Arctic Ice Cap

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, to whom we are indebted for achieving this debate, started his speech by asking whether your Lordships’ House had paid much attention to the Arctic in the past. Perhaps one of the notable references was that of Lord Dufferin, who, as a young man in his 20s, took a wooden sailing boat and sailed the whole way to Spitsbergen. This was before he went on to be ambassador at St Petersburg and Paris, Viceroy of India and Governor General of Canada, where he is still favourably remembered.

In those days, the voyage was not much followed up because although Lord Dufferin wrote letters to his wife which were published in Letters From High Latitudes, it was a cold and difficult place. There were much better places to go for resources, such as in the scramble for Africa, the struggle over South America and North America and of course in the Far East. Indeed, every century seems to have seen a scramble or race for somewhere. In the latter part of the past century, it was probably the struggle for space.

One characteristic of every one of those struggles was not just that it opened up new lands in order that there would be more resources available, but that it ended up with military struggle—the struggle for power and control. While we think of the situation in the Arctic and the melting of the waters in environmental terms—I understand that today it is expected in Ottawa that the Minister may well declare a scientific park just off the north of Baffin Island—and although there has been much said about the economic consequences, we must think about the security consequences. Those are the questions that I would like to add to those that have already been raised by other noble Lords when my noble friend comes to reply.

My old friend Bill Graham, when he was defence Minister in Canada, remarked on the fact that the melting of the Arctic ice opened up great opportunities but also real threats. Canada has sent military equipment and men into the region in order to identify its own interests and show that it has the capacity to defend them should the time come. In 2009, the president of the United States in a presidential directive indicated potential security concerns in the region, and Russia has for quite a substantial time had a major military presence on the surface and more particularly under the surface in the region.

We have always to some extent—although this was not entirely true during the Second World War when a threat did indeed emerge from the north—felt that there was some degree of protection. That is not the same if it is possible to traverse the areas easily. Not least at a time when austerity has forced us to cut back on our military naval fleet, it is important that part of our strategic defence thinking over the next number of years should include not just the opportunities, which are marvellous and the requirement to protect our world, but the potential threats to our own security and that of the European Union.

This is not solely a matter for ourselves of course. It is clearly a northward shift of emphasis for NATO. If one looks at the map not from a normal perspective of Britain being right at the centre but looks down at the world from an Arctic projection, one sees a northern equivalent of the Pacific rim, where there is a major confrontation between Russia, which has half of all the coastline, Canada and the United States and, as has been mentioned, Denmark in the form of Greenland, as well as Norway. I am keen to hear from my noble friend what our security advisers are telling us about the need to protect ourselves and our national interests, and what is being discussed at NATO in this regard where there is a much greater and more obvious responsibility.