Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord True
My Lords, the noble Lord asked a number of questions there, which no doubt we can return to. On the first point, I do not accept that there is a catastrophic failure, as he puts it. In 2017, the Government implemented the Russia strategy and established the cross-government Russia unit, which brings together diplomatic, intelligence and military capabilities to maximum effect. So far as foreign resources are concerned, illicit money is not welcome in this country.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is no wonder that trust in this Government and the Prime Minister is in decline. On 9 July, the Minister claimed that the Government
“always take proactive action to defend our democracy”—[Official Report, 9/7/20; col. 1213.]
against the threat of Kremlin interference. This report, its blocking and the predictable rejection of justified calls for an inquiry into interference in the EU referendum and the 2017 election show his assurance to have been worthless. My noble friend Lord Foulkes high- lighted the most important of the report’s several recommendations, but the Minister did not fully address his question. I respectfully ask if he can confirm which of the recommendations the Government will implement.
Lord True
My Lords, the Government have given a very full response to the inquiry. In the short time available, I cannot add further to the details of that response. As for the noble Lord’s question, it is the work of the intelligence and security agencies to assess any new evidence as it emerges; that is a continuing process. Given this long-standing approach, it is not necessary to hold a specific retrospective inquiry. If there were evidence available to be found, it would emerge through our existing processes.
Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord True
My Lords, the noble Lord’s statement was certainly not Panglossian, but it was very wide of the mark. An announcement on membership will be made very shortly, and a Motion will be tabled for agreement by both Houses next week. The noble Lord’s wild charges against the Prime Minister are wholly unfounded.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is widely known that Russia interfered in the Brexit campaign, with targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns, and it continues to interfere, presently around Covid-19. The continued obstruction of the publication of the Russia report reinforces the reasons for an already catastrophic decline of trust in this Government, enables the continued undermining of democratic debate and damages the credibility of the ISC and the integrity of our democracy. How can this be justified?
Lord True
My Lords, again, I reject the charge of delay or conspiracy of any kind, but I do agree most strongly with what the noble Lord, with his great experience, has said. We know that disinformation is a common tactic used by the Kremlin, and we always take proactive action to defend our democracy. The Government are engaging with international partners, industry and civil society to tackle this threat.
Covid-19: Scientific Advice
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord True [V]
My Lords, it is important to remind the House that at the time of the meeting on 11 February there were only eight confirmed cases in the United Kingdom. The Government have always been guided by the best scientific advice. At every stage, scientists have sought to give us the best information about what was a very novel infection—it still is. Ministers and officials tried to take the right decisions in the public interest. We will come out of this best by holding to the sense of national interest and resolve with which we went into it and holding any inquests when the pandemic is beaten.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, despite saying in January that diagnosis capacity was good, by 11 February SAGE said that it was not and—erroneously, as it turned out—that it would not be possible for the UK to accelerate coronavirus testing alongside regular flu testing. Rather than focusing on how to boost it, it asked PHE and SPI-M to develop criteria for when contact tracing is no longer worthwhile and for when it could be stopped. Were the criteria developed and approved by Ministers before contact tracing was stopped, and why were the Government so slow to reverse that flawed decision?
Lord True [V]
My Lords, I could not catch all the details of the noble Lord’s question. I apologise on the record to him for not answering fully a previous question he asked. If he does not mind, I will write to him on the subject. I remind the House, having caught enough of his question, that this was an evolving crisis and the Government have done a great deal to procure and deliver testing—now over 200,000 a day—and provide places in hospital beds.
National Risk Register
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, human disease pandemics are a registered risk. Since 2018, the Government have had a national Biological Security Strategy, which mentions human disease pandemics in its very first sentence. If the Minister has had an opportunity to read this strategy, he will know that its implementation is dependent on the work of the threats, hazards, resilience and contingency sub-committee of the National Security Council. Two years on, this ministerial sub-committee of the NSC does not exist, and it never has. In the absence of this committee, how has the strategy been implemented?
Lord True
My Lords, I am not commenting on the meetings of particular Cabinet committees. The noble Lord, who has a distinguished record in this area, needs to understand that very substantial planning was and is in place for dealing with pandemics. However, the public realise that Covid-19 is a novel virus that has presented different challenges. I am impressed by the remarkable resilience shown by so many people in this country, and by so many authorities, in responding to it.
Interserve
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
On the first point raised by the noble Lord, it is important to understand that what happened to Interserve was totally different from what happened to Carillion, for example. Carillion went bust. Pensioners took a hit. Creditors took a hit. People lost their jobs and there was discontinuity in services. None of that happened with Interserve. It was done with the approval of the pension trustees and the lenders, who wrote off the debt and put £100 million in. There was no discontinuity in services and nobody lost their job. That is important to understand.
The noble Lord asked whether we would have a general review. I announced that we have learned from past lessons; the document to which I just referred has 11 key policy areas in which we can come to better decisions and create a healthier outsourcing market.
The noble Lord is right that Interserve has a general portfolio—it protects the pandas in Edinburgh Zoo. The issue of probation services goes far wider than Interserve, as the noble Lord will know; the MoJ has announced a review of community rehabilitation services, with a view to improving outcomes and better integrating public sector, private sector and third sector providers.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, the annual revenues of Interserve were £2.9 billion, two-thirds of which it got from the public sector. The debt holders got this business for approximately £600 million, and will undoubtedly sell off its profitable parts for more than they were owed. However, the unsecured creditors have been left fighting over £600,000. Were the Government part of that deal? How much was owed to these creditors? Why do the Government think that that amount of money is safe? These people will lose lots of money and many of them are small or medium-sized businesses.
Lord Young of Cookham
There is no reason why trade creditors of Interserve should lose any money. The hit was taken by the shareholders and the lenders who wrote off their debt and converted it into equity. The subsidiary companies providing goods and services to the public and private sectors are wholly unaffected by what has happened to the parent company, which has simply changed ownership. The creditors of the subsidiary companies are in exactly the same position as they were before the transaction over the weekend.
Government Policy: Plain English
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
Like the noble Baroness, I too follow the progress of the Plain English Campaign. A winner this year was an NHS trust, the George Eliot Hospital, which was commended for its publications. So far as advice to government Ministers is concerned, the Government Digital Service runs workshops to help Ministers and civil servants to write clearly. It has had workshops with the DWP and Public Health England, and its content team maintains the content of the most trafficked content. It encourages everybody to avoid jargon but my brief tells me that content on websites should “be updated to improve the end-to-end user journey”.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, on any reasonable measure, all three services of the UK’s Armed Forces are smaller now than when the Government took responsibility for them. The Navy has fewer vessels than it had in 2003 and the Government have no intention of building more than there were in 2003. However, yesterday, in an otherwise pretty vacuous Statement, the Secretary of State for Defence said to the other place:
“The Royal Navy has increased its mass and points of presence around the world”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/12/18; col. 657.]
Talking about clarity, what does that mean?
Lord Young of Cookham
Like the noble Lord, I read Patrick Kidd’s article in the Times today that took my right honourable friend to task for some of the verbs and phrases he used in the Statement. My right honourable friend may well be a contender next year for the Plain English Campaign’s Golden Bull Award, which this year was won by a sports commentator who said:
“He’s given the referee no choice but to consider his options”.
Cyber Threats
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the register of interests, particularly my association with and employment by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US-based think tank. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, on securing this debate and commend him for corralling this massive topic into a 15-minute speech. I congratulate him also on the breadth of the Motion before your Lordships’ House. I am particularly pleased because it allows me to return specifically to a topic that is a minor obsession of mine: the scale and complexity of the cyber threat to major weapons systems, including our nuclear deterrent.
The first step in solving any problem is admitting there is one. That, of course, picks up the theme that a number of noble Lords have referred to. The value of this debate is in raising awareness, and I hope to raise awareness of some threats. It will be difficult for us to engage with them, but I have some ideas about that as well.
Although I have been aware of this threat for some time, I first tentatively raised the issue publicly in January 2013 following the report of the Defense Science Board of the US Department of Defense, Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat. The top line of that report is, in short:
“The United States cannot be confident that our critical Information Technology (IT) systems will work under attack from … a ‘full spectrum’ adversary”.
Critical IT systems in this context include nuclear weapons systems, and the board knew that cyber was a threat to this, because it had red-teamed it in the United States. The task force went on to say that its lack of confidence applied also to the weapons systems of allies and rivals. The UK is, of course, an ally of the United States, and so that sparked my attention.
In addressing this issue, I have always been measured in my comments, mindful of my noble friend Lord West’s concern that people can get into scaremongering in this environment. But these are existential threats, and there is nothing scarier in my view. Drawing on the specific recommendations of the report, I reminded the then Ministers that they had an obligation to assure us that all parts of the nuclear deterrent had been assessed against the risk of cyberattack and that protections were in place. I explained that, if they were unable to do that, there was no guarantee that we would, in the future, have a reliable deterrent. Quite simply, a deterrent works on the basis that it is a live threat; if a rival knows that they can defeat the deterrent or prevent it being deployed, it does not work.
In 2015, in the run-up to the Trident debate, I repeated this request in the hope that cybersecurity would emerge as part of the debate on our commitment for the next 50 years, apparently, to a deterrent-based approach to nuclear weapons. The response to my reference to a 146-page report of recommendations and appendices was depressingly familiar and platitudinous. I was told publicly that Trident was safe because it was “air-gapped”. The argument appears to be that, because these weapons are deployed in submarines under the water, they cannot be threatened by cyber. This is a complete misunderstanding of the cyber threat and a misrepresentation of the facts. Most of these boats are not at sea all the time: they are hooked up to other systems for a significant period and spend three months or slightly more at sea. But that is what I was told.
In the reporting of my comments by the BBC, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson, while understandably refusing to comment on the details of security for the nuclear deterrent, assured the country that,
“we can and will safeguard it from any cyber threat”.
I know of no expert who would ever give such a comprehensive assurance about anything, but that is what was publicly stated. The spokesperson went on to say:
“We are investing more than ever before on the UK’s defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. Last week the Chancellor outlined a plan for £1.9bn in cyber investment”.
So, essentially, “Move on, there is nothing to see here”.
Thankfully, that is not the US attitude to this. The United States is a much more open society than we are in relation to these issues. I know that is to do with its constitution and the accountability of the Administration to Congress, but the irony of my interest in this is that I can find out much more about these issues in publications in the United States than I can here. That is not proper accountability, but that is an argument for another day.
The Defense Science Board task force on cyber continued its work and produced a final report in December 2017. I do not have time today, even with the 12 minutes that I have, to go into it in any detail but, four years on, the report continues to challenge UK complacency, concluding that Russia and China had significant and increasing ability to hold US critical infrastructure at risk and growing capability through cyber-attack to thwart military response—in other words, to defeat deterrence.
In July 2015, the other place debated the renewal of Trident, but cybersecurity was virtually absent from the debate. Since then, in updates to Parliament by the Government on the renewal programme, no mention has ever been made of cybersecurity and it has never been fully debated in Parliament or even engaged the Defence Select Committee’s attention. I cannot find any statement by a member of the Cabinet on this issue and, shamefully, Parliament has also been broadly silent on this issue.
External reports continue to be published identifying this and they are always met with the same bland assurances and comments. For example, in 2018 Chatham House published a report, Cybersecurity of Nuclear Weapons Systems: Threats Vulnerabilities and Consequences. Again, the Ministry of Defence response came in the form of a statement from an anonymous spokesperson. Apparently, the MoD has,
“absolute confidence in our robust measures to keep the nuclear deterrent safe and secure”,
invests significant resources into regularly assuring its protection against cyberattacks and other threats, and again we were reminded that the UK,
“takes cyber security very seriously across the board, doubling its investment in the area to £1.9bn”.
In every case where this £1.9 billion is quoted, it is never said by any of the anonymous spokespersons that this money was committed in 2015 for five years of cybersecurity for every aspect of government. I am assured by experts with whom I worked closely during my time in the United States that is an inadequate amount of investment given the scale of the challenge to our weapons systems.
Until April last year, for three years I lived and worked for the NTI in the US. There I found in government, Congress and the expert community more awareness of the threat to our military systems than here in the UK. In the US, NTI brought together high-level former senior military and government officials, policy experts and cybersecurity experts to form a cyber nuclear weapons study group. I co-chaired this group with former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary Ernest Moniz. The group examined the implications of cyber threats to nuclear weapons and related systems and developed a set of options for policies, postures and doctrines that will reduce this risk.
The NTI study group report was published last month. The ink was not long dry on it when, on 9 October, the Government Accountability Office of the US published the report, Weapon System Cybersecurity: DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Vulnerabilities. Believe it or not, this report was prepared in response to a request from the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of plans to spend $1.66 trillion to develop its current weapons systems.
The report concludes that the department,
“likely has an entire generation of systems that were designed and built without adequately considering cybersecurity”.
Specifically, the report states that,
“from 2012 to 2017, DOD testers routinely found mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities in nearly all weapon systems that were under development. Using relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of these systems and largely operate undetected”.
They were able to guess a password on a weapons system in nine seconds, access weapon systems where open source or commercial software had been installed and the installer failed to change the default passwords, partially shut down a weapons system simply by scanning it—a technique so basic that it apparently “requires little knowledge or expertise”—and take control of some weapons. In one case, a two-person team took just one hour to gain initial access to a weapon system and one day to gain full control of the system. They could also access and stay in a weapons system for weeks, during which time the DoD never found them despite the testers being intentionally “noisy”. In other cases, automated systems detected the testers, but the humans responsible for monitoring those systems did not understand what the system was trying to tell them.
The GAO estimates that the vulnerabilities the DoD knows about likely comprise a small proportion of the risks in their systems. The tests leave out whole categories of potential problem areas such as industrial control systems, devices that do not connect to the internet and counterfeit parts. This unclassified report is about a classified matter and consequently refers to various systems without identifying them. I will come back to that important point in a moment.
Further, the report underscores a troubling disconnect between how vulnerable DoD weapons systems are and how secure DoD officials believe they are. This echoes what I am told in the United Kingdom. The officials who oversee the systems appear dismissive of the results, not understanding that when they dismiss these results, they are dismissing testing from their own department. The GAO did not conduct any tests; it audited the assessments of DoD testing teams. In some cases, officials indicated that their systems were secure, including systems that had not had a cybersecurity assessment.
In its findings, the GAO describes the DoD as only “beginning to grapple” with the importance of cybersecurity and the scale of vulnerabilities in its weapons systems. Public reporting of this report describes this as a “wake-up call” for the DoD. It should be a wake-up call for us too. We have almost certainly bought and deployed some of these weapons systems. We have certainly bought and installed in our weapons systems software programmes, the testing of which has informed this report.
Essentially, I have two questions for the Government. When are we going to have a proper debate, in government time, on the cyber threat to and cybersecurity of our weapons systems, including the deterrent? Now that this GAO report has been published, what steps are the Government taking to follow up on the implications of this report for our military capabilities with the US Government and the DoD in particular?
Nuclear War: International Conference
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
As regards attendance at a conference that is still four months away, British officials have had conversations in Mexico City, Geneva and New York about whether we may attend. It remains very much an open question. Perhaps I may simply say to the noble Baroness that there are a great many different, and in some ways conflicting, bodies in which disarmament is now being discussed. These include the Nuclear Security Summit which will meet again in 2014, the UN Disarmament Commission and the Conference on Disarmament. There have also been a number of discussions on nuclear-weapon-free zones. The question of where one puts the priority and where you think it is most worthwhile to push for development is difficult We hold that the NPT review conference of 2015 should remain one of our priorities. We also think that there is value in the P5 process, on which Britain has been one of the leaders, and in the P5-plus process in which the P5 members discuss these issues with India and Pakistan.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, do the Government agree with the principal conclusion of the Oslo conference that no state and no international organisation has the capability to address the consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon and, much more worryingly, the view supported by experts that it might not be possible to develop such capacities? I hope that the Government disagree. If they do, where is the evidence that we have such capabilities?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the valuable contribution that the Norwegians and others have been making on this whole question of the humanitarian and, incidentally, climatic consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon are very much something that the UK Government are taking seriously. We see this as a very useful expert contribution. Looking at how, if there were to be—heaven forfend—a nuclear explosion, we would cope as an international community with the consequences, is something that is very valuable to take forward.
Defence: Trident Review
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the United Kingdom remains strongly committed to nuclear disarmament, and we are working in a range of different international contexts to achieve this. As noble Lords will know, the next Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will meet in 2015, and the preparatory committee met earlier this year.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of recent credible research which, using modern climate change models, found that even a regional war using nuclear weapons between emerging nuclear-armed states with relatively primitive weapons would quickly lead to significant global climate change, reduce temperatures, reduce growing seasons, have significant adverse agricultural effects and then quite devastating effects for all the world’s populations. Why, then, did the coalition Government not attend the Oslo conference on the humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons? Why did they boycott it? Do we have nothing to say to the rest of the world about these issues? Will we go to the follow-on conference in Mexico in 2014?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s work within the context of the European Leadership Network and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which is highly desirable, multilateral work involving the Russians and many others. It is exactly the sort of work that needs to be done and published to inform the debate on the future of nuclear weapons. Her Majesty’s Government decided, in the context of preparations for the Oslo conference, that we should be pursuing this, as far as possible, through the conference on nuclear disarmament; the priority was to unblock that conference. As for attendance at the follow-on conference in Mexico, British diplomats in Mexico met Mexican officials some weeks ago to discuss the question.
China: Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament
Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton
That this House takes note of the case for intensified discussions on multilateral nuclear disarmament with China.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, in moving the Motion standing in my name, I draw the attention of your Lordships to my entry in the register of Members’ interests, particularly my engagement with a number of organisations devoted to multilateral nuclear disarmament, improved non-proliferation and increased nuclear security. When I first submitted this Motion to the ballot for debate, I thought it was an opportunity for the House to debate and, maybe for the first time, for the Government to report to Parliament on the P5 discussions on confidence-building measures and nuclear disarmament that have been taking place since 2009.
Members of your Lordships’ House may be aware that I have some investment in these discussions. In particular, in a speech that I gave to the conference on disarmament in Geneva on 5 February 2008, I reminded those listening that the preamble to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty made it clear that,
“all States party to the Treaty should work towards ‘the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the elimination of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery’”.
I observed that the international community, in the context of the anticipated NPT Review Conference, was seeking,
“a transparent, sustainable and credible plan for multilateral nuclear disarmament”,
one that addressed,
“proliferation, so that disarmament and counter-proliferation both move forward together”.
I announced then that the United Kingdom Government:
“As part of our global efforts … hope to engage with other P5 states in other confidence-building measures on nuclear disarmament”,
through the anticipated NPT review cycle, the aim being,
“to promote greater trust and confidence as a catalyst for further reductions in warheads—but without undermining the credibility of our existing nuclear deterrents”.
That announcement subsequently led to the first ever meeting of the P5 states, including China, in London in 2009, which then went on to a meeting in Paris to discuss these issues, and another in Washington in 2012.
It is interesting that at the time of that meeting in Washington on 28 June 2012, the head of our delegation to the P5 conference, Robert Hannigan, issued a press release, the last sentence of which read:
“I am pleased that we have come a long way since our initial discussions in London and can focus this week on implementation of our commitments and taking forward new initiatives on nuclear disarmament, including confidence-building measures and exchanging verification experiences”.
I start my remarks on this Motion by inviting the Minister, either when he responds or at some stage, to build on that short press release to make it clear to the House what these steps are and to account to Parliament for them. What engagement do we have with our P5 partners, particularly China, on these very important matters? A significant and potentially world-changing conversation is taking place and the first reporting of it cannot be to the next review committee of the NPT. There ought to be some reporting of these discussions to Parliament and I am unable to find any proper reporting of them taking place.
That was my initial focus. However, since then I have had the benefit of a visit to China, in late October and early November. In the context of my recently acquired board membership of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, I was invited to attend a board meeting in the company of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who has served on that board for 10 years. For those of your Lordships who do not know what the Nuclear Threat Initiative is, it is an NGO based in Washington and led by Sam Nunn, who for many years as a senator was chair of the armed services committee of the Senate, and Ted Turner. For 10 years, it has done groundbreaking work on reducing the use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, while working to build trust, transparency and security, principally from the United States but also in Russia and China. All of these trust-building, transparency and security measures are preconditions of the fulfilment of the NPT. I congratulate the Nuclear Threat Initiative on the work it has done; the House should record its congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, on her decade of contribution to that significant work, which has gone relatively unsung.
Over the days that we were in China, we had the privilege of meeting analysts, researchers, academics, retired senior military, senior officials and the Chinese Foreign Minister to discuss, among other things, nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and nuclear security. We also had the privilege of attending a seminar at the Chinese institute of contemporary relations; an excellent discussion about regional challenges, including what is happening in the East China Sea, at the Carnegie centre of Tsinghua University; and an international conference of technical experts and analysts of disarmament and verification under the auspices of an organisation that has the acronym PIIC.
All of this was absorbing and interesting and, as it was the eve of the change of leadership in China and as we had the advantage of detailed briefing and informed discussion about regional security issues in the broader geopolitical context, it was immensely informing and remarkably optimistic in its sense of engagement and trust-building. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is scheduled to speak in this debate. I hope she will agree—we have not caucused on this issue—that what was striking in those meetings, when all these interesting and important issues were being discussed, was how comparatively irrelevant Europe and in particular the United Kingdom were to those discussions. The expression I have used since then is that you had to have relatively sharp elbows to get between the Russians who were present, the Chinese and those from the United States as they discussed these great global issues. It was very difficult to get a European or British voice or justification. I concluded that this was perhaps because there was no manifestation of any great effort being made on the part of our country or of Europe to engage significantly with the Chinese.
However, we live in an interconnected world. China is the EU’s second biggest trading partner, after the United States. Until two days ago, the EU was also China’s biggest export market. I noticed that the Chinese announced on Tuesday that the United States has overtaken the European Union as their biggest export market, as demand on this continent has dropped off because of the financial crisis. However, since the start of 2012 alone, we have had shipments from China to the EU valuing $276.8 billion. We are integrated with China not only economically but politically and if we have taken the lead economically, why do we appear to be holding back politically in our engagement with China, which is such an important power? We can do more and I hope that the short debate we will have over the next two hours or so may make some contribution to that engagement.
As Jon Huntsman, the former United States Ambassador to China between 2009 and 2011, writes in December’s Prospect magazine:
“Over the next years China will face multiple challenges”.
He sets them out but I do not intend to repeat them here; I think everyone knows what they are. Among those challenges, he says, the new leadership and the new president, Xi Jinping, will have to face the responsibility of dealing directly with the United States and the rest of the world over global issues of security and defence. The discussion that will take place, which we—that is, the Europeans and in particular the United Kingdom—have to be part of, will set the tone for potential global peace and stability.
Xi Jinping faces that challenge in the context of the renewed hope that President Obama has engendered that he will pursue his Prague agenda in his second term in office and seek to take significant steps towards a world free of nuclear weapons by reducing the salience of nuclear weapons and their numbers. He outlined his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons in a major speech in Prague in 2009, and the cheering of the people of Europe was audible as he outlined it. I have to say that the political support that he received thereafter was conspicuous by its absence, but he had other domestic challenges.
Not only did he outline that challenge but in September 2009 he chaired the summit meeting of the Security Council in which it unanimously adopted the ambition of a world free of nuclear weapons. We are now in the situation where all the important global leaders espouse the challenge of zero nuclear weapons, including our own Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron. We are committed to a world free of nuclear weapons; we have signed up to that.
Since then, the US and Russia have signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, requiring both of them to reduce their deployed strategic arsenals significantly. Thereafter, though, by and large there is no more good news. It appears that all the nuclear-armed states of the world plan to spend approximately $1 trillion on renewing or improving their nuclear weapon systems, so the rhetoric is for a world free of nuclear weapons but the steps towards it are conspicuous by their absence. More needs to be done. The reduction of these stockpiles is a global responsibility. Of course the United States and Russia have by far the biggest arsenals, but we are not going to make any progress unless we, the P5 countries, take our shared responsibilities for these steps, and that includes China.
What is striking about our engagement with China is that its nuclear weapons are shrouded in secrecy. There is nothing very unusual about that, of course; most of the nuclear weapons states in the world have a substantial degree of secrecy about their nuclear weapons. The Chinese analysis is that they have a very small number of nuclear weapons and they have a no-first-strike policy, a combination that requires a deal of secrecy. That then engenders suspicion, and there is a whole spectrum of speculation about whether it has thousands, including some hidden in tunnels—some analysis by Georgetown University suggested that, with no basis—or whether the view that General Robert Kehler, the head of US Strategic Command, is said to take, that they have several hundred nuclear weapons, is likely to be correct. The conclusion that I came to in my discussions with both Chinese experts and the experts that we had in our company, including Eugene Habiger, the retired US Air Force four-star general who served as commander-in-chief of US Strategic Command, was that the smaller of those numbers is more likely to be correct.
It is important for a starting point of the steps that we are taking if these discussions to know where the United Kingdom Government stand in this broad range of views. If they believe the larger estimates, which in my view are significantly exaggerated, they feed western unease about Chinese ambitions and create difficulty when it comes to building trust and confidence, whereas if they tend to the lower end of the spectrum and they share the view of the US Strategic Command, there appears to be a basis for some sensible discussion, should nuclear disarmament discussions be multilateralised.
If we rely upon Wikileaks, there was some suggestion that as recently as 2008 very senior members of the FCO shared the view that the larger numbers were likely to be the truth. I do not expect the Minister to comment on Wikileaks, but it would be helpful for an informed discussion if the Government made some public declaration of where they think Chinese nuclear weapons sit in this range of speculation, and what the basis for our discussions should be.
The purpose of all of this is that if we are to achieve the ambition that we say we all share, we have to prepare ourselves for a discussion across the world about ridding the world of these nuclear weapons. It is possible that if President Putin and President Obama move beyond the phase of New START, there will be a new set of discussions. We know from his public utterances that President Putin’s view is that they need to be multilateralised. What will our contribution be other than saying, “When the time is right we will engage with these multilateral discussions”, and what steps will we take to encourage the Chinese to engage?
In the context of these P5 discussions, what possibility is there that we, the Americans and the French, having hosted meetings of these P5 discussions, can encourage the Chinese and the Russians to host discussions too? That would be a significant statement to the rest of the world.
I suggest this as a possible way forward for engagement with the Chinese. What possibility is there that we and the French will voluntarily buy into the verification and transparency of the New START regime in order to set a model for the Chinese Government to buy into it too, so that we can move away from our inherent suspicion about China’s nuclear weapons system and its intentions?
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his considered reply to the debate—not just the content of the reply but the tone of the reply. I start my short response by reinforcing the non-partisan nature of these debates and the way we can move forward. The two groups which I convene, one here in this Parliament and one in Europe, are fixed on multilateral nuclear disarmament. In our group in this Parliament we are fixed on supporting the Government in their ambition to make a contribution and show leadership to a world free of nuclear weapons. This is far from being a partisan issue, but that will not stop us being challenging on occasion in relation to this area of policy.
As the Minister said, we have had many notable contributions to the debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, was in a most engaging, wise and, I am pleased to say, optimistic frame of mind. He emphasised the role of the rule of law, which is very close to my analysis of these issues and how we can move forward. On the one hand we had a typical battling performance from my noble friend Lord Prescott. Many of us on these Benches are pleased that he is back among us, not for the reason that is probably at the forefront of other people’s minds, but because it is perfectly clear that he has a major contribution to make to the great issue of climate change. He has a history of driving improvement and change internationally in that regard. We have seen an example of that and I am pleased that he is back and in fighting fit mode. I personally am grateful that he graced this debate with a contribution.
On the other hand, I thought that my noble friend Lord Gilbert was in many senses at his most—what shall I say?—challenging and perhaps contrarian best. I am tempted to engage with him on the detail of some of his analysis of the value of nuclear weapons. He must be alone in this world in thinking that the Middle East needs more nuclear weapons. I do not think anyone will agree him. I have tempted him to speak, and I should not have done so.
Lord Gilbert
I am provoked. Would my noble friend really like to live in Israel in a totally nuclear free world?
Lord Browne of Ladyton
I would if there was peace must be the response to my noble friend. Since we are conscious of the time, perhaps we should have this debate in detail on another day, but I would just say that my noble friend reminds me of an experience I had when I was in China recently. I was standing on the Great Wall. I mused that for 13,000 years the Chinese thought that that wall was the ultimate deterrent. Now it is a tourist attraction in the middle of their country because it did not succeed in keeping the Mongolians out. However, for 13,000 years, some 10% of Chinese GDP and the population were employed in building it. That is my attitude to nuclear weapons in the 21st century. They may well have served a purpose at a certain time, but they have become part of the problem and not necessarily part of the continuing solution. Their proliferation to some of the most unstable parts of the world where they are in the hands of some of the most unstable regimes has generated a problem for all of us that we need to deal with multilaterally.
Noble Lords will forgive me if I do not go through all their contributions in detail because I am conscious of the time. I listened carefully to the Minister’s reply and I am grateful for his reiteration of a commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. I thank him for his promise that we may at some stage have a further report on the P5 discussions, even if that is only the agenda of what these important countries are discussing. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would take back to his ministerial colleagues the fact that some of the behaviour of the P5 in other multilateral forums requires an explanation. An example is the P5’s agreement on 19 October to vote collectively and en bloc against the draft multilateral disarmament resolution of the most recent UN General Assembly. That is quite disturbing when set against the shared ambition. I thank the Minister for his consideration of the points I raised and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Rosser for the support of our Front Bench for the agenda that I espouse in relation to these questions.
I suspect that we will want to return to these issues on another day. I shall conclude my remarks by thanking all those who have contributed, and particularly the Minister. Perhaps I may ask the Government whether, at some stage in the near future, there could be an opportunity for this House in government time to debate these issues, including their interaction with our plans and strategy in relation to ballistic missile defence.