Ukraine Update

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a really important point and one that has registered with many people, not least Governments. It is somewhat wide of my area of departmental responsibility, but I hear what she says and will reflect that back to the department.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, many serious analysts expected Kyiv to be taken via Belarus within two days or so. Clearly President Putin did not factor in the remarkable resistance of the people of Ukraine and their morale, in spite of the imbalance of forces. Quite rightly, we have decided to give sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine, but that surely needs very good training. Where will this training be done—outside the borders of Ukraine?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I can confirm the first part of the noble Lord’s question: yes, there will be a degree of training required. He will understand that, for reasons of operational discretion, I am not going to be more explicit about that.

Ukraine

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord King, and the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, in his admirable maiden speech, in calling for a global response.

We are in dark days, the like of which we thought we would not see again in our time. My theme is simple: the current invasion was predictable—indeed, it was predicted—and much of it depended on the gullibility of the western response. So far as the predictability is concerned, much of that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. On the Russian domestic side, I just mention Magnitsky, Navalny and the blows to the freedom of the press. Abroad, we of course had Skripal in Salisbury and the invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. It was predicted. Indeed, looking back, historians will see the triumph in particular of US intelligence in predicting what would happen: the incremental deceit, step by step leading to the actual invasion.

Then we have the question of the nature of President Putin—once a member of the KGB, always a member of the KGB. I was in the foreign service in the 1960s and I recall that there was no Soviet speech possible without talking about revanchist West Germany and about the encirclement of the Soviet Union. Putin mentioned Nazis in respect of Ukraine, which was an echo of the 1960s. Of course, he had the humiliation of Yeltsin and Gorbachev, and Monday’s speech spoke volumes of his nature. Where will it end? Putin has not actually declared his war aims. The minimalist aim is surely the water supply of Crimea and the Mariupol corridor; the maximum is the restructuring of the whole of the security architecture of Europe according to his will.

All this has been aided by the West, which has given Putin the benefit of every doubt. President Macron talked about being deceived—surprise, surprise. To turn the spotlight on the UK, we have allowed so much Russian gold to come in; I congratulate Mr Tugendhat on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other place. Let us look also at our overseas territories, which are a gap that has not yet been filled. Yet Russia is relatively weak. On analysis, I do not accept what some Americans tell me about Russia being only “a gas station with nukes”; it has a powerful military but, overall, it is still relatively weak and we should appreciate that. Will it be able to sustain a lengthy occupation of Ukraine?

What should be the response? Yes, sanctions could make Putin pay a price. There has been approval of the brave decision of Germany in respect of Nord Stream 2. The Ukrainian people have responded well thus far. I was at a conference in Odessa two months ago as the only UK parliamentarian and was most impressed by the morale of the people. There will be much greater resistance than Putin so far assumes.

I ask the Minister, if I may, about China. China will presumably veto any United Nations Security Council resolution. Is it likely that Russia will now become increasingly dependent on China? What has been the Chinese response, in spite of the Chinese line of “no interference in internal affairs”?

Obviously the West must underline our own red lines, as my noble friend Lord West said. What are the consequences? We must be honest: we must be ready to pay a price ourselves. We must look to make Russia a pariah. I mention the Council of Europe: Putin is not going to lose any sleep over it, but how absurd it is that Russia is allowed to remain a member of what is the key human rights organisation in Europe. NATO must give a united response. One unintended consequence of Putin’s advance and invasion is surely this: there will be a united NATO, which will respond as such, and it may be that Sweden and Finland will look at their own interests and decide that they too must become members of the alliance.

British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, global Britain will only progress in alliance with our key allies, be it the US, France and so on. Of course, I welcome the increased funding and the four-year settlement, but hard choices remain. We have to ask ourselves whether we, as a middle-sized country, can do everything across the spectrum with excellence, as the Defence Secretary claims. Can we be everywhere, in all the theatres, as the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, implies? I reflect that the increase in funding and presence worldwide took place at a time when we were a member of the European Union. Nevertheless, we took important and sovereign decisions. Was EU membership in any way a constraint on our defence posture in terms of procurement or deployment?

D-day Landings Memorial: Education

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

Congratulations are due, but does the Minister agree that, apart from our dwindling band of veterans and their families, a major target group of visitors must be local people in Normandy, particularly French schoolchildren? Will she therefore ensure that all the material is bilingual and uses, so far as is possible, memories of those who were there at the time? Having been a student working on a farm on the plain of Caen, I know that there is tremendous enthusiasm for the role which we in Britain played in the liberation of Normandy.

[Baroness Goldie]

The noble Lord makes an important point. It will of course be for the trustees to determine how they administer and run the education centre, but I am sure that they will pay close attention to his observations.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no doubt either that our leaving the European Union will have profound effects across the board, particularly on our external relations, or that these effects will be felt for several decades to come.

I concede, of course, that the scale of these effects will depend in part on the coming negotiations, for example on the proposed free trade area with the European Union. Will this cover services so vital to us? Will any alignment of our trade policies with the European Union limit, or even block, other likely trade deals? Is the WTO really a valid alternative option, given its enfeeblement following the US refusal to appoint judges for dispute resolution panels, a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay?

Obviously, many of the advantages we enjoy in foreign affairs will remain post Brexit, such as our membership of a range of international organisations. Equally, our hard power assets will remain, but the current strength of our Army at 74,000 means that we cannot be everywhere militarily and must surely re-examine our commitments. Our record on soft power is far more impressive. Since its inception in 2015, we have been either first or second in the Portland soft power index. The English language is a major asset for us; as is our vital British Council, which is not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech.

I welcome the long overdue review of all our external departments. I join my noble friend Lord Collins, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in raising questions about the danger of DfID returning to the fold of the FCO. Will HMG be giving evidence—as I assume they will—to the review, and will that evidence actually call for a reintegration of DfID into the FCO?

The decision to implement the Truro recommendations on promoting religious freedom overseas is to be applauded. Does this cover all the recommendations? For example, will all relevant external departments adjust their training policies at all levels, from new entrants to ambassadors? How can we influence the EU to follow our example if we are no longer members? I mention in passing that, many years ago, I went to visit an ambassador who I knew fairly well to press him on the human rights of a religious dissident who was imprisoned. He said rather loftily to me, “Well, human rights is the job of my First Secretary. Why don’t you have a word with him?” That would not be said nowadays, and I welcome the sea change in FCO practices.

The commitment that, once we leave the EU, we shall promote sanctions for human rights abuses worldwide and build on “existing Magnitsky-style measures” is somewhat puzzling to me. In what way are we constrained now from establishing visa bans and asset freezes? Can the Government say how many individuals have been sanctioned by us since the passage of the Magnitsky amendments to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act? Far from the Government eagerly taking the lead in this respect, I recall that these amendments were forced on a reluctant Government by an all-party coalition led by Andrew Mitchell, Conservative, Margaret Hodge, Labour, and Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat.

Brexit will lead to major changes. Generations of our diplomats have become accustomed instinctively to co-ordinating policy with our EU partners. When we become, at best, decision-takers, EU policy will surely change and, for example, become much softer on Putin’s Russia. On trade, it is claimed that with one bound we shall be free to strike deals with third countries, but there are problems. Our bargaining power will be diminished. The pattern of trade has changed, and, as the FT showed in a recent article, Canada’s experience of CETA shows some of the problems. Our current exports to India and China are not encouraging; we export roughly the same as France to both markets, but to China less than a quarter of the exports of Germany and to India less than half of Germany’s exports, in spite of our vibrant Indian diaspora.

We have a choice between the EU and the US. Our position on most global challenges is closer to that of the EU, as is well illustrated by the recent assassination of General Soleimani. Our interests, military and civilian, are very involved, but the special relationship did not mean that we were consulted. How can the choice on different issues between the US and the EU still be available when we leave the EU? In particular, with the impulsiveness of President Trump, is there not a danger of our being drawn inexorably into the US orbit?