Armed Forces Deployment (Royal Prerogative) Bill [HL]

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Friday 8th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill brought forward in the name of my noble friend Lady Falkner. It comes at a very appropriate time. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I plan to support the Bill. I note that he said that, had things not been so busy in the last seven to 10 days, he would have tabled a fatal Motion. So for those of us who were rather keen that the UK should vote to remain in the European Union—I assume it was the referendum that deflected the noble Earl—there is at least, if not any sunlit upland, a little glimmer of light coming from the fact that no fatal Motion was tabled. For that we can be grateful.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, if I had tabled a fatal Motion, a difficulty would have been that it might well have had to be debated in prime time. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, would have been thrilled to bits by that. She would probably not have been that worried about the end result and we would have had a much bigger debate—so I was actually being a bit cruel by not tabling a fatal Motion.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, this is actually a very serious Bill. Decisions to go to war and engage in military conflict always necessitate deep reflection, expert intelligence and other appropriate military advice. They must be taken responsibly and with due regard to not just the short-term military intervention but the medium and long-term consequences. We should never engage in military conflict without thinking through what the exit strategy might be. Leaving failed states behind is clearly not acceptable or morally right.

Of course, the decision to go to war is a prerogative power—but, as we have already heard, a convention has emerged in terms of consulting Parliament. Other states with written constitutions have rather more clarity in this regard. Finland, Spain, Ireland and Italy all require parliamentary votes before going into military conflict. Unless there is a direct attack on Germany, it has an even higher threshold of a two-thirds vote in Parliament before engaging in military conflict. Clearly, we do not have a codified constitution. It may be appropriate to have such a thing, but that is not something for a Private Member’s Bill. But surely clarity would be helpful.

I share some of the concerns outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Even Members of Parliament who are well informed and have been led to understand some of the military implications of a decision will not be the same as a Cabinet sitting round the table, fully briefed with all the relevant military intelligence. But the Bill of my noble friend Lady Falkner addresses some of these issues as it explicitly refers to emergency and security conditions. So if we are talking about issues that necessitate significant amounts of military intelligence that cannot be divulged to 650 Members of the House of Commons, that is presumably an area where the Prime Minister would be able to say that action would be taken under the existing prerogative.

Arguably, this leaves the Prime Minister with slightly more wiggle room than we as Liberal Democrats would want, because our party policy is very clearly that a decision should be taken by the House of Commons before going into military conflict, but I think that the balance is about right with the inclusion of the emergency condition and the security condition.

One key thing is that there should be clarity of thinking ahead of military decisions, but that does not always seem to have been the case. In the last few days, we have heard that the decision to intervene militarily in Iraq was taken without an adequate plan being in place and without adequate reference to intelligence, even if at the time it was thought to be there. Somebody has to take responsibility for decisions to go into military conflict. That could be left to the royal prerogative but, since we have a representative democracy and we have parliamentarians to take decisions for—

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

I am following what the noble Baroness is saying with great interest. Is there not a basic conundrum here that long and detailed debate on the action you plan to take against your opponent gives him the opportunity to decide exactly how he is going to deal with it? While I accept in a way that this is necessary, it is also a problem.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, I am most grateful for that intervention. I think that there are two things to disaggregate. I had intended to speak only very briefly; I seem to have been on my feet talking about the EU for weeks and weeks, so I had not particularly planned to speak in this debate. But I think it is different in cases such as that of Sierra Leone, or in actions where we as a country are engaged in military conflict and there is a military operation but no direct threat to the United Kingdom. If there is a direct threat to the United Kingdom and emergency action were needed, the situation would be rather different, but I think that there will be some cases where it is entirely appropriate for the country to take the decision that it wants to be engaged in a particular country.

Syria is probably a case in point—a decision to intervene in Syria is not about the direct security of the United Kingdom. But the noble Lord is absolutely right that it is not appropriate to lay out precisely what the battle plan would be. I am talking about a decision in principle to engage in conflict, with some guidelines or clear assurances from the Government that a plan is in place, but not specifics and certainly not day-by-day outlines, such as “This is what the RAF is going to be doing today. This is what the RAF is going to be doing in two weeks’ time”—because that could clearly jeopardise the operational capabilities. So clearly there are areas where greater specificity in the Bill might be appropriate. My noble friend has already indicated that she would be grateful for ideas that could improve the Bill.

In conclusion, care and attention are required before engaging in military conflict. We particularly need to think through both the plan for engagement and the exit plan. In recent times, we have perhaps taken too many decisions that have not had an appropriate exit strategy. Leaving power vacuums and failed states is surely a failure of policy decisions and does not make the United Kingdom or anywhere else more secure. A time to reflect, and for Parliament to review what the Government are proposing, may assist our decision-taking. I warmly support the Bill.