Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the sensitive way in which my noble friend introduced these regulations, particularly in relation to the exemptions—here I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Holmes. A member of my close family has severe Parkinson’s disease and cannot drink without a straw. However, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in my view the straws do have to be disposable. I actually own a brush for washing non-disposable straws, but I am not sure that I believe in it. It may be that these regulations will spur research into new materials. However, if we do encourage the use of new materials, we need to ensure that, in creating them, we do not do further environmental harm in the way that, say, palm oil has done. We must beware of the law of unintended consequences.

Israel: West Bank

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with the noble Lord. As he will know, the Government are a strong supporter of the IHRA definition; in that regard, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Pickles. The United Kingdom stands very much on the sentiments that the noble Lord has expressed. Any kind of bigotry or hate against any community is unacceptable.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, the last time I was in Israel, I told the mayor of Jerusalem that the settlements were a mistake. He said: “What do you want me to do, police the ethnicity of land sales between Israelis and Palestinians?” If most Palestinians recognise that a land swap for the settlement blocks is the pragmatic way forward, should not we in the UK be doing the same?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, as my noble friend will know, our long-standing position remains that the United Kingdom believes in a peace negotiation, a settlement between both sides based primarily on the 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, as would allow understanding of the position on the ground. Our position in that regard has not changed.

NATO

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) on securing this debate and I have agreed with all he said—with one exception, which I will come to —particularly about the need for NATO. The one exception was that I think there is a bit of work to be done on the need for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I was once a Member of what was then the North Atlantic Assembly for six months. Then I realised that for two years I had been a Defence Minister and had been completely unaware of the existence of the North Atlantic Assembly. Therefore I suggest that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly needs to do some work in order to build its profile.

It is a great pleasure to see the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire) in his place, ready, willing and able to answer this debate. It is also a bit of a surprise, as some of us in our ignorance might have thought that NATO was a matter for defence, but there we are.

My great-great-great-great-grandfather, Captain George Duff of HMS Mars, who was committed to the deep, along with 28 of his crew, off the coast of Cadiz at the end of the battle of Trafalgar, and whose memorial is next to Nelson’s tomb in St Paul’s cathedral, would have been proud to find the French, the Spanish and the British working as closely together now as NATO allows us to do. Interestingly, at the battle of Trafalgar there were a lot of French and Spanish sailors in the British fleet, just as there were quite a number of British sailors in the French and Spanish fleets. That was not a matter of treachery—more a matter of expediency. In those days, when a ship was taken by the enemy, its sailors were given the not very difficult choice of joining the enemy crew or sleeping with the fishes. I do not want to describe Trafalgar as the beginnings of NATO, but it could be described as an early example of exchange postings.

Allied Maritime Command is the central command of all NATO maritime forces and the commander of MARCOM is the prime maritime adviser to the alliance. While the Allied Land Command is held by a US general, and the Allied Air Command by a US general— although at the moment the acting commander is French because the last US commander became chief of staff of the US air force—the Allied Maritime Command is not only based in the UK at Northwood, but is commanded by a British vice-admiral, Peter Hudson. We have an important and respected role to play in NATO.

And we play it to the full, with our crucial role in ISAF, our joint leadership in Libya, our contribution to Mali and the Balkans, and our operations in Sierra Leone and elsewhere. Some of those were not, of course, NATO operations, but even when NATO itself did not deploy, as the hon. Member for York Central said, the command structure, the training, the equipment convergence and the sheer competence of NATO were fundamental to our own command structure, training, equipment and competence. NATO is a vital resource and a valuable pool from which coalitions of the willing can be drawn.

The Defence Committee has been told that the United Kingdom is still regarded by its NATO allies as a leader, and so it should be. Unfortunately, the last strategic defence and security review spoke of “no strategic shrinkage” while shrinking the means available. That led to a perception that there is a gap between the United Kingdom’s stated policy and its delivery. The Defence Committee recently heard from Professor Lindley-French, who told us:

“The German-Netherlands Corps, which I know well, had several British officers in. About a week after we had made the statement in SDSR 2010 that we were going to reinvest in the alliance as a key element in our national influence policy, somebody in the MOD decided that they had to pull those British officers out of the German-Netherlands Corps headquarters. The Dutch and the Germans said, ‘Right, we will pull the Dutch and German officers out of the ARRC.’”—

that is, the allied rapid reaction corps—

“In a sense, what is happening is that we are declaring policy at one level, and somebody lower down the food chain is taking a spreadsheet action at another level, so we are sending conflicting signals.”

Not only the UK but NATO itself is facing unprecedented challenges. The fundamental one, as the hon. Member for York Central said, is how to maintain a strong alliance without a war, whether it is a cold or a hot war. The withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan will throw this matter into even starker relief than did the events of 1989. This will be exacerbated by the economic woes of the western world. How do you spend money on defence if your people are in financial pain, cannot see an external threat and are at the very best ambivalent about the use to which we have put our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan?

[Mrs Moon]

rose—

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I give way to the hon. Lady, who plays such a valuable role on the Select Committee.

[Mrs Moon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and our Chairman of the Defence Committee. Is not part of the vital role of NATO in these straitened times to enable key competences to be maintained by allowing capacity sharing and allowing officers and service personnel to train, particularly in relation to platforms that have been cut in various countries?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I agree. Capacity sharing is essential and there is a lot that we can do together. NATO at its highest levels keeps talking about pooling and sharing, but there is not much that can be pooled and shared if member countries are constantly cutting their defence capabilities, so that is a real worry and it is all caused by the financial concerns that we have.

The economic downturn has meant that the defence expenditure of most countries has declined, with the exception of countries that are definitely not in NATO, such as Russia and China, whose expenditure is increasing. Perhaps we in Europe know something about world stability that the rest of the world does not know, but in Europe, the United Kingdom is, as the hon. Member for York Central said, almost the only country which meets the NATO target of 2% of gross domestic product spent on defence. Greece does, but for increasingly irrelevant reasons of its own.

I believe that the 2% target has considerable importance which is not only symbolic. I am glad that the Secretary of State for Defence confirmed in answer to a parliamentary question last week that the UK will continue to meet this 2% target until 2015-16. I believe it is very important that it is met after that as well.

In February this year, in Oslo, the Deputy Secretary-General of NATO, General Verschbow, suggested that the 2% target might be replaced by an aspiration that no single ally needs to provide more than 50% of certain critical capabilities. I am always suspicious about aspirations, but what would the consequence of this be? In my view it would reduce the last remaining pressure on our European NATO allies to maintain their defence spending at respectable levels. It would be a negative aspiration rather than a positive one—it would say what countries did not need to do rather than what they did need to do. Sadly, our European NATO allies have no difficulty in agreeing what they do not need to do.

The only clear practical difference it would make would be that the United States would not need to commit so many of its forces to NATO. That would, at a stroke, weaken the alliance and result in reduced ambition overall. It is my clear view that it would be the wrong road to go down. I think we should stick with the 2% target and that we in the United Kingdom should find innovative ways of encouraging our allies to meet it.

The United States historically has provided the lion’s share of NATO expenditure. That country is now in the grip of sequestration over and above the originally agreed defence spending cuts. Nevertheless, our US interlocutors assured us that despite the rebalancing it is currently going through, the US still attaches importance to NATO and, within NATO, its relationship with the United Kingdom. The US looks on its allies for niche capabilities and says that it needs its friends more than ever, but when the Defence Committee visited the US a couple of months ago it made it clear that it expects other NATO nations to provide a larger share of their own defence, and well it might. The Libyan operation demonstrated that the US intention of taking a back seat whenever possible shines a stark light on the poor capabilities of its European allies in NATO. Air Marshal Harper told the Defence Committee:

“There is no question but that this operation throws into stark relief the capability gaps that exist between the non-US members of NATO and the United States.”

That is hardly surprising, because the US still spends more on defence than the whole of the rest of the world put together.

I have a dream, and it has tinges of nightmare about it. I foresee that the economy of the west will gradually get stronger, and that we shall therefore eventually be in a position to spend more on our own defence. However, before Europe decides to do that, and to create the defences that the instability of the world requires, we shall have to go through a major—perhaps catastrophic—incident that reminds our people that without strong defences we have no schools, hospitals, welfare payments or economy. Then, and perhaps only then, we shall painfully learn our lesson. Let us try to do it without having to go through too much pain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

The hon. Gentleman will also find that the North Atlantic treaty, including article 5, was signed in 1948 and that Ernie Bevin was the prime instigator of that. The hon. Gentleman is right that there were a limited number of countries and that other countries came in later, but that demonstrates the foresight of that Government, who saw the nature of the threat and recognised Britain’s responsibility to play our part in addressing it—and, as I have said, who saw the need to commission Britain’s first nuclear weapons programme.

We should also recognise and celebrate the fact that NATO has been one of the most successful military alliances in history, if not the most successful, especially if judged by the attainment of the objectives in restraining and containing an aggressive and virulent Soviet threat until the ultimate, and, in George Kennan’s prediction, inevitable—even if it was rather protracted—implosion of that empire. NATO protected the free world and western Europe, and also provided a beacon of hope for the liberation, with minimal bloodshed ultimately, of eastern Europe.

That does not mean that we should unthinkingly continue an organisation that has served us well in the past, but we must give serious consideration to adapting such an effective organisation to deal with emerging challenges and threats. I was very much taken by the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) about the ability, through NATO, to undertake strategic thinking. The success of that policy of NATO inevitably and legitimately raised questions about the role of defence and collective security through NATO at the end of the cold war. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) touched on that period during his contribution. I have to say, and I think that there would be some agreement on this among some Government Members, that the then Conservative Government, under their policy programme “Options for Change”, too readily reached for the so-called peace dividend, cut too far and too fast, and badly undermined our capability. They did not comprehend the stark warning from Senator Pat Moynihan that the world was still a dangerous place and that the end of the cold war represented perhaps less threat but also less peace.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I remember, because I was then a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, that the Labour party was begging us to cut further and faster at that time.

[Mr Spellar]

The Labour defence team I mentioned recognised fully how the impact of the cuts the Conservative Government had put through under “Options for Change” had caused huge problems, particularly on the manning side. Huge disruption was caused to manning levels, recruitment and training.

Middle East

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I always have a great deal of time and respect for him, although I think that in that question he tends towards a caricature of the situation in the middle east. I do not think that is the attitude of anybody in this House; there are responsibilities on all sides. Our response—the response of the western world—is, yes, to give assistance to the Syrian people, but it is also to give a huge amount of assistance to Palestinians. DFID’s current programme provides £359 million for the Palestinian Authority and for humanitarian assistance, including in Gaza. We are trying to assist everyone in desperate need in the middle east—Palestinians and Syrians.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my interests as declared in the register. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a world of difference between Hamas, which specifically targets Israeli children, and Israel, which does its best to avoid killing Palestinian children, although both sometimes fail?

[Mr Hague]

Yes. As I pointed out a moment ago, it is important to remember that the rockets launched against Israel have no other purpose than to cause civilian casualties. That is the only reason they are fired. It is important to bear that in mind. Of course Israel’s Iron Dome system means that it is able to stop a large part of them, and some rockets are inaccurate in any case, but that is little consolation to the people who have to be within 30 seconds of a shelter in southern Israel. My right hon. Friend thus points out an important difference.

Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), the former Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I agreed with almost everything he said. I agreed with the main thrust of it, and with his point about the essential need for our continued involvement in Pakistan in terms of providing aid and support. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development for his concentration on the issue of education in Pakistan. A country that spends only 2% of its gross domestic product on education is one that must cause considerable concern to the rest of the world, as it is doing now.

I declare my interest as the chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel, and I wish to say two things, which may take me a little time. First, it has become increasingly clear over the past six months that the middle eastern problem is not Israel. When Osama bin Laden was killed a few weeks ago, an important article by Robert Fisk appeared in The Independent, in which he made the point that al-Qaeda’s irrelevance has been shown by the fact that the Arab spring was demanding not more Islamic fundamentalism, but freedoms. It is just as important to note that the Arab spring has not been demanding a change in Palestine, essential though that change is; the Arab spring has been demanding the sort of freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the rule of law—that are provided and embodied in Israel. My main initial point about Israel is that it is not the middle eastern problem; the autocratic regimes that have been surrounding Israel are the problem.

The second issue—it looks as though I shall have plenty of time to finish within my eight minutes—is the rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah. I would like to ask what it means. If it means that Hamas and Fatah will be united on the Fatah way of looking at things—the renunciation of violence, the recognition of Israel, the agreement to maintain and honour previous agreements—it will be a very good thing indeed. If, however, it means that they will be united on the Hamas view of things, that is entirely different. We know about Hamas. In the last month alone more than 120 rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza, some with 40 km in range. There have been rockets and mortars, and a guided anti-tank missile hit a school bus in Israel and killed a 16-year-old schoolboy. Terrorism sponsored by, perpetrated by and supported by Hamas has killed more than 500 people in Israel since the beginning of 2003.

If the new Hamas-Fatah organisation follows the Fatah line I will be utterly delighted. That would mean that we could negotiate with Hamas again and that Israel would have a useful negotiating partner, because all these things must be achieved by negotiation and cannot be achieved by force or unilateralism. If, however, the new united organisation follows the Hamas line, the reconciliation will be either meaningless or significantly worse. This is not a various shades of grey issue, but a black and white one.

[Mike Gapes]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that one of the important consequences of this agreement is that it allows a programme to go forward for democratic elections, hopefully at the end of this year or the beginning of next, that will then allow the Palestinian people as a whole to elect a new Parliament and a new President? That is vital if we are to get serious negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I agree that that is very important. I asked the Prime Minister a month or so ago whether he was concerned that when the President of the Palestinian Authority called for elections, Hamas immediately rejected that—Hamas having been a democratically elected organisation that renounced democracy once its mandate had expired. I agree, however, that the notion of bringing democracy back to Hamas would be a welcome change.

Unfortunately, I think there is a risk that in the British Foreign Office the view is that this is a matter of shades of grey as opposed to black and white. For Israel it is not a matter of shades of grey. Israel has been struggling to secure itself and just to exist. When it comes to murdering schoolchildren, which Hamas went in for, that cannot be regarded as shades of grey.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that things such as the killing of 13 people at Qalandiya crossing yesterday by Israeli forces, the continued expansion of settlements and the taking over of Silwan in East Jerusalem need to change in Israel if there is to be any hope of some longer-term peace agreement?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I agree about the settlements, and I have said so in a speech in this Chamber. The hon. Gentleman heard me say that in the last speech I made about Israel. As for what happened at the crossing, I think the Government are right to call for restraint on all sides. There seems to me to be something very convenient about Israel moving in to the headlines as soon as there were clashes on the border of Syria and Lebanon. I am profoundly suspicious about what was behind those clashes.

At a time when the Arab spring is showing that the Arab people are desperate for freedoms, now is not the time for the United Kingdom or the international community to abandon the Quartet’s principles. They must demand that Hamas should renounce violence, recognise the state of Israel and honour the previous agreements.

Middle East and North Africa

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I think the report in question was about the possibility of a presidential statement, rather than a resolution of the UN Security Council. Certainly, France, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom are working together at the Security Council to raise the issue of the situation in Syria. The hon. Gentleman asks about double standards. Different countries will have their own opinions on this subject, and I sounded a note of caution about the attitude of some of the other permanent members of the Security Council. Particularly on Syria, they will be very cautious about adopting statements, and especially about adopting resolutions. The position of the Arab League is a matter for its members. It is, of course, up to them to decide whether to be consistent in their statements or to regard the situation in different countries as requiring different responses. We have certainly had no call or clear message from the Arab League on the situation in Syria in the way that developed in respect of Libya.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

If, as my right hon. Friend suggests, there is such general international agreement that Gaddafi should go, is any work being done in the United Nations to change the resolutions to reflect that, because otherwise we will continue with a military objective that is at odds with the political objective?

[Mr Hague]

I have had no indication that it would be possible to pass a new and—what one might call—stronger resolution in the UN Security Council than the ones that have already been passed: resolutions 1970 and 1973. I think there would be a good deal of opposition to that. I think it is unlikely at this juncture that such a resolution could be adopted in the UN Security Council, which is why, as I have said in answer to earlier questions, we must work within the resolutions we have and maximise the diplomatic, economic and military pressure, consistent with those resolutions.

North Africa and the Middle East

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend say something about the relationship between the action we are taking in Libya and the strategic defence and security review? Might we need to reconsider some of the decisions taken in that review, such as the scrapping of some reconnaissance aircraft and even some ships?

[Mr Hague]

The Prime Minister has made the position on this clear. It was precisely in order to be able to deal with more than one situation or conflict at a time that we came to the conclusions we did in the review, and that means we are able to continue our operations in Afghanistan while also conducting this operation. That is also why we chose to adopt the adaptable posture in the defence review, as my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary has often explained, and why we chose to retain such a wide spectrum of military capabilities, so that many of them could be expanded in future if necessary. We must continue to work in the framework of our defence review. We are able to bring the necessary equipment into this operation with the forces we have now, so the issues that my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) raises are really for the longer term.

UK Policy on the Middle East

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I declare my interest: I am interested in Israel, I am the parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel and proud to be so. Everyone in this House should have an interest in Israel, because it is a country that embodies the values that we should stand for. It was created in the 1940s, partly as a reaction to the way in which the Jews were treated during the holocaust. Israel was created by the international community and it became a bastion of the rule of law, democracy, free speech, business enterprise and family values. If that is not what this country also stands for, I am disappointed.

Israel is a country that makes mistakes. Its political system of proportional representation taken to a ludicrous degree is a mistake. Because of its political system, it finds it very difficult to change. In my view, the continued existence of the settlements is another of those mistakes—when President Peres was here a year or so ago, he suggested that most Israelis share that view. Again, however, because of the political system that is, unfortunately, extremely hard to change. But what is definitely not a mistake, and what we ought to applaud, is Israel’s determination to stand up for its continued right to exist in peace and security.

When that peace is destroyed by Hamas kidnapping Gilad Shalit and continuing to hold him prisoner for years, nobody should expect Israel just to accept it. When that peace is destroyed by rocketing from Gaza, nobody should expect Israel to say, “Yes, flotillas can be allowed to import whatever they like into Gaza, including perhaps explosives and rockets.” On one ship, the Karine A, which was not involved in this convoy, the Israelis found tons of weapons for Hamas. Were they simply to assume that this particular flotilla contained no such weapons to be used by Hamas against both Israel and the population of Gaza, whom Hamas treats so cruelly? Surely not. So obviously the flotilla was going to be stopped and boarded.

The fact that five out of the six ships were boarded without incident establishes, to my mind, that those who carried out the operation were well trained and well disciplined, and did not invite trouble. The trouble came from the sixth boarding operation. It seems strange to me, for the following reason, that the Israelis were apparently unprepared for a reaction to that boarding. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) talked about aid, but this flotilla was not about aid for Gaza. Had it been about that, the Israeli and Egyptian offers to allow the aid through at the land crossings would have been accepted, but they were refused, both before the flotilla sailed and after it had docked in Ashdod. The purpose of the flotilla was simply to create publicity. Therefore, as Israel should have predicted, the flotilla would have been a waste of time and resource unless there was a violent incident that would create that publicity. Given that the flotilla was designed to be provocative and to end in violence, we should not blame Israel for the violence against which it failed to guard itself; the blame lies with those who went on to the flotilla expressly seeking martyrdom.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the incident took place in international waters, that most of the ships were boarded and that most of the people who were taken were held, handcuffed and illegally taken into Israel from international waters? Surely he should acknowledge that Israel is guilty of a breach of maritime law, never mind humanitarian attitudes.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

No; as a lawyer, I have, in my time, done international law, and I do not consider that any of this was illegal. If one is trying to prevent people from going into a blockaded area, the only place where one can board the ships is in international waters. I do not accept the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, although I accept that he strongly believes it.

It is against that background that Israel somehow manages to lose the propaganda battle, and I find that completely baffling. What I do not understand—I hope that someone in this debate can enlighten me—is why Israel is so good at fighting wars, but is absolutely atrocious at managing its public relations. Why does Israel—a country the size of Cornwall that was created out of nothing and that is surrounded by oil-rich countries, at least one of which would like to see it wiped off the face of the map—always allow itself to be portrayed as the aggressor? What is it about the right to exist in peace that is so difficult to get across?

I should like to finish by quoting from an excellent article, last week, by Charles Moore. He asked:

“What has gone wrong? Experts tell me that there is no proper co-ordination, that no one person is in charge of shaping and communicating Israel’s message to the world, and that no one is sacked…Somewhere down the years, Israel allowed itself to forget that its greatest weapon is the story it can tell about itself…What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case—aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries—about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism.”

Foreign Affairs and Defence

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

I think that we rather enjoyed the leadership speech by the former Foreign Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary has already been weighed down with congratulations, and I should certainly add to those. I share his extension of commiserations to the former Foreign Secretary on his embarking on the process of seeking to be the leader of his party. As the Foreign Secretary and I know, that can be a painful process both in the achieving and, indeed, in the serving.

The Foreign Secretary began with Afghanistan, so let me say a word or two about that. Whatever he said, rather eloquently, there is no doubt that over the weekend there was the perception of an apparent difference in emphasis between Ministers. It seems to me that that has to be eliminated, and that we must speak with one clear, unequivocal voice on Afghanistan. I, too, pay tribute to the troops, and indeed to the civilians and diplomats, who serve our interests there.

I would like to make two points that perhaps jar a little with the Foreign Secretary’s position. First, our success in relation to a political settlement rests on the shoulders of President Karzai, and until now he has not proved adequate in discharging these responsibilities. Secondly, we may talk about our strategy, but the truth is that we are subordinate in strategy to the United States, to the extent that the electoral cycle of the United States will play an important part in the way in which the United States formulates its policy. President Obama is committed to bringing American forces— some, at least—out by the middle of next year. Round about that time, he will begin the campaign for his own re-election. We should be cautious, therefore, in forming strategies that do not take account of the fact that the United States’ position might be subject to very considerable domestic pressure.

I speak from this position with some diffidence, because when I first entered the House Mr Julian Amery spoke from here, and thereafter Sir Edward Heath. Mr Amery’s views were pretty imperialist, which I imagine would have made them more acceptable to many Government Back Benchers than those of Edward Heath. However, it is worth remembering that Edward Heath’s views were formed by his own direct experience during the second world war and immediately thereafter. Often in these discussions about Europe, we forget the fact that Europe was formed out of a determination to prevent another major military conflagration across a continent which had suffered grievously as a result of two such occasions. Along with NATO, the European Union has made an enormous contribution towards keeping the peace on this continent.

In the time now available to me I shall deal with two issues; I will, perforce, do so rather more briefly than I had intended. The first is an issue from the past. It concerns the crash of a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June 1994, when all the passengers and all the crew were killed. It was a terrible and tragic event, but with an additional dimension in that the passengers were the civilian and military heads of intelligence in Northern Ireland. The consequence of that event was to prejudice very considerably our efforts at a time in the Province before the Good Friday agreement, when things were by no means easy. The two pilots—Flight Lieutenant Cook and Flight Lieutenant Tapper—were found to have been guilty of negligence. However, it is forcefully argued by many people that the evidence available failed to meet the very high standard necessary before such a finding could be made, under the Royal Air Force’s own regulations.

It is sometimes thought that to seek to reopen this matter is to imply bad faith on the part of the senior officers of the Royal Air Force who were ultimately responsible for the board of inquiry. Let me dissociate myself from that completely and say that I believe that they all acted in good faith. Nevertheless, I believe that an error was made. There have been two external inquiries: a fatal accident inquiry in Scotland under Sheriff Sir Stephen Young—now Sheriff Principal Sir Stephen Young—and a special Select Committee of the House of Lords under the chairmanship of Lord Jauncey, a distinguished former Scottish judge. Both inquiries reached the same conclusion—that the evidence did not justify the verdict. That is why I urge the Defence Secretary to consider, by whatever means appropriate, a review of that decision. Indeed, I have already written to him in those terms, and I sent him a copy of my letter before I came into the Chamber.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend share my pleasure that the Prime Minister himself, before he became Prime Minister, said:

“the Conservatives believe that the matter cannot rest there. Accordingly, we have committed to undertaking a review”?

Does he agree that such a review has to be independent of the Ministry of Defence for it to carry any weight?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on making such an excellent opening speech. We have waited for a long time to see him do that as Foreign Secretary, and he lived up to our expectations. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, who made an excellent opening intervention—if I may put it like that—on the Chinook issue. We look forward to hearing his closing speech, but I believe that if he can continue as he has begun, he will be quite outstanding.

It is extremely difficult to speak shortly after such an outstanding maiden speech as that made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). We already know of his service to the country, but he has continued that service by coming to the House and reconnecting the people of the country with the issue of defence in a way that is truly valuable, given the experience of which he talked and of which we know. He spoke with no notes, he spoke movingly, and he spoke with great authority. The points that he made about mental health issues are points with which we shall have to deal for many years to come, and we are very lucky to have him in the House.

We are just about to begin a crucial nine months in the history of this country. We are about to embark on a strategic defence and security review that will shape this country’s status in the world for decades. The decisions that we take now will affect how other countries view us. There are urgent decisions on equipment that cannot wait until the end of the review, because under the previous Government they were postponed until immediately after the election—without any money to pay for them, as we know.

The decisions that the House will have to take will be taken against the background of an already over-ambitious defence equipment programme. Having been a defence procurement Minister, I am aware that the Ministry of Defence has a history of having eyes bigger than its stomach with regard to its desire for equipment. Moreover, the fact that huge proportions of the defence budget are being devoted to programmes such as the renewal of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers will make it even more difficult to deal with the amount of money that is left.

Will this be a foreign affairs-led defence review? I very much hope so, but I fear that the Treasury will get its fingers into the review by trying to influence the questions that are asked in it. I fear that it will say, “We must not conduct a complete examination of the threats against us, because we might not be able to afford to know the truth.” That would be utterly wrong. I think that the Treasury should be involved only at the end of the process as we try to work out what we should do about the threats that we face.

We are trying to match our commitments to our resources, which is very difficult to do given how low our resources are and how difficult it is to reduce commitments without triggering a withdrawal from Afghanistan by other, perhaps less committed, nations among our European allies. Matching commitments to resources will also be very difficult because of the importance of this struggle. We need a strategy for Afghanistan in our country, and it must be a strategy that the people of our country actually believe in. At present we do not have such a strategy. We must somehow manage to do what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham was doing: reconnect the people of this country with the defence of this country. It is not enough for the people of this country to feel sympathy with their armed forces, as they do; they must also believe in what we are doing there.

We are not just working in our own country, however; we are also working with our allies in Europe. We cannot carry the whole of this burden on our own. We recognise that we are working on a much lesser scale than the United States, but we are working on a greater scale than our European allies; that has been a theme throughout this Queen’s Speech debate. We are all in this together, and it would be helpful to be able to believe that a greater proportion of our European allies shared that view and were able to commit more to the struggle in Afghanistan, which is so essential to our future.

I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary say there was going to be no strategic shrinkage. It is difficult to achieve that, given the size of our fleet. The fleet is one of the things that maintains our presence around the world, but it is getting smaller and smaller. Perhaps that is because our ships are so incredibly highly specified that they are very expensive to produce—and that also makes them impossible to export to any other country.

We need to look again at the whole of our equipment programme. Fortunately, during the past year we have had the Bernard Gray review, which gave some excellent pointers as to where problems are arising. This is going to be a very difficult issue for the new Ministry of Defence team to deal with, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome to his place on the Front Bench my friend and next-door neighbour, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth), who will be busy coping with this issue.

In connection with these very difficult issues, there is a role for the departmental Select Committee—the Defence Committee—which I had the enormous honour, and huge pleasure, to chair in the last Parliament. The great thing about Select Committees is that they force Ministers to do their best. The Committee has them in front of it, and they really have to learn about their brief before they appear. I remember that when I answered questions in the House of Commons it was possible to flip away any difficult questions with a joke, but when Ministers appear before a Select Committee, its members come back and back again until they either get an answer or establish that the Minister does not have an answer. That is what makes Select Committee scrutiny so successful and so important.

The Select Committee also has a role in informing the House about important issues. In the last Parliament, my Committee did three reports on the replacement of the Trident submarines, and although a wide range of views were represented among the membership of the Committee, from former—possibly current—members of CND to quite right-wing members of the Conservative party, all three reports on the nuclear deterrent were unanimous. I would like Select Committees to have informal meetings to which Members could come and learn about what they are doing and comment on what they should be doing. That would enable the Defence Committee, for instance, to inform itself on defence issues generally. I hope that that might be introduced.

The Ministry of Defence needs to play its part, however. During the last Parliament, I and other Select Committee members had the feeling that the MOD did not give us full and informed evidence. Sometimes it treated the Select Committee as the enemy, and that is not a good thing to do, as better scrutiny helps the MOD. We as a Parliament therefore need to see that Select Committees are given completely open evidence, which allows the Committee to do its job properly.

[Dr Fox]

I can tell my right hon. Friend that I have already asked the civil service at the MOD to draw up plans that will allow greater scrutiny in real time by the Select Committee of MOD projects, rather than having to wait for post-mortems by the National Audit Office. I think we should try to replicate what occurs in other legislatures if we are to have a genuine change in how we carry out government in this country.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

That is excellent; I am liking the Secretary of State’s interventions more and more.

The Defence Committee must be independent, and must be well informed both about defence and about how the MOD operates internally. It must work together as a Committee and have a relationship with government that is constructive but never cosy; it must be polite, but also determined, searching and rigorous. Parliament needs the Select Committees to work, because that is Parliament working at its very best.