Queen’s Speech

Lord Patten Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, wishing to reflect those sensible calls for post-general election result renewal and reconciliation, I set about ransacking our party manifestos for any evidence that there might be a consensus between the parties. To my surprise but delight, the most striking evidence of consensus is on the need to plant more trees. Whatever the numbers, I believe we should plant trees early, plant well and plant native, by planting lots of broadleaf trees where possible and resisting the needless cutting down of trees and hedges in town and country alike. That is why I welcome so much what my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble had to say about the importance of trees when he introduced this debate.

The UK is certainly not well wooded by international standards. At one end of my Westminster and home commuting life, we live in one of the very least well wooded districts in England, South Somerset. We certainly need new housing but, alas, just as they simply do not make new land any more on which to build new housing, it is important that sites must be carefully chosen, with trees which are needed for health and wildlife. Trees are an integral part of not just a new place but creating a sense of place, giving people something to share and something to breathe. There should be at least two new trees planted for every new house or apartment built in this country, in addition to which every street should have some fruit trees—and not just those landscape architects’ street trees.

This should be paralleled by a national consensus that we need a complete moratorium on the needless cutting down of trees and hedges: no more chainsaw massacres, as alas we saw in Sheffield. I hope that the relatively new Sheffield city region, which I wish well, will now undertake to make recompense by replanting at least one tree for every one that was needlessly cut down. Replanting in cities is just like rewilding in the countryside, and greatly needed. In saying this, I know that I point a finger at one particular political party but I can also point it at the Liberal Democrats. For example, I live in a Liberal Democrat-run area in South Somerset. I am pretty unusual in this, just as their control is pretty unusual in the rest of the country, and I regret the way in which they permitted past developments to happen without adequate tree cover, and sometimes with such loose planning provisions that developers have been able to ignore those glamorous drawings which they put before councils. We have not seen those trees.

In the same way, I am quite prepared to criticise my own party—the Tory party—in Somerset. Over the years there, the highway authority has needlessly and grossly overlit the streets with ugly sodium and yellow lights, which has done no end of damage to nightlife and people’s sleeping. It has always been put forward as good for road safety but, as shown by the Department for Transport, there is no indication that there is any automatic link between reducing street lighting and an increase in road accidents. It is quite clear that the dumping into the night sky of unnecessary light pollution is just the same as the dumping on street corners, roadsides and highways of litter. All local councils should give this considerable thought. If it is good for children to see some fruit trees in the streets of new housing developments, it is very good for them to be able to see the stars as well. Local authorities have a major contribution to make in this respect.

I end as I began. It is good to see compromise, if it can be found, but of course I recognise that political parties come into existence to reflect and nurture different points of view, so compromise is never easy. But in seeking compromise, at least the body politic in this country can look at the Conservative Party and know what the nature of our conversation with the nation is to be over the next decade. Many commentators now say that with the lengthy elections we are to have for the leadership of the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties, and the possibility of more than one Labour or Liberal Democrat leader in the 2020s—we are only just in the foothills of the 2020s—we urgently need to know what sort of conversation the opposition parties want to have with the nation. For good or bad, we are entirely transparent as to what we wish to do. We have no idea at all—it is a bit of a magical mystery tour—what kind of national conversation Labour and Liberal Democrats wish to have. That is bad for democracy.

NATO

Lord Patten Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, there are two main foci to what I will say: the first is the pressure points facing NATO from both within and without; and the second is the need for all members to pull their financial weight and not shelter under the financial umbrella of those that do. Before addressing these matters, I should declare my interests, which—doubtless because of my lack of the martial spirit that shone through everything that the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, said in his very telling speech—do not include any service in the Armed Forces. However, I served for a decade and a half as an adviser and non-executive director of Lockheed Martin in the UK. That is, I suppose, an opinion-forming bit of wallpaper to my speech, and explains my continuing shareholding in that corporation, as listed in the register of your Lordships’ House.

I begin with the five pressure points within and without NATO. First, as everyone has said, Russia continues to be the threat that it was back in 1949, when it was the USSR. I will not use otiose words to repeat that, but I believe it to be so, and anyone who lives in Ukraine, for example, knows it first hand.

Secondly, the endless incursions over and under the Baltic present a grave threat. It is good that we in the UK, and other NATO countries, have defended the skies above the Baltic and the waters underneath it. We have sent our little battle group to support NATO’s enhanced forward presence in Estonia, supported NATO’s readiness initiative, and done much more.

Thirdly, NATO needs to keep a very close watch on dogs that have not recently barked in the night. We saw them suddenly barking in Crimea, which seemed to come out of the blue to most people, including many in NATO itself. I look with great concern at the potential situation in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. It is a small place, not much bigger than Wales, and it is a very long way from Russia—about 300 miles—but only 30 miles from the borders of Poland. There is growing pressure within Russia to make that its next target for creating nuisance; perhaps that will come from demands for a better land corridor to Kaliningrad. There are already complaints within Russia that non-Russians are promoting the Germanisation of the place—I promise noble Lords that that is a word; I have looked it up—encouraged by those trying to resuscitate its so-called Prussian past and German heritage. After all, it is where Emmanuel Kant is buried, and it was once very German indeed. I do not know, but watch this space for the next possible nuisance-causing by Russia.

Countries such as Ukraine are desperate to become European, as once was Turkey, just like the countries on its border, such as Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, which are now full NATO members. Ukraine—or many in it—wants to be the same. Geographers have had many substantial theological debates about where Europe ends—maybe NATO should end wherever it is decided Europe does—but the thought of Ukraine actually joining NATO would make the Russian annexation of Crimea look like a picnic compared to the Putinesque explosion that would surely follow any such suggestion. Set that bit of futurology against the current display of fiction fast becoming fact, with the likely election of Volodymyr Zelenskiy—the comic who played his predecessor on TV for many years actually taking the presidency. That could lead to more instability in Ukraine and to a continuation of a geopolitical tragi-comedy, with a long way to go. If that is what the ballot boxes decide in the final run-off, I doubt that Ukraine’s outgoing President Poroshenko will take the decision lying down.

Equally, worrying issues are arising in a country which has been a long-standing and, in the past, most welcome part of NATO: Turkey. This very week we see incipient instability creeping in to a country that is armed to the teeth. Some commentators brand President Erdogan an elective dictator. I do not know whether or not that is the case, but I suspect that, like President Poroshenko in Ukraine, he will not take the results of elections in the three biggest Turkish cities, Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul, politically lying down after 16 years—a very long time—of unfettered power.

There is instability within NATO, as well as threats outside it. I do not know whether we have the mechanisms to reflect those and deal with them within NATO’s governance framework, which my noble friend Lord Jopling spoke about in his notable speech. However, a measured response to what might happen in Kaliningrad, what could happen in Ukraine, and what will probably happen in Turkey, will present challenges to NATO.

The second foci of my speech is that NATO will be an eternal part of the geopolitical landscape of Europe, and one which makes not just political and diplomatic demands but huge financial ones as well. Unlike many in your Lordships’ House, I do not intend to be diplomatic to a fault in this matter. We all benefit enormously from the shelter provided by the United States, under its kindly and dollar-decorated umbrella, under presidents of both political colours. It already more than meets NATO’s target of 2% of GDP spending, and always has done. As we know, only four of the 28 countries in NATO actually get near that. Two of them, Estonia and Latvia, are pretty small and have been threatened. To our credit, the UK has always done it; we honour our spending commitments on both NATO and foreign aid, which I strongly support. Other countries will soon be there: Poland will soon be pulling its weight, and we have to thank the coming generation of younger politicians in the Civic Platform Government who drove the expenditure to greater levels, such as Radek Sikorski, who was Defence Minister and then Foreign Minister. Happily, this has been carried on by the current PIS Government; Poland is, and will be, substantially pulling its weight.

However, other big countries consistently lag. It is terrible to say it, but the worst offender is one of the richest countries per capita on earth—Germany. We should not beat about the bush on this: shame on Germany for not pulling its weight in the NATO framework. I understand the country looks with concern over its shoulder at the past and is deeply concerned about possible incipient militarism and all the rest, but I only hope that when we get a new Chancellor in Germany, he or she will at long last persuade its people and their attitudes to mature out of these inhibitions based on the past and fully take on their responsibilities in the future. Should Germany spend more, I appreciate that it would take some years of transition before it fully develops its equipment, bought with additional money, but the signal this would send to Russia—and also to terrorists and cyberattackers, whom I have not mentioned—would be very powerful indeed. I very much look forward to the time when Germany takes its proper civilising share of defence spending in NATO, playing in future years, as it should, a much bigger role in Europe in this respect.

Conflict Zones: Protection of Interpreters and Translators

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, we owe a duty of care to those who work for the United Kingdom Government and our armed services around the globe. We should exercise that duty of care with the maximum freedom that we can manage. Sometimes, it is not just a duty of care but a debt of honour that we have to repay to those who help us. It is an old fashioned word, “honour”, but that is what I feel.

I follow everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, has said with great care. She knows a great deal about the subject; far more than me. I agree with what she said and the guidance that she has given the Chamber this evening. I thank her for that.

One of the ways of exercising that duty of care, or maybe repaying that debt of honour, is to allow those at risk in a third country—not just in Afghanistan—to come to this country. I believe that we need a firm, well managed immigration policy in this country, but one exercised with discretion for those in need. Very often, people talk about moral duties. I am no moral philosopher, but sometimes we hear that phrase so often that I think some departments and Ministers might benefit from having a moral philosopher or two about the place to advise them. It would be very useful and would broaden the minds of Ministers and civil servants—sometimes. Neither do I want to appeal purely to some concept of human rights or natural rights that must be adhered to. I am talking much more pragmatically about my feelings of sympathy to those who have put their life on the line in various parts of the globe, particularly Afghanistan, on which the noble Baroness has just spoken so interestingly.

I want to sharpen up what I mean in a brief and pointed intervention with a couple of hypothetical examples of people who come from Afghanistan and want to get into this country. One might be an “economic migrant”, that phrase if not coined at least made popular by my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell as Home Secretary when the great transoceanic movements were beginning back in the 1980s. On the other hand, someone may be left in Afghanistan, Iraq or one of the other territories to which the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred who is in fear of his life—more generally, it is “his” life and more rarely “her” life. They may be in Helmand, perhaps living in a secure zone and being shot at and threatened by the Taliban. These are two very different cases, but they are the sort of cases that Ministers, such as my noble friend or the Home Secretary, Mrs May, or the civil servants who advise them may have on their desks. They are very hard decisions. The economic migrant might come from Afghanistan, travel overland through Turkey, around Syria and perhaps up through the Mediterranean, Lampedusa and Europe. He will get to Calais perhaps in the back of a lorry and eventually reach the United Kingdom to try to better himself—even though it might have been better for him to have stayed where he was and try to help grow that country. That is one sort of case that lands on the desks of Ministers all the time.

Equally, there is the handful of marginal cases, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred so clearly, who are still in Afghanistan, are still under threat and are still trying to get out. Very few of them have thus far been let in even under the various schemes that have been produced because maybe they have not served for 12 months or more, or were not in place in 2012. They finished their service in 2011, but are still at risk because of what went on before 2011. Yet those people are still there—we are talking about a handful; I do not know how large their number is; perhaps the Minister knows all this so much better than me and will be able to adduce the likely numbers. That is another sort of case that goes on Ministers’ desks. If I was a Minister or civil servant, I would hate to have to make the decision if there was a bearing-down on the numbers that could be got in and a distinction had to be made between the economic migrant—who in his way, however misguided, has been so brave getting to the United Kingdom through all those problems—and the translator or interpreter who is under threat in Afghanistan.

As one who believes in managed immigration and if faced with such a difficult choice, I have to say that I would come down, albeit after making sure due process was followed in repatriating the Afghan economic migrant, on the side of letting into the country the person who had served with the worry of IEDs blowing up and people shooting at him as he travelled about Afghanistan or elsewhere. I believe that we have a debt of honour as UK citizens to those people—not a moral duty but a debt of honour—because they have helped us and put themselves in harm’s way. I know how difficult and challenging this is as we exercise a managed immigration policy. I have great sympathy for my noble friend the Minister, but I hope that he will come down on the side of those handfuls of people who are threatened in such a way.