Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Judd

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for these amendments, and in particular for his response to my amendments moved in Committee on journalism. When we are trying to convince people like President Erdoğan of Turkey not to persecute his journalists, it would be a complete disaster if we accidentally arrested a legitimate journalist in the UK.

I have worked overseas on international aid—in theatres unlikely to have been designated—but I think the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has slightly misinterpreted the Minister’s amendment. New Clause 3B(a) excludes providing aid “of a humanitarian nature”, so his concerns are absolutely met by the Minister. I believe the Minister has the balance right, both in principle and in the drafting of his amendment.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment; indeed I welcome the moves the Government have already made. Looking back on my life outside this House, it is impossible to express strongly enough my respect for the courage and dedication of some of those working on the front line. We ought to be ensuring that they have all possible support, rather than being put through greater anxiety about their own futures. The point about de-risking by banks and other relevant authorities is, of course, very important. Development assistance is crucial and sometimes—if not more often than not—the most important development assistance is long term, because it builds human and institutional resources that will be essential for the future.

Alongside that, the point I made in my earlier intervention is crucial: peacebuilding is vital. Are we just going to have industries and charities whose activities are dependent on failure, or are we supporting charities, voluntary organisations and others who say we have to understand the causes of the problems that confront us and tackle those causes at root? That means sometimes dangerous, controversial work with a wide cross-section of people. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to the amendment and underline in specific terms the Government’s commitment to the support and well-being of the bona fide, responsible organisations that engage in the crucial task of peacebuilding.

I said that I had a range of interests in the register, and I should specifically say that I have been an adviser to International Alert and subsequently a trustee. International Alert is respected by a great number of Peers across the House for the work it does. It is deeply concerned about the need to make explicitly clear that peacebuilding is high on our list of considerations.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Judd

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 12th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, this is a very important amendment. Either we take our commitments on climate change seriously, or we do not. As we go into a new phase with the administration of bus services, it seems almost unthinkable that this is not taken for granted—that this is not in the front line and a practical issue on which we can make a positive contribution. But it is not only on the great issues of climate change that we should consider this; it is also in terms of local health. I have no doubt whatever that in some of our conurbations the burdens on the health service are increased by pollution in our local cities. We are only adding to the problems and the cost of the health service if we do not make provisions of this kind. The buses are there—it is not as if they are not—so it is a very sensible and important amendment, and I hope that it is acceptable to the Minister.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, all noble Lords understand the importance of emissions controls, but when the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, decides what she is going to do with her amendment could she tell the House what she thinks is more important—fuel efficiency, related to carbon emissions, or pollutant emissions such as PM10 or PM5 or nitrous oxides? Does the Office for Low Emission Vehicles determine which is the priority, fuel efficiency or pollutant emissions, or do the Government tell the office which is the priority?

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Judd

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, of course I thank the Minister for his very full reply. I listened to his admonishments about the things that he believes I have got wrong. I am afraid that I do not accept those admonishments and suggest that a report would give him the opportunity to set out in more detail for all to see the evidence behind what he keeps emphasising is the commitment to education. In saying that, I will again put on record how much I admire the dedication and work of many of those doing what is required of them. But even at this stage of the debate, and within all the constraints of practice, I wish to comment on the important points which the Minister has made before I close.

Functional skills provided by the Army are not the equivalent of GCSE grades D to G, as the Wolf Review of Vocational Education made clear. GCSE courses are longer and much more involved than functional skills courses, despite their notionally comparable educational level. They are an interim qualification only, designed to lead to GCSEs. In a House of Commons debate on 25 November 2013, it emerged that no more than 20 soldiers across the entire Army of all ages had gained a GCSE in English or maths in each of the past five years. I emphasise: 20 soldiers of all ages.

These are just some of the facts which do not altogether substantiate the fulsome position that the Minister likes to take. I hope that he will forgive my drawing this to his attention. A report would give him an opportunity to refute in detail, with evidence, the criticisms and to establish his case.

There is much I could say about complying with all relevant children’s legislation. However, I will just point out that the Armed Forces are exempt from most relevant legislation. As an employer, the forces, for example, are not required to ensure that all staff who work in direct contact with children have criminal record checks, despite living alongside recruits in training camps. No sixth form, public school or state school would be allowed to do that.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, was a little concerned by what I said about the recruitment process. I wish that the reality of the experience bore out what he claimed. There is no obligation on recruiters to meet parents or guardians at any stage in the process. Minors can be enlisted without their parent or guardian having attended any meeting with Army staff or any selection event. A signed consent form is required at the very end of the process but the Armed Forces have no way of verifying that the signatures are genuine. Neither parent nor guardian—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not intimately familiar with the recruiting process for minors but my recollection is that the Minister covered precisely the points that the noble Lord is raising.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, my point is that the Minister supported his particular concern by stressing that it was impossible to think that anyone coming into the Army was so illiterate that they could not read the material. The facts and figures produced by the Army itself do not altogether substantiate this. That is why, again, it is so important that we have this report regularly, which would enable us to see how fully—and, we hope, how well or how much better—this provision is being made. I really cannot see why the armed services would resist this.

I just say, in response to my noble friend Lord West, that I joined the cadet force at 14 and thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I remember getting credits on some of my courses for doing things relatively well because I was enjoying them. But my point is not about all that. The point is about the vulnerability of some of the children who are coming in and our need to take double care that we are looking fully at what they are letting themselves in for—because they are letting themselves in for things. For example, the majority of these young recruits coming into these schemes do not have the ability to provide the technical services that are becoming an important characteristic of the modern Army. They therefore, inevitably, predominantly end up in infantry regiments, which, as we saw in Afghanistan, have seven times the death rate of the rest of the Army. These youngsters are taking big decisions with huge implications. I do not want to discourage them—I take much pride and excitement in reading about VCs to youngsters in the 1914-18 war and I take great pride in hearing about the other examples that the Minister keeps, rightly, citing, such as the youngster who ended up with the sword of honour. On all this I agree, but there are lots who do not.

Of the youngsters on these courses, 36% drop out. What do we do to follow up on that? The British Legion has done research that demonstrates that the unemployment rates and the difficulties faced by these youngsters are greater than those of their peers in the same age group. In discharging our responsibilities we must face these facts and, to be able to take these stats seriously, we need to have systematic reports and information available. I just cannot see why the Armed Forces are not prepared to do this. I hope that the Minister, whom I have come to respect over the years, will listen to the plea by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. In the hope that he will, I withdraw the amendment.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Judd

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, it is in order for the noble Lord, Lord Judd, to speak.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his response to my observations on unaccompanied children. I wonder whether it would be possible for the Government to make provision whereby it was required that every unaccompanied child subject to a removal process should have a qualified and transparently independent counsellor specifically allocated to them to guide them through what may be a nightmare situation.

Drones: Code of Conduct

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Judd

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for securing this evening’s debate and other noble Lords for their contribution. Your Lordships will note that the question is about civilian as well as military use of these aircraft and the House will be aware that I answer for all of Her Majesty’s Government. I share the regret of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about the number of speakers and am grateful for his very measured contribution to our debate.

First, we should understand that we are talking about remotely piloted aircraft systems, or RPAS. We are most certainly not talking about “drones” as exemplified by the “doodle bugs” of the World War II era. The location of the cockpit does not change the essential function of a professional, qualified pilot in terms of his or her direct responsibility for the safety and overall management of a flight. I do not foresee a situation where a human’s ultimate responsibility for the safe flight of a remotely piloted aircraft will be replaced by fully autonomous technologies.

I will follow the split of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and cover civilian RPAS operations first. These are closely regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority and are treated in the same manner as that of an equivalent manned aircraft. This applies to all aspects of unmanned aviation, from the initial design and construction, or airworthiness, through to the safety requirements of how it is flown and operated. This viewpoint is shared internationally. We certainly have no intention of denying access to UK airspace—we just want to keep it safe.

Small unmanned aircraft are those under 20 kilograms weight, flown at short range and always within the sight of the person flying them. These are overseen to a lesser, but proportionate, extent by the CAA but, in certain circumstances, such as for commercial use, a permission is needed. They are also subject to the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, talked about intrusion. He will be aware that the activities of Google also cause similar concerns and that this concern is not unique to RPAS.

The House should not overlook the technological importance of the growth of the remotely piloted aircraft sector. For example, systems which can be used to detect other aircraft could, in time, greatly assist all pilots, in the same way that aircraft transponders have contributed to safety across the sector. I would point out that the UK’s ASTRAEA consortium is at the forefront of international efforts in this field. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, told the House about a wide range of uses including anti-poaching operations. Noble Lords will have read the article in this week’s Sunday Times about the use of RPAS to assess the health of a vineyard in France—a very commendable use, I would suggest. Surely, this is the start of yet another technical revolution facilitated by the ubiquitous modern electronics. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is right of course when he says that the potential for their development is considerable.

The overall objective of the Government and the European Commission is to enable the full and safe integration of remotely piloted aircraft into the total aviation system so that they share the same airspace as their manned counterparts. With UK and EU input, the International Civil Aviation Organization is currently developing RPA guidance material, due for publication in autumn 2014, with standards expected about two years later. Within Europe, the Commission’s RPAS roadmap, published on Thursday 20 June 2013, is aimed at an incremental integration of RPAS into European airspace from 2016. To achieve this, there are a number of significant technical challenges to be overcome, primarily concerned with ensuring the RPAS is airworthy and has the capability to avoid collisions. However, until the technological and regulatory hurdles can be safely overcome, operations of larger remotely piloted aircraft will continue to be restricted to segregated airspace. For these reasons, therefore, my view is that there is already a suitable framework in place to regulate the operation of civilian remotely piloted aircraft and that no additional codes of conduct are required.

I now turn to the military element, which I suspect is of more concern to the House. Although the MoD operates a number of unmanned aircraft systems, Reaper is the UK’s only armed remotely piloted aircraft system and its only operational use is in support of UK and coalition ground forces in Afghanistan. Although predominantly used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tasks, the aircraft is also armed with precision-guided weapons, which offer an attack capability if needed by ground commanders. The system is operated by highly trained, skilled and qualified RAF pilots in accordance with the principles of international humanitarian law and the UK’s rules of engagement, which are identical to those used by crews of manned combat aircraft. That applies even for joint operations with US forces.

The UK’s selection and prosecution of all targets is based on rigorous scrutiny. Targets are always positively identified as legitimate military objectives and every effort is made to ensure that harm to civilians or damage to civilian property is minimised. The Government have a longstanding policy of not divulging the detail of our rules of engagement; that would give our adversaries useful information about how and when we might choose to use lethal force. I also gently remind the House that the pilots operate under military discipline. Similarly, the RAF has well established command, control and supervisory frameworks that I have seen on exercise. I do not believe that anything extra needs to be provided for.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, suggested that the UK military has 500 RPAS. However, there are currently only five armed RPAS. Of course, rather smaller RPAS are used for tactical surveillance. The use of remotely piloted aircraft systems is no different from other airborne or indeed ground-based attack systems. The only difference from a traditional aircraft is that their cockpits are on the ground. The systems can only launch their weapons when specifically commanded to do so by the pilot. They do not have the capability to launch any weapons autonomously. In addition, there are no future plans to replace military pilots with fully autonomous systems. I know that that is a matter of great concern to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the whole House. The MoD has no intention of developing any weapons systems to be used without human involvement. Although the Royal Navy has defensive systems such as Phalanx that can be used in an automatic mode, to protect personnel and ships from enemy threats like missiles, a human operator oversees the entire engagement. Furthermore, all our remotely piloted aircraft systems used in Afghanistan to protect troops on the ground are controlled by highly trained military pilots. There are no plans to replace skilled military personnel with fully autonomous systems.

[Lord Judd]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for this reply. Could he clarify what is meant by “no intention” to deploy these vehicles other than with human involvement? What does human involvement amount to? How much automatic action in terms of analysis, identifying a target and deciding to hit it will be left to the device in future vehicles once they are launched?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the answer is currently none. It requires human involvement to launch the missile at the target. RPAS cannot currently engage a target without being commanded to do so by the pilot on the ground.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, implied that communication with and control of an RPAS could be lost in the event of an electromagnetic pulse. If that was the case, the RPAS would probably lose all its capability, just like any other aircraft.

The noble Lord touched on the perceived disadvantages of the military use of RPAS. As of 20 June, the UK Reaper RPAS has employed 394 precision-guided weapons. There has been only one known incident that resulted in the deaths of civilians. On 25 March 2011, an attack on two pick-up trucks resulted in the destruction of a significant quantity of explosives and the deaths of two insurgents but, sadly, four Afghanistan civilians were also killed. In line with current ISAF procedures, an ISAF investigation was conducted to establish if any lessons could be learned or if any errors in operational procedures could be identified. In that case, the report concluded that the actions of the Reaper crew had been in accordance with extant procedures and rules of engagement.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked if the UK had conducted any targeted killings and whether the UK uses the ICRC definitions of combatants and civilians. Her Majesty’s Armed Forces will engage the enemy in accordance with international humanitarian law and the UK rules of engagement. The necessity and legality of engaging the target does not depend on the means of doing so. The noble Lord stated that we either uphold the rule of law or we do not. He is right. I can confirm that Her Majesty’s Government uphold the rule of law. How the US Government conduct themselves is not a matter for me to comment on and I have already touched on joint US/UK operations.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, talked about the remote warrior. Our experience of operating the Reaper remotely piloted aircraft system in Afghanistan suggests that Reaper aircrew are just as if not more connected to the situation on the ground when compared to operators of other aircraft types. That is because they fly missions over Afghanistan for years at a time and not in short-duration rotations. Remotely piloted aircraft can loiter over areas of interest for a considerable time, providing that much-valued intelligence picture. I remind the House that surveillance is their primary role. Should an attack be requested, their persistence enables them to assess a target in detail and select an optimum time for attack that minimises the risk of civilian casualties. Indeed, because of this increased awareness of the ground situation, enabled by the connectivity that a ground-based cockpit offers, there have been many occasions when crews have elected not to fire a weapon.

I will say a few words about the ASTRAEA project. ASTRAEA—Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation and Assessment—is a UK industry-led consortium focusing on the development of technologies, systems and procedures with a specific emphasis on unmanned aircraft systems. The consortium is led by seven UK companies—AOS, BAE Systems, Cassidian, Cobham, Qinetiq, Rolls-Royce and Thales—plus a further 70 SMEs and universities. The aim of the programme is to enable the routine use of UAS in all classes of airspace without the need for restrictive or specialised conditions of operation. The £62 million programme was split into two phases, each lasting three years. Phase 2 ended on 31 March 2013. Some 50% of the funding came from industry partners, with the remainder from government—the TSB and the regions. Future activity under the ASTRAEA brand is the subject of ongoing discussion within the consortium.

I welcome this debate, which has explored the application and use of remotely piloted aircraft. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is right to question the implications of any new and growing technology such as this. To reiterate: RPAS are aircraft under human control. The very clear regulations and guidance that apply to aircraft also apply to RPAS. I am confident that no further code of conduct is required.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Judd

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

Before the noble Baroness turns to the amendments, perhaps I may ask her a question. I have great respect for her as a person and a Minister; I know that she very much cares about the qualitative dimensions of British life. On reflection, would it not have been better for the Government to say, “Our objective is to have the most efficient possible economic performance in Britain. We will include the rural areas in this objective. We are determined to have the best possible facilities to service that economic activity. However, we not only want our broadband system to be the best in Europe, we want our areas of outstanding natural beauty, including the national parks, to be the best in the world”? The Government’s purpose is to find a policy that enables both objectives to be reconciled.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that we are in Committee. Noble Lords may speak as many times as they like, but it might be for the convenience of the Committee if we allow the Minister to respond initially to the amendments and then I am sure my noble friend will be delighted to take further questions.

[Lord Judd]

I assure the Committee that I will not repeat what I have already said, in spite of what we have just been advised is the best way forward.