Queen’s Speech

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by making a point which the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, made a little earlier: if, following the referendum, we had opted to stay within the single market but at the same time to leave the European Union, we could have avoided the current, totally predictable problems of Northern Ireland. But I want to talk this evening about NATO. I recently asked to be dropped from the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly after having been a member of it for 34 years, with a short break in the middle. In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned—especially over the last few years—that NATO has become much more sleepy than it was in its heyday.

Let me give some examples of what I mean. The first is the intolerable 16 years or so between deciding that it wanted to build a huge new headquarters across the road and beginning to occupy it. Next is the refusal of the Secretary-General—I am bound to say I am not an admirer of that person—to address questions from me and others about the serious criticisms made to NATO by the auditors. Also, I have become aware of late realisations of the problems of moving vital equipment between member states, in terms of both permits and access—issues which it should have been aware of decades ago. But more important is the cynical lack of action by some member states, such as Belgium, to implement the target of 2% of GDP that was entered into at the Welsh summit some years ago. Finally, there is the tolerant approach of some states, such as Turkey, to the continued emergence of Russian militarism. These are all examples of my reservations about NATO, and there are others.

So, I ask the Government whether they will encourage NATO in their discussions with it to jump up and build further on its reawakened enthusiasm post the Ukraine war as our principal safeguard for a peaceful world. One of the things I encourage the Government to press on NATO is a revisitation of that 2% spending target. So many Members of your Lordships’ House have made the point, which I very much agree with, that 2% is outdated and we have to rethink it.

Next, I am sure there is more that NATO, and particularly some member states, could do to continue to give maximum support to Ukraine in its current valiant struggles. Also, I believe that NATO should be prepared to accommodate Sweden and Finland quickly, if that is their wish. The key thing is to get this done quickly and to avoid mischief from Putin in the meantime. Next, NATO should be pressed to be prepared to deploy non-aggressive battlegroups in fellow NATO states if it becomes necessary, in the same admirable way that it has put these small, non-aggressive battlegroups into the Baltic countries and Poland over the last few years, which I have applauded very much. NATO should also be prepared to give equipment support to non-member states such as Georgia and Moldova where Russia already has a controversial military presence—for instance, in South Ossetia and Transnistria, both of which I have visited over the years and in both of which I have seen the Russian military presence for myself.

Finally, in my view, NATO—and all of us—should make it plain to Russia that we are happy to welcome it into the civilised world once it has totally renounced barbarism and international mischief.