Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament: China Report

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Changing Character of War Centre at Oxford University. This substantial report rightly focuses on defending our country and our people from the political, economic and military threats in our relationship with China. However, there is an impression of an almost ineluctable trajectory towards war on the model of the so-called Thucydides trap. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to ensure that competition, rivalry and challenge, which are all entirely reasonable, do not slide into war with China? Is there an equivalent Indo-Pacific tilt in diplomatic resources and in our thinking about how we share the world with China?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

In relation to China, the integrated review and the integrated review refresh represented a comprehensive approach across three interrelated pillars—protect, align and engage. The noble Lord will be aware that under these pillars there is significant, tangible evidence of how they are being implemented. To reassure him, I say that I have just returned from the Philippines and the Republic of Korea, where I was attending, among other things, the Seoul Defense Dialogue, one of the most significant defence fora in the region. There is an absolutely united desire that those who believe in the same values stand up together and learn more about each other. The warmth of reception that I received indicated that the United Kingdom is a very welcome presence in that region, as we endeavour to play our part in standing up for these values with friends and partners.

Ukraine

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, there are some debates in your Lordships’ House that are of particular solemnity and consequence. This is one such debate. In exercising the privilege of participating in it, I draw the attention of the House to my interest as the executive chairman of the Changing Character of War Centre at Pembroke College, Oxford.

The problem in Ukraine is not new. I recall reflecting in this House, on 28 May 2015, on how we merely wrung our hands over Crimea and worried about the initial events in Ukraine but did not do much to address either the problem of Russian aggression or the extension of EU influence and ambition as far as Ukraine was concerned. I suggested that, if we did not find a way to engage more with Russia, we should be prepared for that region to be critical in the triggering of a future global conflict. It is clear that we were not adequately prepared for the current war. We did not do enough to persuade Russia about the consequences—the sufficiently robust consequences—that there would be if there were aggression in Ukraine. We did not persuade him that there would be a significant western military response. We could have done much more.

Now that we are effectively at war, I have some doubts as to whether we have prepared sufficient resources. I ask the Minister to let the House know whether we, and indeed Europe as a whole, are yet in a position to provide Ukraine the weapons and ammunition it needs, since we clearly did not have those when the war started. If Donald Trump is re-elected, as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, warned us, we may not be able to be confident that the US will continue to be a dependable ally and umbrella for European defence.

On the kinds of resources needed by Ukraine, I observe that despite the expectations in advance, this has been a remarkably old-style, conventional war. There have been hybrid elements, but much less impact from cyberwar than was predicted, for instance. To date, there has also been less of an air war than might have been expected, although that may change with the arrival of F-16s. This has been a much more traditional artillery war, with the major technical advance being the appearance of drones. Old-style defences of trenches and mines mean that whoever is defending territory is almost persistently retaining the upper hand. In the first stage, the Ukrainians were successfully defending against Russian attacks. Now it is the Russians who are defending conquered territory, which they have extensively mined and where they can transparently see the Ukrainian approach. It cruelly resembles Verdun and the Somme, the battles of World War I.

For the present, this looks to be a more traditional war of attrition than the kind of war that Europeans and Americans might have expected, with mobile manoeuvring offensives. I wonder if NATO’s approach and the training that NATO has been providing to our Ukrainian allies may have needed considerable adaptation. Can the Minister give us any indication of how far the NATO military approach and plans, and indeed the training we have been giving, have had to adapt to the realities on the ground in this war?

It is not just a question of military resources and tactics, vital as these are. On 16 October 2019, I drew the attention of the House to another observation: that overwhelming physical and military force is no longer of itself effective in wars. The United States and its allies have involved themselves in a whole series of wars, from Vietnam through Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, and none has had a successful outcome, despite all the resources made available. In fact,

“All have made the situation worse”.—[Official Report, 16/10/19; col. 114.]


As we reflect on another war, this time in Ukraine, we should think about whether our assumptions about war are borne out by the evidence now available to us.

Speaking on 16 August 2021, President Biden identified what he believed to be the key factor in Afghanistan:

“We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong—incredibly well equipped—a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies. We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force ... What we could not provide them was the will to fight”.


A previous US President, Barack Obama, was of the same view as his director of national intelligence at the time:

“We underestimated the Viet Cong ... we underestimated ISIL and overestimated the fighting capability of the Iraqi army ... It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable”.


But Presidents Biden and Obama were wrong: the will to fight is not an imponderable; it is, in fact, as some of my academic colleagues have shown, a measurable phenomenon, and it is as likely to be as critical in the outcome of this war now as in the other conflicts I have mentioned. Can the Minister tell us how far we have been measuring—not just hoping about, but measuring and assessing—the will to fight of the two sides in this war? The outcome remains uncertain but, despite Russia’s military, economic and numerical superiority, the Ukrainians have to date shown remarkable resistance. Their will to fight will be crucial: are we assessing their will to fight? It will also be crucial whether the will to fight remains on the Russian side or is lacking: are we assessing that?

Does Europe have the resources? Does NATO have the right tactics and strategy? Are we assessing the will to fight? Finally, the Minister said that it could all be ended simply by the withdrawal of Mr Putin, but it is not just that. As has been pointed out, there are the enormous and horrendous crimes against humanity, exemplified by the ICC indictment against him. There is also the reconstruction of Ukraine, and foreign policy and substantial change beyond Europe. Have His Majesty’s Government stressed that the problem is no longer just Russia? As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, pointed out, there are other countries that do not necessarily share our view of this situation.

After the last two great and terrible global conflicts, the international architecture had to be refashioned. Can the United Nations survive without major reconstruction after this conflict? Are His Majesty’s Government looking at the substantial, long-term global and political consequences of this terrible war? As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, it will not be possible just to return to the status quo ante bellum. The time will come, if it has not already, when we will have to address the enormity of the geopolitical as well as human consequences of this terrible, spreading war, the ultimate outcomes of which we cannot yet know.

Armed Forces

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as executive chairman of the Changing Character of War Centre at Pembroke College, Oxford—and that is the issue with which I start. The nature of war has not changed since ancient times. It involves the use of force and, arguably, the threat of the use of force, by one group against another. It also requires resistance by those under attack: without that resistance, there is merely a rout. War also implies an intensity and duration to the conflict. None of this is new and none of it has gone away. However, the character of war changes with each new technological and tactical development, but these do not necessarily obviate all previous technologies and tactics. This was the mistake of these so-called “new wars” theorists, who, in the 1980s and 1990s, announced that major wars were now obsolete: there would be terrorism and other attacks by non-state actors, but inter-state war was no longer an international policy option. This was wishful thinking.

Another mistaken view was expressed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who in the other place in November 2021 claimed that the days of big tank battles and land wars in Europe were over, and mocked his party colleague Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the Defence Select Committee, for expressing concern about the cuts to British military capabilities. Three months later, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Old methods are never given up completely. Wars started on land, moved to sea and then airspace, and now to the cyberspace created by human beings. We have added to the spaces where wars may be conducted, but we have not abandoned the original spaces. So it is with the technology of war. We add new ways of attacking and resisting, but the old ways always remain available. Be suspicious of the credibility of anyone who says otherwise.

My second point is that the use of force is the one area where the state must maintain a monopoly and a convincing capacity. With healthcare, education, transport and many other social requirements, we may wish, and increasingly have wished, the state to provide, supply and manage them, but in none of them is a state monopoly essential or even, in my view, desirable. With increasing internal disruption and defending against external attack, it is crucial that the state maintains its monopoly. The recent coup attempt by the Wagner mercenaries in Russia shows what happens when a state allows any other model of the management of physical force.

In addition, the naive assumption that major war has gone away and that government is merely about providing domestic services is seriously mistaken and dangerous. If adequate resources are not provided for the defence of our country and our interests abroad against internal and external threats, a time will come when we will not be able to protect ourselves against attack.

This became the case with Europe, which for decades largely left it to the United States to be its protective umbrella, but no country has friends and benefactors who can be depended upon permanently to fulfil such a role. Countries have allies who will work with them when it is in their interests, not friends who will sacrifice themselves for no other reason than friendship. Our defence collaboration was never going to be based on the EU but on NATO as a defence alliance—and one that we nearly lost through neglect.

Finally, I want to say something about people. There is currently a superficially attractive notion that, with technology, we will be able to defend ourselves with a diminishing corps of people in our military. This is very ill-advised. There are many arguments already being made in this debate about the need to have enough people to operate the ships, planes, tanks and computers that we need, as well as those who can be called upon to apply military discipline and organisation to assist the civil power with the increasing incidence of pandemics, natural disasters and, in some cases, I am afraid, civil disturbance and illegal immigration. However, there is another aspect to it. If a significant section of our population have served in some capacity, they, their families and their communities have a very special sense of the value of their country and the need to take risks and sometimes make sacrifices to protect it and to defend our freedoms, culture, way of life and interests abroad.

Many people in our country no longer understand the need for this. They think that we managed in the past and that technology will save us in the future. Others live in a world that they wish existed rather than in the troublesome world of humanity that actually exists, with all its dangerous and unsavoury characters as well as the good people. Still others assume that we are all rational actors who will, in the end, weigh up the social and economic costs and benefits and act on those. In the context of war and existential threat, we as individuals and communities become devoted actors, not rational actors. Indeed, if we do not, our community will likely not survive.

Ukraine

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests noted in the register, particularly those at Oxford with the Changing Character of War Centre and the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict. I thank my colleagues there for some very helpful conversations in recent days about the current crisis.

It is ironic and appropriate that our sitting today was opened by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, whose diocese and city stand as a symbol and reminder of the horror and destruction of war, as well as of the better spirit that can help us through it. I fear that today we may be looking down a long, dark tunnel, not just for the people of Ukraine but for all of us in Europe and much more widely. In the few minutes at my disposal, I will not focus so much on the immediate moves that have been and need to be made, but on the deeper and wider consequences and perspectives that we should consider.

The first is what we have been describing as sanctions, but which is actually economic warfare. The word “sanctions” implies an authority that imposes punishment consequent on the breach of rules. The global authority to which we should be able to look to impose, or at least approve, such sanctions is the Security Council of the United Nations, and it cannot do so. For years, the United States has shown less than full regard for the UN, and not only is Russia one of the other permanent, veto-wielding powers and is not going to vote for sanctions against itself but it is clear from statements in the past 24 hours that China is not prepared to use its vote to put pressure on Russia. This means that we do not have a functioning rules-based global order. That rules-based order is broken, and we do not know how, or even whether, it can be fixed.

More locally, the European project that emerged from the wreckage of the last world war seems to have been based on the assumption that such an international rules-based order could be maintained without the substantial military power that would protect it from internal and external threats. When, some years ago, I was invited to speak at the German military academy, I was deeply dismayed to discover that Germany simply had no serious military capacity—a situation confirmed in recent days by a senior figure in the German military.

Indeed, apart from the limited and somewhat hollowed -out capacities of Britain and France, Europe does not really have the ability to protect itself without the NATO umbrella provided largely by the United States of America. This is a fundamental weakness that cannot be repaired quickly, and cannot be repaired at all unless there is an acceptance in our understanding of human nature that, while there are human beings on this earth, there will be not only the possibility but the inevitability of war. It will never be a thing of the past, especially if we do not have both the will and the means to maintain a relative degree of peace, freedom and order.

I will set aside the question of full kinetic warfare with Russia, not because it is impossible or even unlikely but because it is a question for another day—one that must take into account the clear and serious threat of a nuclear response, as voiced by President Putin.

I return to sanctions and what they mean. Since, as I say, there is no globally accepted authority to which we can turn in this situation, we are talking about economic warfare. We can, as we have, implement a ban on the Russian airline Aeroflot. But the next day, Russia imposes a ban not only on British Airways but on any airline operating from the United Kingdom. We call for a ban on products. How will our farmers manage, for example, if 80% of the world production of ammonium nitrate is under Mr Putin’s control?

Thankfully, Germany has put a hold on Nord Stream 2, but it is not even operational so does not have an immediate impact on current supplies of gas. On the other hand, when we call for a blockade on Russia’s access to SWIFT, what is the immediate impact when Germany cannot use that mechanism, as it currently does, to pay for its current gas supplies? Given that our people have been suffering from high energy prices—there has been much debate on it in recent weeks—it seems to me that we need to explain to our people that, in rightly going down this road, we are engaging in an inevitable tit-for-tat conflict in which we will have to accept considerable pain not for a year or two, as with Covid, but potentially for many years, for this conflict with Russia will last.

Are we able to protect our own infrastructure from the inevitable hiking up of cyberattacks, not just on this place but on our electricity, water and other utility supplies, and from the cutting of the undersea cables that facilitate internet communications? Has the Royal Navy been given instructions to board Russian vessels off our coast? Have we been talking to the Irish Government about the fact that there are Russian vessels in their waters? Are we able to board? Would this be seen as an act of kinetic warfare? We need to think about these things; otherwise, we will suddenly find ourselves sprung into a problem.

We are living in a nadir of western liberal democracy. Let us hope that we are living in a post-world war world, as we hoped, and not in a pre-world war world, as we may be.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, in addressing a few issues of defence and foreign policy, I remind the House of my interests recorded in the register. However, one interest is not registered. Two years ago this month, my godson, Conor McDowell, a 24 year-old first lieutenant in the US Marine Corps, was killed protecting his men in a military vehicle rollover accident at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. He was an only child and about to become engaged to Kathleen, the love of his life. As a result of unrelenting pressure from his parents and some Members of the House and Senate, an independent investigation was initiated by two powerful House committees, exonerating him of any blame but revealing an astonishing death rate of US military personnel in training. A sub-committee of the House is currently conducting a hearing on learning from and preventing future training mishaps. When I asked HMG for their figures, the Written Answer showed that the number of deaths and injuries of our military personnel was also massively greater in training and exercises than in combat duty. Given the US response to its figures and the stated concern of the Minister for the welfare of our service personnel, will Her Majesty’s Government institute an independent study to learn from and prevent future training mishaps for our military?

It was said in this debate that what happened in the pandemic was unexpected, but this is not true. Reports commissioned by the Government warned that a pandemic was inevitable and advised what needed to be done, but the advice was not taken. The same was true for Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. For years before the onset of the Troubles there were warnings about leaving the situation to fester. It took 30 years of destruction before the Good Friday agreement brought it to an end. There were three strands to the negotiations, addressing three sets of relationships, and three sets of institutions emerged: the Northern Ireland power-sharing Assembly, the north-south bodies, and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

The British and Irish Governments and the European Union repeatedly proclaimed that they supported the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, but the strand 3 British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference did not meet for a decade so, when Brexit appeared on the scene, there was no longer any serious relationship between the two Governments at a senior level. The European Union did not so much neglect as disrupt the relationships. It maintained its support for strand 2—the north-south cross-border work—but stood in the way of strand 3 negotiations, with Monsieur Barnier insisting that he spoke for Ireland. He did not; he spoke for the EU, and when the EU addressed anything, its focus was the interests of the nationalist community, as represented in strand 2 of the agreement, but not the interests of the unionist community, thus disrupting strand 1 of the agreement.

Post Brexit, relationships with the EU are a very contentious foreign policy issue, and I see little recognition by HMG or the EU that they understand the complex and variable geometry of the Good Friday agreement. I plead with Her Majesty’s Government to address this complexity before the United Kingdom itself is pulled apart by London failing to heed the warnings.

Similarly, there is nothing surprising about the mounting violence in Israel/Palestine. My friend Yair Lapid, who is currently trying to put together a new coalition Government in Israel, this week said:

“We are on the edge of the abyss. We knew it was coming. We have seen this disintegration coming”.


The disintegration of which he spoke is what makes this violence different from before, because now Arab Israelis have risen up against their Jewish-Israeli neighbours. It is not just Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. Lapid appealed for the country to come together: good Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs, ultra-Orthodox, religious and secular. He said:

“We all believe in the same thing, that violence cannot win, we will not let it win”.


I remember using such words myself as the Alliance leader in Northern Ireland. I wanted to believe that the silent majority of peace-loving people on all sides could work together and marginalise the men of violence, as we called them. Eventually, we had to negotiate a deal.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, along with President Trump, thought that they could do a deal with the leaders of the front-line Arab states to marginalise the Palestinians. But I remember an Egyptian Minister in Cairo telling me many years ago: “The Government walk on one side of the street, but the people walk on the other side”. Agreements with authoritarian Arab leaders will not carry the Arab street. We who love our brothers and sisters in Israel/Palestine must warn them all as critical friends that marginalisation, discrimination and the use of force will not solve their problems.

My unionist fellow countrymen would not listen to my warning many years ago and some of them still have their fingers in their ears, even as the union slips away from them. If Israel focuses on the argument of force, it may be in the short-term interests of Mr Netanyahu’s aspirations for government, but it will not be in the interests of his children and grandchildren.

Do Her Majesty’s Government accept that decades of occupation of the Palestinian territories have poisoned the well and contributed to the current violence? At what point will Her Majesty’s Government consider that the occupation had become after decades a de facto annexation?

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Amendment 21 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 22. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 22

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 30 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 31. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Amendment 31

Moved by

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead. I will call them in turn: first, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

I am grateful to the noble—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

Excuse me, Lady Chakrabarti, the Minister has not completed her speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for what I can call only a predictably clear and gracious response. Because the Minister has agreed to reflect on this evening’s debate and consult her colleagues thereafter, I will just press her for a moment longer on the distinction between sexual offences and torture in particular, not with a view to further back and forth this evening but in the hope that it might influence her discussions with her colleagues.

The last 20 years have taught us that when torture is practised as a weapon of war, sexual torture is often one facet of that torture. It is not a nice thing to discuss. The other side of the coin is that of false allegations and clouds hanging over innocent and brave members of Her Majesty’s forces. Our Armed Forces, when overseas, can be as easily subject to false allegations of sexual offences as to false allegations of torture or any of the other offences that are not barred from the presumption against prosecution in the Bill.

If this is not about false allegations, there must be, as I understand the rationale, some kind of thinking, perhaps at the Ministry of Defence or elsewhere, that because our Armed Forces are engaged in violence, there is some kind of fine line, or borderline, between the violence in which we understand they are engaged and torture. If that is the case, I find it very troubling indeed. Are we back in the Bush White House? Are we back with the legal advice that it is not torture when it is enhanced interrogation, for example?

It seems to me that international law and our own ethical and legal norms are very clear on the distinction between the kind of violence that is sadly necessary in war situations and genocide, crimes against humanity and torture. There is not a borderline against torture, and that tacit acceptance of a grey area is just the kind of thinking that got people into such difficulties on both sides of the Atlantic over the last 20 years. So I humbly ask the Minister, in the spirit of genuinely trying to improve this, to examine that distinction between sex and torture, and sexual torture and other forms of torture, in particular, when she goes back to her colleagues in the department and elsewhere.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

Does the Minister wish to respond?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Yes. I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness said, and I undertake to look at her contribution in detail.

--- Later in debate ---

Clause 6 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

We come now to the group beginning with Amendment 16. Anyone wishing to press this amendment or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 16

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I will be brief. I am conscious that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, does not have much regard to what lawyers say on this Bill, so I will bear that in mind as well. I understand the amendment, but there is a query in my mind as to whether he would prefer a “must not have regard”, or the omission of “particular” so that the clause simply has “the court or tribunal must have regard to”.

I have some sympathy for “must have regard to” rather than “particular regard”, because I accept from the noble and learned Lord that there is a possible suggestion that this would be the trump card rather than one of the factors. But it is appropriate that those matters should be specifically drawn to the attention of a court by the Bill, given its overall philosophy. It is probable that those matters would be taken into account. The law of limitation in relation to the Human Rights Act is still developing. It is rather unclear, but this seems to me to be consistent with the philosophy of the Bill, so I do not agree with the total removal of these provisions as the amendment suggests.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.

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

My Lords, not being a lawyer, I shall take the approach taken by the lawyers and be very brief in my comments. I have the same question as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer: what is the purpose of “particular regard” in this respect? There is a time limitation already. Is the “particular regard” intended to truncate the ability to bring proceedings even further, so that if there is a suggestion that somebody’s memory has been impeded by overseas action, it makes it even less likely that proceedings can be brought?

Armed Forces: Racism and Diversity

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie [V]]

I might be able to offer my noble friend some reassuring examples of the strategies that are currently being deployed to address the very issues that she referred to. I shall of course be very happy to meet her to discuss her own experiences. As I said in response to an earlier question, if there is anyone or anywhere from whom or from which we can learn, we shall do that.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.

Reconciliation: Role of British Foreign, Defence and International Development Policy

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, I want to express my appreciation of the most reverend Primate for obtaining this debate and, perhaps more importantly, identifying reconciliation as the subject for our consideration. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out, we have reason to be grateful to the most reverend Primate, not just for the debate but for things he has said in other places, at other times, and for what he has done by way of leadership and example. He is and continues to be an important thought leader and a model for many young people. We appreciate that.

I have been struck by this whole debate. We still have some important contributions to hear, but it is a notable debate even in the annals of your Lordships’ House, which has had so many. There have been very moving contributions. I will remember for a long time the comments and feelings generated by, for example, the experiences of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, as my noble friend Lord Campbell remarked—comments about the importance of culture and language, and his reference to identity, to which I shall return later. I recall the earnest reflectiveness of the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, the vigorous and thoughtful challenges from the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Griffiths, and the moving and personal intervention by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I could have mentioned many more contributions because almost every one had something important to commend it, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, raising culture, identity and heritage, which are very important and sometimes overlooked.

I am sure noble Lords will not be surprised that I found myself particularly identifying with some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, particularly when he mentioned the assassination 35 years ago on 7 December 1983 of Edgar Graham. Edgar was a close friend of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble. They were both legal academics at Queen’s University together. As I participate in this debate in your Lordships’ House, I remember that I was chairman of the debating society and Edgar was its secretary at Ballymena Academy. There were many debates, not on red Benches but pupils’ desks, on important matters that drove things for us, not least the trouble in our own country.

That is the striking thing: when we speak about these kinds of things they are not mere academic reflections. They are about our experience as people. When we think about it, reconciliation is about the relationships of individual people, but, even more importantly, of communities. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, will remember, as perhaps will other noble Lords, that repeatedly through the decades the term “peace, stability and reconciliation” was applied to many initiatives in Northern Ireland. Those three words were used because they did not mean exactly the same thing and did not all involve all the same players. It has been rightly remarked that there is a security dimension to bringing violent political conflict to an end. There is usually no military, policing or security solution, but there is a role for security, our Ministry of Defence and our defence forces. It is a very important one.

It is also true that there are economic elements to this. The Department for International Development is extremely important because of the economic and community development it can facilitate, but if it is not done at the right time, in the right way and with the right understanding it gets completely the wrong results. Lots of money was put into Northern Ireland before we had a political settlement and all it achieved was upwardly mobile provos. It just made for wealthier terrorists. That has happened in many other places as well, but when it is done in the context of a political settlement it can strengthen it, encourage the building of the communities and take us to a better place.

As the most reverend Primate pointed out, reconciliation is about the relationships of communities and peoples. That is not just about getting different people together in the same room without hitting each other, though that is sometimes a substantial achievement in itself. When you bring things and people and communities together, whether atoms, molecules and subatomic particles, or people, nations and states, into a stable relationship, new phenomena and new possibilities emerge that simply did not exist before. When you bring hydrogen and oxygen together in a particular way, you might know everything there is to know about hydrogen and oxygen, but you do not know anything about water until you see what has emerged from that relationship, which has new possibilities. When those new possibilities arise, what are they like? They are more creative, more flexible and less reflexive. They are more adaptable; they create new possibilities and opportunities. That is what we saw in our process at home.

Why? Because we discovered, not because we are smart but because after hundreds of years of failure we found a different way of looking at things and began to understand, that the trouble we had was about disturbed historical relationships between communities—between Protestants and Catholics and unionists and nationalists in the north; between north and south on the island; and between Britain and Ireland. It became possible to look at that in the context of a wider Europe that brought the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland together on the same day in 1973, so that Ministers, civil servants and others would engage with each other in—at that stage, still in the European project—a creative, thoughtful, adventurous, novel way that made new things possible. That was the example for us that showed that there were new possibilities and new ways of doing things.

Tragically, as I look at what is happening at the moment and some of the negotiations taking place, I think that if some of those involved, including those in Brussels, had been with us in Belfast 20 years ago, there would never have been a Good Friday agreement. They would have said, “This is not possible, this is not acceptable”. It often happens that institutions start by being creative, imaginative and flexible and then get concretised down to regulation and legislation, and then it becomes impossible to change things without revolution further down the line.

What became possible for us from this was understanding a different way of relating to each other as communities in Northern Ireland, between north and south and between Britain and Ireland. But there are some important things to understand about relationships. The first, of course, is that they are not linear phenomena. If I have a relationship with someone, it also involves their friends, their family and the others with whom they have relationships. Once I start relating with them, it will impact on their other relationships and on my other relationships in ways that are absolutely not predictable, because relationships are complex. You can often say that if I make this intervention, it will harm a relationship, but you cannot say that any specific intervention will build a relationship. It is a much more complex matter—not just complicated but complex.

The other thing about relationships is that they are not a one-way phenomenon; they can progress and they can regress. They can be built not just on good possibilities but bad experiences. One of the things about the European project is that it took coal and steel, which people in Europe had used to create weapons of war to destroy each other, and made that the basis of co-operation, with the European Coal and Steel Community. Ireland, particularly the north, had been one of the most contentious things in British politics over the generations, but bringing Britain and Ireland together to work on a peace process generated new kinds of relationships between Britain and Ireland, as well as between north and south and between people within Northern Ireland. That meant that when all sorts of things were happening, not just in Northern Ireland, it was possible for the British and Irish Governments to engage with each other and find new ways of doing things.

However, what I began to observe over time was that the Prime Minister would no longer immediately think, “I need to talk to the Taoiseach about this”. Other Ministers would no longer immediately reflect that, if they were going to deal with even a border issue or a security issue, their first port of call was to deal with colleagues in Dublin because we were partners in a very special, historic way. We had achieved a development beyond disturbed historical relationships and transformed them into a more reconciled relationship in which we could do business and work together.

Then I began to find that that was not happening. I also began to find that in Dublin, instead of saying, “Because of our relationship with London, we can be the bridge with the rest of Europe. We can take things forward in an exciting way”, the response of the Irish Government was, “We will stand with the other 27 against the Brexiteers in the UK”. What was happening was a return—a regression—to the old split. It is a long time since the creation of the slogan,

“England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity”.


The truth is, England’s difficulty is usually Ireland’s difficulty as well.

As we think about reconciliation and the bringing together of identities, we must finally understand that each of those identities, brought together in a reconciled relationship, has to be able to change, grow and develop. The great historic faith families have survived because they found a way of holding a degree of continuity with the past and engaging in a new way with the future. Our personalities are not made of concrete; nor is our culture. Symbols may be made of concrete but our culture is our developing way of being in the world as communities, and reconciliation is how we transform disturbed historical relationships into fruitful, creative and flexible ways to the future. The most reverend Primate has given us an opportunity to reflect on these things. I think we will reflect on them for a long time because of his intervention.

ETA: Ceasefire

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we have supported the Spanish and French Governments in their efforts to secure a peaceful and democratic future for the Basque Country, free of terrorism. Should we be asked for support, we would respond in any way that they would find helpful. We are aware of the work that the noble Baroness is doing as a member of the International Contact Group, and my noble friend Lord Howell is very grateful for her update last month.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, given the increasing evidence that cities and regions coming out of conflict do so successfully only if they have continuing external support after the cessation of violence, and that indeed such support often comes best from other cities and regions that have gone through the same experience, would Her Majesty's Government encourage Bilbao and the Basque Country to join the Forum for Cities in Transition, which includes cities such as Kirkuk, Beirut, Mitrovica, Mostar and indeed Belfast and Derry and which will meet again in Kirkuk next year, in order that Bilbao and its region receive the best support from people who people who, like them, have been through such terrible times?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. I am aware of the excellent work of the Forum for Cities in Transition and its help to other cities that have been in, or have emerged from, such conflict. This would be a matter for Bilbao, but I have no doubt that the Forum for Cities in Transition will be in touch with the Bilbao authorities.