Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, even in advance of the strategic defence review, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has made it clear that we face a deadly quartet of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Yesterday we discussed with representatives of the Republic of Korea who were in London the opportunity of reaching some of the 10,000 North Korean soldiers now in Europe to fight in Putin’s war. Will we redouble our efforts to reach over the heads of the despotic leaders in North Korea to break the information blockade and encourage those soldiers to walk to freedom in the West?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. I was in the Republic of Korea recently to talk about the importance of hybrid warfare and information wars. We must consider that fully when we get the defence review and ensure that our hybrid capability is a match for anybody’s. That involves trying to influence others opposing us at the present time.

Ukraine

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to join others in warmly congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, on his exemplary maiden speech. I have three short questions to ask the Minister before I make some remarks about North Korea. First, can she tell us what progress has been made in releasing funds to Ukraine from the £2.5 billion sale of Chelsea Football Club and the £783,000 recovered in the Petr Aven case? Secondly—this is the issue I raised with her on Monday—what prosecutions will be mounted against United Kingdom insurers that cover the 12 sanction-busting liquefied natural gas tankers currently benefiting from UK protection and indemnity insurance? Thirdly, will we look at amending the legal limitations in Sections 51 and 58 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 that prevent the UK prosecuting core international crimes and at the role that universal jurisdiction might play in ensuring justice?

During Question Time on Wednesday, I referred to Monday’s meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, which I co-chair with Sir Iain Duncan Smith. At that meeting we discussed how 10 years ago a United Nations commission of inquiry described North Korea as a country without parallel that was guilty of crimes against humanity. It called for the Security Council to refer the leadership to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. We have never tabled a resolution to do that. The Minister kindly promised to reflect on that issue.

The same North Korean regime has violated Security Council resolutions, developed weapons of mass destruction and circumvented sanctions. Emboldened by this failure to hold it to account, it has shipped at least 16,500 containers of munitions, perhaps as many as 4.8 million artillery shells and scores of ballistic missiles to sustain Putin’s war in Ukraine. Robert Koepcke, a US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, believes Russia has launched more than 65 missiles of North Korean origin at targets in Ukraine. With Iran and China widening and escalating the existential war in Ukraine, this threatens free societies the world over, as other noble Lords have said.

I visited North Korea. I saw grinding poverty, food shortages and stunted growth caused by malnutrition. Its dangerously provocative missile tests cost about $1 billion a year, around 4% of North Korea’s economy, and at least 16% of government expenditure is on its war machine—money that could be used to feed its people 10 times over. It constantly threatens its neighbours, with dictator Kim calling for an exponential increase of nuclear warheads, mass production of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons and the development of more advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the US mainland. Now, as part of what the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, has described as a “deadly quartet”, an axis of dictators, anything between 2,000 and 13,000 North Korean soldiers are being trained in eastern Russia for combat in Putin’s war.

This is part of a global struggle; it is ultimately about dictatorship versus democracy. We have been here before. During the Cold War we saw security and our democratic values, openly expressed and promoted in the Helsinki process, as two sides of one coin. That was exemplified by the leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher with singular others, such as Václav Havel, Lech Wałęsa and John Paul II, understanding the enormity of the challenge and the opportunity it also presented.

The same earnest desire for freedom that brought down the Berlin Wall 35 years ago next month is there in North Korea. Ask the more than 30,000 escapees, some of whom experienced the Gulags in which 100,000 people are still held and which are characterised by torture, brutality and degradation; or the young soldier who in August risked his life to walk through a minefield to gain the freedom of democratic South Korea; or the family who last year managed to get out of North Korea in a small boat, one of whom described how he had been forced to watch the execution of a 22 year-old caught listening to South Korean music and viewing banned movies; or the North Korean teenagers sentenced to hard labour for being caught looking at K-drama.

Be clear: this is one of the most repressive and controlling states on earth, so we must reach over the heads of Putin and Kim before more young men are sent to their deaths, this time on the front line in Ukraine. By physical or cyber messaging, they must be told that they can walk to freedom across the front line in Ukraine with a route to a new life in Seoul, with citizenship guaranteed under South Korea’s constitution. This is not a flight of fancy. In 2016 Thae Yong-ho, deputy North Korean ambassador in London, walked out of the embassy with his family and never returned. In due course he was elected to the South Korean National Assembly. He told me that his observation of our way of life had convinced him of the case for democracy rather than dictatorship.

In addition to boldly offering an alternative to totalitarianism, why are we not using our place at the Security Council to assert our belief in the rule of law and demanding that the UN’s own findings of crimes against humanity reach the ICC or the ICJ? If that is vetoed, we should create our own special court as we did in 1945. The responsibility for crimes against humanity, WMD, violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions and now soldiers being sent to fight in Europe resides with the Workers’ Party of Korea and the singular authority of its supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, and they must be held to account and brought to justice.

King’s Speech

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in concurring with and endorsing everything that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester has just said to the House, I also welcome the two new Ministers to their places on the Front Bench.

I note the Prime Minister’s promise, made at the NATO summit, to be “robust” with China over human rights and security concerns—for the sake of transparency, I should mention that I am a patron of Hong Kong Watch.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who has been asked to oversee the strategic defence review, has described China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as a “deadly quartet”. They evoke for me the four apocalyptic horsemen, with their deadly mix of war, famine, plague and death. I hope that the noble Lord, in instigating his review, will begin by dusting down our own House of Lords reports, notably UK Defence Policy: From Aspiration to Reality? and the earlier report of the Select Committee on International Relations and Defence that looked at China, security and trade. Resources to implement those reviews and reports are needed urgently. The situation in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Far East, notably in the South China Sea with daily threats to Taiwan and the Philippines, demands it.

Notwithstanding unstinting admiration for the peoples and culture of China, do the Government see the Chinese Communist Party led by Xi Jinping as a severe threat to our security, as well as repressing the peoples under its control in the most cruel and inhumane ways? Do they concur with the earlier description by the previous Government of the CCP as representing an “epoch-defining challenge”?

Given that the Minister’s party voted for the House of Commons resolution naming a genocide against the Uighurs, how will the Government bring the CCP to account? Will we ban the import of products made by forced labour in China, require British businesses manufacturing in or importing from China to ensure that their supply chains are free of slave labour and prohibit new trade agreements? Will the Minister explain the Energy Security Secretary’s decision to approve the Mallard Pass solar farm, where Canadian Solar’s panels are said to have been made by slave labour? Iusb know that is an issue close to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, so I look forward to his reply on it later.

What about Hong Kong? Will we sanction those responsible for dismantling Hong Kong’s promised freedoms, in total breach of the Sino-British joint declaration, reinforced by Article 23, a second draconian security law shredding what little remains of Hong Kong’s civil liberties? At the earliest opportunity, will the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary meet Sebastien Lai, the son of Jimmy Lai, a 76 year-old British citizen and entrepreneur who is in prison and whose health is deteriorating? Will we call for his immediate release, along with the release of Hong Kong’s 1,800 pro-democracy prisoners?

In rightly welcoming escapees, will we immediately expel CCP diplomats if we see a recurrence of the shameful attack in 2022 when peaceful Hong Kong protesters were beaten up and dragged into the grounds of the Chinese consulate in Manchester? In our universities, what steps will the Government take to show that they are “robust” in defending our freedoms at home, especially academic freedom, by helping our higher education institutions reduce our dependency on China?

Let us take the case of Professor Michelle Shipworth from University College London, who was banned from teaching a course because she spoke about modern slavery in China, with the university saying that its “commercial interests” had been damaged. Professor Shipworth said in an email to me this week:

“It is heart-breaking that many/most Chinese students won’t speak in class because they are frightened that other Chinese students could report them to the CCP for “wrong think”… Fear of the CCP (and loss of student fees that they control access to) stalks my classroom and department, reducing the quality of teaching and learning for everyone”.


What are we going to do to tackle transnational repression and develop a range of tools to prevent infiltration, intimidation or harassment of both diaspora communities and prominent British critics of the CCP, including the sanctioning and harassment of Members of both Houses of Parliament? I declare an interest.

The Minister will recall my successful amendment on the curtailment of the use of Chinese surveillance cameras. Will he review what progress there has been in stripping out Hikvision surveillance cameras from government buildings and assess the surveillance dangers posed by Chinese electric vehicles?

If we are to be robust, actions and deeds must match our words.

Nuclear Test Veterans: Support

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, no medical records have been withheld from veterans before, during or after participation. Records can be accessed via subject access request under the Data Protection Act. The Atomic Weapons Establishment does not hold individual medical records. They are either held by the MoD or transferred to the National Archives.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister know that some 1,500 of the test veterans who are still alive, of the 20,000 who were affected, have attended meetings here in Parliament and have claimed that, because some records were incomplete, those records have not been made available to test veterans? Will he look at that specific issue? Also, given that sites such as Maralinga in Australia, where some of the tests took place, are still regarded as uninhabitable, does he not agree that this demonstrates that people who were serving Crown and country were placed in harm’s way?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

Yes, my Lords, I agree with that. It has been widely recognised. A lot of the data that is held is extremely historic and, at times, what the issue really is can get blurred. As I have indicated in previous Written Answers on this subject, my right honourable friend the Minister for Defence People and Families visited the Atomic Weapons Establishment in March to personally review these 150 documents that are being referred to and which allegedly relate to test veterans. He is committed to update the other place in due course—actually, in pretty short order. I do not wish to pre-empt that Statement.

King’s Speech

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate today’s maiden speakers and thank the redoubtable noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her extraordinary service to your Lordships’ House. I also join the collective sigh of relief that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, remains in his post.

I draw attention to several relevant all-party parliamentary groups in which I am involved. I am also a patron of Hong Kong Watch.

The 9 and 10 December will mark the 75th anniversaries of the convention on the crime of genocide and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Along with the creation of the United Nations, this was architecture for the rule of law and a valiant attempt to avert another world war. Seventy-five years later, in the context of the Middle East and Ukraine, with an axis of dictators led by Xi, Putin, Kim and Khamenei, I hope that our new Foreign Secretary, the soon to be Lord Cameron, will see the collective threat that they represent. In particular, I hope that he will reassess his golden era policies on China, read the excellent report of the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee on trade and security with China, and frame his engagement and trade deals against the threats and new realities of genocide in Xinjiang, the destruction of democracy in Hong Kong, the daily threats to Taiwan and the egregious violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international law, particularly the 1951 convention on refugees.

During the debate here on 19 October on the report on China from the Intelligence and Security Committee, I set out my concerns at some length. That committee drew our attention to the new Foreign Secretary’s role in the £1 billion China-UK investment fund, which the committee said could be

“in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment”.

The Foreign Secretary will need to reflect on that and on the role that he played in the vast Port City Colombo in Sri Lanka—a signature project for Xi Jinping’s belt and road initiative—which, as Sir Iain Duncan Smith rightly pointed out, may one day act as a Chinese military outpost in the Indo-Pacific.

China has used its belt and road programme to indebt nations and to require recipient vassal states to do its bidding in United Nations institutions and agencies. Belt and road has a combined GDP amounting to trillions of pounds, touching 151 countries with a population of over 5 billion people—that is at a moment when the UK has cut its development aid by a total of £7 billion since 2019, with 29% of the remaining budget being used to host refugees, and as we neglect links to the 2.4 billion people of the Commonwealth, spread across some 56 countries.

While that has been going on, the CCP has literally been marching into the void. Xi’s latest extension of belt and road is to create a global initiative on artificial intelligence. That is ominous because of the precedent of using facial recognition technology in Xinjiang’s surveillance state. AI is a tool that the CCP will share with other authoritarian states, enabling them to impose iron-fist control of their citizens. I particularly applaud the initiative that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has taken in trying to get a global response to this, but this use of AI will doubtless aid and abet spying with Chinese characteristics, even here in the heart of our democracy. I draw the House’s attention to yesterday’s report of the £115 million received by UK universities, some of which has direct military links to China and some of it, I might add, subject to US sanctions. What are we thinking of?

The CCP regime spies, subverts, infiltrates, manipulates and buys votes in the General Assembly. It also sanctions UK parliamentarians—here I declare an interest. It is disgraceful that the CCP blocks Taiwan from membership of the WHO, which it has used to cover its Covid tracks. For the avoidance of doubt, it would be helpful if the Minister reaffirmed the Government’s position on Taiwan, in line with the recent G7 statements. It is risible that the CCP regime sits on the United Nation’s Human Rights Council while being in breach of UDHR Articles 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14, 18, 19 and others. It is like putting the fox in charge of the hen coop. Last night, I met Tibetan Buddhists who are grievously persecuted. There are Christians in prison and Falun Gong practitioners subjected to forced organ harvesting, while Uighur Muslims suffer genocide. In the face of this, the UN is a hollow man.

The noble Lord, Lord Swire, has previously raised, as I have, the repatriation of North Koreans by China to a state that the United Nations has describe as without parallel and as accused, through one of its own inquiries, of crimes against humanity. Next week, the President of the Republic of Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, will be a welcome visitor here. The Republic of Korea is willing to resettle every one of those refugees.

As for the Uighurs, in 2021 the House of Commons determined that genocide is being committed. In response, China ensured that compliant states at the UN Human Rights Council rejected a motion even to debate the findings of the UN special rapporteur. In the face of all this, it is urgent that we return to the founding principles of the UN and reform it in the way my noble friend Lord Hannay described, strengthen our hard and soft power alliances, and be much clearer eyed about the threat posed by the CCP regime in China.

Ukraine

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, two recurring themes in this hugely important debate have been accountability and the changing landscape of international institutions and their response to these events. Before I make my contribution on those themes, in parenthesis, I ask the Minister to touch on the munitions and armaments that this country has rightly gifted to Ukraine, as raised by the noble Lords, Lord Owen and Lord Alderdice. The replenishment of those gifts has not been referred to so far, although it was raised in the debate in your Lordships’ House on the report of the International Relations and Defence Committee. This is a hugely important question and I look forward to hearing from her about it.

Earlier, my noble and gallant friend said that there must be accountability for a gangster regime’s unrestrained savagery. As we debate today, functionaries and diplomats are meeting in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, but even the best of them must be shrugging their shoulders in despair at their own irrelevance, perhaps privately agreeing with the conclusion of a Wall Street Journal editorial on Tuesday that

“the truth about today’s world order lies in the rubble of Bakhmut”.

Undoubtedly, the failure of the UN to prevent the Kremlin’s visceral brutality and thwart its arms deals with countries such as Iran and North Korea—enabled by Russia’s veto in the Security Council with Chinese support—has left its credibility in tatters. Even its one significant achievement, brokering a deal to keep grain flowing from Ukraine, was jettisoned by Putin in July. Can the Minister, who referred to this in her opening remarks, enlarge on that and tell us what the current position is on those crucial supplies to countries where famine is no infrequent visitor?

Just as President Zelensky’s courage and refusal to buckle has forced the West to reassess its failures to see the danger lurking in its own backyard, so perhaps that remarkable man—who also addressed the General Assembly this week—might wake us and those acquiescent nations up to the dangers posed by an unravelling world order. In his remarks in New York, President Zelensky said that Russia has weaponised food, fossil fuels and nuclear energy and warned about “shady dealings” to try to concoct a deal legitimising Russia’s illegal seizure of the territories of a sovereign state.

He warned:

“Evil cannot be trusted—ask Prigozhin”.

But he also insisted:

“For the first time in modern history we have a real chance to end the aggression on the terms of the nation which was attacked”,


telling the UN’s smaller states:

“This is a real chance for every nation to ensure that aggression against your state, if it happens … will end not because your land will be divided and you will be forced to submit to military or political pressure, but because your territory and sovereignty will be fully restored”.


These are questions which go right to heart of the issues of the world order and the rule of law that we have been debating.

I have some specific questions for the Minister, of which I have given her notice. During his remarks this week, Mr Zelensky referred to the plight of the kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, referred to by my noble and gallant friend. President Zelenksy said it must be stopped and asked:

“What will happen to them? … This is clearly a genocide”.


From the early months of the war, we have heard disturbing stories of Ukrainian children being abducted and taken to Russia and being subjected to accelerated illegal adoptions there. In August, at a UN Security Council session, Kateryna Rashevska, a legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights, reported that Russian Federation agents had taken at least 19,546 children to Russia from Ukraine since 18 February 2022. Among other violations, Russian Federation citizenship is imposed on them, and they are forbidden to speak and learn the Ukrainian language or preserve their Ukrainian identity.

This is not the first time Russia has targeted children. Similar practices were deployed in 2014 with the so-called “Train of Hope”. The international community failed to address those crimes in 2014, and President Zelensky is right to demand that we do not do the same again. On 17 March, a pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court issued warrants of arrest for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova

“for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.

“War crimes”—not a rhetorical device but an indictment. The International Criminal Court goes further, saying:

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin and Ms. Lvova-Belova bear individual criminal responsibility for these crimes”.


This week Mr. Zelensky said:

“Never before the mass kidnapping and deportation would become a part of the government policy. Not until now. We know the names of tens of thousands of children and have evidence on hundreds of thousands of others kidnapped by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine and later deported. … We are trying to get children back home but time goes by. What will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken … This is clearly a genocide. When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there”.


What can the Minister tell us about how this case can be progressed, and what more can be done to assist Ukraine’s children, especially those from orphanages and children who have who have been abducted to Russia to be subjected to illegal adoptions there? What practical assistance is being offered to Ukraine in this respect? Is there a clear strategy about how best to assist Ukraine in ensuring that Ukrainian children are reunited with their families and carers?

When the Minister replies, I hope she will also say a word or two about an issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. The issue is sexual violence in Ukraine, where the evidence of rape and sexual violence in Putin’s war is growing as every day passes. Has the Minister seen the report published by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which provides graphic and harrowing details which I will not repeat to the House? If the Minister has seen the report, how are we responding?

How will those responsible be brought to justice? What practical assistance is the Government offering to victims and survivors of CRSV in Ukraine? How much of our own budget is assigned for this purpose and what is the progress in delivering this assistance? In this same search for accountability, can the Minister also say what progress has been made in establishing an ad hoc tribunal for the crime of aggression, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, especially now that a mechanism to collect the evidence of the crime of aggression is up and running in the Hague? How is the UK supporting the work of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, but also the work of Eurojust, now that the UK is out of the EU and Eurojust?

The noble Lord, Lord Harrington, referred to Ukrainian refugees. I pay tribute to the Government for the way in which they have helped to organise the great response that the noble Lord, Lord Owen, also touched on. That took the work of the then Minister dealing with this, the noble Lord, Lord Harrington, and others who have followed, and there are around 163,000 people who have been helped. What have we been doing to collect and preserve evidence of Putin’s crimes from refugees who have arrived in the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme? It is an issue I have raised previously on several occasions in the House and in correspondence with Ministers. Testimonies of war crimes must be meticulously collected and preserved for the day the perpetrators face their Nuremberg moment. Men have allegedly been found shot dead with their hands bound. Mass graves are said to contain the bodies of dozens of civilians. Such butchery must carry consequences. Olaf Scholz was right to describe it as “terrible and horrifying”. Emmanuel Macron described the evidence from Bucha as “unbearable” and said that the Russian authorities will have to answer for these crimes.

Even in advance of that Nuremberg moment, what are we doing now to amend our law, especially the International Criminal Court Act, to ensure that those responsible for international crimes and who are not UK citizens or residents can be prosecuted by British courts—as has happened in Germany and was underlined by Amal Clooney’s recent success on Yazidi genocide when she took a case to the German courts? How are we intending to work with the Register of Damage for Ukraine, which was established in May at the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik? This is an issue I raised during the course of the economic crime Bill. I thank the Government for having accepted the all-party amendment which I moved at that time. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, helpfully responded to the amendment with a promise of secondary legislation this autumn to address the issue of sanctions evasion, including confiscating proceeds of sanctions evasion and repurposing them in Ukraine’s reconstruction. What progress has been made on this and how and when will the confiscated proceeds be used to pay for the damage claimed through the register?

Finally, on Tuesday, President Biden told the General Assembly that the world needs to

“stand up to naked aggression”

and that no country is safe if world leaders allow any country to be “carved up”. He rightly asserted that Russia alone bears responsibility for this terrible war, in which an estimated 500,000 troops have been killed or wounded. US and European support for Ukraine has been crucial for its survival, but it must be intensified if Ukraine is to prevail. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, said, in the US, Republicans especially must withstand the Trumpian message of abandonment. In the US, there needs to be a strong, bipartisan message that, if you want to stop China from invading Taiwan, the best message to send Xi Jinping is to see Putin defeated.

In Europe, Ukraine’s fight is undoubtedly our fight as well. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, said that appeasement never pays. Winston Churchill once said, “If you feed the crocodiles, one day the crocodiles will come and feed on you”.

Military Vehicles: Repair

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

This is an important issue—I would not suggest otherwise—but it is also a situation where we constantly factor into any decision-making what will be the likely transition period and requirements to maintain operational effectiveness, to ensure that there is no hiatus, gap or lacuna. The evidence suggests that that is effectively achieved. But it is worth pointing out to the noble Baroness, who raises an important point, that we were clear in the Command Paper refresh that, in procurement, we also look at exportability. There is proven success in that already, in relation to Type 26 and Type 31 frigates.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that, in the International Relations and Defence Committee report and the debate that followed in your Lordships’ House, widespread concern was expressed from all sides of the House, not so much about gifting but about the replenishment of things that have been given by the United Kingdom, especially to Ukraine. Can she tell us whether replenishment is now taking place at a suitable and necessary rate? What have we done to increase our own capacity for manufacturing such armaments?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Yes, I can reassure the noble Lord that the MoD is fully engaged with industry, allies and partners, because all are facing the same challenges with supply chains. Having said that, that engagement is to ensure the continuation of supply to Ukraine and that all equipment and munitions granted from UK stocks are replaced as quickly as possible. We constantly assess the requirement to replace the equipment and munitions that we grant, and work on replenishing equipment continues. It is perhaps inappropriate to provide details at this stage, but work is there.

Wagner Group

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very important point. He will be aware that through the United Nations and our other relationships and partnerships, whether multilaterally or bilaterally, we are very cognisant of that threat. He is correct that Wagner is a pernicious and unwelcome presence in Africa, and absolutely right that there are other influences at play.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness recall that in our defence debate just two weeks ago, on 30 June, I did not ask her about the mutually exclusive options of sanctions versus proscription but called specifically for proscription of Wagner? In considering that, what assessment has she made of the role Wagner is reported to have played in supplying missiles and arms to General Hamdan and the Rapid Support Forces, which have unleashed such violence and unspeakable atrocities in Khartoum and Darfur, and the role Sudan’s gold is playing in funding Russian and Wagner aggression in Syria, Ukraine and Sudan itself?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord raises wide-ranging issues and has written to me on them; I have still to respond, which I undertake to do. I shall do that in greater detail than I can perhaps do at the Dispatch Box, but I agree that the evils he identifies are undeniably present, so the question for the UK Government is how we can best counter them. As I indicated to the noble Baroness, we do that in a variety of ways, and do it best in global concert with our allies and partners, but we are unrelenting in our focus on the problem.

Defence Policy (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 30th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in associating myself with all the preceding speeches, I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her admirable leadership of the International Relations and Defence Committee, on which I was privileged to serve under her chairmanship. I draw attention to my non-financial interests.

Writ large across the committee’s report is the age-old Latin adage that, if you want peace, you should prepare for war. Part of that preparation must be to minimise dependency and strengthen national resilience, and solidarity in strong alliances—most notably NATO and AUKUS.

Although I will concentrate on the threat posed to the free world by the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party especially, in parentheses I ask the Minister for an update on one of the findings in the report referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—that the £5.5 billion Ajax project, now 10 years late, has left a yawning gap in our defence capability. A recent report blames concealment and in-fighting between factions in the ministry. A leading article in the Times this week was headed, “Government complacency about defence resembles that of the 1930s”. General Sir Patrick Sanders described our capability as

“rotary dial telephones in the iPhone age”.

In the context of reports that, in a hot war, the army would run out of ammunition in days, how do the Government respond to those charges and the urgent need to address manufacturing capacity, referred to in my noble and gallant friend’s really important speech, and the issue of replenishment, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay?

In the light of last weekend’s mutiny and the appalling possibility that a convict turned mercenary warlord could take control of Russia’s nuclear and biological arsenal, including nerve agents, what can the Minister tell us about Wagner’s continuing threat in Europe and Africa, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, with whose comments I associate myself, particularly on Sudan? Why have we still failed to proscribe Wagner?

In reflecting on the weakening of Putin and the law of unintended consequences in Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party needs to understand that, when you trigger a war, the outcome may never be certain. While there is much to admire about China’s rich culture and heritage, the entrepreneurship of its peoples and the contribution it has made to the world, Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party regime poses a threat to us all. This is an important distinction.

In two reports, the International Relations and Defence Committee makes it clear that the UK’s response to that threat represents what the committee calls “a strategic void” and what the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, calls “cakeism”—trying to have your cake and eat it. One slice of the Government’s cake is iced with the following: that the CCP regime represents the

“most significant geopolitical factor in the world today”.

But another slice is iced with “business as usual”, as exemplified by the recent ministerial meeting with Liu Jianchao, a CCP operative responsible for the shocking operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net, and another Minister going to Hong Kong to deepen business links while 1,200 lawmakers and pro-democracy activists, such as the British citizen Jimmy Lai, are incarcerated by a regime accused by the House of Commons of genocide against the Uighur Muslims.

This week I met Peter Humphrey, a British national and former Reuters foreign correspondent, who became a due diligence investigator with 48 years of experience in China. He and his wife were locked up in outrageous conditions in a Chinese prison, experiencing detention and psychological torture and witnessing prison labour being used in the supply chains of global multinational brands. Why are we so silent about cases like this? In addressing the strategic void, can the Minister tell us when the Prime Minister will respond to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s China report? What has caused the delay?

Threats come from spy balloons; in cyberspace and space technology; from surveillance cameras trained on government buildings, including army barracks, Sandringham and even MI6; from intimidation, threats and violence directed towards critics of the regime abroad, including Hong Kongers now resident in the UK who have escaped, and towards parliamentarians—I declare an interest as one of seven who has been sanctioned; and on the battlefields of illegally invaded Ukraine, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

On 6 June, China and Russia conducted a joint aerial patrol over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, the third such joint air patrol since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. They have confirmed that they will hold further joint military drills this year. The CCP is not a neutral bystander, but a clear ally and accomplice to Putin’s war in Ukraine.

As part of the committee’s inquiry, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and I were briefed on a joint military exercise in the Gulf involving China, Russia and Iran—something of an unholy trinity. While AUKUS is a significant step in strengthening our ability to defend our allies and interests in the Asia-Pacific region, I ask the Minister for the Government’s current assessment of the threats to Taiwan, and what steps the UK and its allies are taking both to prevent an escalation and to prepare for the possibility of one. A military invasion of Taiwan by China would have truly catastrophic consequences, not only for the region but for the world. Taiwan is a vibrant democracy that shares our values of human rights and the rule of law. It has never been part of the People’s Republic of China, something I would have liked to hear the Defence Secretary say to the committee.

Taiwan is of vital economic and geopolitical importance. The Taiwan Strait is the main shipping route from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to Europe and the US. According to Bloomberg, almost half the world’s container ships and 88% of larger container ships transited the Taiwan Strait in 2022. Taiwan holds a crucial position in the global supply chain due to its manufacturing capabilities. It produces over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced semiconductors, the chips that power our electric gadgets. Any attempt by the CCP to seize Taiwan by force would plunge the world into an economic, and perhaps literal, dark age.

It is therefore in our national interest to do everything possible to prevent such a catastrophe. That surely means doing two things: strengthening our relations with Taiwan and being clear to the CCP what would happen if it did invade. When will we act on Sir Iain Duncan Smith’s call for an economic impact analysis of a potential blockade or invasion of Taiwan? It was clear from an Answer to a Parliamentary Question from him that none has been done so far. Why not?

I have one other question. Next month we will sign the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—good. Will we encourage the accession of Taiwan to the CPTPP, as well as its acceptance—even if only with observer status—to the World Health Organization and World Health Assembly? What is the Government’s response to yesterday’s call by the New Zealand Prime Minister that China should be allowed to join the CPTPP?

Finally, on Monday the BBC’s “Panorama” broadcast a powerful film detailing the extent of China’s espionage and infiltration activities. These range from Hikvision cameras to infiltration of university programmes involving national defence. There is a threat from without and a threat from within. I ask the Minister to please tell us what we are going to do to counter that threat, to de-risk any business and trade with China, to diversify our supply chains, to reduce strategic dependency in everything from its dominance in lithium to electric cars, to deter an invasion of Taiwan and to strengthen our defences—militarily, economically and technologically—to confront the growing threats to come.

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[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I do not have an answer to the specific question about the number of defence attachés we have there, but I will make the inquiry and undertake to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to Wagner, and the interventions by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and myself. I specifically asked why we have failed to proscribe Wagner. When she comes to write on these issues and other questions that have been asked—she said she would reply to them all in writing if they have not been answered on the Floor of the House—will she particularly address that question?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Strictly, this is not a matter for the MoD, as the noble Lord will be aware; it is, essentially, a matter for the Cabinet Office. These matters are not discussed; that is for another forum of discussion. I had a look at some organisations that have been proscribed, and I was not entirely clear what the benefit was. Yes, you nail them as people to have nothing to do with, but, actually, the more effective undermining of their position is to try to get at their financial wallets with sanctions. But I cannot give any advance on the Government’s positions already articulated.

UK Undersea Infrastructure: Hostile Activity

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I am not sure that I have the technical detail to respond to the noble Lord, but I will undertake to inquire. If I can disclose further information to him, I shall respond in future.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in the absence of a full-scale parliamentary debate on the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Select Committee report on defence priorities and procurement, will the Minister at least review the evidence that the Global Marine Group gave to the inquiry, which identified what it said was an “existential threat” to the United Kingdom because of potential attacks on our infrastructure? It referred specifically to Russian submarines “aggressively operating” in the Atlantic. Therefore, can she answer my noble and gallant friend’s question about what we are doing to ensure that we have the necessary resilience to resist those attacks?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

To respond to the noble Lord, I have to return to the final part of my response to the noble Lord, Lord West: although I have information, I am unable to disclose it—it is held with high classification for national security reasons. As I indicated, the MoD operates a very effective surveillance programme: we have aerial surveillance over the North Sea and the high north and we have submarine activity, which shall be assisted by the MROS addition to its fleet.