France: Security

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question; he clearly has huge experience in this area. The Lancaster House agreement that I signed with President Sarkozy in 2010 expressly sets out areas where Britain and France will collaborate, including the most sensitive areas of nuclear weapon research and nuclear weapons. If what he is saying is that we need to enter into deeper dialogue to think about these things in the future, I agree. Britain’s nuclear deterrent is declared to NATO, and I am in favour of us having deeper conversations with the French about that.

I still maintain that one of the aims of NATO is, as Pug Ismay put it,

“to keep the Americans in … and the Russians out”.

That is still absolutely key to NATO’s future. I missed out a bit of that quotation, the noble Lord will be pleased to note. One of the things we must do is to make sure that we are talking to all parts of the American system, to make sure that NATO is in the strongest possible shape in its 75th year, with more members and more members reaching 2%, so that whoever becomes President at the end of this year can see that NATO is an institution worth investing in.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

In an earlier incarnation, I had the opportunity to introduce the French Minister of Defence to our nuclear facilities and visited Saint-Nazaire, where the French showed me their facilities. It is on the importance of that background of our nuclear collaboration that the noble Lord, Lord Owen, is absolutely right. It is a background against which the United States is perhaps showing less interest in NATO, and its future involvement may not be so obvious and immediate. That makes it clear that the nuclear arrangements and nuclear understanding between this country and France are of manifest importance. The Heads of Governments and the Foreign Secretaries of both countries need to be very closely involved against the dangerous situation that we face in Europe at the present time.

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord has huge experience of this. This is a great year for Britain and France to be talking about these things. It is the 120th anniversary of the entente cordiale, we will be commemorating D-Day again in June and there are the French Olympics, which I am sure will be a great success—we are helping France with security and other issues. So of course that dialogue, in line with the Lancaster House agreement and its renewal, will be part of it.

However, it is important that we try to encourage America to see NATO as a huge positive. One must not overinterpret this, but it was good news when yesterday the US Speaker of the House of Representatives made this remark about the Ukraine funding:

“We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the world like Putin … and they are watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our own interests around the globe, and we will”.


When asked about the Ukraine funding, he said that he expected to bring it forward this week. So there is positive news. Therefore, as well as all the things we should be doing with European partners to strengthen NATO, we should do everything we can to encourage America to see it as part of its defence as well as ours.

Queen’s Speech

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who drew on his 44 years of experience in NATO for the benefit of the House. I have great sympathy with the comment by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about trying to open for an opposition party on the Queen’s Speech at this time with the unbelievable range of subjects that might be covered. In my brief five minutes I shall talk about just one. I do so against as grave a situation globally at the present time as I can remember.

It is incredible that, with the new events that have taken place, we have almost forgotten the global pandemic that threatens everybody. With global warming, the explosion of methane in the Arctic is accelerating the rate of climate change—another great drama that is coming for us. I agreed with the Governor of the Bank of England when he used the word “apocalyptic”. He used it about the scale of inflation; I shall use it about the question of food supply. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about global malnutrition. There is no question that, however many people Vladimir Putin kills in his efforts in Ukraine, it is nothing compared to the millions he may kill because of the blockage of Odessa and the prevention of proper circulation of food around the world. The number of countries now desperately worried is enormous. I understand that at the moment 25 million tonnes of grain is sitting blocked in Odessa and neighbouring areas.

Previously, grain was being shipped out at the rate of 5 million tonnes per month, so think of those countries and regions expecting to get it. I have a list: Egypt—which will now be hard-hit—Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Sahel, sub-Saharan Africa, Somalia and Syrian refugees in Iraq. There are riots in Iran, where food prices have gone up by 300%. You can now list the number of places that face the most serious problems. We had been worried about the threat but thought we could get supplies to them. It is now not a question of money but of whether the supplies even exist.

Against that background, who can help? One of the countries people turn to, the second-largest exporter of corn, is India. India has had very bad weather for its harvest and is now blocking all exports. Indonesia, a great source of palm oil, is now worried about supplies. Now it is blocking any exports as well. It is against that background that one sees the really serious situation. The question then is: how can we sort it out? This is where I had hoped the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, would give us an immediate answer with all his experience.

At the moment, we have to stick to the road we are on and try every way we can to get the message through to all the decent people in Russia—of whom there are millions, as I know from my experience and pleasure in visiting there in my official capacity—who are absolutely horrified. If I take one bit of recent encouragement, it is from the comments on Russian official television by Colonel Khodarenok, in which he spelled out exactly why one can admire Ukraine. The story we hear is that Putin thinks Ukraine is a fake country with no right to exist. Colonel Khodarenok said that it showed very clearly that the people of Ukraine see themselves as defending their motherland. Their commitment to that shows why they are doing so much better against many Russians who do not have the slightest idea why they are there and meant to be fighting.

The other serious consequence is that with starvation comes migration. Many countries have been worried about the amount of migration—and mass migration—in the world. That may be as nothing compared to what is about to happen, because there are simply not the supplies. Food supplies are blocked and countries that were already on the edge will go over it; if you do not get out of those countries, you have not got a hope for your lives and futures.

I am sorry to give rather a sombre speech, but I believe that the lead the United Kingdom Government have given with other allies shows that we have to face Ukraine; we have to give it all the support we can. We have to reopen Odessa and make Russia sufficiently ashamed of what it is doing—murdering millions of people in the rest of the world. We must get some real impact out of that as well.

Ukraine and Russia: Military Developments

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Fall (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, there is little I can disagree with from the noble and gallant Lord, who speaks with great insight. I assure him that I agree with him totally—we need to take the temperature down. We have seen the situation with the likes of Mr Navalny, and where we have been most effective is when we have acted and acted together.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that, when the Soviet Union collapsed, great attention was not necessarily paid to some of the territories—but in Russia the loss of Ukraine was much the most sensitive? I entirely agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord West. In this difficult situation, in which Russia has now seen the steady advance of NATO right up to its very borders, the sensitivity of this situation—not to allow any action against Ukraine but to recognise the genuine Russian concern—needs to be properly addressed.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend, which is exactly why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary have engaged directly with President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov. Again, we continue to engage with Russia through other channels, including at the OSCE and the UN Security Council.

Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome my local noble friend Lord Godson and thank him for showing so quickly the excellent contribution that he is going to make to our discussions.

I welcome the integrated review. It is a very brave undertaking by the Government. It is a remarkable document with a very bullish foreword by our Prime Minister. Of course, it is not just a defence review; it carries a host of intentions and undertakings in security, defence, development and foreign policy. It is going to be pretty fertile ground for regular reviews by Parliament of the various aims and ambitions that it expresses.

It has been accompanied by a pretty extensive defence Command Paper. Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State, says in that paper that his core mission is

“to seek out and to understand future threats”.

In the brief time available, I will raise one threat that is referred to only briefly in the review, in connection with the nuclear deterrent, and pick up a theme mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Reid. The integrated review restates the commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, but recognises that there is no early prospect of that, so instead announces the ordering of four new Dreadnought submarines to replace the Vanguards. So, far from the planned reduction of warheads, it announces an increase. That surprised me, and I understand the comments that others have made about that decision—and of course it includes the design of a new warhead. The review states:

“We will champion strategic risk reduction and seek to create dialogue among states possessing nuclear weapons, and between states possessing nuclear weapons and non-nuclear weapon states, to increase understanding and reduce the risk of misinterpretation and miscalculation.”


It is precisely that risk that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Reid, wish to highlight. The continuous at-sea deterrent operates in a totally different communications environment now from the safe, secure systems when it originally operated. We are living now in a world with ever-new developments, with cyberwarfare, ever-greater organised hacking systems, artificial intelligence, audio and videos called deep fakes and, on the side, an increasing interest by other countries in some of our undersea cables, which are important to some of our communication connections. The risk of misinterpretation and miscalculation is all the greater, and there is a vital need for effective hotlines at a top level between nuclear weapons states.

I have just learnt that France, as the new chair of the P5 process, has embraced the concept of strategic risk reduction and will make improving crisis communication technologies, such as hotlines, a key priority for discussion among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council ahead of and beyond the planned review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty this August. I hope the Government will give this French initiative the greatest possible support and assistance. There is no question but that we live a more dangerous world at present, with the increasingly assertive role of Russia and China’s activities. It is a dangerous situation and nuclear miscalculation could be catastrophic. No time must be lost in addressing that.

EU Ambassador to the UK: Diplomatic Status

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with the premise and context of the noble Earl’s question, but I assure him that we are currently in discussions for the very reasons he has articulated. The EU is an important partner to the United Kingdom. At the end of the transition period, our intention is to be the best ally and friend to the EU. We will work in that respect, whether on its status here in the UK or on other key issues. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, it will remain an important partner in all respects.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]]

My noble friend has said that he does not wish to pre-empt the negotiations, but I think it will be clear to him from the exchanges so far that not one Member of your Lordships’ House who has spoken so far is not very surprised to find that the status of an ambassador is part of the negotiations. I appreciate the difficult position that my noble friend is in, but may I suggest that this be sorted out as quickly as possible, so that we can live up to the intention of being the best friend and ally?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

As ever, I have listened to my noble friend very carefully and I take note of what he said.

UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order (International Relations Committee Report)

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. He has yet again made an extremely informative and educational contribution to one of our debates. I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Howell and his committee on an absolutely excellent report. I just looked at the list of witnesses, which seems to go on for page after page. I am amazed by the scope of the witnesses called and the work that must have gone into it. I recall that when I used to represent the United Kingdom in the Council of Ministers of the European Union, in the various hats I wore at different times, I pretty quickly and clearly picked up that among the inner workings of the European Union there was the greatest respect for House of Lords reports. Ministers said that they were some of the best reports they ever saw and this report is in that tradition.

I was interested in the report’s title, UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order. “Shifting world order” is the understatement of the year. I thought back to my time in government, when we faced challenges. Obviously there was Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, which more or less coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The world was able to adjust to the end of an enormous Russian empire that had started to build up at the time of Agincourt and had collapsed effectively over about three months in a tolerably peaceful way. The rules-based order seemed to exist in our relationship then. I had the pleasure of dealing with Mr Dick Cheney, who is now called “Mr Vice” but was an extremely distinguished Defense Secretary. He went on to other things. At that time our relationship with the United States was an absolute model. We co-operated with 36 other countries under full United Nations resolutions to deal with the problem of Saddam’s illegal occupation of Kuwait.

We are now in an entirely different world, since the development of al-Qaeda and the invasion, adventures and awful experiences of Afghanistan. Since I made my maiden speech on our involvement in Afghanistan in 2001, I have an absolute record of how long we have been there, which is now 18 years. I look also at the situation in Iraq following the invasion in 2003, where every day still in Baghdad, IEDs and bombs are going off, people are being killed and there is misery and confusion. We are, to a certain extent, still involved in these areas.

I listened to a Minister talking in one of our committee rooms today about the precipice of fundamental change that we are about to face. Millions are displaced by terrorism or war, with mass migration following on and population explosions in many countries. Virtually every continent faces challenges in that way. It is combined with new and dangerous weapons of war, which we never had in my time. Even in Northern Ireland we never had suicide bombers, drones, offensive cyber and the involvement of social media and fake news, which we now know are such threats. With that sinister combination you do not need to be a nation state to wage war against the organised world with some of these instruments. Just to cheer us up, this morning we heard the announcement that sea levels are rising even faster due to climate change and about what that might do to further stimulate the risk of population migration in different places.

My noble friend Lord Jopling referred to President Trump’s reluctance to be involved in multilateral organisations in this shifting world order. “America first” certainly does not make it easy to continue to promote an active global role. I see that one of President Trump’s pledges is to make US foreign policy unpredictable. He has been pretty successful in that; I think the Iranian Government would support me in that remark. I noticed that just yesterday General Jim Mattis, the former Defense Secretary, had been speaking to a distinguished audience in the United Arab Emirates, including Mohamed bin Zayed. He said that we might believe that the US is,

“coming apart at the seams”,

and that it might seem,

“like it’s chaotic in Washington”.

He said that that is the price of democracy and that on the US’s role in the world his advice would be,

“to engage more in the world and intervene militarily less”.

One or two of us would think that pretty good advice.

Of course, it is against that background that we have the complete change that my noble friend expressed so well, with the extraordinary emergence of China and the surge in its economy taking place. There is a complete change in the balance. With all these changes, the role of Russia—which in my time was so busy with internal affairs that it did not cause any difficulties more widely—is now, as the committee described it, that of a disruptor.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, asked whether we should play a part. We certainly should. Perhaps we are too modest sometimes. We are uniquely well placed. We are a member of the Security Council. Whatever we may say, we have a special relationship with the United States. We are a member of NATO and of the Commonwealth. We have particular relationships in the Gulf. All around the world we have relationships that in the main are based on good friendship. We are not a superpower, which in some ways makes it easier to play our role. I hope we will not back away from playing our part. The committee made the point that we need to get the fullest public support for our foreign policy and to play a role as widely as we can in the world, including getting as many students as we can to our universities, which are referred to in the report as,

“a national industry of global importance”.

We need to make our voice known and play our part to deal with the country and a world that is not just shifting, but in great danger.

EU: UK Membership

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for introducing this debate and the argument for making the case for Europe. We all appreciate him initiating this debate and, speaking first from our side, I also congratulate the noble Baroness, as her namesake did before me, on a most interesting and excellent maiden speech on what I think is her major topic—which was very convenient for her.

I make it absolutely clear, as somebody who has always supported our membership of the European Union, that I believe that this is the right time for a fundamental reassessment of the state of the European Union, our position in it and the importance of the negotiations on which we are about to embark. I believe, very much as my noble friend Lord Howell said, that this is not just a matter for us with a British interest; it is acutely in the interests of all the nations of Europe at the present time to stand and take stock of what is actually happening. I have found that there is huge ignorance about what Europe really looks like at the present time. I have quizzed some of my noble friends on this Front Bench before on how many members there are now in the European Union—hardly anybody ever gets it right—and the developments that are taking place.

I come to this because for six years of my life I represented the United Kingdom in the Council of Ministers in Europe, because before I did Northern Ireland and defence I was doing environment, transport and employment. There I was, sitting in the Council of Ministers of nine member states, all really with a similar standard of living and level of economy, with the possible exception of Ireland. There was very much a feeling that Ireland, with a population of 3 million joining a European Union which at that time was getting on for 300 million, would have the advantage and that its economy would be brought more to the level of those of the other countries, which is exactly what happened.

Then I take stock of what has actually happened now. The enlargement started quite gradually. In 1981 Greece came in, Spain and Portugal in 1986, Austria, Sweden and Finland in 1995—but in 2004 came this vast expansion. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus, followed—as we remember well—by Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. Waiting in the wings as candidates are Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and, if it remains as a candidate, the largest of all by far—Turkey. That is 28 going on 33 and undoubtedly, if one looks at eastern Europe, there is the possibility of one or two more.

I was brought up to believe that if Europe expanded, if we were going to move as we did and support the enlargement, it could not just be the same Europe that it had always been—and this is where the important point arises. Can ever closer union coexist with ever greater enlargement? I think the particular problem—a point made very clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Empey —is that it is happening at a time of quite exceptional international instability. We have stopped talking about the problems of immigration. The problem now is of almost mass migration out of certain countries. If you look at the membership of the boats that are sinking in the Mediterranean, are those people Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian or Libyan? Look at the refugees at Calais who are coming from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen—different countries that are practically ungovernable; almost completely failed states from which huge numbers of people are deciding to get out.

That situation, along with the very porous boundaries of the Schengen agreement—there is no doubt about how all these people are arriving in these different places —is putting an additional serious pressure on the national attitude to the European Union. Those of us who believe that there are considerable benefits from our membership of the European Union cannot just sit there echoing the phrases, “Not an inch” and “No surrender”—phrases that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, knows well—to your European policy, believing that that is the right thing to stick by. Unless people wake up and realise that there needs to be a fundamental renegotiation, in the interests of all the countries of Europe at the present time, popular attitudes will become absolutely demanding of far greater change than might be in the interests of the people of this country.

Iraq

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has given us a calm and logical voice of sanity on these problems. My concern is that in the hothouse of tensions in the area, there are not many cool heads around and that the dangers of all the courses which he set out may not be immediately apparent to any of those who may embark on them. I read the announcement today that Shia hit squads in Baghdad are deliberately targeting perfectly moderate Sunnis, obviously to stir up further hatred and conflict.

My noble friend the Minister set out clearly the Government’s understanding of the position at the moment. One of the difficulties is that the position is extremely confused. An interesting illustration of this was the bombing of ISIS. There seem to be three candidates now running: some people said it was the Americans, the tribesmen said it was the Syrians and meanwhile the Iraqi air force is having a little bombing run of its own at the oil refinery at Baiji. I listen to those who think that military intervention might somehow be helpful and say how far we should go in that support. There is a feeling that you can bomb incredibly accurately and always hit the right people. I do not quite know how you would actually bomb ISIS. Would you hit ISIS camps in the desert or kill moderate Sunnis, who are temporary hostages of the ISIS organisation at the moment?

Critical to this situation, it seems, is this: where is the majority Sunni population at present? Are they effectively hostages or motivated at the moment by such hatred of the unfair Government in Baghdad, as they see it, that they have gone along with ISIS but, on reflection, will not wish to see Iraq broken up? In any of the dealings I have had, I found that there is a loyalty to Iraq even though there are Sunni and Shia factions and they are often so bitterly divided. Will they want to see it break up and, when it comes to the crunch, how many of the Sunni are actually Baathists who will not want to see the Islamists coming through? There may be people who could be brought forward to help within the inclusive Government who many have talked about, perhaps under a more inclusive leader than Mr Maliki.

However, the idea of keeping the borders and seeing that go forward satisfactorily under a more inclusive Government then hits the Kurdish roadblock. I see that Secretary Kerry, having talked to President Barzani in Erbil, has found that there was something less than enthusiasm for sticking to the good old boundaries. If you add into that Kirkuk, which has been their ambition for such a long time, I do not see any great enthusiasm there to give that city up. I spent a little time with the Kurds at the end of the first Gulf War, when we did Operation Provide Comfort. I flew into northern Iraq when we were providing air cover to prevent the air strikes from Saddam and his helicopter gunships. At that time, one saw the determination and resolution of the Kurds and the Peshmerga. Of course, the Peshmerga did not have any air cover but in terms of ground forces, they were certainly a very resolute lot and I do not think that they will be easily dislodged.

Following on from that, we obviously face the risk of an appallingly dangerous situation, as many other noble Lords have said. I said in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that a distinguished Jordanian had said to me that he felt, some months ago, there was the risk of a conflagration that would go from Beirut to Mumbai. I wrote that down and the next morning—the morning of the Lords debate, as noble Lords may remember—we heard about Mosul, when ISIS first appeared aggressively on the scene. Of course, it is not Beirut to Mumbai but Mali to Mumbai, with Boko Haram and the scale of the chaos across that area. My noble friend Lord Howell referred to what might have been a huge stabilising influence in Egypt, which is now in total chaos as far as one sees, with journalists locked up and half the opposition now sentenced to death. The reality of the new Government in Egypt gives great cause for concern.

Against that background there is the danger of this going so much wider, which would then involve a lot of other people as well. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to Iran, which is obviously acutely concerned by the situation. If we are really going to see significant conflagration and Sunni, Shia and Islamist activities then Russia will have concerns, as will China. The risks that my noble friend referred to in Jordan and Lebanon must also be high on our list of priorities. It is against that background that, while respecting the sensitivities of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel about our involvement with Iran, I welcome the opening of the embassy in Tehran and very much hope that we can find ways in which, without compromising our support for the Gulf states, Iran can make a constructive contribution.

I end with the unhelpful comment of Gertrude Bell about the people in the region, which I see the New Statesman has quoted:

“No one knows exactly what they do want, least of all themselves, except that they don’t want us”.

That is the theme that came through from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours: that our interventions in recent years have not been manifestly helpful.

However, now we face a serious situation. I certainly do not see our role as military; I see it as humanitarian and advisory in any way that we can to assist a response, possibly a United Nations response, to try to bring order and help to what is in danger of becoming a tragic situation.

Ukraine

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I think I probably dealt with some of those issues in answering a previous question. I understand the sentiments that the noble and gallant Lord expresses. I do not think I was being dismissive in relation to potential military action; I was trying to say that it is important that we do not hypothesise about whether certain things—for example, if defence spending had been done differently or a certain decision on another foreign policy issue had been taken differently —would have had an impact on Russia’s intentions. I think it is probably better for us to try to understand the Russia psyche on Crimea and Ukraine, which may give us a slightly better perspective on the thinking behind Russia’s actions.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware of the speed of events out of a clear blue sky, when suddenly we find ourselves, as the noble Lord, Lord West, said, in an extremely dangerous situation in which there is a lot of fear on every side? It is important to remember that, since it is extremely dangerous. We need the greatest restraint on all sides, and we need the earliest possible meeting of Russia and Ukraine with the contact group to which the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, referred to make sure that we get contacts in this way.

As Defence Secretary I paid an official visit to the Soviet Union when it was breaking up. One thing that came across very clearly was that, while they regretted the passing of some other members of the Soviet Union, the one they really minded about was Ukraine. It has a particular sensitivity for them, and of all the bits of Ukraine which have a sensitivity, Crimea in particular is one, not least because of the Russian Black Sea fleet being based there. It is against that background that I hope we will recognise the need, obviously, to make it absolutely clear that invasion and infringing the territorial sovereignty of another country are quite unacceptable. There needs to be the earliest possible discussion of these issues, which are not going to be easy to resolve. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, referred to the referendum coming up which will raise further issues. We need to discuss it around a table, and not with bullets and guns in the streets.

[Baroness Warsi]

I fully endorse the incredibly wise and perceptive comments of my noble friend.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I was going to start by saying that I thought that there was a lot of common ground between my views and what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, was saying until, unfortunately, his last comment, which I was not able to go along with. But I certainly agree with him in his support for the principle of a referendum on occasions, and particularly his reference to Northern Ireland. The very existence of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom depends on referenda; that is the constitutional position that we have established, and its value has been shown. But there is common ground.

I accept that this is not a normal parliamentary Bill—or it is not a normal Private Member’s Bill, let us put it that way. It is due to the courtesy of the coalition that we have to go about it in this way. That is what is being respected. The other problem about the courtesy of coalition makes difficult another of the propositions of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, which I would otherwise strongly support. I refer to the difficulty of entering now into negotiations on this matter, which the coalition may make more difficult.

Having said that, I think that there is general agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made the point that it is quite wrong for us to lay down an Act of Parliament that will affect things that successive Parliaments may want to do. But how many Acts of Parliament might that apply to? That is what Parliaments do. No Parliament can bind its successor; if the successor Parliament is deeply offended by something, it can change it. That is our parliamentary process.

We all come to this without trailing clouds of glory and with some memories of our previous involvement. I was in Parliament when we joined the Common Market, and I supported Prime Minister Heath at that time. I voted yes in the referendum in 1975 and then found myself as the Minister representing the United Kingdom, first for environment and then for employment. I had a whole succession of ministerial meetings. I worked at first with my noble friend Lord Heseltine, a staunch European who found his Europeanism was helped by never attending any of those meetings. I actually did them all, and it was a test of one’s European faith, at three o’clock in the morning in Luxembourg or Brussels, on some of the turgid exercises that we got involved in. But what I remember, of course, is that we joined the six—and we were part of the nine. I tested one or two of my distinguished colleagues of this House in asking them how many members there now are of the European Union. I have to say, sparing one or two blushes here, that neither of them got it right.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

I was out by only one.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

In case I test other Members of this House, I will make the simple point about how much it has changed: from the Common Market to the European Economic Community and now the European Union. The current figure—the lunchtime score—is 28. That is the simplest illustration of the extraordinary changes that have taken place.

Of course, the point has already been made that over this period we have had four more treaties, changes happening in all sorts of directions, and the real feeling that the founding principles of the European Union—how it is going to be managed, administered and led—need amendment and change. I think that is common ground. This morning I heard Mr Chuka Umunna, the spokesman for the Labour Party, saying that the problem with the enlargement of the Union, with the whole lot of other countries that have come in—as Wikipedia says, “located primarily in Europe”—and now make up the European Union, a number of them, sadly, with vastly divergent economic situations, standards of living and income expectations, is that the free movement of labour should now be interpreted as being not for jobseekers, only for workers. As the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, pointed out, as various tensions and issues have given rise to public concern, the current economic situation and prospects of employment for young people have brought a particular focus on the free movement of labour, and this is a challenge that will have to be faced.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made a very interesting speech. He set out all the arguments for why it is a pretty bad idea ever to have a referendum and all the risks that you have to face, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that in the end you cannot just duck it; you cannot have Prime Ministers promising and never delivering; you cannot have parties moving one way or the other. I am sure that the Labour Party will be outstandingly responsible in this House but its performance in the other place, where it could not make up its mind whether it was yes, no or maybe, underlines the lack of public confidence in this.

Of course, I recognise that there are risks. There have to be significant reforms and there then has to be a major campaign. My noble friend Lord Garel-Jones made the point that people will have to start standing up—not now because we do not know what the changes will be, but when the changes are made—and if they believe in Europe, fight for it. But to say, “We will not have this Bill, we dare not trust the people”, is an impossible position for this House and this Parliament to take. I support this Bill.