Drones: RAF Bases

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that important comment, and I will make sure that it is reflected upon within the Ministry of Defence. He makes a really important point about air defence—of course that is an important aspect of it—but there are other ways of protecting our sites and other ways of conducting warfare. Ukraine has shown us the importance of hybrid warfare, and that certainly is something that the defence review will look at. But I will take his very important comments back to the MoD.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The Minister worked very closely with me and others during the passage of the National Security Act 2023. The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, was very responsive and worked collegiately across the whole House on a cross-party basis. Section 4 of that legislation is the prohibition of drones in the vicinity of prohibited places, which include these bases. I ask the Minister to reassure the House on two things: first, that local communities are very aware of the national security legislation in these areas; and, secondly, when it comes to a national security threat, that the full elements of law and order will be deployed under national security legislation to ensure that there are no breaches.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for his question. He is quite right with respect to the National Security Act. Let us be clear, in various pieces of legislation, not just the National Security Act, it is illegal for drones to be flown over or in the vicinity of these military sites. People should be aware of that, and local communities should be reassured. In terms of national security, the same Act that he and I passed under the last Government ensures that there are penalties of up to 14 years for this sort of activity, and people should be aware of that. All agencies and parts of the state will work to ensure that we identify and do what we can with those who are conducting these acts.

Ukraine

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for bringing this debate to the House and the Minister for his clear opening remarks, on which there is consensus across the House. He knows of the support of these Benches, which my noble friend Lady Smith indicated. I join others in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, to his place and look forward to the valuable contributions he will make as a Member of this House.

My noble friend said at the start that we are debating a war in Europe, but the conflict has global ramifications. We have just heard reference to the competing international fora of the Commonwealth of Nations and BRICS summits, with perhaps jarring narratives and, as some have said, competing political relevancies. BRICS has become political rather than a trading co-operative body because of Moscow. As I will return to in a moment, redoubling our efforts in that regard will be important.

We have supported the Government’s actions, most recently the £2.25 billion facility of interest. As my noble friend said, we had pressed the previous Government on this, and we are delighted to see action. I hope the Minister will give a bit more detail on what practical impact that will have and when because, as we know, the timing is imperative.

We on these Benches have been pleased to play our part in the cross-party consensus that it is in the UK’s interests for Ukraine to prevail in its defensive struggle. That is also in our wider interests for global development, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said. Last week, we discussed the SDGs in his debate, as well as the tensions in modern Ethiopia. Next week, we will have a debate on the wider Horn of Africa. Across all those areas, we see Russia’s malign work to destabilise, to misinform and to support terror activities from Yemen to Sudan and the Sahel. As the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, said, we see that closer to home in the western Balkans. The reach of the conflict, therefore, shows the 21st-century nature of hybrid warfare, with the many commercial interests that feed into it. As the Minister alluded to, this is both modern and medieval: in Ukraine, there is hand-to-hand combat in freezing mud trenches, while above in the skies there are drones controlled hundreds of kilometres away, with social media covering it instantly.

Support in the form of equipment and military materiel is vital, as the noble Lords, Lord Stevens and Lord Spellar, said. However, we need to do more with our allies on reconstruction in Ukraine, such as providing technical support for restarting air services at Lviv Airport, an area the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, spoke so movingly about. One of the ways we can show that Russia will fail is if the reconstruction following its damage occurs almost as quickly it happens. The resilience of the Ukrainian people must be the resilience of their economy and industry, and the UK can play an important part in that.

We also need to do more on having a greater impact on the Russian war economy. There are headwinds resulting from those willing to continue to trade with, and circumvent sanctions on, Russia. This is where my noble friend’s reference to the BRICS summit is of great importance: we need to deploy greater diplomatic activity with trading partners such as India and the UAE—the latter has not been mentioned in the debate, but it is part of the BRICS fora, alongside Iran—to exact pressure on Russia. We also need to be willing to review our trading preferences and liabilities. We are allies and friends, but we need to ensure that there is pressure on Russia. We also have our standards: if countries have trading preferences with us, they must be based on what we consider to be global norms.

We need to be cognisant that, with some justification, some see double standards in the UK and the West’s position on Ukraine compared to that on Gaza, in our funding of international development assistance, and in our funding for Ukrainians here in the UK but not for those in Sudan. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, all that may be true, but it is no justification for the aggression of Russia and the Putin regime.

Some—I am one of them—have seen the Russian chairing of BRICS as stretching credulity. In the official literature of the Kazan summit, the Russian Government are now trumpeting what they want to see as a development of interparliamentary relations and ties. This is a country with a travesty of a Parliament, systematically seeking to destroy the continuing functioning of a democratic Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv. It has no moral basis to argue that there should be parliamentary strengthening. The Commonwealth of Nations and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association need to have their support redoubled, especially when we debate this in our functioning Parliament. We should remind ourselves that Members of our Parliament, including some of those taking part in this debate, have been sanctioned by the Russian Government.

Another thread of the debate that I support strongly is working with our partners in the European Union. My noble friend Lady Smith and I spoke in a debate the week before last, calling for closer security co-operation with European allies. Ukraine shows how important that is. With the coming to an end of Hungary’s presidency of the EU, which is to be taken over by Poland, there is a good opportunity for the UK to take advantage of that—to have closer, structured, treaty-based security relationships, moving away from the blocking role played by Budapest.

Finally, something that has been touched on, but not fundamentally, is the human impact of this, primarily on younger people. If my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield were here, she would have raised the issue of the need for psychosocial support for children as a result of this conflict. This is often underreported, but I believe it is vital that we do more, and not only in this conflict. UNICEF has said that 2.2 million children in Ukraine are in need of psychosocial support but, in the Sudan conflict, 10 times as many as that, 20 million children, are out of school and are the principal victims of the conflict. In Gaza, 600,000 children are out of school, impacted by the conflict as the IDF has damaged or destroyed 90% of schools.

I have previously said in debates that, if the UK has an offer, the offer should be defending education in conflict and its quick restoration if there is some cessation of violence, because immediate trauma support when there is a cessation of conflict will be an investment that is in our interests for the future. Why is it vital? We know that, in this hybrid warfare environment, where misinformation and disinformation are militarised and used as a tool, they thrive when there is no education. A whole new generation of conflict-scarred children in our continent, in the Middle East and in Africa, terrifies me for the next generation.

Therefore, I am very pleased to be an ambassador for an organisation called Do Not Look Away, which is focusing on young people and violence. It published its first video just this week and it includes Yaryna, an 11 year-old Ukrainian artist whose work, as some noble Lords may recall, was put on the side of the Ariane 5 rocket and blasted into space. She and her family believe that Ukraine’s destiny is as part of the European continent, with safety. In the video, her mother said something that struck me. As a Ukrainian who left and sought refuge, she said that she did not want to be called a refugee, because it was not her fault or her desire to leave Ukraine. She said she was just a temporary traveller who wants to go home. We and our allies have provided shelter in a storm for many people, but we now know that our imperative is to make sure that there is a home for her and her family to return to. For the children affected by conflict, we need to play a much bigger role.

Relations with Europe

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, particularly because I agree with him. The speaking order at the close of this debate is like the old days, with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, following straight after me. However, this is the kind of debate in which I will ask him questions rather than generally agreeing with him, as in many of the debates that we have had. I look forward to, I hope, a characteristically positive reply from him to this debate.

I join others in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, to this House, and her moving maiden speech. It had powerful messages, and gave an indication of the issues she will raise with characteristic determination in this House. She is now in a parliamentary Chamber with many colleagues who were senior civil servants that she skewered on the committee, so I am looking forward to seeing the peace offerings of cups of tea in the tearoom.

My noble friend Lady Smith ensured the breadth of the topic of this debate. War in the east of the European continent, the conflict in the near neighbourhood of the eastern Mediterranean, the climate emergency, a terrible humanitarian crisis in Africa that might automatically lead to migration challenges in our continent—all these aspects are worthy of debate. It has also been recognised throughout the debate that the European Union is the key political body in the continent that is tasked with the policy responses to many of those challenges.

The underlying aspect is whether the UK is better out than it would have been if we had stayed in. Some argued during the process that the UK leaving the bloc would automatically mean that the bloc would be weakened. Some almost saw that as an ambition. However, we have not seen that—in many respects the bloc has been strengthened. Indeed, Putin’s calculation that his actions would see a fundamental undermining of the European Union has not come about, notwithstanding the challenges among some of its members. Therefore, from these Benches, we want the Government to be successful in their reset, but we also want to reconnect in many areas. The Minister will not be surprised to hear us wanting the Government to go further.

On Monday, a Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross—told the House:

“This Government want to and will make Brexit work”.—[Official Report, 7/10/24; col. 1818.]


That presupposes that by “work” they mean that the UK can be better off across business, people-to-people relations, energy, sustainability, security and culture outside the European Union—inevitably influenced by it, but not part of shaping it. We respectfully disagree. Making Brexit work is a bit like getting Brexit done: two falsehoods do not make a truth.

From the Opposition, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, eschewed dogma and heralded pragmatism. All those debates dominated by that dogma must seem so many long years ago, but the very dogma that was at the fore handed us the hardest of exits. So the debate today is significant, especially since we now know that getting Brexit done is almost an impossibility and making it work is incredibly difficult. We have seen UK border checks with the European Union delayed again under this new Government, and the Windsor Framework is not yet operable.

We have seen, as we heard in this debate from the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, the impact on trade in goods. UK goods exports to the EU have not recovered to pre-Brexit levels. We were told that this would not happen, that it would be a boon for exports of goods, and that if there were any reductions, they would be more than offset by the riches of non-EU exports facilitated by new trade agreements. Goods exports to non-EU countries also remain below pre-Brexit levels, because the damaging impact of our harder trade with the European Union is that we have made it harder to trade with non-European Union countries as well.

Goods imports from the European Union have fallen, but they have been offset by imports from China, contributing to the UK having the biggest trade deficit in our history with only one country and the biggest deficit with one country of any advanced economy, making us strategically vulnerable. For our geopolitical security, making Brexit work will risk the UK being less resilient and secure, and more dependent on China. In opposition, Labour called for a strategic audit of our relationship with China. I will be interested in whether that is on the agenda when the Foreign Secretary visits Beijing. However, the Chancellor has called for more trade with China—that is, more imports from China.

As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, in a very powerful message, we now enjoy a less deep relationship with our colleagues in the European Union on security status and military involvement than Canada and Norway. That cannot be in our strategic interests, given what Russia is seeking to do in the western Balkans. If we are to be pragmatic, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, asked us to be, then it is in our interests to dust off the draft text of the security agreement, use that as a starting point and have it as the basis of many of the talks because clearly, some work had previously been done and we should start from that basis. Indeed, we should make it as cross-party as possible. Let us have some pragmatism here.

Where we need pragmatism most now is for young people. Therefore, it was disappointing that the Government said that free movement for young people was a red line, somehow claiming that the European Commission had argued that it would be equating free movement with mobility. Mobility is not free movement: a mobility agreement is not a free movement agreement. That is why a European Commission spokesperson replied to the Prime Minister’s statement:

“A red line is as if the EU was asking for something. We are not asking for anything”.


As the EU put it,

“the youth mobility proposal on the table is a ‘reaction to the UK request to some of our member states’”.

It is welcome that the Government are seeking bilateral agreements on mobility with member states, but let us ensure that the talks with the Commission progress well for an overall mobility agreement—that is vital. As part of it, we should have regard to student participation. Applicants from the EU to UK universities have dropped by 43%, according to UCAS. That compares with 29,000 applications from China, a number that has more than doubled. What is the Government’s strategic aim when it comes to European students learning in the UK?

We also heard in the debate that red tape on the UK-EU border has prevented children taking part in overseas educational trips, resulting in a 30% reduction. The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, said this week that any consideration of school trips facilitation would have to be seen in the context of the immigration system. It is as though 13 year-olds will somehow be so enamoured by seeing Buckingham Palace that they will seek to overstay their time in the youth hostels. Surely we can get school trips agreed; I look forward to the Minister’s positive reply on that.

My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter spoke with real passion about the benefit of supporting culture for culture’s sake but also about the need to support the UK as a superpower for the creative industries and the economy. It is in our economic interest—for not just London but Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and the north-western regions of England. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I felt as though I would not be able to respond to him properly and eloquently, so I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, did so, and so well. If I may paraphrase his words, I think his message to the Government was: it is just not good enough to change the mood music in our relationship if it is difficult to get the musicians to travel to play the music in the first place.

To conclude, my noble friends Lord Bruce and Lord Wallace asked us not to look back but to look ahead for the young people who will have to face the challenges of an increasingly complex world and will have to live with Brexit. Just over 2,000 children were born on 23 June 2016, and at the end of this Government’s term they will be 13 year-olds. They will be living with the consequences of Brexit, but they will have to face the challenges of this difficult world. We need to ensure that they face fewer barriers and burdens and more opportunities. That must be our task, and I hope that the Government see that as their task, too.

King’s Speech

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, as this debate concludes, I am delighted to join others who have given very warm congratulations to the new Government Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who will be winding this debate for the Government commands high respect in this Chamber, and I wish him and his colleagues the best for the role ahead of them. I also wish to add, as others have, my appreciation for the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad and Lord Benyon, for how they carried out their roles in the previous Administration. They were always approachable, sincere and acted with propriety and integrity, and I am very grateful for their work.

My noble friend Lady Smith spoke extensively on defence issues, as well as my noble friend Lady Suttie, and others, including the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. I am sure that the debates on defence will be significant going forward, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, will be a busy Minister in this House in particular. As my noble friend Lady Suttie indicated with regards to Ukraine, I know one of the challenges ahead for the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, will be how we ensure with our allies that our response to Russia is targeting its war economy—over one third of all Russian spending is on defence. That puts into context the discussions we have been having around 2.5% or 3%. The scale is enormous, and there will be cross-party consensus on supporting the Government for that. For much of the debate, I was looking across at the Government Privy Council Bench and I saw the noble Lords, Lord Robertson, Lord Reid and Lord West—Robertson, Reid and West would be a great name for a smart tailoring outfit—who are three significant parliamentarians who will be scrutinising and supporting the work of the Government.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, indicated, this was a general election campaign in which foreign affairs received scant mention, but the Government have major and profound decisions to make on defence, security, development and diplomacy. These Benches will seek to work collaboratively with them, but we will also perhaps, on occasions, be constructive challengers and questioners. We hope that the Government will use their considerable mandate well.

As the election began, I was with Sudanese civilians in exile at their Taqaddum conference. They were calling for what we benefit from: peaceful, open, fair, democratic elections to decide who governs us and a transfer of power that is smooth and peaceful. This is denied the people of Sudan, who are enduring, as my noble friend Lord Teverson indicated, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 7.3 million people displaced, 2 million who have already fled across neighbouring borders and 25 million people—half the population of the country—now at crisis levels of hunger. The Minister opening the debate mentioned the name of the country but said nothing yet about how the Government will respond. I very much hope that we can have a humanitarian Statement, when we return in the autumn, about the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

On the wider Africa, we are looking forward to the Government’s positive announcement that we will have an Africa strategy—one that I hope is published and debated in the House. This is a continent of challenges but also of enormous opportunity for the United Kingdom.

In many ways, the dichotomy of the world’s pressing challenges and areas of opportunity is the political choice of our age, for many around the world. The choice, rather than being between left and right, is increasingly between liberal tolerance and extremism. This is the dividing line. We see the growth of reactionary forces, as has been raised in many noble Lords’ contributions, but these Benches might take a little pride that in Europe—in the UK, France and Germany—there is the highest number of liberal parliamentarians since the Second World War.

Our sister liberal parties governing Ukraine and Taiwan are literally on the front line in defending a liberal rules-based order. The Ukrainian Government and Parliament seek to preserve parliamentary proceedings against continuing aggression from Putin’s regime. The Taiwanese Government are conducting their first ever real-time live-fire military exercises, as the belligerence of the Government of mainland China continues. Those countries are also seeking to develop and implement the force of law, not the law of force, in the eloquent words of my noble friend Lord Alderdice.

On the front line of this are individuals such as Vladimir Kara-Murza. I welcomed the Foreign Secretary’s Statement but would be grateful if, in due course, the Government would update us on our activities on and what actions they will be taking. It is about not only individuals but organisations, such as the BBC World Service. I hope the Government consider reversing the decisions of their predecessor Administration on its funding.

Inevitably, much of this debate has been a response to the ongoing diplomatic and political situation in Israel and Gaza, including—as my noble friend Lord Hussain indicated in his powerful contribution—the humanitarian impact. Since this new Government were elected, 1,500 Palestinians have been killed and the Israeli Government continue unnecessarily to restrict life-sustaining aid into Gaza. On a daily basis, little more than 10% of the food and medicine that should be is being brought into Gaza and there is insufficient distribution, both as a result of internal Hamas criminality and as a result of restrictive Israeli practices. That means that the humanitarian catastrophe continues. During this period, Hamas has continued to breach international law egregiously in holding hostages.

The leader of our Israeli sister party, Yair Lapid, described Benjamin Netanyahu’s congressional speech yesterday as “a disgrace”. He said that an agreement should have been accepted that would allow the hostages back home. So what are our Government doing not just to comment but to act with our friends in the Israeli Government? The intentions of new Administrations, by necessity, will need to be replaced by hard choices.

These Benches believe that actions should include expanding settler sanctions, reflecting the recent ICJ ruling, and recognising that the settler and outpost expansions are systematic and being done with impunity. We also believe that sanctioning Israeli Government Ministers who actively fund and facilitate this illegal activity, contravening UK sanctions, should be considered by the new Government. Proportionality should be considered when it comes to arms licences, and we believe that these should be suspended, as we did in 2014. The Government should state publicly that, if arrest warrants are issued by the ICC, the UK will act on them.

We also believe that the UK needs to be clear—and I would be grateful if the Minister was clear, in winding up—what the current position is on the amicus curiae brief on the ICC, and whether the clock will run out tomorrow under the policy of the previous Government. Clarity on that would be welcome today. For the longer term, in due course we would like to know the Government’s proposition for support of the enormous reconstruction effort, including, depressingly, thousands of tonnes of rubble that needs to be cleared.

Fundamentally, we also believe profoundly in a two-state solution, and we believe in immediate recognition, not at the end of a process but now. In fact, we have held that view on these Benches since 1980.

What is the Minister’s view on the agreement reached this week between Hamas and Fatah, which recognises the right of Israel to exist in the 1967 borders? This is a significant event, but an agreement made in China. This speaks to the point by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, with regard to what our strategic position on China will be. In opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was eloquent in calling for a strategic review of our relationship. We will await this from the new Government, and we will work with them on what that review will look like. Already we see a situation where the Prime Minister makes a statement that we will be more robust with China, but the Chancellor is saying that we want more trade with China when we currently have the highest trade deficit with China of any country in the world.

On development, we have raised concerns over recent years about the whiplash-inducing policy-making and the changes to many of the policies, but the reduction in our reputation around the world, particularly in the global South—as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, indicated, and which my noble friends Lord Oates and Lord Teverson spoke to—has had strategic consequences. If the Government’s intention is that we will have a foreign policy that will be more reliable, dependable and predictable, we will support that; in fact, we will work with them to bring that about. At the heart of this must be the immediate restoration of our 0.7% legal commitment for ODA, including a 15% share of that on education, and a restoration of funding for women and girls and for water and sanitary health. We should return to the all-party consensus of meeting 0.7% and enshrine it in the legislation, not just a Labour-Conservative consensus of reaching it only when fiscal circumstances allow. Surely the United Kingdom, as one of the richest countries in the world, should not be a country whose response to some of the worst famines in Africa for 30 years is that we will restore our support for famine relief when our fiscal circumstances allow. This is a political choice, not a fiscal one.

I agree with the valedictory contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester. Never again should this country, as it did last year, spend more overseas aid in the UK on a failed immigration policy than abroad in combating and preventing migration in the first place.

To conclude, we need to restore our reputation, and I wish the Government well for it. There are a couple of practical things that we could do. The first, which was not mentioned in the Minister’s opening speech, is to give full-hearted support for the delivery of the sustainable development goals. This Government will preside over the 10th anniversary of the SDGs; ensuring that they are as on track as possible will send the best signal possible. We should also return to an independent development department and have clear structures when it comes to delivering development. Much of this debate has been about the means of conduct in warfare in the 21st century, but we all know that it is not solely on the battlefield. It is also in the digital cloud, in misinformation and disinformation, and, yes, in the integrity of those who say they believe in rules. As my noble friend Lord Oates said, we must adhere to them ourselves.

The world is in transition on climate and poverty and in conflict. If we are to be a partner of choice, which I hope the Government will seek to be, we will work with them and will wish them well on that endeavour.

Ukraine and Georgia

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (The Earl of Minto) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his support in all that we are doing in Ukraine. The Government and, indeed, the whole House continue strongly to condemn the appalling, illegal and unprovoked attack that President Putin has launched on the people of Ukraine. We continue to monitor developments on the ground very closely, but our steadfast support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering. That is why the Prime Minister has announced £500 million in additional funding, which takes us to £3 billion of military aid this year. This level of funding will last until the end of the decade and for as long as it is required. While Georgia and Ukraine are separate geopolitical issues, the Georgian people know all too well the proven aggression of Putin—in fact, they have only to look back to 2008. That is why we must support Ukraine for as long as it takes.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, this is a critical year for the Georgian population. In December last year, the EU announced accession candidate status for its admission to the European Union, and elections are due this October. This is an important time for the young people of Georgia, who have shown their resilience against this measure to restrict civil society freedoms. How will the United Kingdom ramp up support for young people in Georgia, who are very clear that they do not wish for there to be an autocracy? They want open civil democracy.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. The UK is a firm friend of the Georgian people and we have a long-standing defence partnership. We support their pursuit of the legitimate desire for a sovereign, free and democratic future, and particularly their lean towards a Euro-Atlantic trajectory. There is a very high level of diplomatic pressure both here and in Tbilisi to make certain that our commitment is got over and the clarity of our intent is made absolutely clear.

King’s Speech

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is sometimes educative to look back at other contributions there have been in debates on the gracious Speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and my noble friend Lady Ludford made me think about some of the opportunities that could lie ahead for future European co-operation. I stumbled across this contribution, which I will quote from Hansard:

“for five years the last Government tried the patience of our partners by the suspicious way they approached even the simplest and most constructive proposals for common Community action … By contrast, the Government today are determined to engage actively with our partners in developing the Community in the interests of all its members. We believe that it is in this co-operative framework that we can best construct a Europe in which future generations can live and prosper.”—[Official Report, 22/5/79; col. 237.]

That dangerous liberal progressive rhetoric was from the last time that we had a Foreign Secretary in the House of Lords, because it was Lord Carrington’s first speech as Foreign Secretary in reply to the gracious Speech in 1979. As I am of that generation, I hope that the new Foreign Secretary might repeat some of that sentiment when he comes among us.

I also commend the maiden speeches we heard today and the genuine sentiment, which I fully endorse, with regards to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and her work. As a fellow Borderer, I particularly welcome the noble Earl, Lord Minto, to his new role. I am sure that his ancestors as lawless Border reivers will be rather amused that he is now in charge of the British Army, but I welcome him to his post and wish him well for it.

This year, 2023, is proving to be a terribly bloody year for civilian casualties in political conflict, with children bearing the brunt. My noble friend Lady Smith referenced Ukraine, and in Sudan—I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, referenced Sudan very early on in his contribution, and the Minister knows I have an active engagement there—three times the population of Gaza are currently displaced. Half of them are children. This is the highest number of displaced children anywhere in the world. Some 14 million children in Sudan are in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. This is the gravest humanitarian crisis on the planet. Many are living in fear of being killed, injured, recruited or used by armed actors, and conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and child rights violations, will likely continue to rise.

We have also heard of the continuing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Reportedly, over 11,000 people have been killed. Two-thirds of them are reportedly children and women. Of course, we know that Hamas also targeted children and young people in its brutal murders and taking of hostages. Children are most at risk now, especially girls, when water and sanitary health services are reduced. The United Nations warned this morning that wash facilities are starting to shut down; that includes within the shelters for the UN which are currently hosting over 290,000 IDPs. The urgency is clear.

Children bearing the brunt of conflicts means that the next generation may also bear witness to how Governments have responded. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem powerfully said that our actions now are not just about ameliorating the humanitarian crisis but about ensuring that the next generation does not live with a great level of resentment. I fear greatly this will be the case.

I also wish to pay tribute to the United Nations. UNRWA has been bereaved; over 100 UN aid workers have been killed in this conflict, the highest in the United Nations’ history.

Our Benches believe that a bilateral ceasefire is now necessary, and it should be the basis, as my noble friend Lord Palmer indicated, not only for creating space for humanitarian assistance but also to try and provide some form of political mechanism that may offer some hope, despite how difficult that would be. There are those Israeli leaders such as the former Prime Minister Yair Lapid who addressed the United Nations General Assembly last year, so we know that there are figures who can be peacemakers.

The Prime Minister said in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet on Monday that the UK would provide the

“serious, practical and enduring support needed to bolster the Palestinian Authority”.

I agree with him on the need for that, but, as the Minister knows, I have called out the cuts of 90% from the UK to the OPT over the last two years. Also, the UK support for UNRWA has been cut by half.

Some have referenced the new Foreign Secretary, and we will welcome him to his new position. I think the whole House will join me in feeling a deep sympathy with the Prime Minister, who was unable to find anyone from among his 349 colleagues capable enough to hold the post. He will have a warm welcome here. I reflected on the fact that the last time a Conservative Prime Minister was brought back to be Foreign Secretary, it was to help us to get into Europe. As my noble friend indicated, this one helped us get out.

The context that we now have going forward is not just humanitarian crises but the growth of autocracies and the fragmentation of the rule of law. This morning, I had the great privilege of speaking in a ceremony in which Liberal International, the organisation that our Benches are part of, presented the prize for freedom to Evgenia Kara-Murza, the wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is currently serving a 25-year sentence in isolation in Siberia because he speaks out against the Putin regime. That is one indication. I welcome the fact that the Minister and the Government have sanctioned those who prosecuted him. As well as my discussions yesterday and last week with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Richard Ratcliffe, that was an indication that had highlighted in my mind that, if there could be one area in this King’s Speech where there would have been legislation for foreign affairs and defence, it would be putting on a statutory basis access to consular services for those joint nationals who, unfortunately, are being politically detained but have difficulty securing long-term UK support for consular access. In their names, I hope that the Government will act on that.

As well as calling for the rule of law to be respected around the world, we must respect it here. As has been referenced with regards to the Rwanda judgment, we have yet again relied on the Supreme Court to uphold British values. I have visited the reception centre in Kigali, as many colleagues know. The warnings that I and others have made repeatedly, which were brushed aside by repeated Ministers, have now been upheld by the Supreme Court. If the Government are insisting on bringing a treaty forward, we will do our job here and scrutinise it very carefully indeed. Of course, this will not just be scrutiny with regards to how effective it will be. It is, simply, a morally wrong policy.

Regrettably, I feel that the United Kingdom has now become an unreliable partner, with six Foreign Secretaries in eight years, often with screeching U-turns in policy. We have had the flawed abolition of DfID with the global reputation that it had. We now know from WhatsApp exchanges at the time from the Cabinet Secretary that this was done to a timeframe for political diversion purposes. We did not have a development strategy for six years, and now we will have two in two years. We have been told that the new White Paper will be transformative, but it was not even referenced in the Minister’s opening speech. With regards to how seriously we are taking emerging economies and countries, we have had Africa Ministers with an average lifespan of 11 months in office over the last seven years.

There is unreliability and a lack of dependability, with callous development cuts, often mid-programme. For the first time ever, we are spending more on overseas assistance here in the UK, on failed policies, than on humanitarian bilateral programmes abroad. We are an unpredictable player on strategic issues. Now we are apparently still tilting to the Indo-Pacific to thwart China, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, indicated, we have a Foreign Secretary who says that he wants to see

“the UK as the partner of choice for China in the West”,

and a Government who have deliberately ballooned our trade deficit in goods with China to £40 billion, the biggest ever deficit to a single country in the history of our trading. No wonder the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee described this as a “strategic void”.

We heard also from the Prime Minister in his speech at Banqueting House that

“vital humanitarian aid is reaching civilians in Gaza, and across the Horn of Africa – funded by the British people. This is who we are”.

However, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact in its most recent report highlighted:

“UK bilateral humanitarian aid fell by half between 2020 and 2021”.


ICAI said in its report, as a riposte to the Prime Minister, that this

“has meant that UK support for global relief and recovery efforts … in response to the August 2022 floods in Pakistan and the worsening drought in the Horn of Africa … was significantly smaller and pledged later than in previous years. This has diminished the UK’s ability to play a leading role in the international response to crises”.

Regrettably, we have a situation where we are not dependable, reliable or predicable.

At the same time as we are slashing by half UK contributions to the World Bank development programme, there are 30% cuts to the African Development Bank and 30% cuts to the Global Fund, which fights HIV and AIDS. Further to the references in the debate to women and girls, we have cut our support to UN Women by 77%.

In our view, this all means that we need an immediate restoration of the legal requirement to meet 0.7%—not for the Labour Party or the Conservative Party simply to trot out the Treasury language of “when fiscal circumstances allow”—as well as an independent development department that can again restore British leadership around the world. The Prime Minister said to his party conference:

“You either think this country needs to change or you don’t”.


I love my country, as everyone in this Chamber does, and I am aggrieved by how its international standing has been systematically undermined by the Government. For the sake of my country’s standing in the world, it is the Government who need to change, not my country.

Ukraine

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to have a full debate on this issue. I welcome the comprehensive introduction from the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, with his experience as a former MoD Minister; he will contribute greatly to this House and to this specific debate.

Last year, I watched the full expansion of the 2014 aggression into the invasion of Ukraine from a hotel room in Baghdad, before I flew to Beirut. I knew then what we all know now: that this unwarranted and illegal aggression by Russia against an independent sovereign state would have significant consequences far beyond the borders of Ukraine itself. The horror inflicted on the people of Ukraine—according to the UN Human Rights Office, it has so far claimed 438 children’s lives, among more than 7,000 civilian deaths; and of course, we know that women have been disproportionately affected by this aggression—has been compounded by Putin weaponising grain and food, thereby exacerbating famine in the Horn of Africa, where 5 million children are currently dangerously malnourished, an issue we debated earlier this week. His venally amoral use of the Wagner Group of mercenaries to deploy intimidation, rape and torture across a wider arc in Africa is even worse.

According to the Norwegian chief of defence, Ukrainian losses are probably over 100,000 dead or wounded in defending their country, and for Russia an astonishing 180,000 dead or wounded soldiers, many of whom we know were lied to and misled about what they were fighting for. A year on, today, a Ukrainian MP friend of mine from our sister party, President Zelensky’s party, WhatsApped me a message:

“We have just got information that Russia has started a new attack. It is a hell there.”


It is, and President Zelensky’s extraordinary address to us yesterday captured the totality of the consequences of what I believe will be a failed attempt by Putin to occupy a nation and subjugate its people. Putin wants to be a neo-Russian emperor. He has convinced himself that a Russian empire can only exist with Kievan Rus’ within it. However, he has miscalculated strategically and misunderstood the people of Ukraine to an extraordinary degree.

Like many colleagues, I have visited Ukraine. I have been there three times. The people of that country have a very differing view from Putin of their own future. They want to determine it themselves. Their clear desire to join the EU and to work with us and NATO for security I believe is now, for the long term, immutable. Putin made another miscalculation. A year ago, we could not possibly have forecast the German Zeitenwende, the sea change in Germany policies. We could not have forecast how European energy reliance on Russian gas has moved from 50% to less than 13% in one year—extraordinary changes. I and colleagues from these Benches have been in lockstep with the Government on support for the Government of Ukraine and we have all been impressed, as the Minister said, by the support from the British people for the people of Ukraine, from individual families and communities across all parts of the UK welcoming those in need, through to the Government providing hard military capabilities—“tea and tanks”, as President Zelensky may have put it.

We have supported the raft of economic sanctions and I have debated them all with the noble Lord, Lord Collins. I too put on record my appreciation of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for how he has engaged with us, informed us and been accessible to us. It is an exemplary way for a Minister to operate on foreign affairs. However, we did argue that we needed to have moved faster on closing London’s laundromat reputation. The data from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation’s Annual Review from the end of last year said that in 2021, £44.5 million of Russian assets were frozen. By November 2022, that figure had risen to £18 billion, showing the extraordinary exposure that the UK had to questionable Russian finance—to which, regrettably, all too often a blind eye was turned. The Government continue to refuse to state who on the sanctions list now had been issued with a golden visa and effectively paid to launder their money through Britain.

We have supported the Ukrainian settlement scheme, but it was only through scrutiny that we found out that this scheme in its entirety will be scored against development assistance—uniquely among OECD countries—meaning that it has been offset by cuts elsewhere. We must be self- aware that these reductions are a part of how Russia is opening what I described in the autumn as a second front in this war, in the east and the global south. I am fearful that the UK is not focused enough now on that front.

Last week I raised concerns with the Minister on the red-carpet treatment given to Sergey Lavrov by our friends in South Africa, and the naval exercises that South Africa, China and Russia will be carrying out in just 10 days’ time. India and Sri Lanka have increased oil purchases, and the gold trade from the east and southern Africa via the Gulf and into Moscow is flourishing. In certain sectors, the rouble is strong. Four years of reductions in UK development co-operation mean something, not just for the most vulnerable people in the world but geopolitically.

We must be self-aware and acknowledge that, while our economic sanctions have undeniably been extensive and in many areas effective, in other areas they have been offset and circumvented elsewhere. As Putin now enters a different phase, of slow, grinding horror against the Ukrainian people, we must also think of how to isolate Russia more. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that the next phase of our sanctions and economic measures must be considered carefully and those measures must be strong. They must also ensure that our work on the second front is considered.

I have no doubt that Putin miscalculated when he underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people. He thought that the EU would splinter and that the EU, UK and US would not work as closely as they have. However, he has been more successful in presenting this aggression not as imperial expansion, which it undoubtedly is, but as Cold War alignment. In March last year, 25 African countries either abstained or refrained from voting on a UN resolution to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In South Africa alone, as I referred to, in one minor but telling example, the ANC Youth League sent observers to Russia’s phoney referendum in the four Ukrainian provinces occupied by Russia in September and described the referendum as

“a beautiful, wonderful process”.

From the Sahel to southern Africa, a sweep of Russian malign influence is seen, and, of course, they have their blood-soaked criminal mercenaries to act as a proxy. As I have mentioned in the Chamber before, I have seen with my own eyes the Wagner Group operate in Sudan. I was the first in Parliament to call for that group’s proscription. I did so to Ministers in this Chamber on 25 April, 23 May, 9 June, 17 July, 15 November, 21 December, and again on 26 January. At that time, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, said that she would write to me. I have not had a reply yet. Ed Davey asked the Prime Minister about this issue yesterday. This group is a threat to our security and our safety, to British nationals abroad and to our allies. Why have we not proscribed it? Why are we acting so slowly? When the Minister winds up this debate, I hope that he can confirm that we will indeed proscribe this group. There cannot be impunity for the Putin regime’s human rights crimes, nor should there be for his proxies.

I very much welcome the shift in the Government’s position regarding the tribunal that was announced on 20 January, supporting the establishment of a tribunal on aggression. I call again on the Government to add the UK’s support to the Kampala Amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on the crime of aggression. It is incongruous that we support now a tribunal under the authority of articles in the Rome statute that we have so far not supported, but the shift in government policy is welcome. As President Zelensky told us yesterday, if we support the rules-based international order there should be no impunity for those who break those rules or seek to circumvent them.

I attended an event supporting the International Criminal Court last autumn and spoke with a Ukrainian MP friend of mine, Galyna Mykhailiuk. I asked her a number of questions during the event about the situation with the people of Ukraine. She was extremely humble. She said, “Can I ask you a question, please?” I said, “Of course”. I thought that it would be about UK support or military equipment and missiles. She said, “Just out of interest, have you ever met the Queen?” I said, “Funnily enough, I have”. She said, “Can I please pass on the condolences of the people of Ukraine on the Queen’s passing?” She then said, “I have to let you in on a secret”—which I have her permission to tell your Lordships. “I watched, with a group of my fellow MPs, the whole of the funeral.” Then she said, rather cheekily, “I missed the plenary of the Parliament and my committee meeting to watch the funeral”. She paused and then said, “I did not see the Windsor Castle part because I had to attend my AK-47 training”.

MPs were told there a year ago that they should expect an imminent Russian special forces attack on their Verkhovna Rada building, where they would be either murdered or held hostage as part of the installation of a puppet regime. They thwarted that and their Parliament carried on. It legislated. Its staff, some of whom were also conscripted to the front, and others, continued to help ensure that the raft of emergency legislation could be passed. It continues to function.

Putin has no feel for, nor knowledge or understanding of, a representative parliamentary democracy—he has persecuted his own opposition at home—but the people of Ukraine do. I hope the Minister will support what I am calling for, which is a nomination process for the Ukrainian parliament to be given the George Medal. That parliament, as an institution, a representative democracy at a time of horror and aggression, has been humbling for all other parliamentarians in the world.

One of the reasons that I feel so humble is that I see that they are managing to do what we, in this building, did 80 or so years ago. On the night of 10 May 1941, a bomb fell through the roof of this Chamber and hit the very spot where I stand. It did not detonate. Bombs did not stop our Parliament from carrying on, and Putin’s missiles will not stop Ukraine’s either.

Mali: UN Peacekeeping Mission

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for being here to respond to questions on the Statement.

I commend the 257 British personnel who have been deployed in Mali as part of the mission. It is the deadliest UN peacekeeping mission to date, with 281 peacekeepers of the 12,000 on the mission sadly losing their lives. RAF air and ground crew have also been deployed in Mali. Their bravery and dedication will rightly be commended by both sides of the House.

The withdrawal of French troops from Mali was announced in February, and of Swedish troops in March. Can the Minister explain why this Statement is being made in November, given that the reason given for the withdrawal of our troops is the following of European allies? When were UN partners informed? Does this also signify an end to discussions on an alternative mission in Mali, which the Armed Forces Minister said was under consideration in July? In this time, there has been nothing but silence from Ministers. Is this because the Government have simply taken this long to work out what to do?

What has happened in this time, however, is the mandate of the mission being renewed by the UN Security Council, with British support. That begs a number of questions as to how the mission will proceed given that it would have expected both our personnel and expertise, particularly in long-range specialised reconnaissance? How do Ministers expect our decision to impact the mission’s continued progress and the region’s future, particularly with recent rises in terrorism across the Sahel region and neighbouring countries and the continued presence of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group? The latter has been accused of massacring civilians in a region of Mali where extremist Islamist factions have sought to recruit. What recent assessment has the Minister made of the Wagner Group’s activity in Mali, and its ability to foment further uncertainty in the region? I understand that UK officials were expected to meet counterparts from the EU, west Africa and the UN in Accra today and yesterday for talks on its potential to move on to Burkina Faso, which has suffered two coups in the last eight months. Have these talks taken place, and can the Minister update us?

At the end of the Statement, the Chilcot report is mentioned. One of Chilcot’s key mantras is that action should be taken only if the next step is already determined. When we entered Mali, did we have clear criteria as to when we should leave, and if so, have these criteria been met? The need for this strategic approach applies to the next steps too. France has already outlined its plans for working with African countries for the next six months. Can we expect a similar plan from the UK Government shortly, or will we have to wait another nine months? A lack of clear thinking for the Sahel region was also evident in the integrated review, which hardly mentioned it. Can we expect a more thorough strategic overview in the upcoming update?

Finally, turning to Thursday, it may be a coincidence that this withdrawal comes at the same time as we are expecting government cuts. Is the withdrawal connected to cuts to the defence budget? Clarity on defence spending is vital, especially when looking to maintain our NATO commitments. We know that a real-terms cut was agreed in the 2020 settlement. Its negative impact has been significantly exacerbated by the recent rise in inflation.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, for a decade now, the people of Mali have suffered the consequences of war, the multiplication of violent extremism and the ensuing violence. This has led to a state of crisis, with people facing refugee migrations and food insecurity, and to the suffering of, primarily, women and children. This in turn has led Mali to be ranked 131st of 163 countries for peace, and 137th of 145 countries for gender equality. I therefore support and commend the British personnel who have worked with others to try to create an opportunity for some stability. It is regrettable that there has been a move back from this because of the Mali Government. I hope that the Minister will be able to outline the Government’s policy for continuing the vital work of supporting NGOs, civil society groups, and women and children in Mali after this draw-down.

I declare an interest: I chair the UK board of peace- building charities, Search for Common Ground. It has been operating in Mali with the British Government’s support, trying to combat the sources of the problems there. I hope that this kind of support can continue. Will the Minister outline the Government’s development priorities? How is it seeking to use the Accra talks to progress them? What mechanisms will we use for our development ambitions in Mali?

Will the Minister also outline the role that the UK will play with ECOWAS, the AU, the United States and others to try to return Mali to a constitutional order? Of course the country’s future is in its own hands, but the UK has played a role: it has committed forces. A full draw-down should not bring about a full withdrawal of UK interest. On that, could the Minister explain why UK development assistance is planned to fall dramatically from the £22 million provided in 2019-20 to just £500,000 in 2023-24? Would the draw-down of military personnel not be exactly the right time to review development priorities so that a development vacuum is not created by UK personnel leaving?

Finally, I wish to return to the issue of the Wagner Group. I am on the record on a number of occasions pressing the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, for the UK to move on the proscription of the Wagner Group. I will now press the Defence Minster on this. The Wagner Group is acting directly against the interests of the United Kingdom and our allies. Commons Minister James Heappey referred to the human rights atrocities that it is carrying out. The UK has no interest that is not being undermined by the Wagner Group, and there should be consequences for UK relations with countries that seek to use the Wagner Group not only against their own people but against the UK’s national interests. I repeat my call for the Government to prepare and bring forward mechanisms that would see the Wagner Group proscribed. So far, the Government have not made any moves on this. When answering questions, the Minister in the Commons said that he would engage in discussions with the Home Office on this issue, so I hope for a suitably positive response from the Minister today to me on this issue, so that we send a very strong signal that, whether in Mali or elsewhere, the UK will act against groups such as Wagner—and particularly against the Wagner Group by proscribing them.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Purvis of Tweed, for their very helpful introductory remarks, and their tributes to the personnel we have had serving in the Sahel, particularly in Mali.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about the delay. This was a complex situation. My right honourable friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, James Heappey, said in the other place yesterday that it would have been wrong to have had an immediate unthought-out reaction. I assure your Lordships that he has been working tirelessly in the area. He has been in Mali, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo. His counterparts from France have visited Niger, Benin and the other countries extensively because it was important that there was some collective understanding about mapping out what we think the best situation is.

It is important to say to your Lordships something that my right honourable friend referred to in the other place yesterday. We should always remember the attitude of the African states. The impression seems to be emerging that African nations feel that they do not want us on their borders physically fighting the insurgency. They think that there is a danger that that accelerates conflict. They want us to work with them to support them in generating capability and in advising, along with other countries, how they might build for a more stable, secure and prosperous future.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in particular that this has come about not through absence of concern or lack of action. A lot has been happening behind the scenes. He raised the subject of the Accra initiative, which I will come on to. It is exciting. In fact, my right honourable friend will be in Accra on Monday and Tuesday next week, not this week, with representatives of the EU, the United Nations, France, the UK, the Economic Community of West African States, and all the member states of the Accra initiative to discuss exactly how they will go forward. We need a cohesive strategy that brings together not just a military response but the political and economic response. I hope that reassures your Lordships that very serious discussion and consideration has been given to how we take this forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked what this means for the United Nations mission, MINUSMA. That is initially a matter for the United Nations but, as he will be aware, the UK is very supportive of the United Nations. We have always done our best to be an influence for good in the discussions, whether on the Security Council or in the General Assembly. We will certainly look to continue feeding in what we think is helpful to those discussions. As your Lordships will be aware, MINUSMA has faced constraint in recent months because of the operational environment and the attitude of and decisions taken by the Malian authorities, but the mission still has an important role to play in achieving long-term stability in Mali and we will continue to play a role as a member of the Security Council in shaping MINUSMA’s mandate to try to ensure maximum effectiveness. The noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Purvis of Tweed, helpfully referred to the environment that has created this challenge for MINUSMA. We have to be realistic about that. We have to respond to the situation as it is on the ground.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, asked what we are doing and what aid we have been providing. In defence terms, we have been doing and will continue to do a lot. After Kenya, Mali is our biggest presence, but we have a British Army training unit in Kenya. We have a British peace support team there and other defence supports offering advice and help. In Somalia, we have a regular deployment of regular operational staff under Operation Tangham. It is supporting African Union peace enforcement operations, plus UN missions. In Nigeria, we have around 40 permanent staff providing bilateral support to Nigeria to help it deal with diverse security threats.

As we look ahead, particularly at what the Accra initiative will, I hope, invite by way of discussion and constructive thought about how we take all this forward, it is important to remember that we have been doing a great deal in the broader area through our diplomatic engagement and our aid programmes, and we will continue to support local, national and international efforts to promote long-term prosperity and security in Mali. A lot of the work MINUSMA has achieved there has been positive and beneficial but, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, said, it is one of the world’s poorest regions. He mentioned the bilateral aid we spent in 2021-22. Our multilateral contributions added an extra £60 million to that, and he will be aware that our work covers the delivery of critical humanitarian assistance, whether in relation to food insecurity, malnutrition or supporting those displaced by conflict. We have done a lot of work to empower women and girls through initiatives such as the Gao stabilisation fund. We are one of the largest bilateral funders of global health and education initiatives. Our resolve is to continue with that very good work.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, was particularly interested in these aspects but he asked, if I understood him correctly, where the MINUSMA mission goes. I have tried to explain where I think we are with that. That will require discussion at the United Nations and at Security Council level. If the question is whether the UK will deploy in another United Nations mission, any potential future UN deployments will be scrutinised carefully. They must clearly support both the mission in question and our own strategic objectives. If that arises, we will look at it responsibly, but I go back to saying that the Accra initiative is a very important development.

No one can be anything but deeply troubled by the presence of the Wagner Group. I think I can do no more than repeat the description accorded to it by my right honourable friend Mr James Heappey, who said in the other place that

“it remains a bunch of murderous human rights-abusing thugs and there is not a country on the planet that is any better for its presence”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/1/22; col. 405.]

I think that encapsulates the character of the group. It does what it wants to do, it does not care how it does it as long as it gets paid for doing so, and it is a very brutal grouping of individuals. We are cognisant of the threat it poses and aware that the other countries in the Sahel are equally conscious of that. The experience of Mozambique is interesting. Wagner was taken in initially to help in Mozambique and then kicked out because of the way it behaved when it was there. The UK, along with all our allies and partners working with the Accra initiative, are very keen to point out to these western African states that when they engage with the UK, France, the US, the EU and other western allies, they get a security partnership. They get something robust that wants nothing in return other than the advancement of our shared interests and security in the region. That contrasts sharply with the activities of Wagner.

I certainly look forward to hearing more from my right honourable friend Mr James Heappey when he returns from the meeting in Accra. I think it promises to be interesting. The long-term objectives of the initiative, which are basically to secure the borders, tackle insurgency in Burkina Faso and look to the longer-term future of stabilisation, security and prosperity are laudable. A lot of good will is being brought to the table to try to ensure that a coherent strategy is developed that can be delivered.

Afghanistan: British Special Forces

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for the tenor of his remarks. Yes, it is the case that the RMP has asked the BBC, the “Panorama” production team, to produce this evidence on which it founded the programme. If that evidence is produced and it is new evidence it will fully investigated and it will initially be the task of the Royal Military Police to do that. The police are independent of the chain of command and have the power to pursue these matters objectively and independently and in the best interests of serving justice.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute very strongly to our Armed Forces personnel but, as the Minister said, these are grave allegations, especially in the context where, as we see with Ukraine, the moral leadership and professionalism of our Armed Forces and the reputation that we hold is very strong as far as the UK is concerned. Can the Minister be a bit more specific on the independent status of the Royal Military Police in how it will approach the new allegations? Would the Minister agree that there is a case for, and an opportunity for, a parallel, external, independent review of how these allegations are held? Ultimately the Royal Military Police Force is, as the Minister said, beyond the chain of command, but it is still an internal investigative authority.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that the Royal Military Police is indeed an independent investigatory authority that has been regarded as professional and effective. It engages regularly with its civilian counterparts to ensure that it is adopting best practice and pursuing the best approach for investigations. Initially, if new evidence is produced, it would be for the Royal Military Police to investigate that.

As to broader issues, the Secretary of State has been very clear that nothing is ruled out. Really, the starting point has to be whether there is new evidence. If so, it needs to be produced.

Ajax Noise and Vibration Review

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, £3.2 billion has been spent, with only a couple of dozen of the Ajax tanks delivered out of an order for 589, all of which are supposed to be delivered by 2024 with a total cost of £5.5 billion. The Public Accounts Committee in the other place has called it a catastrophe. How has it come to this? It has to be the biggest defence procurement failure of the last decade, does it not?

Now we have a further damning review just published by the Government called the Ajax Noise and Vibration Review. It catalogues failure after failure of process, accountability and procedures. Some 310 soldiers were exposed to noise and vibration, with a small number discharged because of hearing loss. According to the review, senior Army officers and MoD officials knew of these problems for two years before any action was taken. How and why was that possible? Who knew? Did Ministers know?

The review’s conclusions are stark and extremely worrying, not only first and foremost for our soldiers but for what it means for a central part of our future military capability. I quote directly from the Government’s own report:

“Nothing in this Review detracts from the fact that GDUK has designed and built what MOD maintains is thus far a vehicle which is not fit for purpose and does not meet the contracted specification.”


What does the Minister have to say to that specific quote? The report concludes that

“from a cultural perspective, the Army did not believe it was potentially causing harm to people, especially from vibration, as it was tacitly expected that soldiers can and should endure such issues. Society and the law expect MOD to do better”.

Is the MoD doing better? What has changed? Who is being held to account? We cannot tell from the review what is actually happening.

One of my final quotes directly from the review is:

“Within the acquisition system, safety is not viewed as an equal partner to cost, schedule and military capability, and the culture in MOD does not currently ensure safety is considered within strategic decision-making.”


The word is “currently”. Does the Minister recognise that term—not 10 years ago but currently? What is urgently being done to change that culture? What steps are being taken? Are any other defence procurement projects subject to such a culture? Even during the Minister’s Statement yesterday in the other place, he talked of reports such as that from the Defence Safety Authority in May 2020 identifying some of these issues, entitled Serious Safety Concerns on Ajax, and then tells us that that was retracted and not pursued. Who retracted the report? Who decided not to pursue it? Where are they now? Have they been promoted? Have they been sacked? Was any Minister aware of it and, if not, why not? The Government’s response is to have announced that following this review they are to launch another review. To what purpose and timescale is that further review to operate?

This is deeply disturbing and unsatisfactory. Ajax is in limbo. A major military capability for this country is in real trouble. Are the Government sticking with Ajax or are they going to scrap it? What confidence can we have that they have a grip of the Ajax programme? Are we sure that there is no impact on the Army’s ability to deploy the planned strike brigade?

As the review concludes:

“To have confidence that the events covered in this report will not be repeated, culture change needs to be progressed.”


For the sake of our Armed Forces and the security of our country, it certainly needs to be. I am sure that we will all appreciate the remarks of the Minister in response to this serious and damning report.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I can associate these Benches with many of the questions from the noble Lord. He rightly highlights the fact that many government assertions over recent years have not been matched with what we now learn from the review.

I agree with the Minister in the House of Commons when he indicated that he read the report with a deep sense of regret. If anything, he needs a degree of commendation for highlighting these issues. The problem had been that many of them had not been highlighted thus far, and we have had to rely on this review. As the noble Lord indicated, the review states that nothing in it

“detracts from the fact that GDUK has designed and built what MOD maintains is thus far a vehicle which is not fit for purpose and does not meet the contracted specification”.

The Minister replied that the key element of that was “thus far”, but he did not tell the House of Commons when he believed that these vehicles would be fit for purpose, and he did not say when they would meet the contracted specification. As the noble Lord indicated, the National Audit Office, in reviewing the procurement of MoD equipment, highlighted that the expenditure as of March 2021 had been £3.755 billion. How on earth can that amount, of a total of £5.5 billion, be committed when the review had indicated that these vehicles were not fit for purpose and would not meet the specification? If the Government’s position is that the vehicles will do so, when will that happen?

The NAO in paragraph 11 of its report highlighted part of the challenge as being the Government changing the specification. However, it said that that accounted for an 11 months’ delay to the programme. It high- lighted more than 13 programmes with 254 months of delays in MoD procurement—an astonishing amount. Paragraph 5.11 indicated in relation to Her Majesty’s Treasury that:

“The assessment for the Ajax armoured vehicle (October 2020), stated the programme remained a VFM”—


value-for-money—

“solution despite slippage of entry into service from July 2020 to June 2021, with a worst-case scenario of slippage to December 2022.”

How can the Treasury claim that there is a continued value-for-money solution while this review indicated that the vehicles were not fit for purpose and did not meet the contracted specification? Will all the vehicles now be in operation for our servicemen and women by the time of the worst-case scenario of December 2022 or are the Government changing that position?

I should declare that I represented a military barracks in my former constituency and was in northern Iraq last week. I know well the great pressure that our Armed Forces personnel have had to endure over many years. The welfare of those individuals should of course be a paramount priority. The Minister in the Commons did not indicate any detail about how support will be provided to those affected, so if the noble Baroness could provide more details, I should be grateful.

My final question relates to a Statement that the Minister made to this House in March this year. When asked about procurement in the MoD, she said in relation to a question from my noble friend Lord Addington about overruns and expenditure increases:

“The scenario that the noble Lord envisages is unlikely to arise because from now on procurement will proceed on a very different basis from what we have known in the past.”—[Official Report, 24/3/21; col. 845.]


However, we had to rely on this report and the Minister in the Commons stating in his concluding remarks yesterday that the report

“lays bare a deep malaise, which is cultural and results in systemic failures across our organisations.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/12/21; col. 1082.]

How on earth can those two areas be reconciled? Can that department be relied upon, even by commissioning a senior legal figure, to learn these lessons? Would it not be better if that legal figure responded to a different and external organisation to ensure that deep malaise and cultural and systemic failures are not repeated in the future?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, I, first, thank the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Purvis, for their observations and comments.

I pay tribute to my honourable friend Jeremy Quin, the Minister in the other place, for his determination to lift the drain covers to find out what had been happening. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Purvis, for acknowledging his efforts. I also thank David King, the MoD director of health and safety and environmental protection, for his report, which, although deeply troubling, is also robust, analytical, comprehensive and helpful.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, quite understandably raised the catalogue of failings and asked how this could be. We are absolutely clear about what the recent report has produced. It confirmed that there were serious failings in how the MoD handled the health and safety concerns regarding Ajax vehicles. The review concluded that it was not the failure of a single individual but a complex combination of the Armed Forces’ relationship to harm and weaknesses in the MoD’s acquisition system. It also pointed to missed opportunities to act on safety and risk management across the programme.

Let me make it clear that all that is unacceptable. My honourable friend in the other place made that clear and I repeat that to your Lordships. That is why I say that this report, although deeply troubling, points to a way forward in a constructive and helpful manner. Your Lordships will be aware—the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, alluded to this—that the recommendations in the report not only cover Ajax but reach out helpfully into the broader areas of procurement, particularly in relation to health and safety, and what changes might be made.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked how no one knew what was going on. It has emerged that warnings were not given sufficient attention; the report is explicit about that. Very troublingly, the Army did not believe that it was potentially causing harm to people as it was tacitly expected that soldiers could and should endure such conditions. That is utterly unacceptable, as the report makes clear. The recommendations are designed to ensure that a completely different and much more scrutinising approach to health and safety is adopted in future.

The noble Lord asked about the relevance of the follow-on review. I suppose that the review will look partially at the current health and safety report that has been published, but it is really determined to look at the whole Ajax programme to try to work out exactly what was going on beyond health and safety, and why communication was so poor and warnings were ignored. I make it clear that if gross misconduct is disclosed by that follow-on review then the appropriate administrative and disciplinary action will be taken.

The noble Lord asked specifically about the Defence Safety Authority report. That report was withdrawn for good reason: it did not follow the process, quality control and due diligence that you would expect of an inquiry such as a formal initiation establishing and analysing the facts, gathering and verifying evidence and, of course, deploying peer review. Following the retraction of that report because it was not considered sufficiently robust to be proceeded with, the Defence Land Safety Regulator, which works within the DSA, followed up on the concerns directly with Army HQ and DE&S. Again, while that sounds reassuring up to a point, I fully understand, as the report has disclosed, that the whole background and territory of communication —of the warnings being given, of how those were acknowledged and what response was given to them— becomes very opaque, and that is utterly unacceptable. The follow- on review will certainly look very closely at those issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, also asked whether we were sticking with Ajax. As he will understand, Ajax is a very important piece of equipment. It is a step change in how we deal with carrying personnel and with deploying cutting-edge technology to do that safely and to have as precise a knowledge of battleground as possible. We have made it clear that we are working with General Dynamics to try to get to the root of the problem with a view to finding solutions, but I make it clear again to this House that we will not accept a vehicle that is not fit for purpose. As my honourable friend said in the other place yesterday, it remains impossible to share with your Lordships 100% confidence that this programme will succeed, or, if it does, of the timing for achieving full operating capability.

In relation to overall capability, a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred, as did the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, we live in a world where we constantly consider, assess, adjust and, as necessary, plan what our response will be to threats. We will make sure that we are able to deal with whatever operational obligations fall upon us. Very particularly, I make it clear that this is not impacting on our operational capability nor on our obligations under NATO.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis raised the matter of trials. As he is aware, trials have taken place and we are currently assessing them. The physical trials at Millbrook have concluded. They have generated hundreds of gigabytes of data, and we expect to see conclusions from the analysis shortly. We will then verify the data, conduct assurance trials where required and draw conclusions on the next steps. Over and above that, separate from the trials, General Dynamics has conducted its own tests of proposed modifications to address vibration issues. Once analysis is complete, the MoD will verify the results through subsequent trials.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, raised the follow-on review. It is important that we build on such knowledge as has now been gathered together, and I think the health and safety report is a robust foundation on which to do that. The Secretary of State’s intention to bring in a leading legal figure is absolutely right, and they will look objectively, analytically and dispassionately at whatever the evidence may be and draw conclusions from that. I cannot pre-empt that, but we await progress on it.

When I looked at the report, it was deeply concerning —and I can tell your Lordships that it was deeply concerning to my ministerial colleagues—that personnel worked in a vehicle that had the potential to cause harm. I find that utterly unacceptable. The 310 people identified as working on Ajax trials and training have all been contacted for assessment. We shall continue to monitor those who have been assessed. We encourage those who have either declined assessment or been unable to attend an assessment to come forward, and any identified with continuing or emerging conditions will be supported appropriately.