Ukraine

Baroness Fall Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fall (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the sacrifices that the people of Ukraine have made and continue to make for their freedoms since the invasion over two and a half years ago. I find their determination and courage humbling and a reminder of the values that we hold dear but are often complacent about.

I pay tribute too to the series of UK Governments for their sustained leadership and steadfast support for the people of Ukraine in meeting their military needs and addressing their humanitarian support; to those who welcomed Ukrainian families into their homes and communities; and to all in the West who give their support, with the higher price of bread or the cost of heating our homes. It has been a long time since we paid the price of peace in terms of our own personal sacrifices.

That realisation has also focused us in the West on our political values. It is because of Putin’s aggressive actions that we now have a reinvigorated and expanded NATO. Who would have thought that Finland, staunchly neutral for decades, would join NATO or indeed that Sweden would do so, proving that Putin’s strategy against NATO expansion has failed? He has effected the very thing that he most wished to avoid—and now there is the potential of Ukrainian membership of the EU too, an important step, along with the enlargement of NATO, towards marking a line in the sand for potential Russian aggression and whatever might happen down the line. In all the talk of peace, not least from President Zelensky, peace can only be as successful as the security guarantees that we place beside it. Otherwise, Putin will bank his battle gains, take his time and come back for more, as he did after Crimea.

We enter the most strategically difficult phase of the war in Ukraine off the back of a very tough year. A re-elected and reinvigorated Putin, supported by an economy on a war footing, strengthened through his alliance of rogue friends around North Korea and also China, has seen Russia on the offensive. Navalny’s death at the start of the year was a stark reminder of how those who oppose the regime are treated but also, in Navalny’s bravery, that Putin does not speak for all Russia. We hear that message loud and clear in the words of his widow.

Strategically, the worry is that Putin eyes up the longer term, hoping that western resolve will begin to wane as the cost of a third year of war focuses minds and inflationary pressures hover. It is a year of elections, especially when the USA has begun to question American resolve and the known unknown is: what happens if Trump wins? Will the Americans scale back their support or even just leave the war to Europe? What does that mean for us?

What can we do? We can keep making the argument, as my noble friends Lord Ahmad and Lord Cameron—the former Foreign Secretary—so skilfully did, that Ukraine is value for money for the Americans if we are intent on the West winning. To let Putin win would be the wrong thing not only for Ukraine but for Europe and the West. That means the USA, and it will play into the hands of those of our enemies—Iran, North Korea and China—who want the West to look weak and be weak. It is not a coincidence that Putin invaded after we left Afghanistan.

We are days from the US election, the result of which is critical to the future of Ukraine but also of Europe and the West. We cannot know what Putin will do next, with a militarised Russia selling its oil and gas east, eyeing its neighbours in near Russia and leveraging its influence widely as it chairs the BRICS this week. Russia’s ambition should not be underestimated but nor should Western resolve. Given the very fact that Putin sought a quick victory over Ukraine and today remains in a costly, intractable war, we must remember that although Ukraine is not appearing to win that war, nor is Putin. It falls to us in Europe to be prepared to step up. That means working with our European allies to prepare and to talk to the public, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, about how and why we pay the price of peace. I hope that the Minister will pass on the resolve of this Chamber today.

War in Ukraine

Baroness Fall Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to indicate that there is nothing that Mr Putin would like better than to imagine that everybody is distracted by another dangerous conflict and that somehow or other he is off the radar screen. For the United Kingdom and our allies, the tragic situation with Israel and the Gaza Strip and the situation in Ukraine continue to be deeply worrying conflicts. We will do our level best, as we have indicated, to provide support where we can. The noble Baroness designated the support that we have indicated we can make available in the eastern Mediterranean. I can confirm to her that that is not impugning our resilience on other fronts. As she will understand, the support that we are offering to Ukraine is somewhat different in character, but we are able and absolutely committed to continue doing that. I hope that there will be opportunities to update the House in forthcoming months as to exactly how that support will continue.

[Baroness Fall (Con)]

My Lords, we witnessed Putin in China last weekend, a guest of honour at the Chinese celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the belt and road initiative. He noted that they had common threads bringing together Russia and China and, as we know, China has offered economic and diplomatic support to Russia the whole way through. Neither state has condemned the atrocities that we have seen by Hamas on Israel. Are we witnessing a growing coalition of authoritarian states, including Iran and North Korea? What is His Majesty’s Government’s response, especially with regard to the future of Ukraine?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As my noble friend will be aware, the combination of the two integrated reviews, not least the integrated review refresh of this year, demonstrated His Majesty’s Government’s analysis of what we consider the challenge position to be globally. That reaffirmed that our primary objective is Euro-Atlantic security but of course Euro-Atlantic security is, frankly, indivisible from Indo-Pacific security. Therefore, we are active on all fronts to use all the measures available to us to support friends and allies who believe in the same values that we believe in. That includes calling out activity that we find unacceptable. For example, we have called out China’s activity in the South China seas and called out the deeply concerning situation in Xinjiang with regard to the treatment of Uighurs. In the United Nations, we regularly call out the activities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

I reassure my noble friend that, across a whole range of fronts, we are very clear about what we need to do to stand up for rights, values and democratic freedoms. Encouragingly, we do not do that alone—we do it in concert with very important friends and allies.

France: AUKUS

Baroness Fall Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I seek to assure the noble Lord that we recognise the significance of the French Government’s reaction to AUKUS and the strength of the feeling it has generated. We have a long-standing relationship with France in global security and defence; that is founded on firm lines, not least the Lancaster House agreements. We are both committed to the same things, whether that is NATO, Euro-Atlantic security or broader global security in the Indo-Pacific and south-east Asia. A lot binds us together. We value France’s presence as a defence partner and look forward to continuing to work with it closely.

[Baroness Fall (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on what is a very innovative new alliance, even if it was executed with maybe slightly less diplomacy for our near neighbours than it might have been. This new alliance is supportive of Australia. It reinforces the idea that China does not have free rein in the Indo-Pacific, and it reinforces the work of the Quad. With the Quad in mind, does the Minister think there will be new members of AUKUS, such as Japan?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for affirming the strategic importance of AUKUS, echoing what the noble Lord, Lord West, said. The tripartite collaboration has been formed for a specific purpose and change in that respect is not envisaged. But my noble friend is absolutely right to recognise that AUKUS complements and enhances other relationships in the region, such as the Quad, Five Eyes or the FPDA, and that reflects both NATO’s approach and the EU Indo-Pacific strategy.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Fall Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fall (Con) [V]]

My Lord, I welcome the many learned speeches from noble Lords this afternoon, many of whom have vast experience and knowledge of this very important topic.

As the daughter of a diplomat, I was brought up on a diet of British foreign policy and its mantra to protect and advance British interests. The battle of my father’s time was the Cold War, but we have inherited a more complex landscape and our enemies are more diverse and agile. Alongside this are the big geopolitical challenges of our time, of which the deterioration of relations between China and the West is dominant. We see this played out like the proxy wars of old, for example, in tech and trade. But we should be wary of calling this a second Cold War. China is not the Soviet Union; its economic power is far greater and more sustainable and, whether we like it or not, we must co-operate with China to find solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, such as climate change.

I commend the Government for the integrated review, which attempts to set out to answer the question: what is Britain’s role in the world today? I will focus on three issues in my brief remarks. The first goes back to China. In the integrated review, China is described as a “systemic competitor”. If we look across the board, to the economy, security, human rights and the need to address global problems, our approach looks pragmatic, though at times a bit inconsistent. We welcome inward investment and have rightly put in place legislation to properly scrutinise it. We rightly call out human rights abuses, yet we have been careful not to use the label “genocide”. We send our ships to the South China Sea and, at the same time, we invite China to the COP 26 meeting, recognising, again rightly, that co-operation is needed if any progress can be made on climate change.

Who are our allies in this approach? While it is clear that China has become a convening issue for many Western democracies, it is also notable that we are not are all aligned—take Germany and New Zealand, for example. Seeing Australia getting blown around by its unilateral approach suggests that we might do well to take a multilateral one ourselves, possibly tucking in behind the Biden Administration.

If we consider China a systemic competitor, this warrants a systemic response by us. By that, I mean one which brings together the security, economic, human rights and climate change responses under one umbrella. I wonder whether the Government should consider an NSC sub-group, for example, on China, to strengthen and co-ordinate our response across Whitehall.

I turn to nuclear. To me, the commitment to increase our nuclear arsenal sets a dismal example to other powers who support non-proliferation. It is also a strange priority for taxpayers’ money, at a time when the economic outlook is difficult. There seems to be little attempt to set out a rationale for the policy, which to my mind also sits uneasily with our decision to make drastic cuts to our aid budget, which I will turn to next.

The cut from 0.7% to 0.5% acts as a double whammy, alongside a shrinking economy that would already have led to substantial reductions. If you want to see global action on climate change, insure against mass migration, combat terrorism, eradicate poverty and counter world pandemics, as well as compete with China’s growing influence, the provision of 0.7% is a good way to go about it. It is in our national interests and it blatantly promotes them at the same time.

All this comes at such a critical moment for Britain, as we relaunch ourselves on the world stage post Brexit and host COP 26 and the G7. This is a G7 that puts women and girls at the centre of its agenda, and yet we witness devastating cuts to many programmes that are designed to support them. Taken together, I believe that the spending decision around our nuclear arsenal and aid does not represent the best strategy for the promotion of British national interests at this critical juncture.

I now turn to Afghanistan. I, like many others, have wholeheartedly welcomed President Biden’s return to a more multilateral approach on the global stage, but, sadly, I cannot support the decision to press ahead with American withdrawal from Afghanistan before the peace talks are finalised. This is not a peace plan but an exit plan, and I fear that it is likely to lead to instability and future conflict; it already has. So much that we and our brave service men and women have fought for over the decades—to build lasting peace in the region and within society to help women and girls—will have been in vain. No one wants for ever wars, but we are more likely to sow the seeds of a future security problem if we leave in a hurry.

Now that we have left the EU, we need to be more, not less, focused on how we maximise our influence in the world. We need to leverage a systemic approach to geopolitical issues at home and build a multilateral approach to like-minded powers abroad to promote British interests at this crucial time.

Reconciliation: Role of British Foreign, Defence and International Development Policy

Baroness Fall Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fall (Con)]

My Lords, in the few years that I have been a Member of this House, I have always found the Christmas debate chosen by the most reverend Primate to be a most welcome one. It is a moment to pause and reflect on some of the profound issues of our time, none more so than this year when we are surrounded by so much division at home and abroad. Every day we read of the old world order fraying, with rules broken and treaties abandoned, of liberal leaderships replaced by populists and free trade rejected in favour of protectionism and trade wars. How do we create a new order from this disorder and what are the ingredients of lasting reconciliation?

Let us be clear about what it is not. It is not simply about accepting the status quo or never standing up and fighting for our values. It is about how we fight that fight and find resolution once the fight is done. It is my belief that there is a journey to enduring reconciliation, which starts with justice and ends with peace. For without justice, we will never allow the pain to heal and lay the past to rest; only then can we hope to move on to peace. But linger too long on justice and there is a danger that it turns to revenge, seeping through the generations while peace may remain beyond our reach. These themes are explored in Ishiguro’s beautiful book The Buried Giant, one of the works for which he won a Nobel prize. He asks:

“How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter and magician’s trickery?”


The magic he alludes to here is that of political propaganda—deceit and fake news. In the book, peace is to be shattered as the erased memory of the atrocities between Saxons and Normans are reawakened, unleashing a vicious cycle of vengeance driven by a thirst for justice that has not been properly satisfied.

We see these conflicts and witness these journeys in real life, past and present. Many have been discussed this morning: in the royal pardons as part of the Irish peace process, in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa at the end of apartheid, and in efforts to integrate child soldiers back into their family and community life. We also see the attempted post-conflict reconciliation in Sri Lanka and look to the intractable problems in the Middle East. We see the challenge of forgive and forget, yet it is often the best chance for lasting peace.

My father’s generation were the Cold War warriors. They fought against the grey, faithless tyrannies of the communist world. As the countries of eastern and central Europe abandoned communism, we in the West opened our arms to them in the spirit of reconciliation. We helped them build their democracies and held out our strongest institutions—NATO and the European Union—as an alternative path to freedom and democracy. The USSR itself was the last to fall on Christmas Day 1991. After years of detente, an arms race, spying, proxy wars and propaganda—often all at once—Reagan and Thatcher together finally called it out. It is interesting that Yeltsin’s approach afterwards was to put the Communist Party on trial rather than to make individuals responsible for their actions. Some argue this meant that the process of trial and reconciliation of their communist past was never fulfilled, never allowing the process of justice to heal the wounds and never shaking off the old regime either. The West remains cautious of the Russian bear to this day. Perhaps there is a lesson for us here: that a country not at peace with itself is prone to instability abroad.

To me, the theme of reconciliation also comes closer to home. As we head off to Christmas, I wonder how many families across Britain will share Christmas with a relative who they disagree with, maybe on Brexit, or stare at their millennial children or grandchildren across the dinner table as they turn down turkey in favour of vegan nut roast. The path to reconciliation is not always an easy or straightforward one. Often, it is deeply personal. It is fashionable to be cynical about our leaders today, especially our elected ones. We often hear people say, “Why bother to vote—what difference does it make?” But looking round the somewhat fragile world today, I cannot help but think that leadership of all kinds matters. It does make a difference, not least in setting an example of mutual respect, tolerance and understanding. The world to me feels uglier, less safe and less kind because of the tone set by some. This plays out not just in politics but across the playgrounds and dinner tables this Christmas.

There are times for disorder and times for restoration of order; a place for confrontation and then for reconciliation; a moment to weigh up justice on the road to peace. It is the thread of our common humanity which transcends national, cultural and political differences and which must surely guide us on this journey. For it is, I hope, why we all want justice, but we should also strive for peace to bring lasting reconciliation at home and abroad.