Queen's Speech

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, we live today in a dangerous and unpredictable world: a possible nuclear Iran; an ever widening terrorist threat; a tinder-box Korean peninsula; an unstable and unsettled Middle East; a fragile Pakistan with nuclear weapons; serious piracy; a growing cyber warfare threat; and significantly increasing military expenditure by China and Russia.

Our country faces the twin pressures of overstretched Armed Forces bravely fighting the incredibly complex and bloody war in Afghanistan, following on immediately from Iraq, and a massively overcommitted defence budget with up to a £30 billion shortfall.

We welcome the reference in the gracious Speech to,

“fully support our courageous Armed Forces and undertake a full Strategic Defence and Security Review”,

and to,

“work to reduce the threat from nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation”.

Obviously, we welcome the openness on our nuclear stockpile, referred to in the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I personally am delighted that the coalition agreement between our two parties commits to a number of measures to improve life for our Armed Forces from doubling the operational allowance for personnel serving in Afghanistan to providing extra support for veterans’ mental health needs and the laudable aim to reduce MoD running costs by at least 25 per cent. However, no time indication is given in relation to that 25 per cent. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Astor, to his new post and hope that when he replies to the debate he will refer to the 25 per cent time aspect.

However, the Strategic Defence Review will be no panacea. The current problems of overstretch and overcommitment will still haunt us. Frankly, our new Government face a nightmare task in trying to balance the books. At least it is reassuring that defence spend this year will not be cut. Whatever the merits of our two new carriers under construction, surely it was irresponsible of the previous Government to order them knowing that the MoD was effectively “bust”. Any cancellation of procurement orders across the range of MoD capital spend will be very expensive, given the near certainty of heavy penalty clauses in contracts.

We had been hoping for an SDR setting out a full and frank assessment of the United Kingdom’s defence and diplomatic role in the years ahead—free of Treasury influence. However, a recent headline in the Financial Times was not encouraging. It stated:

“Treasury to have say in defence review”.

A defence figure was quoted as saying:

“What I would hope for is that we end up with a defence settlement that sees ambition deferred—not ambition deleted. We accept that we will muddle on for a bit, but hope we can raise our game when times get better”.

I fear that the Strategic Defence Review could end up as a range of options with a range of fudges.

As is known, our wing of the coalition is somewhat Trident-sceptic. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Astor, whether the “full Strategic Defence and Security Review”, mentioned in the gracious Speech, will actually include Trident.

While the United States will probably always be our major ally and our ultimate military protector, the time is right to build a major military partnership, or similar, with France—indeed, I believe that this would be welcomed by the United States. Both our countries have similar defence budgets—in total, 40 per cent of European defence spend, almost 50 per cent of the equipment budget and two-thirds of research and technology spend. We have comparable ballistic submarine capability, a comparable number of escort vessels, and much duplication in our Armed Forces and in transport and supply aircraft.

Over the years, there has been much talk but little progress. The St Malo agreement failed to deliver, the high-level working group made some progress, we have had some success in missile co-operation, the A400M transport aircraft struggles on, but we have hardly scratched the surface. The stark truth is that both our nations cannot afford to maintain a complete range of independent military capability. President Sarkozy has courageously brought France back into NATO’s military structure and has made a number of overtures to the United Kingdom for greater military co-operation. At a recent Franco-British-RUSI seminar in London, Michel Miraillet, the French defence policy director, said:

“More than ever we are ready to co-operate with the United Kingdom”,

but,

“is the UK ready to cross the Rubicon? That is the question”.

It is a question of leadership and political will. By way of example, let us take our new carriers. There will be a number of constituent parts—rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, the crew, escort vessels and submarine protection. Surely there could be a role for the French here. Is it not time to begin to think outside the box? We cannot go on as we are.

I understand that on 18 June President Sarkozy will come to London to commemorate General de Gaulle’s 1940 appeal to the French people via the BBC. It will be the 70th anniversary of that event. Does this not present a great opportunity for our Prime Minister to hold out the hand of serious military co-operation and drive it forward, as only a Prime Minister can? Without prime-ministerial involvement, little progress is likely to be made.