Defending the UK and Allies

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, let us hear from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and then my noble friend.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord, with his great experience, will know that I am not going into the individual stances of particular nations on particular events or operations. We are in constant discussion with not only the Government of France but other nations about the situation. France is an important ally. The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right to refer to the brilliance of the operation—that is our early assessment of its effectiveness. Assessments are obviously continuing, but I think he would have been very proud, in his old career, of the effectiveness of the Air Force in the operation that it undertook.

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right as far as international support is concerned. We are very grateful to all the Governments involved in this operation. I mentioned Bahrain, the Netherlands and Australia—that partnership with Australia is obviously very important, but a range of nations were involved. He is absolutely right to say that this international co-operation is important. I am hearing that from all round the House. My noble friend the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Prime Minister and others are involved tirelessly in that operation.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that the Saudis have had many years of armed conflict with the Houthis. Now that the alliance of those who are opposed to the Houthis has been extended, would it not be helpful to ensure there is the largest possible co-operation and integration with the Saudis, both in military assets and intelligence matters?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an extraordinarily important player and actor in the field. The Prime Minister had a constructive and useful meeting there when he visited the region last year. He was very well received, as is my noble friend the Foreign Secretary when he goes there for grown-up, constructive, thoughtful talks about how we may secure long-term peace and prosperity for an area of the world where there should be peace and prosperity for all. That is our hope. We have agreed with the Government of Saudi Arabia to co-ordinate action on supporting regional security. The Prime Minister also discussed humanitarian aid for Gaza. My noble friend is absolutely right that the Gulf countries are important for our interests, particularly trade and investment, and energy and climate change. I can assure him that those dialogues continue.

Afghanistan

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we can only hope that the early protestations of the Taliban, promising reasonable, fair governance, will be realistic, though of course we have our doubts. I want to ask why it was that the irresponsible action by the United States to withdraw in the way that they did caused both them and us to be taken aback in surprise when the Afghan army collapsed so dramatically once it was left on its own. I think some of us were not surprised.

I say that because, some 10 years ago, the foreign affairs sub-committee of the European Union Select Committee carried out a study of the training and effectiveness of the Afghan police, which was reported to the House. Some of us, during that inquiry, found that this police force, which had been trained by the United States and its allies in NATO in parallel with the Afghan army, was highly deficient, to put it mildly. We felt it suffered from absenteeism, corruption, illiteracy, incompetence, irresolution and general disloyalty. Speaking for myself, I was not surprised when the army collapsed in the same way as I expected the police would also do when confronted by the Taliban. I cannot believe that the allied military that trained the Afghan army did not have grave misgivings and were also not surprised at the collapse of the Afghan army. Nor can I believe that, as a consequence, the Governments of the United States and its NATO allies did not have adequate warnings of the dangers ahead if the Afghan army was left on its own.

I therefore have two questions. Can the Minister, when he winds up, tell us the extent of the forebodings fed back to the Government by the military that to leave the Afghan army on its own too suddenly would expose it as a paper tiger? If these warnings were fed back by the military—I would be surprised if they were not reported back in that way—then our Government have some explaining to do. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, made the same point. Likewise, if the military did not realise the fragility of the Afghan army, then it too has some explaining to do. In saying that, it must not be reflected as any criticism of mine on the outstanding courage of our forces in Afghanistan.

EU Council

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord will be aware that the backstop is an insurance policy. We, the EU and the Irish Government have been clear time and again that nobody wants to use the backstop. As I said, the Prime Minister wants further assurances for MPs in the House of Commons that it will not be used. As I have said, in the conclusions that were published on Friday the EU made it clear that it was its firm determination to work speedily on a future relationship so that the backstop will not need to be triggered, and that if the backstop was ever triggered it would apply only temporarily.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, having noted what the Prime Minister said in the Statement with regard to another referendum, the Leader will agree that there is a growing clamour in favour of having another referendum. As we move towards that—possibly—could we all stop talking about a second referendum? It is in fact a third referendum. The small group of people who clamoured over the years to have a second one, which they succeeded in getting in 2016, are now exactly the same people who are saying that a third one at this stage would be unconstitutional. Surely that is hypocrisy in the deepest possible way.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can say to my noble friend that the focus of the Government is to get through the deal that has been negotiated—a deal that delivers for the UK and the EU and a deal that both sides say is the best deal possible.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I do not accept that. For instance, we have been clear that we propose to maintain current social and employment standards, that we want an independent trade policy, and that we want a strong economic partnership with the EU—one of the most ambitious that it has had. That is what we will work towards.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I first refer to my interests in the register. The Prime Minister has said that we will be able to strike free trade deals around the world. Will that not mean that large swathes of British industry will have added competition from the free trade of imports from all around the world but, where British industry exports similar products to Europe, those exports will have to jump the common external tariff of the 27? Am I right in thinking that this would be one of the most monumental double whammies for British industry for a long time?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

No. First, we will be able to develop an independent UK trade policy. The political declaration sets out a plan for a free trade area for goods with the EU, including zero tariffs, with ambitious customs arrangements to enable that. It will be the first such agreement between an advanced economy and the EU.

Salisbury Update

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the noble Lord will know, our future security relationship with the EU is something for the negotiations. That will continue. We have obviously been talking to our EU partners and allies about the new evidence we have found in the incident and they have shown great solidarity in supporting us with their actions. This will no doubt continue as this investigation continues. As the information we have today becomes clearer and can be shared, those discussions will no doubt inform the negotiations that are going on about our future relationship.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, one of the most interesting parts of the Minister’s Statement was the clear connection between the two individuals concerned and the nerve gas in the hotel bedroom. Is she able to give a little more detailed information? I realise she may not be, but if she could tell us a little more about that connection, it would be of great interest.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

What I can say is the evidence found has pointed to the fact that the same chemical nerve agent in Salisbury was found in the hotel and that the bottle found was modified to allow smuggling into the country. The analysis by experts at DSTL has confirmed that the same chemical nerve agent was used in both cases. Yesterday, the OPCW provided independent verification of this after its own analysis of samples taken following the Amesbury poisoning. I am afraid that is all I can say on that issue.

NATO Brussels Summit 2018

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, following the Welsh summit, when all the nations in NATO gave a firm promise to increase spending to 2%, progress has been abysmally slow in very many cases—and in some cases it has gone backwards. Now we have renewed promises. How confident are the Government that those who met in Brussels last week will this time deliver on their promises? While it has always been thought rather bad form to name and shame nations that do not comply with their promises, would it not be a good idea if the Government could find a way of demonstrating each year the progress that all members of NATO are making to get towards the level to which they are all committed?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Statement made clear, there was and is a sense of urgency and renewed commitment to move towards spending 2% of GDP on defence by 2024. It is only fair to say that our European allies and Canada, for instance, added $41 billion to their defence spending in 2017 alone. That is a commitment and we are confident that countries have a sense of urgency. We will continue to meet our commitment and will encourage our allies to do the same.

Strathclyde Review

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I have put my name down to speak this afternoon with a background as a former business manager and a former instigator of procedural changes in another place. Quite frankly, it is time that we faced up to the problem of statutory instruments. We have argued about it for years. It is not a new issue. We have had references this afternoon to Lord Simon of Glaisdale and to the reports by my noble friends Lord Wakeham and Lord Goodlad. We need to get on with it. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who has just spoken, made exactly the same point.

I shall begin by making one or two general points. In my experience, some Ministers are sometimes tempted to cut corners in getting their policies agreed by Parliament. It has nothing to do with the matter before us, but I remember cases where Ministers produced huge draft Bills to the Cabinet committee on legislation and the Cabinet committee said, “Oh no you don’t. You cut that down”, and made them take a third of it out, and that seemed all right. Then, to the fury of the business managers, one found that they put all the things they had taken out back as Schedules to the Bill at Committee stage. One has to put up with the enormous appetite of some Ministers to legislate. That was an abuse.

It is also an abuse to cut corners and try to enact policies through statutory instruments rather than through primary legislation. I deplore that trend. I have never been able to convince myself that the tax credit issue should not have been done through primary legislation. I commend the last few words of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s executive summary, where he says that,

“it would be appropriate for the Government to take steps to ensure that Bills contain an appropriate level of detail and that too much is not left for implementation by statutory instrument”.

I believe very strongly in that. I also cannot get my mind around why the tax credit issue came here at all, because it seemed to me that it was a financial issue that we should never have been asked to discuss.

In his report, my noble friend gives us three options. I am very strongly opposed to the first option of taking the consideration of statutory instruments away from this House. That would be a travesty of the bicameral basis of our parliamentary procedures. For the first three or four years, I was a member of the Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments where, as my noble friend Lord Trefgarne pointed out, we looked at more than 1,000 statutory instruments a year. That consideration of legislation in the form of statutory instruments is hugely important and thorough and is far better than what is carried out down the corridor in another place. Indeed, I was one of the instigators in that committee of the recommendation to reject the draft Gambling (Geographical Distribution of Casino Premises Licences) Order 2007, which this House, quite rightly, kicked out.

I also do not like option 2 because it does not take us much further than the current contentious situation. It seems to be a recipe for continued argument.

I see much more merit in option 3. It preserves the right of the Commons to ride over us. I cannot see the logic of this House being able to delay primary legislation whereas on the other hand it can veto statutory instruments; that seems to me to be the wrong way round, and the two ought to be comparable together. My old friend, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who I think is no longer here, said that we must preserve the right to say no. Option 3 maintains that right. It is an extension of the Wakeham all-party proposals as well as the similar Goodlad all-party ideas. I suggest that the Government should listen to our views, have this report debated in another place and bring legislation that develops the option 3 proposal. The Leader of the Opposition said in her opening speech that the tax credit event gave the Government the opportunity to think again. So does option 3, and I believe that that is the way we should go.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I do not apologise for returning to a theme I have been pursuing for some 12 years in suggesting how this House might be reformed. I was very pleasantly surprised to hear the speech of my noble friend Lord Cormack about the meeting that the committee he runs with my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth has just had. It seems that it embraced nearly all the points I have been advocating for the past 12 years and which, about eight years ago, I presented to that distinguished committee. I do not apologise for returning to this issue because if we are talking about incremental changes, we ought to know where those changes are going to take us and, therefore, where the steps are going to take us.

On the size of the House, I find it rather curious that the Government keep topping up the Members when the same Government, in coalition, proposed in legislation only a few years ago a House of about 500 Members. I think we all agree that the House is now far too big, and I have been advocating a cap for all these years.

The argument I want to make today is entirely illustrative, and I hope it will be taken that way. To make the arithmetic easy, let us suggest a cap of 500. I have suggested all along that the Cross-Bench element should be 20%, which would mean 100 Cross-Bench Peers. I suggest that at each general election, the cap should return to that total of 500. Within each Parliament, there should be only limited opportunities for new appointments, totalling 5% or 10%, say.

I am opposed to an age limit, and I do not agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is proposing. I would leave it to each party after each general election, based on the result, to decide who stays and who goes. The party caucus knows best who contributes, who attends, who does not bother and who is really of no great assistance.

I come to a point that I have not made before. People often talk about the party balance of the 400 Members who are left, saying that it should reflect either the general election or the state of the party balances in another place. I have always advocated that the balance of the parties here should reflect what goes on outside. I have been trying to illustrate how that might work, and I am most grateful to Russell Taylor of the Library, who has done a survey for me on how the 400 Peers with a party affiliation might be split. He has kindly worked out for me what the House would look like today if the remaining 400 were proportionately distributed among the UK parties, based on a halfway point between their percentage share of the vote and their percentage of seats in the House of Commons after each general election.

I find the result quite interesting. Under present arrangements, the Conservative Party would have 175 seats, some 38% of the total vote in this House. The Labour Party would have 132 seats—about 27%—not far from where they are now. The Scottish National Party would have 27 seats, about 5%. The Liberal Democrats would have 18 seats, about 4%. UKIP would have 26 seats, about 5%. The Greens would have eight seats, which is between 1% and 2%. That would leave 14 seats for some of the regional groups—the Northern Ireland parties and Plaid Cymru—which together would have around 3% of the total. This is purely an illustration of how it might be done. You could alter it so that it was not 50% of votes and seats, but that would be a matter for discussion.

I believe, as I have believed for the last 12 years, that a solution such as this would result in a House with a substantial Cross-Bench element, which everyone seems to want. You would have a Government with less than 40% of the vote and maybe a cap on all governments, so that they would not be allowed to go over that figure. It would avoid having a membership that mirrored that of the Commons, which an elected Chamber, to which I am opposed, would lead. It would mean that the House of Lords would remain no ultimate threat to the House of Commons. I make these suggestions once more as illustrations, and I hope they may be helpful.

House of Lords

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure for me to follow the noble Lord who has just spoken. He and I have followed our careers for the past 70 years, since we first met in the school classroom, and I am glad that he clearly is as well now as I feel. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Williams, on this timely debate. We need to discuss this issue and to move to a resolution at this time. Not only do we need to reduce the number of Peers attending debates, as the Motion states, but we need drastically to reduce the number of Peers who have a right to attend. We need a permanent reduction in the number of Peers, which can be done only by primary legislation. I was not very happy with the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, of two-tier Peers or very keen on his suggestion of using the criterion of attendance as the key to membership. Attendance does not always reflect usefulness.

My United States friends die with laughter when I tell them that we have an upper House of almost 850 Members. They say, “We in the United States manage very well with 100 in our upper House”. Of course, there are many differences but I believe that there is a lesson there. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I strongly oppose having an elected House. For more than 12 years I have advocated a scheme which I put together but which up to now not many people have taken seriously. I take the opportunity to peddle it once more before your Lordships because I believe that more than ever my suggestion is worthy of close scrutiny.

The problem that we are faced with, of course, is that when the hereditary Peers were disbarred from coming, the Government of the day failed totally to reorganise this House. They were told repeatedly, “If we are going to throw out the hereditaries, we must reorganise the House for the future”. We did not do that and now we are paying the price. First, we need a cap set by legislation. I do not mind what it is—perhaps 400, 500 or something of that sort—but we need to bring the number down in stages after each election towards that capped figure. A Parliament would start with whatever the cap is, but there should be flexibility for new blood to come in, as a number of noble Lords have already suggested. Perhaps a limit of 5% or 10% more could come in during a Parliament but, after the subsequent election, the total membership must be brought back to the statutory cap figure. New Peerages could be created but then the House should return to the cap.

I am strongly in favour of a substantial Cross-Bench presence. A figure of, say, 20%—I am happy to discuss either side of that—should be in statute, which would ensure that the Government of the day never has a majority in this House. I find that a lot of people outside have no conception that the last Labour Government had around only 30% of the total vote of the House. I shall come to how it can be done in a moment, but you must have an arrangement which shows that this House is not and can never be the poodle of Government.

The key to this is that, after each general election, the membership of the House of Lords on party lines should broadly reflect the result of the election which has just taken place. That might be done through the number of votes cast for each party or by the number of seats won. For each Parliament, this House would be made up of 80% party-political Peers who in general would broadly—it does not have to be exact—reflect the membership of the other place or the votes cast in the election.

One of the difficulties, which I acknowledge, is that immediately after an election and before State Opening, which can always be put back by a week or two, the membership of this House would have to be reviewed very quickly. I would prefer it to be done in the same way as the hereditary Peers did when the 92, or whatever number it was, were elected. Colleagues in the House know who contributes. I do not like an age limit, although I have to be careful what I say because only three or four weeks ago I was 84. However, it is colleagues who know best those who contribute the most.

The question is this: what should we do about the composition of the parties in the House? One of the reasons I am suggesting this solution is because, in my view, the membership of this House does not begin to reflect the possible changes in the political scenario of the country as a whole. Let me suggest three scenarios in which the membership of this House could look seriously unsatisfactory, and I hope that I will give no offence to anyone or any party, because I am merely using press comments which we are all aware of.

We have been told that at the next election, there may be a collapse in the Labour vote in Scotland and that a large number of Scottish nationalist Members could be elected to the other place. Let us say that they form a coalition with one of the other parties. They have no representation in this place, and we would look very silly having no Scottish nationalists.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

Will the noble Lord give way? The Scottish National Party has been offered peerages again and again, but it has refused to take them. That is why there are no members of the SNP in this House.

[Lord Jopling]

I am well aware of that, but if they found themselves in government with Ministers down at the other end of the corridor, it is inevitable that they would need to have Ministers on the Government Front Bench here to speak for their party in your Lordships’ House. I think that that is obvious.

Let me put forward another scenario. We are told by the public opinion polls that the Liberal vote has seriously sunk. If that was to happen—I think it was my noble friend Lord Strathclyde who referred to this —and there was only a handful of Liberal Members in the House of Commons, this House would look particularly stupid if it still had 103 Liberal Peers sitting here simply because the arrangements for membership of this place were not flexible. We must somehow build a flexibility into the membership. I believe that, after each election, the way you can achieve that flexibility is to pitch the party membership of the House to broadly reflect the views of the public. That is quite different to having an elected House—this is more or less what you would get if you had an elected House, but this is a much better way of going about it.

The third and final scenario—

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord has given both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats some advice as to what they might do. Would he like to give his own party some advice as to how to deal with UKIP?

[Lord Jopling]

If the UKIP vote at the next election matches the Liberal vote—as the public opinion polls suggest it might—it would mean that neither of them would have very many Members down the corridor. But let us leave that just to the side for the moment.

A third scenario is that it is not impossible, as I have said to your Lordships before, that a new party could sweep to power. My old friend, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, mentioned UKIP. I do not think that UKIP will do it, but politicians are not popular creatures at the moment, and there is the opportunity for a new party to sweep to power in this country at some time. We have seen it happen in Turkey and in Italy in recent years, with a new party suddenly appearing from nowhere, and this House would look particularly stupid if you had a Government with virtually no support in your Lordships’ House.

These things can be done quickly; it is not impossible to do them. I have discussed this and circulated my plan before. If any of my noble friends wish to see it, I should be very glad to send them a copy of the solution for the construction of the House of Lords which, as I say, I have been peddling for over 12 years.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, could he say what place he proposes in his scheme for the 26 Bishops sitting in this House at the present time?

[Lord Jopling]

I once wrote a letter to the Times years ago after we had a debate here on blasphemy. I remember suggesting in that letter that three right reverend Prelates had come for, I think, Report stage: one disappeared before the vote and the other two voted in opposite Lobbies. I am not really sure quite what I would suggest now, but I did suggest then that we were being overgenerous giving them 26 places. But there are none here currently, so I think I had better say no more.

G20 Summit

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

There is a united view that Russia is threatening and destabilising Ukraine and that its actions are having that impact. As I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, there was unanimity among the leaders at the G20 in their steps to seek to apply pressure on President Putin to disengage, and there is absolute commitment to ensuring that stability is returned to Ukraine as soon as possible.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, in her reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, the noble Baroness was not able to answer his question about the TTIP arrangements. If President Obama agrees that the plan is to get agreement on that next year, it will not happen unless the Americans get the fast-track arrangement from Congress. As Congress is now Republican-dominated, did the President give an undertaking at the meeting that he had got agreement from both Houses of Congress for the fast-track procedure?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend knows, sadly I was not at the G20 summit or privy to those discussions. What I know from the briefing that I have received is that there is agreement between the European leaders who were at the G20 and President Obama that this deal is incredibly important and they want to see it reached by the end of next year. If I can offer any more information to my noble friend after the Statement, I will certainly do so, but I can absolutely assure him that there is no unwillingness on behalf of the President to get this deal sorted.