Mali: UN Peacekeeping Mission

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Baroness Goldie

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[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

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Baroness Goldie

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

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Baroness Goldie

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[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.