Ukraine Update

Debate between Lord Jopling and Baroness Goldie

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, have the Government given any attention to the close parallels between the situation in Ukraine and the one in Georgia? Both states have adjoining boundaries with Russia and in both cases Russia has already attained illegal footholds, in Georgia through South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We have been supplying very helpful defensive weapons to Ukraine. Are the Government giving any attention to supplying defensive weapons also to Georgia, if that is what it requires?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As my noble friend will be aware, and as I said earlier, the United Kingdom, both bilaterally with Ukraine and in concert with our NATO allies, has been concentrating on responding to the situation in Ukraine. That response has called for a specific commitment from the United Kingdom in relation to defence resource and defence equipment, and that is the focus of our thoughts at the moment.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Lord Jopling and Baroness Goldie

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The strategy lays out a clear basis for how we will engage not just with our companies at home but with potential suppliers abroad. At the end of the day, we want a quality product providing what our Armed Forces need at a price fair to the taxpayer. Internally, we will be very clear about the pricing structures for these products. Equally, we are very clear that, if we are going abroad or dealing with an international provider, we will monitor and scrutinise that closely. We will be guided on a case-by-case basis as to what we need, who best can provide it and whether it needs to be regarded as a strategic imperative or to have operational independence, in which case it will almost certainly be with a UK provider.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, it is all very well for the Government to tell us that there will be opportunities for the British defence industry. Does the Minister agree that sometimes, contracts have been awarded strongly influenced by political or industrial pressures, which sometimes leave our forces with unbalanced structures and indeed with equipment inferior to the best available? Surely, the prime need is that the forces should get the best that is available. One example is the Challenger 2 battle tank: the promised export orders fizzled out very quickly and we were left with a tank which could not share its ammunition with any of the other NATO forces.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The sort of scenario to which my noble friend refers may well have happened in the past—but that is where it belongs. The point of this strategy is that there will be hard imperatives for the commercial decisions we take. These will be based on what we need, what is best and who can best provide it for us.

Hong Kong Protests

Debate between Lord Jopling and Baroness Goldie

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Lord. We try to ensure in our discussions with China that we are blunt, we are direct, we say exactly what we think and China is left in no doubt as to our feelings. He is correct. I think these matters are always better dealt with by dialogue and sometimes behind closed doors.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

Does the Minister recall that, when the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal was established on 1 July 1997, it made a clear statement that it replaced the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of London as the highest appellate court in Hong Kong after 30 June 1997. Can the noble Baroness say whether the Chinese Government in Beijing ever refuted that statement?

[Baroness Goldie]

I am not aware of that. I am assuming that the Chinese Government are as well versed as my noble friend is in the legal system of Hong Kong. I am not aware of any such refutal of that situation. If I do learn of any such refutal, I shall let my noble friend know.