of Nottingham University was Chinese. A Chinese chancellor in a UK university: that is true partnership.

Libya

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for initiating this debate and add my thanks to my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon, who asked for this debate last week when we had the first Statement on the implementation of the no-fly zone over Libya.

This has been a wide-ranging and interesting debate. I have a particular interest in our Armed Forces personnel. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, used the term “strategic balance”. I think that that term would do justice to a diplomat from the Foreign Office in the sense that I believe that this is about overstretch. I am concerned about our Armed Forces personnel because UN Resolution 1973 calls for a no-fly zone and the people who have to implement it are our Armed Forces. We call on them, they deliver what they are asked to do and they do it time after time.

HMS “Cumberland” has been playing a very important role over the past two weeks. She was on her way home, having been at sea for months. Obviously, the personnel on that ship will now not see their families for some time. Some folk may regard that as a small issue against the important issues of the Middle East. In its own right, that is possibly the case, but alongside the “Cumberland” is HMS “York”, which was on her way to the Falklands and had to be diverted. My concern is that what we are asking the Armed Forces to do is actually stretching the overstretch. It is a concern that we have to respond to more substantially than perhaps we were able to do before.

That said, I have yet to come across anyone who disagrees with what has happened and I congratulate the Government on delivering the broad-based coalition of countries and forces. But here we are again with UK forces in the first wave, at the forefront, and on this occasion not even alongside our American allies. We cannot keep doing this. At some point we have to recognise that if this is the wish of British Governments of whatever colour—I include the previous Government —we have to make sure that our Armed Forces have the resources and the respect that they deserve. The personnel on HMS “Cumberland” will lose their jobs when they get back to the UK. I do not know, but some of the pilots will also probably leave the services through redundancy. We say fine words about the work that they do, but if I was a member of the Armed Forces I would be looking at it from my family’s point of view.

This year, anyone in the services earning £21,000 or above will not get a pay award. Again, people may think that that is a small issue when set against an international challenge such as this, but we must take into account the fact that accommodation charges have increased, and that is for accommodation that many of us would not deem to live in. Also, we were given to understand that service pensions would not be involved in the public sector review of pensions, but they now have been. If we want to treat our Armed Forces personnel during periods of austerity in the same way as we treat people walking up and down Whitehall doing safe day-in, day-out jobs, we are going to have a very different Armed Forces in this country from what we have at the moment. That is something that we need to address.

Some people may feel that it is not appropriate to raise these issues in a debate about foreign policy and strategy, but we cannot carry out our foreign strategy without the full support of our Armed Forces in delivering it for us. They will decide whether we actually succeed or we fail. I think that I speak for many of us when I say that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, has done a sterling job keeping us informed through the briefings that he has been holding on the strategic defence and security review. The pay bill, as I know only too well having chaired the Armed Forces Pay Review Body some years ago, is not the lion’s share of our defence budget. There is no real need to be punitive towards the gallant men and women who do such a proud job for this country. I urge the Government to take the opportunity offered by the situation in Libya to review the situation for our Armed Forces personnel. They will not appear to be making a U-turn and they will not lose face, because many of us will thank them and congratulate them on recognising the covenant that we owe to our Armed Forces.

Queen's Speech

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on his appointment as a Minister. As he has demonstrated today in his opening address, he has a masterly knowledge of the areas that he will be covering and will be very much welcomed by this House. I particularly warmly welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, to his responsibility for defence. I would have preferred it to have been unencumbered by the responsibilities of being a Whip as well, but the years of hard work and commitment to defence and the honest manner and balanced judgment with which he approached it in opposition was a credit to him, to his party and to this House. I know that that will carry through to his appointment as a Minister. I look forward to working with him and hearing his many contributions in this Chamber—starting with his first winding-up speech as a Minister.

My noble friend Lady Kinnock demonstrated her enormous knowledge of the topics that she covers. I was delighted today to see that the feisty approach that she has to topics that are so close to her heart, but also ruled by the head, which is a marvellous combination, will be carried through in opposition.

I very much welcome the announcement of the Strategic Defence Review in the gracious Speech. That decision had been taken by the Labour Government, and I am delighted that the coalition Government will follow it through. The last time that we had a defence review, we were in neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, and it was conducted on a completely different basis from what we are expecting from our Armed Forces today.

We on these Benches have always supported the brave and courageous men and women in our Armed Forces, who have demonstrated clearly that they are prepared to pay—and many have paid—the ultimate price. We will continue to support them and support the coalition Government on any policy which is to the benefit and in the best interests of our Armed Forces. I welcome the announcement today that the defence budget for this year will be maintained. I read into that a limited commitment; we will be watching that very closely.

Although we on these Benches are a bit out of practice in opposition, we are quick learners and we will be following very closely and analytically how the Government deliver on the policies that they have promised, not only in the election manifestoes of both parties that form the coalition but in the coalition document itself.

The reference in the gracious Speech to the Strategic Defence Review is one of the shortest paragraphs in the Speech. It does not refer to timing, process or intended outcomes. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Astor, to cast some light on that when he winds up. Neither it nor the coalition document refers to the 2007 commitment given by the now Defence Secretary when he was shadow Defence Secretary that a Conservative Government would increase Army personnel and manning by three new battalions. That was confirmed again in 2009, but there has been no reference to it since, so I ask the Minister to confirm that that promise will be met.

The coalition document refers to MoD running costs being reduced by 25 per cent. That is a substantial amount. We know that to get anything like that reduction will take time. Therefore, in the mean time, will there be new money for the announcement of the doubling of the operational allowance for personnel in Afghanistan, or will it come from somewhere else? If it comes from somewhere else, where is that in a badly stretched MoD budget? We talk about Afghanistan because it is a huge issue for us, but we have Armed Forces personnel in operational theatres throughout the rest of the world. I question whether it was the right decision to announce that doubling to the exclusion of personnel in other operational theatres—I am talking about Iraq, but not solely Iraq. Is it being considered whether to extend it to other personnel?

The coalition document also states that they will look at scope to refurbish Armed Forces accommodation from efficiencies within the MoD. Are those efficiencies in addition to the 25 per cent? Where are the efficiencies intended to come from? Will they come from operational Armed Forces or civilian staff?

In the Armed Forces Pay Review Body report this year, which the Labour Government accepted, the chief executive of the defence housing services informed them that last year saw the largest expenditure ever on Armed Forces accommodation—£50 million was brought forward from future years' projected spending. Do the coalition Government intend to stick to that? If so, that is adopting a Labour Government policy. What is the intention behind the coalition document? The document goes on to say that the Armed Forces’ pay is included in plans for fair play. I think that that was a Liberal Democrat policy, but what does it mean? I do not know what that means, especially as the Armed Forces have the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. Is it intended to change its remit? If so, why? Is it intended to interfere in the work that it is doing? Those questions need answering.

I was pleased to see the trio of Ministers go to Afghanistan so quickly. That said, I suspect that David Beckham's visit at the same time got more airtime, TV minutes and bigger smiles on the faces of the Armed Forces personnel. However, I was always brought up to believe that if you go into someone's house, you adopt good manners even if you do not agree with them. The statement equating Afghanistan to a 13th century medieval country was a foot in the mouth by the Minister concerned. Let us hope that we can get over that and start to have good relations that will help our Armed Forces in Afghanistan. We owe much to our Armed Forces. In return, I am pleased that the new coalition Government are talking about the importance of the military covenant. That is how we repay to them what they are prepared to give to the country.

We will have many debates on the Strategic Defence Review; I look forward to them; but both the gracious Speech and the coalition document raise more questions than they answer.