G7

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am not aware of any such discussions. I believe that the G7 has been focused on, as the noble Lord said, the vital issues that it faces.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The Statement said that the G7 was

“united behind an inclusive political transition in Syria”.

I am not quite sure how we can help to bring that about until we again have an embassy in Syria. I apologise for coming around like a cracked record on this. The last time we spoke about it, Ministers seemed to be showing a bit of leg; there was a hint of movement. Is there any chance of that leg moving into action?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not need to explain to the noble Lord that it is not straightforward to reopen the embassy in Damascus after such a period of time, but I take on board his desire to see that happen. I understand why he said that; there are very good reasons to take that view. I will consider that alongside Minister Hamish Falconer, who I am sure will respect, as he should, the views of the noble Lord.

United Kingdom: Global Position

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I follow in every sense what the noble Lords, Lord Howard and Lord Waldegrave, have just said.

In this crisis we need to hope for the best, prepare for the worst and learn from the past. I hope that Putin buys the ceasefire compromise and comes to accept Ukraine as the legitimate sovereign state it is, but we need to prepare for a future in which his appetite for territorial gain has only been whetted. The analogy, I think, is Munich in 1938: Hitler settled for one-third and nine months later came back for the other two-thirds.

We need to contemplate a future in which America, perhaps in the hope of pulling apart the Beijing-Moscow relationship, finds itself closer to the autocrat in the Kremlin than to the democrats in western Europe. At Munich last month, Vance told us that the real threat to Europe was not Russia but the enemy within—our corrosive liberalism. Musk says that America should quit NATO and America has left planning for some NATO exercises. So far, Trump has said only that America will not defend NATO’s free riders, and for America to follow Musk’s advice would be remarkably quixotic. America is right to resent the free riders, but it is America that drives the bus.

The NATO supreme commanders have always been serving US officers reporting to their commander-in-chief, and Congress accepted the Washington treaty only when that was spelled out to it. The alliance has been, from the start, a very effective means of projecting US power—too effective for de Gaulle’s taste. The American military and the American arms industry would be horrified if Musk got his way, and we should work to see that he does not. We should work to strengthen Europe’s contribution to the alliance, as Peter Carrington and Helmut Schmidt did with their Eurogroup and European defence improvement programme when Congress first got stroppy about the free-rider problem. But we also need to prepare for the worst, as the noble Lords, Lord Howard and Lord Waldegrave, have been saying.

European security is our security and we need a new structure that we should be defining now—but not in a way which might precipitate the very eventuality that concerns us, so not too much of the performative strategic autonomy talk that we hear from Paris. The best analogy may be 1948 and Ernest Bevin’s Western Union treaty. What would Bevin do now? I will make three guesses. First, obviously, we rearm. Obviously, 2.5% of GDP will not be nearly enough; in the 1970s, we were at 5.5%. Secondly, we demonstrate commitment. In the 1970s, we were still honouring Bevin’s WU commitment to keep 55,000 troops forward-based in continental Europe. The Baltic states must feel now rather as the West Germans did then—and they were very glad to have our forces on the ground. Thirdly, we need to strike a security deal with the EU in May. With the continuing cold wind from the east and new blustery winds from the west, we Europeans need to huddle together.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

May I remind noble Lords that this is a timed debate and we have to finish it by 3.19 pm? I am gently reminding noble Lords that the advisory speaking time it is four minutes.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

No, we will not be granting one. Bluntly, there is no point in stringing people along on these issues; that just compounds the wrong that has been done to them. The Chagos Islands have never been self-governing and the view among the Chagossian populations varies quite considerably. While there is a view among Chagossians here, we should be humble enough to accept that the largest Chagossian community is not in the UK but in Mauritius. That Chagossian community has been clear that it supports the deal, I suspect largely because of the point made my noble friend Lady Blackstone: that they would have that right to settle on the outer islands. The situation is not quite as straightforward as it is sometimes suggested.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that the House would do well to note how warmly our friends and allies in the Pentagon, the State Department and the NSC have welcomed the extended and improved security of tenure of the base?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The security of and continuation of legal certainty regarding the base on Diego Garcia has been our prime objective in these negotiations. We would not have entered into any kind of agreement or deal that did not have the support of our closest allies, because if something might be acceptable to us but is unacceptable to them, the stability and security that we were trying to achieve would have been compromised, so the noble Lord is completely right.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Negotiations

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

One of the reasons that it took so long to get this deal over the line was because of concerns such as that, and wanting to make sure that the 99 years are fixed and firm, and it is never up for question in the way that the noble Lord describes. He is quite right to raise those concerns.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

On the security question and the Chinese issue, does the Minister agree that the United States Administration are in quite a good place to assess the security of the base in Diego Garcia? Will she again confirm that they have warmly welcomed the agreement? I was always less diplomatic than the noble Lord, Lord Jay. Would the Minister like to confirm that it takes chutzpah verging on hypocrisy for the Opposition Front Bench, populated by the luminaries of the last Government, to criticise an agreement negotiated with the support and under the supervision of the last two Conservative Foreign Secretaries and approved by the last Conservative Foreign Secretary? For them to criticise it now seems to me to be—well, I will settle for chutzpah.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I have said my piece on what I think of the way the Opposition has been handling this. It is true that President Biden, Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin have all welcomed this agreement in terms that they really did not need to use if they were not so concerned to see the security of the base at Diego Garcia. I am glad that we have managed to secure the base; it is important for regional, and indeed global, security. I will leave others to reach their own conclusions about the way that the Conservative Party is approaching this.