British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, for securing this debate. There is of course a UK and NATO defence base on Gibraltar, with important facilities and which is strategically placed at the entrance to the Mediterranean, which I visited as a Minister in 2001. I therefore welcome the joint announcement on 31 December 2020 by the UK and Spain that they had reached agreement on a “political framework” to form the basis of a separate treaty between the UK and the EU regarding Gibraltar, under what Spain’s Europe Minister called “co-responsibility”.

The agreement eliminates any physical checks at the land border with Spain, bringing Gibraltar within the Schengen zone, the customs union and the single market. This seems a common-sense outcome that will secure UK defence and other interests, lift the shadow of historic Spanish restrictions over the rock and offer citizens of Gibraltar and Andalucia the basis for a positive stable relationship, based upon future co-operation rather than historic confrontation.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, if the Bill passed unamended, it would put the UK at serious risk of being in breach of the Geneva conventions and other international treaties. Far from protecting veterans from prosecution, it would

“increase the risk of service personnel appearing before the International Criminal Court.”—[Official Report, Commons, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill Committee, 8/10/20; col. 118.],

as Armed Forces Judge Advocate General, Jeff Blackett, pointed out. By reneging on the UK’s legal obligations, what is set out in the Bill would in fact betray those who serve our country with bravery. How can high standards of professionalism in our Armed Forces be reconciled with giving them effective legal immunity?

But on the back of the introduction of the Bill in the other place, another related issue was raised—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Caine—which gave an ominous insight into the Government’s dangerously flawed understanding of the Northern Ireland peace process and the central importance to it of dealing sensitively with the legacy of the past.

On 18 March 2020, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland issued a two-page Written Ministerial Statement, thus conveniently avoiding scrutiny on the Floor of the House, outlining proposals to

“ensure equal treatment of Northern Ireland veterans and those who served overseas”

and to address the broader legacy issues of Northern Ireland’s violent past. Unilaterally and without reference to any victims and survivors stakeholder groups, political parties or the Irish Government, he announced that the cross-party-backed Stormont House agreement and the legacy proposals contained it in were to be set aside. Instead, he proposed a speedy—for “speedy”, I fear we can read “cursory”—desk-top review of all unresolved cases and, unless there was compelling new evidence that could lead to prosecution, they would be closed for ever, never to be reopened.

This would be a de facto amnesty that would cover the vast majority of murders that were carried out by republican and loyalist paramilitaries. Not only would the permanent closure of unresolved cases be without legal precedent, but it would deal a devastating blow to all those bereaved—including the families of many of the over-500 military personnel killed during the Troubles—to be told that the state no longer has any interest in what happened to their loved ones. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee initiated an inquiry into these proposals by Brandon Lewis in April, and I gave evidence to it, along with the noble Lords, Lord Caine and Lord Cormack. However, in a damning interim report, the committee reached the unanimous conclusion that the proposals were “unilateral and unhelpful”.

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will belatedly give evidence to NIAC this afternoon—he may already have done so—and I also welcome his acknowledgement that the Operation Kenova model is worth looking at because it has won widespread support from victims. What victims and survivors want above all is to know that the life and death of their loved one mattered and that their murder has been properly investigated. That can only be achieved through a robust investigative process, one that is truth-seeking rather than prosecutorial, like Kenova.

I am struck by the link between the words “amnesty” and “amnesia”: the great fear that many victims and survivors have is that they are forgotten. It is one of the cornerstones of our democracy that everyone is equal before the law and subject to the rule of law. To tamper with those precepts, in the case of the overseas operations Bill, by granting partial immunity to veterans should be done only when there is an absolutely compelling case that some greater good will result. The Government have not made that case with this legislation, and what the Secretary of State proposed in relation to the legacy in Northern Ireland takes us even further into dangerous territory. Both should be firmly resisted.

UN Mission in Mali: Armed Forces Deployment

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I slightly missed a bit in the middle of the noble Viscount’s question, but I will try to deal with the overall concept of his question as to what we are doing in the Sahel. Our objectives are to contribute to improving the situation. We recognise a number of different actors already present in the Sahel. We aim to work with them to better deliver for the people of the region. The UK’s deployment to MINUSMA is a vital part of our work in the Sahel to build stability, bolster conflict resolution, improve the humanitarian response and strengthen partnerships between the international community and regional Governments.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the Minister that this is an important UN mission that we must support. I associate myself with my noble friend Lord Touhig’s remarks. The Sahel region is beset by an increasingly dangerous and violent Islamist insurgency, and in the east of Mali militants repeatedly attack French, European and local armed forces, including 50 killed in 2017 in a suicide attack on a military base. The Minister said that lessons had been learned from previous missions. How certain can she be that Mali will be very different from, for example, Helmand? I clearly recall similar assurances to those she has given being given to us in the Cabinet in 2006 on a straightforward mission, yet 454 soldiers, including British ones, were subsequently killed in combat operations against the Taliban.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

That was indeed a very sad outcome. It is one we remain mindful of, and that we cannot and will not forget. The answer to the noble Lord’s question is probably best explained by returning to the role of the United Nations, because this is what we are part of. The United Kingdom believes in peacekeeping as a way to stabilise and contain conflict. Our contribution to MINUSMA, alongside our enduring commitment to the United Nations’ peacekeeping operation in, for example, Cyprus, and the staff officers we have employed in other operations, is the UK playing its part in a multinational effort to contain the worst consequences of violent conflict and to help build confidence in the political processes.

As I said, we constantly assess and after 18 months we will review this mission. We will analyse what has been happening and assess our role as a contributor to the mission. The noble Lord is right to be alert to what we must always be on our guard against. We want to be very sure that our presence is positive and that the contribution we make makes a difference to providing a more positive future for Mali. That is something we will constantly keep under consideration.

Refugees and Migrants: Royal Navy and NATO Interception in Mediterranean

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right. As he knows, the UK has provided a significant contribution to the EU naval force operation countering migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. We have been doing that since July last year. HMS “Enterprise” remains committed to that operation over the winter, identifying potential migrant-smuggling vessels off the coast of Libya. He is also right to draw our attention to the whole of the Mediterranean as an area of concern. We must not forget that Operation Sophia is just one part of the overall, comprehensive approach to tackling the migrant crisis. The migrants who come up from sub-Saharan Africa are, by and large, those who leave the Libyan coast. In the main, those arriving at the Turkish coast stem from Afghanistan and Syria.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, what exactly did the Minister mean when he said that any migrants picked up by British ships would be returned or sent to Greece? Does that not put even more pressure on the Greek authorities, which are being overwhelmed by flows of refugees? Can the Minister also give assurances to the House that Amnesty’s recent report on serious violations of human rights affecting migrants within Turkey is being acted upon by the Government?

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who was such an eminent Cabinet Minister while I was campaigning. I am also pleased that my noble friend Lord Touhig will be replying and that many other noble friends are contributing.

Forty-five years ago, when notorious for running on to rugby and cricket pitches to stop all-white South African sports teams selected on race not merit, I never imagined being here. Indeed, a tabloid editor wrote at the time:

“It would be a mercy for humanity if this unpleasant little creep were to fall into a sewage tank. Up to his ankles. Head first”.

I thank my sponsors. My noble friend Lord Kinnock, a great Labour leader, welcomed me into the Labour Party in 1977 to speak at a massive Tribune rally without mentioning that they always sang “The Red Flag”, its words then unknown to me. Perhaps my miserable performance inspired John Redwood’s excruciating public rendition of the Welsh national anthem. Your Lordships may be unaware that my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely is as talented a singer-songwriter as a politician, as she proved with a provocatively witty song at my wedding. She was outshone only by Nelson Mandela, who mischievously apologised, “But I hope to be there next time”.

It has been a long journey from Pretoria boy to Neath Lord. I thank the people of Neath for their warm support for over a quarter of a century. In recent months I have often been asked about retiring, but to me retiring from politics would be like retiring from life. Politics has been in my DNA from when, as a boy, my brave anti-apartheid parents, Adelaine and Walter Hain, were successively jailed, silenced by banning orders and finally forced into exile in London in 1966, when I was 16.

The defence review clearly has to take account of one of the biggest threats to our country’s immediate security—the barbaric ISIL/Daesh. I hope your Lordships will challenge a British foreign policy seemingly based more on dominating headlines than serious diplomacy. Syria represents one of the worst western foreign policy catastrophes of modern times, encouraging a terrible human calamity to become a disaster of almost biblical proportions. For this was never just a battle between a barbaric dictator and a repressed people, as the Prime Minister first argued. Instead, it is a treacherous civil war, a fiendishly complex battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims, between Sunnis and fundamentalist Sunnis, between Saudis and Iranians and their militia proxies, and between the US and Russia.

Today the Prime Minister at least has a plan for the first time. It leaves me almost persuaded, not least because when voting last year to back air strikes against ISIL in Iraq to stop its genocide, I pointed out that it had also to be attacked in its Syrian heartland. Britain must use its leverage now to insist that the regional powers take full ownership of this battle and, above all, that there is a credible ground force strategy—that the Prime Minister’s alleged 70,000 rebels is emphatically not. Nor is his reliance on the army of an inclusive Syrian Government. That is a future aspiration and certainly not an option for the foreseeable future.

Kurdish forces are fighting ISIL/Daesh impressively, but only in their own territory. Shia militias or Iranian soldiers are no answer fighting a Sunni enemy in bitterly aggrieved Sunni communities in both Syria and Iraq. Western ground troops would create exactly the battle that ISIL/Daesh craves. The imperative now must surely be for Sunni soldiers from Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and, above all, Turkey to fight and beat ISIL/Daesh. Britain could and should offer logistical support to those Sunni ground forces but they are indispensable.

Finally, I thank all the staff of your Lordships’ House, who have been fantastically helpful, especially Nicola Rivis in Black Rod’s office. I also thank your Lordships, across all parties, for your generous welcomes, especially the noble Baroness who told me, “It’s nice to have somebody young joining us”. I am a trifling 65 with six grandchildren.

Afghanistan (Force Protection)

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

If additional equipment is required, commanders will ask for it; they are never backward in coming forward when they think they require additional equipment. My initial assessment is that the issue is not one of resources but about rethinking our posture to deal with the enemy’s change in tactics, which is itself a response to the success of the partnering programme with Afghan forces.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

Does not this terrible tragedy reveal a central fault line in the Government’s strategy, the same one that was apparent in the Government whom I served—namely, the inability to engage beyond President Karzai’s Government to the wider fiefdoms at local and regional level, and to the Taliban themselves? Until that is done—until a political strategy is successfully pursued—our forces will continue to be attacked, killed and maimed in this fashion, and that cannot be right.

[Mr Hammond]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the long-term solution to the problem in Afghanistan must involve a political solution, and the pressure is very much on Afghan political leaders, and those in neighbouring countries, to bring that progress about. In the meantime, our task is to ensure that Afghan national security forces provide the security envelope within which any such political settlement can be deployed.

Army 2020

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

No. If we are to protect our military output—the capability of the Army—in a world where budgetary constraints mean that we can have only a smaller number of regular serving soldiers, we must integrate more effectively with the reserves and use our contractors more effectively. That is the only way to protect military capability within those constraints.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

What sort of reward for bravery is it that 600 members of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh could be faced with the sack? Is it not disingenuous for the Secretary of State to say that 19,000 soldiers will be sacked, but that those from a particular battalion, such as the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, might somehow be miraculously redeployed? Those two statements do not add up.

[Mr Hammond]

Well, I am afraid that they do. I remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Cabinet that was responsible for the underlying fiscal shambles that is the cause of many of the things that we are having to do. Whether or not someone is serving in a unit that is to be withdrawn will make them no more or less likely to be selected for redundancy under future tranches of the Army redundancy programme, which will deliver the manpower reductions announced in July 2011.