Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

That is not too much to ask. We are talking to the Mauritian Government about this, because we want the same thing as the noble Lord. I had hoped that we would be able to say something a little bit more detailed about that by now. We have not quite got there, but we will use best endeavours to get there before Report. I understand the motivation behind this, and it is right that we do what we can to make sure that noble Lords have the assurances they need by Report.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

In light of the reaffirmation that there will be both ongoing citizenship as well as dual nationality, and, perhaps uniquely, that community will be impacted directly by the terms of this treaty, does the Minister accept the principle that formal mechanisms of representation for the duration of this agreement, rather than just between now and the treaty coming into force, in principle warrant very serious consideration?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It depends on what we mean by formal and what that looks like. We have an arrangement at the moment via the contact group and a commitment to strengthen and expand that, to make sure that does the job it is intended to do and the Government can support it in doing that. However, we are clear that we do not do anything to it without its consent. It is an area on which we are interested in having further conversations—I think the noble Lord knows what I am getting at. Whether that completely satisfies his desire for formality, we will probably continue to explore together.

With that, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, feels able to withdraw his amendment.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words. I have been rather sparing in the Committee debate today, but the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, has prompted me to speak.

I have been a passionate supporter of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, I have served on this Parliament’s executive committee of the CPA UK and I have had the great privilege of visiting a great number of Commonwealth nations in all parts of the world, including early this year Malaysia. We have to be very careful, particularly perhaps in this House of Parliament, when we debate a process that has been very difficult on decolonisation. We have to be very cautious with how we approach it and very mindful of the language that we use.

We had 12 years of the Malayan Emergency and I have met the relatives of those who were affected by that. There is not a Commonwealth country that does not have difficult stories, on many occasions. We are still living with this today. I would counsel anybody that, yes, of course, we are free to make any contributions, but we have to be very mindful.

The noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, whom I greatly respect, indicated that perhaps the precedent was this deal. Now, there may be circumstances where a bad deal might be seen by other people as some form of precedent, but I do not think that that is the point that is being made in this group. The point that I hear being made in this group is that the very point of principle that we opened negotiations to cede sovereignty is the precedent. Well, that decision was made in 2022. If we are to see the consequences of decisions taken by a British Government to recognise that negotiations should take place to cede sovereignty, then we have had three years of knowing what the consequences of that will be. I have heard nothing from anybody on this group saying that they have seen the consequences of that decision taken by the previous Administration in November 2022.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I want primarily—perhaps later—to talk about my Amendments 20Q and 20U, but I will say something about my noble friend Lord Hannan’s Amendment 20L to emphasise one particular precedent he mentioned in passing but seems the most compelling and dangerous. Indeed, in line with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I have been rather cautious about discussing this because I did not want to put ideas into people’s heads, but, for two reasons, I will go ahead and talk about it now. First, there is no better way to keep a secret than to pronounce it in the House of Lords; and secondly, as my noble friend Lord Hannan said, there are lawyers in every country looking to see whether this is a precedent that they could use to right some past wrong or to change some past circumstance which they would like changed.

The most compelling comparison is between what we are doing now and the reasons given for doing it and the independence of Cyprus, where we severed off the sovereign bases. They were part of a whole. The territorial integrity of Cyprus was divided between the sovereign bases and the rest. That is exactly what we are accused of doing in the case of the Chagos Islands. It is actually much more true in the case of Cyprus than in that of the Chagos Islands, because Cyprus was always governed as one unit by us whereas the Chagos Islands had separate laws, even if they were transmitted from somebody resident in Mauritius. Therefore, if we are saying that there is compelling reason for us to say we cannot separate the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, of which it has never been part, then surely there are compelling reasons why we should never have separated the sovereign base territories from the rest of Cyprus.

Those bases are hugely important. They played a role time and again in recent disputes and interventions, and in the prospect of interventions in the Middle East. We have been able to help fly from them and intercept missiles from Iran coming towards Israel. In previous conflicts, we used the bases there. They of value not only to us but to the whole of NATO. If we put them at risk by saying to the world that we have no right to have separated them then we would be doing something very foolish.

The only difference I can think of—I am offering a solution to this dilemma, because I do not want the issue of the sovereign bases to be opened up in a dangerous way—is that the decisions in Cyprus were taken before the United Nations General Assembly resolution on which the advisory opinion of the ICJ was based, and therefore it did not apply to them. Of course, advisory opinions are not actually binding—they are wrongly taken as being binding but they are not—but do they apply retrospectively? In many cases when courts rule, they say, “This has always been the case; we’ve only just now ruled it”.

I would like to hear how the Minister proposes to defend the sovereign bases in Cyprus from this precedent. She is obviously not doing this willingly; she is obviously unwilling and she is a wonderful Minister, but she has been given a tough job to do. I would like to hear some justification for this. I do not know whether the precedent in Committee allows me to sit down now and stand up later to deal with my amendments, but assuming I can do that, I will.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

80: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“UK–Mauritius Inter-parliamentary Committee(1) Upon the passage of this Act, a Minister of the Crown must engage with the Government of the Republic of Mauritius with a view to establishing a UK-Mauritius Inter-parliamentary Committee to oversee the implementation and operation of the Treaty.(2) In undertaking the engagement required by subsection (1), the Minister of the Crown must make representations that the composition of the Inter-parliamentary Committee should reflect equal representation from the parliaments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius, and that its purpose should be to promote mutual understanding of the provisions of the Treaty through dialogue and debate, including consideration of the operation of the Joint Commission established under Article 12 of the Treaty.(3) The Minister of the Crown must further propose that the Inter-parliamentary Committee’s responsibilities include—(a) monitoring and assessing the implementation and operation of the Treaty;(b) evaluating the recognition and protection of Chagossian rights, including but not limited to—(i) the right of return,(ii) the right to self-determination, and(iii) access to compensation, resettlement, or other forms of support;(c) considering the welfare, integration, and general needs of Chagossians residing in the United Kingdom;(d) assessing progress made in negotiations between the Governments of the United Kingdom and Mauritius relating to the rights of Chagossians; and(e) reviewing any financial arrangements made under the Treaty, including those supporting resettlement, welfare, or the development of the Chagossian community.(4) If the Inter-parliamentary Committee described in subsection (1) is established, within five years of the commencement of the Treaty the Inter-parliamentary Committee must be invited to conduct a review of the operation and effectiveness of the Treaty arrangements.”

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 82, which is consequential upon Amendment 80. As the Minister referred to before, Amendment 80 had attracted some flattering imitation yesterday, but nevertheless I hope that we might be able to see progress on what I would consider to be a serious proposal to address some of the concerns that have been raised very sincerely. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said earlier, we have a lot of history to make good, and I agree.

This has been an unusual Committee stage of a Bill in many respects. Perhaps it is because this legislation and the treaty that it is connected to will have, unlike some other legislation that we often might consider to be indirect, a direct impact on people’s lives. They are a defined but diverse group of individuals who have been in touch with many noble Lords. Therefore, I believe that we have an obligation to treat this seriously. In Committee, there have been many passionate, but also proper and probing, questions on how the terms of the treaty will operate and how UK interests will also continue to be represented. We have just heard that from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and we heard it earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad.

Amendment 80 in my name is a proposition for an ongoing inter-parliamentary committee for the duration of the treaty. The Minister mentioned before that she felt it was perhaps a novel response. It is not entirely novel; there are precedents which I have based this on. There have been quite frequently free trade agreements that had parliamentary committees associated with them. There is the EFTA agreement, which the UK had been part of. There was the AWEPA for our African partners in parliaments, which we had been part of. There is doubt from many about how critical parts of the treaty negotiated by this Government will be handled, both by the UK and the Mauritian Governments, and operate through the commission.

We have heard many references today to the deeply flawed Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. It was fascinating for me to listen to this debate, because this House in 2021 passed a Motion—it happened to be in my name—about the ability for Parliament to have a straight up-and-down vote on treaties. The House passed an amendment to the then Trade Bill which stated that negotiating objectives or before-treaty negotiations would have to be presented to both Houses, and the House of Commons would have an opportunity to vote on those. I believe that those aspects would have been beneficial for this treaty. I think the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, forgot that he voted against that, so I am happy to remind him, just for the record, that on the latter part—on the first part, he was not in the House—in one of his very first votes in this House, he was against what he has been arguing so passionately for today.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My point is that there has not been a vote in the other place, so the only proper chance is here.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

No, the case that the noble Lord was making passionately was about the faults in the CRaG process, and I agree with him about that. It is just that if he had not had his view, with his noble friends, in 2021, we would have had the enhanced processes for treaty scrutiny.

However, we are we are because the current Government were supportive of changing the CRaG process for up-down votes on treaties, and now they are against. The Opposition, who had been against then, are now in favour of it. It probably has to do with whoever is sitting on the government side of the House, rather than the opposition side, but we are where we are now. The issue is how we go forward, to some extent. That is not denying that there is still Report stage, and there will still be divisions potentially, but I wanted to flag at this stage, in Committee, the proposal to try to address some of the major concerns.

Before briefly addressing that specific part of the amendment, I want to put something on record, as there have been quite a few allusions today to the notion that the negotiations on this treaty were halted by the previous Administration. In a letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, on 5 April 2024—just seven weeks before the Dissolution of Parliament—he reaffirmed that negotiations were ongoing and that questions on the future administration of the islands were subject to the ongoing bilateral negotiations between the UK and Mauritius. He also said in the letter:

“We will continue to update Chagossians as negotiations progress”.


The negotiations were ongoing at the time of the election. It is worth stating that on the record, because there has been quite a bit of misleading information today. It is interesting that the Foreign Affairs Committee had been making the case since 2008 for a strong moral case for resettlement. That was denied again in the letter from the Foreign Secretary in April 2024.

We have a moral duty to try to ensure that, whatever circumstances arise from the parliamentary proceedings, we have a mechanism by which we allow the Chagossian community to be represented. Through Amendment 80, my proposal is for an inter-parliamentary committee, with MPs from the Republic of Mauritius and MPs from the UK forming a committee for the duration of the treaty. We know, and I agree with much of what has been said today, that trust is low to non-existent among many in the Chagossian community and suspicion is very high. I acknowledge all of that. A means by which that can perhaps be addressed as the treaty is implemented, if it is brought into force, is one where UK and Mauritian parliamentarians, through dialogue, debate and mutual understanding, can observe and scrutinise their respective Executives. Back in their Parliaments, they can scrutinise how the treaty is operating, the implementation of the treaty, whether rights of return are being implemented, the right to self-determination as understood in customary international law, and access to compensation, resettlement and other forms of support.

The commission in the treaty is executive but this would add a parliamentary oversight function, which I believe would be of value. I hope that the amendment will receive cross-party support. I am open to discussing its particular wording, but I hope that the principle will receive support. We owe a moral duty to that community for ongoing representations to address their concerns and suspicions. I therefore beg to move Amendment 80.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, this is the last group of amendments in Committee. I am delighted to see so many noble Lords opposite taking a close interest in the Bill and what it will do to the Chagossian people. I am delighted that they are taking an interest in what their Government are finally doing to the Chagossians.

I have already spoken to my noble friend Lord Lilley’s amendments, which are similar in drafting to those of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. I must say that I prefer my noble friend’s amendments to his Amendments 80 and 82, principally because they include reference to a referendum of the Chagossians. My noble friend the Earl of Leicester has talked about how deficient the current survey being undertaken by the International Agreements Committee is. I think that we could greatly improve on that, but the best mechanism would be simply to hold a referendum of the Chagossians asking them whether they approve of this treaty.

I know that the Liberal Democrats were previously very supportive of a referendum, but, despite criticising the position of my party, this amendment implies that they may not now be so supportive. I hope to see information to the contrary from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. His amendment also differs from my noble friend Lord Lilley’s, in that it would apparently come into force after the treaty, whereas that of my noble friend would come into operation beforehand, which seems much more appropriate. I am of course happy to take up the offer of the noble Lord to discuss the wording of amendments because, as is so often the case in your Lordships’ House, we bring about improvements to a Bill only if we work together. I am certainly prepared, from my point of view, to work with him on the drafting of these amendments. I hope my noble friend Lord Lilley would be involved as well, so we can get them into a form where we can support them on Report and ask the Government to move on this.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for the considered and balanced contribution that he has made throughout the Bill but particularly on his Amendment 80. The amendment is interesting, and I understand the effect that he is seeking to achieve. It is a welcome addition to our debate today. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, earlier, I will also take Amendment 81K into consideration in the comments that I am about to make.

The proposal put forward by the noble Lord is a novel one. I could not recall any examples of where there have been joint committees set up between different legislatures in this way, but the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, mentioned some, and I will reflect on those to see whether there is anything we can glean from them that might be useful.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has made some changes to his amendment, but, unfortunately, we still cannot accept it in its current form today. The structure is not something that the treaty with Mauritius was drafted to contemplate. Of course, there is nothing to prevent parliamentarians in the UK engaging with their equivalents in Mauritius on these matters, but we do not see this as being a matter for domestic legislation in the way that we are considering it at the moment because, obviously, that does not have any effect on what the Mauritians themselves do.

Some elements in the noble Lord’s proposed scope for a joint parliamentary commission seem to be very much for the UK alone, so we could look at them. The Government are committed to building a relationship with the Chagossian community that is based on respect. As noble Lords will be aware, we have established a Chagossian contact group to give Chagossians a formal role that shapes decision-making on the UK Government’s support for their community. We are also providing additional support to build the capacity of community groups so that more are eligible for grants.

There are two elements in the amendment that are an issue for the Government and that we will disagree on at the moment, and those are the right to self-determination and compensation. On self-determination, we have been over this several times in this House and in the other place. To put it simply and plainly, in legal terms no question of self-determination applies. The English courts, noting the conclusion of the ICJ in the 2019 advisory opinion, have proceeded on the basis that the relevant right to self-determination in the context of BIOT was that of Mauritius. On compensation, again it is legally the case that the UK paid compensation to the Chagossians in the 1980s and the English courts in a series of judgments and the European Court of Human Rights have ruled that this settled the claims definitively.

Having said all that, I recognise and understand the noble Lord’s intentions and his determination with this amendment. He has been consistent about arguing along these lines throughout our consideration of this Bill, and I suggest that we meet to discuss his amendment in more detail to see if we can find a way to move this forward ahead of Report. With that, I hope that for today he would be happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am glad there are so many witnesses who saw my ability to bring the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and the Minister together with some form of consensus at the end of this Committee. I am grateful for both the noble Lord’s and the Minister’s responses. She will know that I have been keen to see the areas where we can move towards formalisation and a degree of statutory underpinning for some structures of ongoing representation, because this is a special case. Even if it was novel—I am sure officials will now be studying all the examples I have given; by the time we get to Report I will try to find some more—I believe it is justified, given the circumstances are in. I am grateful for the willingness to discuss this. There are ongoing debates on the particular aspects the Minister said she had difficulty with. I will happily give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I was just going to give him another example, not at British level but at the European level. There is of course the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, which has Members of the European Parliament and all the representatives of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful. We have even got some good elements of Brexit incorporated in this debate as well, so we are on a roll. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw, on the basis that we will be returning to this to have what I hope will be constructive discussions with the Minister.

Amendment 80 withdrawn.

Ukraine

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for tabling this debate for us. It was enriched by the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barrow, which was not bland and, thankfully, not too brief. We learned from it and will do so from him in future. He is a great addition to this House and we welcome him.

The fact that we are not marking the 46th month of a puppet regime in Kyiv is testament to the bravery, resilience and resolve of the people of Ukraine, but it has come at an enormous cost to the civilians and young people called to serve and to those who have had to flee to safety. UK families have provided a shelter in the storm for Ukrainian families, and we thank them, but the storm continues. As my noble friend Lady Suttie so movingly said, the victims include the youngest Ukrainians, whose suffering is unacceptable; we still see children being abducted and separated from their families, and prisoners of war brutalised and tortured—the Geneva conventions so contemptuously disregarded by Putin’s regime.

When the right honourable Ed Davey and I met the Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament recently, he told us of the value of the UK’s continued support of Ukraine in military, diplomatic and societal terms. He also highlighted, as referenced by the Minister and others in this debate, that we can learn from our relationship with Ukraine since the start of this war. This learning includes how to conduct defensive warfare—to be adaptive, changing and cost effective—and the value of intelligence and technology.

We are also learning that leaders in Ukraine have maintained a democratic institution in a parliamentary system. As a parliamentarian, it is a badge of honour for me that, between the last debate on Ukraine and this one, I have now been sanctioned, as have others in this House, by the Russian regime simply for speaking out in a parliamentary setting in defence of democracy. It is worth remembering that part of the failed Russian plan in the first 48 hours of the invasion was to attack and immobilise the parliament of that country, the Verkhovna Rada. I repeat the call that I have made previously—it may sound minor, but it could well be symbolic—that we should award the George Medal to the Ukrainian parliament. I would love to see on its flag, as Malta had, a clear demonstration of civilians defending democracy and the rule of law.

These Benches have supported the actions of the previous Administration, and Ministers know of our continuing support. Ministers also know that this has not prevented us, on occasion, wanting faster and deeper action. We have sought constructively to press Governments, previous and current, to go further. It is a reality that, in too many respects, the Putin Government have been able to adapt and circumvent sanctions which have been piecemeal and often reactive. As our sister party in Ukraine has told us, on too many occasions sanctions have been perpetually too little and always late. That has meant that the Putin regime has been able to adopt and adapt.

The sober assessment of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, was not a warning from history but a realistic prediction that, while we may get a cessation of violence, we will not have peace as long as Putin is president. We must prepare for this reality in the medium to long term. That preparation is not just militarily but in communicating to our public the new reality of risk.

There is another reality, alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, of concern about soft power being diminished while we debate hard power. Putin realised quite quickly, and then more recently more clearly, that while western countries said they wanted to create a wide coalition against the Russian economy, those same countries have massively cut development partnership funding for many developing nations. The continuing sale of Russian fertiliser, fuel, equipment and energy was at the same that the UK, and now more recently the USA, made dramatic cuts in partnership programmes.

In a fascinating event on Tuesday in the Moses Room, with the Elders, chaired by my noble friend Lady Miller, on nuclear weapons, it was telling that the former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark started her remarks, just next door, by regretting the UK cutting 40% from development partnerships. It is not correct, in our view, that development and defence should be seen as being in competition. Development is complementary to defence; it should not be set against it. Cutting the Balkans resilience programme, conflict prevention programmes and the British Council to the bone is not in our national security interests.

In March 2022, I raised a concern that the UK was keen to progress a trade agreement with India, offering market access to the very entities that were expanding energy trade with Russia through a rupee-rouble swap. Subsequently, we have been offering similar access for Chinese state enterprises trading with Russia. Moscow has observed very clearly that some western powers have not chosen to make a sufficient sacrifice to pay for the economic price on the Russian economy, and the Ukrainians fear that there has been insufficient pressure on the Russian war economy. I hope recent decisions by the US Administration—which I hope will not be changed—could add further, real pressure on the economy. Russia will know that delays in using Russian assets to help Ukraine are potentially sowing areas of division within the western powers. We cannot afford for those divisions to be in place, and nor can Ukraine.

I ask the Minister when she responds to this debate to update us on where the Government are in working with our allies on securing those assets that the people of Ukraine need to fight the war. In my view, it is inconceivable that, if there is a ceasefire, we would give the money back to the Russian state enterprises that we have frozen, so why are we not using it for the people of Ukraine to fight the war that they need to fight?

If we have to be realistic, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, about what peace may mean, we can nevertheless consider what victory may mean. It might not be that clear, but it is a victory in itself that Ukraine will not be part of Kievan Rus’, which is Putin’s narrative; nations have a right to self-determination, and borders are decided diplomatically and not by military aggression, as the noble Lord, Lord Mott, said so clearly.

I refer to my noble friend Lady Suttie’s superb speech: the sacrifices of the people of Ukraine are also sacrifices for our security and our safety, and the Russian threats to Ukraine are also threats to us. We must mobilise our population, with a sense of urgency and a lack of complacency, and appreciate the risks going forward. History is indeed watching us; we must not repeat previous complacencies. Ukrainians will be in the bloody filth of the mud this winter to defend their land, but they are fighting for the very rights that we hold dear in our country. We must ensure that they have the tools to persevere and to prevail and that Russia pays for the long reconstruction that, regrettably, will be needed.

Qatar: Israeli Strike

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. Of course, Israel has a right to self-defence, but the Government are concerned by Israel’s strike in Doha, we condemn the flagrant violation of sovereignty and stand in solidarity with Qatar. I extend my personal recognition and respect to the Emir for his continued commitment to supporting peace negotiations. In discussions that the Prime Minister rightly had with President Herzog yesterday, he reiterated that condemnation of Israel’s strikes on Doha, which violated Qatar’s sovereignty and risked further escalation in the region. He pressed him to stop the famine from worsening by allowing aid in and halting IDF operations in Gaza City. He also shared his condolences for the horrific terror attacks in Jerusalem on Monday. They both agreed on the need for Hamas to immediately release the hostages, and the UK will continue its work to seek an enduring peace.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Could the Minister confirm whether there were British nationals within the vicinity of the strikes? What advice is being provided to British nationals in that part of Doha and indeed in Qatar overall?

The Minister must be aware that this has been a deliberate attempt to both undermine and end any negotiations. That must be heartbreaking for the hostage families. With this and the deliberate use of starvation of the civilian population in Gaza, the Netanyahu Government are now consistently breaking international law. So what practical, deliverable and meaningful decisions will the British Government make on our relationship with the State of Israel and the Netanyahu Government to ensure that the message is not just diplomatic but: “an end to business as usual in our relationship”? The breaking of international law is now consistent and is not acceptable.

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, today is a very welcome opportunity to consider the defence review. But I am sure that, as the debate develops, it will also cover the wider aspects, including the China audit, soft power and development policies. They all need to be integrated, as they all have a part to play in keeping our country safe and our values protected.

On behalf of these Benches, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his team, whom he credited, for all their work on the review. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord McCabe. Given the fact that all three opening speakers are from north of the border, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, that another Scottish voice is very welcome in this Chamber.

My colleagues in this debate, with the experience that they bring, will rightly focus on various aspects in this broad area. I will focus on the wider safety and security landscape. My noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham, in winding up for us later, will focus specifically on defence.

We support a great deal in the review from the noble Lord. In the national security strategy, we accepted many of the judgments of the Government of the threats we face and the changing security landscape, both in potential conflicts and emerging dangers through technological change. We need to address them across all parts of government, the economy and society as a whole. We agree with that.

We have taken safety for granted, as the noble Lord said. There is to some extent a positive element to that. In a vibrant democracy, our people can simply to get on with their daily lives and take safety for granted, because of all the hard work of those within our Armed Forces and our security and intelligence communities. But, with conflict growing around the world, and with the climate emergency, conflicts abroad will have repercussions here at home.

Just yesterday in Grand Committee, we debated the tensions in May between India and Pakistan. That could have been an enormous conflagration, which would have had direct impacts here in the United Kingdom with the enormous diaspora community that we have. The Sudan conflict is being played out within our community here at home. Although geographically we are an island, we are not a security island.

There should of course be a high level of cross-party support. On defence, our Benches have a long and proud tradition of supporting our Armed Forces and veterans, as well as adhering to the view that the principal job of government is the maintenance of our national security. In that regard, I hope the Government will continue to engage and also bring regular updates on the many action plans proposed in the defence review and the national security strategy and the many workstreams that feed into its strategy. As the noble Lord said, this is not the work of one Parliament or one party. We all need to be engaged in that process, to ensure that the decisions made are sustainable and that we here in Parliament can appraise progress.

Parliamentary scrutiny is a part of our freedom that we seek to protect, and that is why many of us have been shaken by the lengths gone to by the MoD and the previous Government to avoid proper parliamentary scrutiny. I feel that this will have deep repercussions. With regard to yesterday’s revelations about the data breach and the extent to which parliamentarians themselves were not able to consider it, I hope that this Government will never follow that terrible example.

In many ways, the UK has a unique security need, but in most others we can act as a global, open and interconnected country—but only if we secure the support and partnership of others. In response to the publication of the national security review, I mentioned that, as an island nation, our shipping and data cables keep our economy alive. The noble Lord referred to that in his contribution. We were the first country to lay subsea communication cables, 175 years ago. Today, we are almost exclusively reliant on them for communications. Shipping contributed to our growth in the Industrial Revolution, and today our consumers are reliant on shipped imports and key sectors on shipped exports. Conflict between China and Taiwan would have an immediate repercussion here at home.

In order to defend this, we require our naval and maritime capabilities to be enhanced, our reach broadened, our intelligence services bolstered and our cyber resource reinforced. We agree that the way forward comes with the need for increased defence and lethal capability. We support the Government on increased defence expenditure, but it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate the breakdown of the sources of the overall 5% that was announced on national defence and security. What is the assumed level of growth of the size of the economy to meet the level of expenditure we expect to be necessary? Will the Minister provide more clarity on the timeframe and the certainty of the level of resources that will be available, rather than on aspirations? We need cross-party talks on this, too, if this is to be a generational approach, and a degree of consensus on planning and investment.

It is interesting to note Germany’s Zeitenwende—“sea-change”—in which Berlin has allocated €86 billion to defence, equal to 2.4% of GDP in this year. By 2029, annual defence expenditure is expected to reach €153 billion, or 3.5% of GDP—the most ambitious rearmament since reunification. Chancellor Merz has signalled a willingness to spend up to 1.5% on defence-adjacent infrastructure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, referenced, with potentially a French bridge and the French Government doing so, too. There may be vitally important infrastructure upgrades that are necessary for our whole national defence, including transport corridors and strategic mobility projects, coinciding with NATO’s wider agreement to split the 5% target into 3.5% for hard defence spending and 1.5% for expenditures related to defence.

Bundling may be justified, but we need a plan. It needs to be transparent, and we need to see it because an aspirational approach now needs to come with specificity, planning and transparency on procurement. This is not necessarily something where the United Kingdom has been a world leader in recent years, and how we link our procurement with that in the European continent and the United States will be vital.

We do not, therefore, depart from the level of funding, although we want to see more detail. We say, with respect to the Government, that it should not have been transferred from the official development assistance budget. That is a strategic mistake. We are seeing considerable reductions in programmes that have been part of the UK national security platform—successfully so—for many years. It is no surprise to me that in recent weeks we have seen public statements from former defence chiefs, military leaders, diplomats and heads of the intelligence community in the United Kingdom appealing to the Prime Minister not to cut the very programmes that have been national security-focused in conflict prevention and conflict resolution and in supporting allies to build resilient civil societies and institutions against malign interference.

The western Balkans was raised in the defence and national security strategies. Three times in the Chamber I have asked for clarity on the continuation of the western Balkans freedom and resilience programme funded by ODA, and I hope that that is not under threat. The UK and USAID cuts to the World Service and Voice of America frequencies and spectrums were immediately filled by Russia and are doing damage. We know that in the very sphere that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, referred to, within eastern Europe and in other countries within malign influence, when we cut support for resilient institutions, freedom of speech, freedom of the media and the rule of law, Russia and China will fill that vacuum.

The FCDO network and our excellent diplomats were mentioned in the security review and also by the noble Lord. We agree with that. That is why we regret that year-on-year funding for that very network is now being reduced.

On other threats, such as biosecurity, I believe that we are less of an island than many might hope. I looked back at the UK’s first biological security strategy in 2018 under the previous Government, and I thought it was a good strategy. DfID and ODA were mentioned on almost every page—a recognition that biosecurity in the UK is weakened if it is also weak in the countries where we have a large diaspora community or a travel relationship. There was a reason why 10 years ago Ebola did not become Covid. It was because of the UK, DfID and our official development assistance. Now we have only passing references from the Government. I hope the Minister will be able to say that development assistance is a critical part of our partnerships around the world.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said, and I agree with him, that we are underinsured, unprepared and unsafe. To correct that, we need investment, partnership and for our allies to be safe also. We may well hear about the Commonwealth. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, speaks eloquently about our Commonwealth network, but the previous Conservative Government cut partnership support for developing Commonwealth nations by one-third and the incoming Labour Government have cut it further by 40%.

The Center for Global Development has already shown that those very countries are now moving to China, and in east Africa to Russia, for finance and more debt. It is not wise insurance only to spend on the eventuality of an emboldened adversary when we, by our very actions, are bolstering them. Official development assistance, according to the report on Tuesday by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, will be 0.24% at the end of this financial year, the lowest in the 50 years of development statistics. Why is this significant for this debate? It is because we know that conflicts now are never fought on one front, with one technology, one tactic and one means, and that that will always be the case in the future. We need an approach for our defence and security that is also for diplomacy and development. All should be complementary. It is not too late for the Government to ensure that they are not set against each other.

Ukraine: UK Policy

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, as events move apace, it is absolutely right that we in this House ask the Government to restate their policy, and in that regard the Government know of these Benches’ support for it. That does not prevent us asking questions or seeking that they go further and faster, and I will end on that point, but there is full support for the Government’s actions on these Benches.

As we have a couple of extra minutes, I thought that, for the benefit of the noble Lord, I would repeat the 10 points that President Zelensky outlined in September last year as the very reasonable and, I believe, fully justifiable points that he considered to be the basis of a peace plan. The first was radiation and nuclear safety for the people of Ukraine. Then there was food security, then energy security and the release of all prisoners and deportees. Fifthly, there was the implementation of the UN charter and the recognition of territorial integrity in any final peace agreement. The sixth would be the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities. I hope that the latter part of that may well come to fruition. The seventh was justice for the very many war crimes that have been inflicted on the people of Ukraine, then the immediate protection of the environment and the prevention of escalation. The 10th was the official confirmation of the end of war in a treaty.

Those must all be considered sensible and justifiable, because we all, I hope, would want peace to help the victim of aggression, not to reward the perpetrator—otherwise, history will condemn us all. It seems that there is potentially an incentive in a pause for Putin to regroup, recruit and refinance. There are too many nations, many of them allied to us, that potentially see profiting opportunities and will now, worryingly, have carte blanche to trade with Putin because the US’s new stance will not be a block for them doing so. It is also likely that Putin will seek to insist on protracted discussions on concessions unpalatable to us and Ukraine. In the scenario where those concessions may be palatable to President Trump but not to us, how are we navigating that very delicate situation? I heard the Foreign Secretary speak with clarity earlier, but that must surely be the situation with regard to the position of President Trump.

From the American point of view, sometimes unpredictability can work. It is called strategic ambiguity. The key word is “strategic”, but that is lacking, in many respects, from the Trump Administration, especially since his last comments on seeking discussions on land and power plants and dividing up certain assets. If this was between Ukraine and Russia, perhaps we might have sympathy for it, but my worry is that the negotiations will be between Russia and the United States when it comes to dividing up certain aspects such as land rights and energy rights.

So can the Minister confirm that, in this new time of flux, we can move unilaterally to seize, not just freeze, assets; that we can work with a coalition of the willing, even if that means a more diluted American standpoint; and that we can embolden our strategic relationship with our European allies for defence procurement, defence co-operation and defence purchasing? Surely this is an opportunity for us to make sure that the victim does not pay the price for the perpetration from Putin.

Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Whatever the Treasury may or may not think, and whatever the level of defence spending should or should not be, one of the important things coming out of the debates and discussions and questions from all parts of the House is that Ukraine has shown that the nature of warfare is changing, and the way we fought wars in the past is perhaps no longer appropriate. Of course, there is a need for mass and for traditional warfare. But the way in which the application of drones has changed the nature of warfare; the attacks on underwater cables that my noble friend pointed out; the threats to our homeland and to critical national infrastructure that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, referred to; and the data attacks and hybrid warfare that other noble Lords have referred to—all of these require us to discuss not only what the level of expenditure should be, but how we meet those challenges in a way that is relevant to the threats we face now, not those we faced in the past.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the Minister that prevention is by far the best investment. The UK has many strategic interests around the globe in areas where there are increased levels of fragile and potentially conflict-afflicted states, which will require us to have more defence resource. Can the Minister please say that the reporting last week that the Government are now projected to cut by one-third conflict prevention work in development assistance funding was an error?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I read those reports, as did the noble Lord—I know that he takes a keen interest in all these matters. Whatever the rights and wrongs of those reports, we should reflect on what this country does to prevent conflicts in different parts of the world. The noble Lord has been to many countries where the UK, along with its allies, is preventing starvation, conflict and ethnic cleansing of one sort or another. I was in Nigeria last week and saw the immense activity of the British military and others to stabilise a country that faces real threat from the Sahel and from terrorists such as Boko Haram, Islamic State’s West Africa Province and others.

I accept that there are sometimes questions about what is or is not being done, and what changes are being made to government expenditure in difficult times. But, without trying to deflect from difficult decisions or to say that we should not discuss cuts, sometimes we should, as a country, talk about what we actually do, rather than about the challenges we face.

Air Defence Capabilities

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is another important question from the noble and gallant Lord. We are upgrading the radar on the Typhoon fighters as part of the air defence, we are seeing the F35B capabilities and we are looking at what further investment is needed in air defence. Looking at ground defence in terms of air defence, I mentioned the T45 upgrade to Sea Viper, which deals with ballistic missiles, but there is also the Sky Sabre capability; we currently have seven and are in the business of purchasing more of those.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, with regard to technology, I acknowledge the Government’s STORM framework on counterforce, active defence and passive defence. Most Members will have opinions on the volatile and unpredictable views of Elon Musk and SpaceX, and on Peter Thiel and Palantir. The Minister must know that any of our future defence capabilities will be dependent in some form on satellite technology, so can he reassure me that, whatever technological advances we develop in the future, we will not be dependent on a single satellite provider or on any individual provider?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about our relationship with the United States and its importance. Of course we need to ensure that we protect the systems available to us that protect our own country, but I start from the point of view that one of the most important relationships we have—if not the most important—is with the United States of America. That defends not only our freedom but the freedom of Europe and the values that we all stand for across the world. As such, we ought to welcome that special relationship.

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.