Ukraine

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spellar (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, after that warm welcome from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, I cannot wait to hear myself speak.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

But first I thank not only the noble Lord but many other noble Lords from all sides of this House, many of whom I knew as Members of Parliament, for their very warm welcome to your Lordships’ House. I add to that my thanks to the clerks, Black Rod, the attendants and all the staff for their very willing and cheerful assistance in establishing new Peers in this House. I speak on behalf of many other new noble Lords—it is much appreciated.

I am constrained by time and have to compress a 50-year political career and a 10-year war into six minutes. I will attempt to do my best. First, mine is the classic route of the baby boomer generation—pass the 11-plus, go to the direct grant school, study PPE at Oxford. Then there were 23 years working for the electricians’ union, which merged into the AEEU, where the noble Lord, Lord Jordan, who was one of my sponsors, was president of that combined union. That union had been controlled by the Communist Party and I was working for those who had fought it and taken back the union into the members’ control.

We were at the heart of the Cold War both here and internationally, defending free trade unionism around the world, most notably Solidarność, the Polish trade union movement, which we assisted—supporting it in Poland and in its campaigns here. It is a part of my life of which I am extremely proud. I firmly believe that trade unionism is essential not only for the dignity of people at work but as a backbone of democracy.

At that same time I was also active in Labour politics. I was elected to council in December 1970. I was the youngest councillor in London at that time and defeated the Liberals on a 28% swing. It has been downhill ever since.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

Once in Parliament, I was also on the London Labour Party executive—a similar battle—along with my colleague who will speak shortly, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who is one of several in this House who were on the long march to get the Labour Party back to being electable and elected. As a Member of Parliament, I briefly represented Birmingham Northfield—1983 was not a good year for seeking re-election—and was then an MP for 32 years in the borough of Sandwell. I pay tribute to those who made that a worthwhile and very enjoyable time—my constituency party, the local councillors, and my staff in the constituency and my Westminster office.

I pay tribute too to my excellent successor, the new Member of Parliament, Gurinder Singh Josan. Given the disgraceful defeat of Patrick Gordon Walker in Smethwick in 1964, Gurinder’s election shows the enormous and welcome change not only in Smethwick but in the country. Smethwick was also the home of the Soho Works of James Watt and Matthew Boulton at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

My ministerial career is in the public record.

I move quickly on to the subject we are discussing: the war in Crimea. I said 10 years because too many regard this war as having started in 2022, when it really started in 2014. It is an ongoing struggle—a major conflict. We salute the Ukrainian people, whom many experts underestimated in terms of both their resolve and their ability to fight against the Russian monolith. That demands not just our support but our admiration. I also warn, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, did, against the complacent view that a deal with Putin that allows him to claim victory will end the war. It may end the battle; it will not end the war. We need absolutely to understand that. The Baltic nations understand that, the Scandinavians understand that, and the eastern European countries that lived for so many years under the Soviet yoke, with periodic invasions of tanks, understand that. We should listen to them very carefully.

The struggle will not just be kinetic. There is a lot of talk about hybrid war and the grey zone. It is also about the battle for hearts and minds, which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, referenced. What frustrates me is that we used to be very good at this. In the Second World War with the Political Warfare Executive, and during the Cold War with the battles right across society in different realms, we and the United States were very good at this. We have lost a lot of that capability. We need to recreate it rapidly, and it is an all-of-government operation—that needs to be understood.

In the same context, we need to look at industrial supply. I mentioned the Industrial Revolution. Since that time, as much as wars are won on the battlefields they have been won in the factories. We have allowed our industrial capacity to be eroded—not just our military capacity and defence factories but our engineering capacity—and the Ukraine conflict has brought home very strongly to us that that is no longer sufficient. This requires a change of mind and of attitude. Why we have to keep learning the lessons of successive wars sometimes escapes me. This is a decision facing the Government and this Parliament. We must make the right decision.