UN Mission in Mali: Armed Forces Deployment

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Touhig

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, today’s repeat of the Mali deployment Statement is very much welcomed because, whenever British forces are deployed, it is right—indeed, absolutely necessary—for Ministers to come to Parliament to explain the reasons, outline the objectives and answer questions. I am sure that the whole House welcomes the fact that the noble Baroness is here to listen to the views expressed and to respond to questions the Statement made in the other place gives rise to.

Britain has rightly been described as a soft power superpower, and around the world many millions of people owe their quality of life today to support from Britain over many years now. In a report published in 2014 entitled Persuasion and Power in the Modern World, a Select Committee of this House chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, was tasked with examining the use of soft power in furthering Britain’s global influence and interests. The report is well worth further examination, stressing as it does the need for Britain to remain a top-rank player or face being outwitted, outcompeted and increasingly insecure.

The Mali deployment means we are sending our troops into the most dangerous UN mission in the world today. Our forces go with the respect—and more, the affection—of everyone in these islands. Our forces deploy to an area of the African continent that was in former times part of the French colonial interests. No matter the divisions and travails closer to home over Brexit, we go to Mali as part of the UN mandate —yes, we do—but we go in support of our French friends and allies, and that is how it should be: a common interest and a common responsibility to help bring peace and stability.

Our troop deployment is more successful thanks to the Royal Air Force at Brize Norton. Here I echo the words of Brize’s station commander, Group Captain Emily Flynn, who said that the deployment was a good example of the important and often unnoticed work that is carried out by personnel there. Brize Norton is the centre of a world network supporting Britain’s military operations across the globe and we should be proud of that.

We are told that our 300-strong Light Dragoons task group will be helping protect people from violence and encouraging political dialogue. Can the Minister tell us something about the latter role of encouraging political dialogue that our forces will engage in?

In the Statement, we are reminded that in South Sudan British forces were engaged in building hospitals, bridges and roads. This work, of course, requires the deployed forces to possess specialist skills in building and construction. Can the Minister say, thinking of that role, how we might engage in it in partnership with forces from other countries in Mali?

The Statement tells us that the region in which our troops are deployed is the worst place on earth to be an adolescent girl as it accounts for 7% of the world’s population of primary-age girls who are not in education. What plans, if any, do we have to help address this? I can still remember when, together with my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, I attended a lecture given by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown in Edinburgh almost 15 years ago, when he powerfully argued that the greatest gift and help that we can give the developing world is free education.

In a world ever more watchful of threats from terrorist violence, Mali, as the Statement emphasises, poses a real danger by creating a space for developing new terrorist threats. Without going into any great detail in a security-sensitive matter, can the Minister confirm that our forces will work closely with our allies, sharing intelligence gathering to the mutual benefit and protection of the citizens of the nations who have deployed troops in Mali?

Finally, as we approach the Christmas season, the whole House would echo the Statement’s grateful thanks and good wishes to our troops there. In this awful Covid time, when families across Britain cannot be together, that separation is even harder to bear for our service personnel and their families. Can the Minister assure the House that every preparation is in hand for our troops in Mali to be in contact with their loved ones here at home over Christmas? I am sure that I am not alone in believing that, if the families of our service men and women at home are happy, our troops, wherever they may be asked to serve around the world, will be happy and content. In an uncertain world, Britain’s soft power capability and our long-established and respected role as a peacemaker have never been more important or more needed.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I start by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the Secretary of State in expressing my gratitude to our service men and women. In particular at this time we send our thanks and best wishes to those serving in Mali and deployed anywhere else in the world in the run-up to Christmas. In particular, we send our thanks and gratitude to the families of our service men and women, without whom they would find doing their job serving our nation so much harder.

The deployment to Mali is, as the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, said, to be welcomed. It is one that the previous Secretary of State for Defence flagged up in the middle of 2019, so it is not a surprise; it is part of an international UN mission, and clearly something that our service men and women are trained for. It is precisely the sort of mission that is to be welcomed but, as the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, pointed out, it is in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. In his Statement, the Secretary of State suggested that our service men and women were well trained and equipped for the mission and have the right training, equipment and preparation to succeed in a complex operating environment. Could the Minister confirm that she believes that those deployed to Mali are appropriately kitted out and that they are not placed in any greater danger than is inevitably the case in such a deployment?

As the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, also pointed out, Mali is a country where it is extremely dangerous, because of terrorist activities, but particularly difficult to be a woman—or a girl being educated. To what extent will the change to humanitarian aid impact on Mali? The Minister is clearly responding primarily for the MoD but she is replying for the Government, so can she confirm that the Government remain committed to supporting women and girls?

In particular, what is the Government’s wider approach to sub-Saharan Africa? I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, will speak later. She admirably chaired the committee of your Lordships’ House on which I sit, and which produced a report on sub-Saharan Africa in July. We have not yet had the opportunity as a House to debate that report, but one issue that the committee kept coming across was a difficulty in understanding whether the Government actually had a strategy for Africa. It would be helpful to understand from the Minister how far Mali fits into such a strategy. Clearly, the UK is playing an important role here as part of a UN mission, but does that fit as part of the Government’s wider strategy?

Overall, this is clearly a welcome mission, even if it is very unfortunate that Mali requires such intervention. It is welcome that the UK continues to play a global role. It is also notable that so much of that role is with our allies, including France and Sweden. Can the Minister reassure the House that, as we move forward, such security relationships will continue to be as deep and fully fledged as they have been? Those relations matter, regardless of the UK’s relations with the European Union. If the deployment to Mali fully reflects what our service men and women should be doing, sending the Navy to deal with French fishermen is perhaps not the best use of our resources.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Touhig

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 1, 2, 4 and 10 will, if agreed, mean that regulations made necessary by the passing of this Bill will be subject to the affirmative procedure. It was a point well debated in Committee, and I do not need to rehearse those arguments again at length. It is worth pointing out, however, that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, following its consideration of the Bill, stated:

“The Bill will confer novel and broad powers on the Defence Council to make provision for part-time service … These powers are conferred without any detailed provisions on the face of the Bill limiting or restricting how the powers are exercised. In the circumstances we consider that the affirmative procedure should apply, and that this is so despite the fact regulations under section 329 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 are generally subject to the negative procedure”.


I believe that there is agreement across the House that the Government should heed the committee’s recommendation. I thank the Minister for his willingness to engage in discussions, both in Committee and outside, on this matter and for his undertaking that the Government are listening to the comments that are being made.

This Bill introduces provisions enabling the Defence Council to make regulations regarding part-time working and the new forms of geographically restricted service. The Defence Council will also be able to make regulations setting out the circumstances in which agreements can be varied, suspended or terminated. The provision in the Armed Forces Act 2006 that governs the parliamentary procedure to which regulations are subject is Section 373. At present, any regulations made under Section 329 are subject to the negative procedure. However, our amendments will ensure that any regulations made under the new sections to be inserted by this Bill will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Section 373(3) sets out which regulations made under the 2006 Act are subject to the affirmative procedure, and the amendment inserts reference to regulations under the Bill into that list. The amendments also amend the wording of Clause 3(6) of the Bill to reflect the fact that Clause 1 now amends two sections of the Armed Forces Act 2006 and not just one. I beg to move.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments, particularly to Amendment 8 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jolly. My comments will be very much in line with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. In Committee, the Minister said:

“I am not in a position today to give any undertakings on the substance of this issue, but I undertake to reflect further on the matter in a constructive way ahead of Report”.—[Official Report, 12/9/17; col. GC 85]


If constructive reflection has occurred, it has not been visible in the form of any government amendment. Could the Minister explain to the House why no government amendment has been forthcoming and, in the absence of that, why noble Lords should not accept either the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, or that of my noble friend Lady Jolly?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, this amendment, too, replicates an amendment that was brought in Committee and refers to an issue that is fundamental to recruitment, retention and forces’ welfare, as well as the welfare of forces families: accommodation. In his response in Committee the Minister suggested that the numbers of people who might avail themselves of the opportunity to work part-time under the arrangements of the Bill would perhaps be sufficiently limited that they would not impact on forces accommodation. The idea was welcomed that all members of Her Majesty’s forces, whether full-time or part-time, if they are regulars, would be entitled to the same accommodation provisions.

However, if more people are acquired because some people work part-time, so that you might have three people instead of two people doing the job, each of those individuals would be entitled to accommodation, and at some point this might have an impact on the requirement for accommodation as a whole. Clearly, as the Minister stated in the discussion on Amendment 7, there may be cases where this will be overcome by Help to Buy and through the new employment model. However, to the extent that this is not the case, it is hugely important for service men and women and their families to believe that Her Majesty’s Government will provide adequate accommodation for them.

For that reason, we have again tabled an amendment on accommodation, both to restate that service men and women who avail themselves of this flexible model are entitled to appropriate family accommodation or single-living accommodation, and, perhaps more importantly in the longer term, to have certainty that the Government are reviewing what forces accommodation is available and whether it will be suitable for the number of service men and women we have.

One of the key things is what is available and habitable and the extent to which the accommodation, and the maintenance contracts which deal with it, are fit for purpose. We have been told on various occasions that CarillionAmey now meets its key performance indicators, yet there are still many complaints. If it meets its key performance indicators, does that mean that they are not the right ones? While this might not be the appropriate amendment to bring that forward, it would be welcome if the Minister could at least explain when we might be able to discuss such things.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Jolly, for tabling a further amendment on service accommodation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, noted in Committee, there are already significant pressures on service accommodation, and that is before we even begin to consider the move to the future accommodation model from 2019.

I will not go into the detail about our concerns on the future accommodation model, but clearly there are urgent questions for the Government to answer on how the Bill will affect personnel who rely on service accommodation, particularly when the system is shaken up. There will also be more questions for the Government to answer in the future as the new system is rolled out. I am therefore glad to see the addition of the second part of Amendment 9, which would require the Secretary of State not only to provide a periodic snapshot but to be proactive in anticipating future accommodation needs. I hope that the Minister will provide us with some answers—perhaps in a further round of letters before Third Reading—and offer a firm commitment; it is important that these things are reported back to Parliament.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Touhig

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 18 tabled in my name and to Amendment 6 which is tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. The amendments are similar. In contrast to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, we believe that it is important that Parliament should play its full role in legislation. If the Defence Council is to have new powers conferred on it, it would be appropriate to make an affirmative decision rather than use a negative instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, took the words out of my mouth. I was in this Room last week taking part in a debate about reporting on the process of Brexit. The issues being discussed included questions about the role that Parliament plays in that. The Henry VIII clauses which are in the EU withdrawal Bill cover a bigger set of issues, but the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has asked, “If these clauses were part of a bigger Bill, would we be bothered about them?”. Perhaps not, but that is not the point. At the moment there seems to be a tendency on the part of Her Majesty’s Government to say, “If the Government have an idea, it should be accepted without any amendment or scrutiny”. It is important that your Lordships’ House and Parliament as a whole play their part in scrutinising legislation, and it is right that this should be done through the affirmative procedure.

On reports, the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, reminded us that there now is information; I am grateful to the Minister for ensuring over the summer that further information was provided regarding the sort of questions we were looking for. As my noble friend Lady Jolly said, Amendment 4 was a probing amendment, but obviously, the more information that can be given and made available to people and the more detail we have, the greater the opportunity for this to be successful.

[Lord Touhig]

Perhaps I may comment on the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. His suggestion would not be the right way. He discussed it with me last week. The Bill substantially depends on regulations to bring in its measures, and how would one decide what we would bring in the first tranche and the second tranche, and so on? Therefore everything that relates to this matter should be subject to the affirmative procedure.

NATO Warsaw Summit

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Touhig

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement on a summit that was of considerable significance. Paragraph 40 of the summit communiqué makes it clear that NATO is determined to show its commitment to our partners in the Baltic states and Poland by establishing an enhanced forward presence to demonstrate unambiguously as part of our overall posture,

“allies’ solidarity, determination, and the ability to act”,

by triggering an immediate allied response to aggression.

I was at NATO headquarters at the end of May and found that our partner representatives from the Baltic states and Poland who met me and my colleagues wanted to be reassured of our support. Every desire was expressed by the people whom I met to maintain and encourage the friendliest relations with their neighbour Russia, but there was an underlying nervous tension following the annexation of Crimea and the incursions in Ukraine. They also expressed worries about the potential Russian build-up in and around the enclave of Kaliningrad.

The Warsaw summit agreed that British forces will from next year be part of an enhanced forward presence with 500 troops in Estonia and 150 in Poland. We are also committed to training 4,000 Ukrainian troops by March next year. There will be consequences as a result of NATO taking this decision and we must be prepared for that.

The summit took place in Warsaw where 25 years ago almost to the day the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved. The Russians of course will clearly be sensitive, very sensitive indeed, about NATO’s decision. What assessment have the Government made of the expected Russian response? My NATO briefings highlighted the importance of the NATO-Russia Council which was established in 2002 in Rome. Following Russian military intervention in Ukraine, NATO suspended all practical co-operation with Russia and the council ceased to meet, although channels of communication were still maintained. It was agreed only in early April this year to convene a formal meeting of the council and that meeting, the first in two years, took place on 20 April. I understand that the council will meet again in two days’ time, on Wednesday. Can the Minister confirm that NATO’s decision will be discussed at that meeting?

As last weekend’s summit took place, we in Britain were digesting the Chilcot report on the Iraq war, which we will be debating tomorrow. Sir John Chilcot’s report makes much about the process of taking the decision to commit to war in Iraq; paragraph 410 of the Executive Summary states that,

“a cabinet committee or a more structured process might have identified some of the wider implications and risks associated with the deployment of military forces to Iraq”.

Can the noble Earl say whether that did in fact happen before Britain decided to commit troops to this NATO deployment? My noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, in response to the Chilcot Statement last week, suggested the creation of an ad hoc Cabinet committee to consider matters in such circumstances in the future. Will the Government consider this idea?

Now that we are heading for exit from the European Union, will Britain continue to oppose an idea favoured by some in France and Germany of the creation of a European army? Will we use our leading role in NATO to resist this notion? There is concern in Germany, which I certainly found in my meetings with representatives of other NATO partners, about our decision to withdraw our troops from Germany. Do we still intend to press ahead with this? Can the Minister also say something about the programme of training activity planned for our forces deployed in Estonia and Poland? I am aware of concern at all levels that our deployed forces could be cooped up in a barracks deep in a forest with nothing much to do.

The Statement reaffirms that the Government are accepting advice from the Chief of the General Staff that women are capable of engaging in close combat roles, and we welcome that. NATO’s defence capacity-building role, first enunciated at the Wales summit, continues to provide significant support to Georgia, Iraq and Jordan. The deployment of HMS “Mersey” in July to the Aegean will underpin our support for NATO’s efforts to counter illegal migration. All these decisions are welcome and underline Britain’s continued commitment to NATO as the lasting bulwark of our defence. As the party which helped to create NATO when in government in 1949, we on these Benches are proud of an organisation which is a defender of our freedoms and way of life, and in an uncertain world a source of security for many around the globe.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords on these Benches welcome the Statement and I echo some of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. We welcome the commitments made to the Baltic states and to Poland, but would ask the Government what thought has been given to the situation with Russia and its possible reactions. Clearly the commitment to NATO is welcome, especially at a time of such global and regional geopolitical uncertainties, and therefore the commitment to our colleagues in the Baltic states and Poland, as well as an increased role in countering illegal migration, are both important.

The Statement by the Prime Minister and the communiqué refer to the UK’s nuclear deterrent and the fact that the UK’s and France’s nuclear deterrents have a deterrent role of their own. I do not wish to pre-empt the debate we will have on Wednesday prior to the Motion to be debated next Monday in the other place, but can the noble Earl give us some reassurance regarding defence expenditure? Assuming a decision is taken to approve a successor on Monday, that will be a considerable defence commitment. Both the NATO summit and the Prime Minister’s Statement recommit us to spending 2% of GDP on defence, a commitment made at the Wales summit in 2014 and affirmed by the Government after the general election last year. However, if there is a recession, either as a result of the decision taken on 23 June to leave the European Union or the actual fact of Brexit, 2% of a smaller GDP would presumably mean less money going to defence. Has money been set aside and are there contingencies to ensure that, if there were a recession, we would still be able to meet our commitments on F35, the aircraft carriers and a successor, if that decision is taken?

Further to that, while it is clearly welcome that the Government do not envisage any reduction in the UK’s commitment to European security in the light of the decision to leave the European Union, how will that commitment be played out? Will it be solely through the multilateral framework of NATO or might the Government consider—I realise that the Minister may not be able to give us an answer pending Wednesday evening—continuing links with the common security and defence policy of the European Union? How far does the UK envisage ongoing links with the EU and how far does it envisage bilateral links, particularly with France but also with the Netherlands? Clearly, the ongoing British commitment to European security is important, but an indication of how we envisage that going forward would be welcome.