Relations with Europe

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a non-executive director of Eurotunnel, chair of the Franco-British Council and president of the British Normandy Memorial—that is probably enough for now. The choice of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, of the bilateral political relationships was inspired. Like others, I very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge; having appeared at the PAC under her chairmanship, I am sure it will be powerful and forensic.

I shall start with two special recent moments in the British relationship with European countries. The first is the visits of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen to Germany and France. The outpouring there of respect and affection for the UK was very moving and a vivid example of how the King exercises real soft power, not least because he is a recognised international leader on climate and environment issues. He is a real national asset. Secondly, I had the great honour of receiving the King and President Macron at the British Normandy Memorial on 6 June to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-day. We commemorated the fallen among the allied troops but also the thousands of French citizens who were killed then. My point here is that bilateral ties with our European neighbours go far beyond government relations. The surface waters have been quite choppy in recent years, although they are calming down now, but the depths were largely unstirred.

I welcome the priority that the Government are giving to restoring the damage done to our bilateral relations during the Brexit years. It is great to see Ministers fanning out across Europe, engaging with partners and working on the big issues of the day. The Prime Minister’s agreement with Chancellor Scholz of Germany for a UK-Germany bilateral co-operation treaty is a case in point. Germany remains Europe’s largest donor to Ukraine and its defence spending is rising, so it is a particularly good time for the defence co-operation agreement that John Healey is pursuing. But commitments to work together are not enough.

If I may, I draw a lesson from the UK-French defence co-operation that we launched at the Lancaster House treaties of 2010. That has led to a step change in co-operation because it was rooted in specific, tangible long-term projects. We are committed for 50 years to use the same facility in Burgundy to virtually test our nuclear warheads. We have a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, which is capable of fighting together. In the energy field, EDF is building a new generation of nuclear power stations—another 50-year commitment. We need a similar level of ambition for our relations with Germany.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, good political relations have to be underpinned by a much broader web of civil society and human links. I am thinking of all the co-operation across Europe in science and research, education, culture and sport, and citizens’ opportunities to live and work together. Most of these are beyond the control of Governments; what Governments can do best is to clear away the obstacles to them. In that spirit, if I may, I shall pepper the Minister with three specific points that I hope he might cover in summing up.

First, can the Government work with other European capitals to try to create more momentum for an agreement with the EU on touring artists? That would be of great benefit to both sides and is strongly supported by all sides in the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.

Secondly, will the Minister ask his colleagues to reconsider the rejection of the commission’s proposal for a youth mobility scheme? It may be that the scheme is flawed, in which case propose a better one. This has nothing to do with free movement; it would be a visa-based scheme, allowing limited duration stays and the number of visas could, if necessary, be capped.

Thirdly, and rapidly, will the Minister discuss with Treasury colleagues the impact that the imposition of VAT on private schools will have on European schools in this country? These are specialist schools preparing pupils in their own language for exams set in their own country, so pupils whose parents cannot afford the VAT cannot move to the state sector. This is one part of the rich web of relations between countries and it deserves looking at in implementation.

Defence Spending

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness that exactly those conversations have taken place, and that is one of the reasons why it has perhaps taken slightly longer to get to this position than I and many others would have liked.

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, there is an intriguing sentence in the Statement: that we are now producing

“a new plan that for the first time brings together the civil and military planning for how we would respond to the most severe risks that our country faces”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/4/24; col. 939.]

I would have thought that the 1998 defence review by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and the post-2010 strategic defence and security review tried to do that as well, but does that plan include co-operation with European partners? There are some impressive figures for defence industrial investment in the Statement, but it reads a little as if we are on our own in Europe in doing this. In fact, Germany is sharply increasing its defence spending and is providing more support to Ukraine than we are, and France is ramping up its defence industrial spending. In terms of resilience, is this not the moment to work more closely with our European partners and co-ordinate on the effect that will have on the scale and speed of developing the weapons and supplying them to Ukraine?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The answer is yes. The noble Lord is absolutely right: it is critically important that we work with our international allies, whether European or elsewhere, to ensure that what is developed is complementary, but that we are producing what is required rather than unnecessary stockpiles of weapons and munitions. That was also one of the points that our American colleagues brought out earlier this afternoon; they were very pleased indeed with the progress we have made so far.

Ukraine

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Sedwill and be the first to congratulate him on his powerful and eloquent maiden speech—a really important contribution to this very serious debate today. The whole House has seen in one shot the expertise and wisdom that he brings to our debates. He has been a colleague and friend for many years. I think I can say that he is the number one crisis diplomat from the Foreign Office ranks, with his expertise in Iraq and the fact that he was UK ambassador to Afghanistan and then the NATO civilian representative there. His arrival in this House greatly strengthens the small Bench of former national security advisers here and the slightly larger bench of former Cabinet Secretaries. Indeed, he held both jobs simultaneously for a while, which is quite a feat; I held one and it was more than enough for me. The House has really gained from my noble friend’s presence and we look forward to many more such powerful speeches in future.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine takes Europe back to the darkest days of the last century. It poses a fundamental threat to the system of international rules that the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, and many others here today spent their careers, as I did, trying to enforce. It has profound implications for peace and security on our continent. I want to make two brief points today. The first is my assessment of what may well now happen in Ukraine, and the second is how the West can respond at a level that matches the seriousness of the horrors that Putin is inflicting on the continent.

First, western intelligence agencies are to be congratulated on calling this right. They have been warning us that Putin intended to mount a full-scale invasion—to some scepticism, to begin with. I think the West was absolutely right in trying to pursue a dual track of diplomacy and deterrence to try to prevent this happening. Both those courses failed but probably nothing would have prevented Putin going ahead.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, that Putin has decided that his legacy must be a buffer zone of weak vassal states surrounding Russia, and that Ukraine, as a vibrant, democratic country, presented a real threat to his vision. We therefore have to be clear that his objective is to overthrow the current Government in Kyiv and replace it with a pro-Russian regime. I think he will try to achieve that by encircling Kyiv rather than by street-to-street fighting, but I think he will do whatever it takes now that he has taken this gamble of throwing everything into Ukraine. The Ukrainian army is fighting valiantly but in the end it cannot prevail against the full might of Russian aggression, so we have to steel ourselves for all this to be accompanied by the round-up and internment of many thousands of patriotic Ukrainians and the whole dismal apparatus of repression, military police, informers and the knock on the door at midnight. That is what will be happening in Europe, on our continent, in the days ahead.

Assuming that Putin achieves that objective, I think that is when his problems then start. In order to keep a quisling Government in power in Ukraine, I do not see how he has any alternative but to maintain hundreds of thousands of Russian troops in Ukraine for the indefinite future, tied down and suffering casualties from the guerrilla fighting that will then follow. There are many risks for him there, as other noble Lords have said. This war is not supported by Russian public opinion. When the body bags start coming back in serious numbers, it will be remembered that it was Putin alone who took the decision and he will carry the responsibility for it. In the end, I am sure that Russia and Putin will be the losers from this gamble.

What can the West do to increase the cost of Putin’s decision? I agree entirely with what noble Lords have said: we must clearly now strengthen the sanctions regime as far as possible. I support what has already been announced on detaching Russia from the western financial system and the benefits of technology and markets in the West. Clearly, we must reinforce NATO’s eastern member states against the risk of spillover or miscalculation. I do not think Putin intends to attack NATO but there is always the risk of miscalculation.

Then we must find the stamina to sustain these measures for years and, potentially, decades. Too often, sanctions regimes erode fairly rapidly. We must not let that happen on this occasion. We need new mechanisms, as we had during the Cold War, to ensure that co-ordination, and we will need to review our own national security policies. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has said, this is now a global issue and we ought to be mobilising a global coalition of support for the international rules that are so important to us.

For the US, that means accepting that China is not the overriding priority and that a strong US presence in Europe and leadership in NATO are vital for American interests. For the EU, it means increased defence spending and years of investment to wean EU countries off dependence on Russian energy. Britain has played a leading part in the crisis management so far and I welcome that, but there is still more to do to prevent London being a safe haven for corrupt Russian money. There is one obvious gap in our foreign policy management, and that is structured co-operation with the EU. That needs to be corrected urgently.

For Putin, the security of Russia depends on the insecurity of the rest of Europe. That is not a doctrine that we can allow to succeed.

AUKUS

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s Statement. This is clearly a major strategic development and it will take time to digest all the implications of it. In the first place, it builds on a 50-year defence partnership with Australia on nuclear-powered submarines, with the United States. That is welcome. However, there are implications for our other allies, most particularly the French. The Minister is right to point to UK-French defence co-operation through Lancaster House but this agreement has been a major blow to France and it is important that we now find ways in which to work with the French as a major Indo-Pacific power themselves, and to find other ways in which to show that this partnership is not an exclusive relationship between the US, the UK and Australia. NATO allies such as Canada are also important players. Are there plans for specific proposals to put to the French to show that the western interest in Indo-Pacific security goes beyond this important new security partnership?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord poses a pertinent question. I think I addressed his concerns partially in my response to the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith of Basildon and Lady Smith of Newnham.

Our relationship with France on defence is not some sort of sterile picking up of the phone now and again. We are committed to building on the achievements of the first 10 years of the Lancaster House accords in the decade to come. We will continue to consult each other daily and at all levels on key international defence and security matters. It is important to observe that, although we may no longer be in the EU, we cannot fractionalise security depending on where physical boundaries fall. The strength of security in the EU, and the strength of France’s ability to contribute to that security, matters to us in the UK, and vice versa. That is mutually understood and respected, so I assure the noble Lord that, yes, we anticipate continuing a very constructive relationship with France on defence matters.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB) [V]]

Like many speakers in this debate, I took the original objective of this legislation to be to deal with the issue of vexatious claims. As National Security Adviser, I saw at close quarters the MoD having to devote huge resources of people and money to dealing with the deluge of 3,400 civil claims that it received after the Iraq operation. In the vast majority of them, there turned out to be no case to answer. It was evident to me then that there was a real problem with vexatious civil claims against members of the Armed Forces. That still needs addressing, but, somewhere along the line, this Bill seems to have become much more concerned with criminal prosecution, where, as many noble Lords have said, there is no evidence of vexatious pursuit of military personnel.

It seems that the heart of the problem that the Bill is trying to address is the overlap between the laws of armed conflict as enshrined in the Geneva conventions and human rights law as set out in the European convention. As many noble Lords have said, the Geneva conventions were developed over more than a century, with British jurists playing a very distinguished part, to take account of the fact that war necessarily involves violence and death. They distil the experience of two world wars in a series of principles that recognise the realities of war and aim to protect as far as possible the rights of civilians and other non-belligerents. They are designed to apply in wartime. The ECHR, for all its great merits, was patently not framed to apply to the special circumstances of war. That is why it has Article 15 to provide the right to derogate in such circumstances. The difference of purpose between the two legal frameworks was well captured for me as a lay man by the comments of a British military prosecutor in evidence to the Defence Select Committee in 2014, when he said:

“The need to arrest and detain enemy combatants and insurgents in a conflict zone should not be expected to comply with peace-time standards such as those exercised by a civilian police force in Tunbridge Wells on a Saturday night.”


The issue of overlapping jurisdiction was not a problem during the extended British military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. It really only came to the fore in Iraq. Why is that? It seems that there is a crucial point here that has not received much attention in our debate: Iraq was not just a peacekeeping operation on the territory of a sovereign power; Britain became an occupying power, with British forces exercising public powers of law and order, including detention, over the civilian population. We have learned in successive military operations that custody and detention present formidable problems for military commanders. They were a cause of controversy again in Afghanistan, although the Operation Northmoor investigation showed no cases to answer by British forces.

As my noble and learned friend Lord Hope and others have underlined, Article 15 of the ECHR sets a very high bar for derogation with its reference to

“an exceptional situation of crisis or emergency that affects the whole population and constitutes a threat to the organised life of the community”.

However, the House of Commons Library briefing prepared for the Bill noted that the High Court, in the Mohammed judgment of 2014, recognised that the extension of the ECHR’s jurisdiction into the area of international military operations, as a result of the Strasbourg judgments, had implications for the interpretation of Article 15. The court found that Article 15 could be construed as referring to a threat to organised life in the country in which British forces were operating, not just in the UK. I realise that I am venturing on to legal territory here, but if I have understood that correctly it seems an important point. In my view, a future British Government would do well to consider derogating from Article 15 if a future overseas operation was likely to involve the UK again exercising occupying powers, although I doubt a Secretary of State would need that to be enshrined in statute to remind him to consider it.

Much more briefly, I also support the strong view of many noble Lords that this Bill needs significant amendment to prevent it having damaging unintended consequences. I hope that the Government will listen to the strength of legal and military opinion expressed in our debate that the Bill should exclude war crimes and other crimes against humanity, including torture, as well as sexual offences from the presumption against prosecution. I hope that the Government will accept that the Bill as drafted could lead members of the UK Armed Forces to face prosecution at the International Criminal Court. That would be the very opposite of the support to our Armed Forces that the Bill is intended to provide, and it would be a disaster for the reputation of this country for upholding international law.

Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy: Integrated Review

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, let me try to tease out a few questions from the rhetoric. First, we have to be realistic: circumstances for the United Kingdom have changed dramatically, not least because we have left the EU, but particularly since the last strategic defence and security review in 2015. What we are contending with globally is unrecognisable from what we knew then. If this review was called the Johnson review, it would be a very appropriate title because it is an absolutely essential response to a geopolitical situation that is fluid globally. It is an essential response to the need to knit together government policy for defence, for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, of course, for DfID. That is a very far-reaching prospect.

I do not share the noble Lord’s pessimism about the timescale for this review. He will be aware that, in fact, as far as defence is concerned, a lot of the preparatory work has been done: it is there and ready to be pulled down and presented by way of evidence to the review.

On the matter of spads, it is a little unfair to refer to people who are unable to be here to defend themselves. My experience of spads is limited but essentially positive—they can be an enormous help in the discharge of ministerial responsibility. It is very easy to get cheap headlines by knocking somebody because of the way they dress—no doubt, I could be knocked because of the way I dress—but I think what matters is the cerebral capacity that can be brought to the role, and I am absolutely satisfied about that.

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, may I declare an experience, as the co-ordinator of the 2010 strategic defence and security review? Does the Minister agree that good strategy is about choosing and prioritising? Does she accept that one of the most crucial aspects of this review is that it should start with a clear statement of the Government’s vision for Britain’s role in the world—a realistic role that gets beyond the slogan of “global Britain”?

[Baroness Goldie]

I am grateful to the noble Lord; he gets to the nub of the issue. The review will indeed develop global Britain’s foreign policy. It will focus on our alliances and diplomacy, look at the trends and shifts in power and wealth to which I referred, and then determine how best we can use our international development resource.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Polak, just reminded us, General Soleimani was a deeply dangerous man. However, the truth is that all America’s allies were caught short by his killing, and all now face an unpredictable situation in the Middle East, perhaps as dangerous as any since 2003. I know that officials have been working flat out since Friday to make sure that measures are taken to keep British people and interests as safe as they can. I listened carefully to the Statement made earlier this afternoon and welcome the immediate steps the Government are taking. However, whatever the intentions behind the attack, it has already damaged western interests. It has increased the prospect of terrorist attacks, including unplanned, opportunistic attacks. It has undercut the moderates in Iran and strengthened the hardliners. It has exposed the coalition military forces in Iraq—including British forces—to greater risk. They were doing vital work in the fight against ISIS, but there must now be a real risk that any western military presence in Iraq will become unsustainable. I fear that it has also removed any last prospect of keeping the nuclear deal alive.

This upheaval comes on top of President Trump’s decision before Christmas to pull US forces out of northern Syria—which left Turkey and Russia as the dominant players in the area—and his plan to pull remaining US forces out of Afghanistan. The upshot of all this could be an American military and political retreat from that whole arc of crisis from Turkey to Pakistan. That would leave Britain, the US and other western allies with powerful military forces and major interests in the Gulf facing a vast area to the north dominated by Russia, Turkey and Iran. That does not feel like a recipe for stability. If this is too apocalyptic, perhaps the Minister could tell me where my analysis is wrong. This feels to me like a major strategic shift.

The statement by the three European leaders on Sunday was remarkable for not making any mention of the US or the attack on General Soleimani. It shows how divided the West is as we deal with this crisis. Once again, Britain finds more common ground with our European friends than with Washington. The Foreign Secretary’s visit to Washington is timely and important, and it will be a real test of whether Britain can go on playing the traditional go-between role that we have played in the past. I very much hope that we can, but my goodness, it is a delicate operation.

The Middle East is not the only area of strategic incoherence in our world. President Macron’s description of NATO as brain dead was a bit on the strong side. The Government deserve credit for piloting to success the NATO summit at Watford, which showed that the military side of the alliance is in good shape. But is the Macron thesis wholly wrong? I do not think that it is. Look at Donald Trump’s impatience with multilateralism, his pursuit of great power competition and bilateral arm-twisting. Look at European leaders who are pursuing strategic autonomy for Europe as their confidence in the American defence guarantee wanes. As other noble Lords have said, Turkey is pursuing its own line, which does not square with our interests or values. Britain is left uncomfortably trying to bridge the gaps and find fixes within the alliance. Can the Minister tell us how the process of reflection about NATO’s future, which was announced in the Watford communiqué, will be taken forward?

The gracious Speech, as other noble Lords have noted, declares the Government’s intention to hold an integrated security, defence and foreign policy review. I was co-ordinator of the 2010 strategic defence and security review which got such low marks earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. I wish my former colleagues well with what will be the third review in a decade, but with the world changing so fast, we need to look again at the basic assumptions of British strategy. We need a new national strategy and a convincing narrative to back it up—based, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said earlier, on a broad national conversation, to give us a base of public support. I hope that it would conclude that Britain is still an active global player, while recognising our limits and avoiding tub-thumping.

Here is my challenge for the strategists. Would it not be powerful if they could come up with a distinctly attractive British proposition to reinforce multilateralism? What better country to do that? We should aim for a group of like-minded, mid-sized democracies, not just the Europeans but Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea, all of which share the same world view as us. We could work through international institutions as they exist and think about new groupings. That will need action and political will. I believe that the Americans are capable of again recognising the importance of multilateralism to solve their problems.

I finish with a piece of breaking news. I was going to ask the Minister if we can look forward to there being a British ambassador in Washington in this troubled world. However, I find that the No. 10 spokesman today announced that the job of ambassador has been advertised. Before noble Lords send their nomination papers to the Minister, I should just draw attention to the last sentence of the announcement, which says that the Government expect to fill the role from within the Civil Service. I am sorry.

D-day Memorial

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord West of Spithead]

I would not want to get in the way of an ambassador. They get into trouble too easily.

[Lord Ricketts]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I declare an interest as chairman of the Normandy Memorial Trust. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, for raising the issue with the House today, and for the generosity that the Government have shown towards the memorial project so far. Does the Minister agree that the project to commemorate the 22,500 under British command who fell during the Battle of Normandy has been very much adopted by the public with widespread support, following the launch event on 6 June, as evidenced by the fact that we have since received over half a million pounds in public donations? Can he reassure the House that as we move to finish the memorial in time for next summer, we can continue to count on the support of HMG?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and his fellow trustees, who include the noble Lords, Lord Dannatt and Lord Janvrin, deserve great credit for the way in which they are taking forward this important project. As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, knows, the Government have already provided significant support through the Libor fund, but we are naturally keen to assist the trust in other ways, so far as we are able.

National Security Situation

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as set out in the register. I have discovered that there are a lot of informal clubs and groups around your Lordships’ House; one of the smallest is that of former National Security Advisers, since it has only one member. I hope noble Lords will not feel that that disqualifies me from contributing to the debate. I welcome the fact that the debate looks at national security as a whole. One of the intentions behind setting up the National Security Council, as I did for David Cameron in 2010, was that it should co-ordinate across the whole of government all the different arms—security, defence and foreign policy—and assemble around the Prime Minister and senior Ministers all the key advisers, including, for the first time in a structured way, the intelligence community heads, to have systematic discussion across this whole range with plenty of challenge, and a forum to really take decisions. That is just as well since, as many noble Lords have said, we have more simultaneous threats to the security of this country now than at any time since the Cold War.

If we look at the immediate situation, as others have said, the Islamist terrorist threat is clearly high. It is not an existential threat to this country but it needs continued vigilance. The international security system put in place by our predecessors in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War is under real stress, particularly from countries that do not accept the rules that were laid down there. One of the most interesting recent comments on national security was from US Defense Secretary Mattis in presenting the US defence strategy a couple of months ago. He said that,

“great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security”.

That is a phrase that we too should ponder in this House.

Russia has been at the heart of this debate, quite rightly. I can say from my own experience that we have taken a tougher approach to Russia in the UK since the Litvinenko poisoning than any other European country. We understood from that time that the Russia of President Putin regards the West as an adversary; that he is playing a zero-sum game; that he will push wherever he senses weakness; that he is creating a sphere of influence, in the classic sense, around Russia; and that he is actively trying to sow discord and division among his adversaries. Russia is deliberately developing tools to blur the lines between war and covert manipulation. The record on that is pretty clear, from the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea, the interference in Donbass, the pressure on the Baltic states, the increasingly blatant manipulation of our media and our electoral processes in the West, the intervention in Syria in support of President Assad—all of that points in the same direction.

And then there was the poisoning of the Skripals. Whoever in Moscow authorised that—I agree that there is no plausible alternative to it being authorised and conducted from Moscow—miscalculated very badly. I assume they thought it would be like the Litvinenko case: a few Russian spies would be thrown out, the world would move on and a chilling message would have been sent to Russian traitors around the world. I think they miscalculated the growing sense of unease that the previous recklessness of Russian behaviour has generated in many countries. People saw it as another confirmation of a pattern of behaviour and therefore there has been a very strong and supportive international reaction. I applaud the way the Government have handled that very difficult case with determination, firmness and effective rallying of a large international consensus—much larger, in my view, than the Russians expected. They have been wrong-footed, and they have reacted with a classic combination of sarcasm and dismissal, coupled with menace and obfuscation. We now need to go through what has been announced in terms of implementing financial measures to show that this was not simply a one-off expulsions effort, but that there are real consequences for Russian money in London and other capitals.

At a most inconvenient moment for Russia, their Syrian allies chose to use chemical weapons in Douma. I agree with other noble Lords who have said that it is incomprehensible why Assad should have felt it was necessary to use chemical weapons against his own citizens at that very moment. Again, I entirely applaud the Government’s handling of that. It was absolutely right that Britain joined the US and France in the military response. It was an error in 2013 that the other place voted against joining air strikes. They too were limited with a specific target, and fitted well into the strategy. That sent a signal of British disengagement around the world. What signal would it have sent if Britain had stood aside a second time from western action? Of course, that one-off military operation will not fundamentally change the Syrian civil war. I agree with others in the debate that it needs to form part of a wider strategy and that we need to get back to a political process. I am sure that the Minister can put the Government’s position more clearly than I can, but in my memory it has long been the position of the Government that the Syrian regime would have to be part of any such negotiation. The problem has been getting the Syrian parties together; that needs to be re-energised now.

The Russian reaction to the Syrian use of CW has been very odd. It is as if they thought we were blaming Russia for using CW and that we would attack Russian forces. They had some problem keeping a single coherent line; on the same day that the Russian defence ministry in Moscow was saying, “It was the British wot did it”, the Russian representative in New York was saying that there had not been any chemical attack at all. We had a great deal of scaremongering that any western military action could be the prelude to World War III, and that things were now worse than the Cold War. Worse than the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia? I do not think so, although some of our media picked up the Russian propaganda and worried people a great deal.

It is essential for a Prime Minister to have discretion to authorise military action in an emergency, and to be accountable to Parliament afterwards for the exercise of that discretion. I am clear that any British Government with any sense of survival will take care to consult Parliament and have parliamentary backing before launching any significant large-scale military activity putting British lives at risk—certainly any ground-force military operation—but a limited, contained military strike of the kind that we saw at the weekend, co-ordinated with allies and therefore with decisions required urgently, seems within the discretion that a Prime Minister should have. It should be an issue for political discretion and accountability, not for definition in legislation.

In addition to the immediate and the urgent there are some very long-term issues, as other noble Lords have indicated. Since before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the twin pillars of our grand strategy have been to be the closest of allies with Washington, and to be anchored in Europe despite a degree of turbulence there. Bits of masonry are falling off each pillar. Leaving the European Union clearly changes one element of that strategy, and the inevitable US move in the focus of its national security towards Asia alters the relationship with Washington. That is no surprise, as the defining national security issue of the next 50 years will be US competition with China; the surprise has been President Trump’s retreat from multilateralism and the hesitations about endorsing NATO Article 5, which produced the other interesting comment of the last year, which was Chancellor Merkel at the G7 saying, “We Europeans truly have to take our fate in our own hands”. For a Federal German Chancellor to show that degree of concern about NATO is worrying.

I profoundly hope that a review of Britain’s role in the world will conclude that we should remain an activist, engaged international power, living up to our responsibilities as a permanent member. However, that argument has to be remade and re-won with the British people after all the problems that we have had with Iraq and Afghanistan, as others have said. That argument needs to begin now. It is one of the most important tasks for our National Security Council, alongside all the immediate and urgent matters that it has to deal with.

[Lord West of Spithead]

In the context of the noble Lord’s work as National Security Adviser, what level of discussion was there about the scale of defence forces required for our nation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ricketts]

I had the privilege of being the National Security Adviser at the time of what the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred to as the worst security and defence review of all time, in 2010. It ran alongside a comprehensive spending review. It is an inevitable law of government that strategic decisions have to be taken in light of the resources available, otherwise you make a strategy and totally fail to fund it, which does not help you either. I would defend that 2010 review. As noble Lords will remember, it inherited a large gap in the programme for the Ministry of Defence, and tried to bring the programme and the defence budget back together. One of the legacies of that most awful defence review ever will be our two aircraft carriers and the F35s on them, which will restore a degree of clout to British defence policy.

Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, like others, I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, on his maiden speech. Having been through that ordeal myself last week, I thought he performed with flying colours, as befits a former naval officer.

This debate has been enriched with a lot of eloquent speeches, mostly on the defence aspects of the Motion. In particular, I associate myself with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, on NATO, where I had the privilege of working with him. The Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, also refers to the Diplomatic Service. I put in a word for that, declaring an interest as a former head of the Diplomatic Service—I hope not a bias.

The FCO and its staff are a great national asset. It is probably the fate of all foreign ministries to be underrated in their own country, but abroad there is no doubt that the British Diplomatic Service is seen as one of the best, if not the best, in the world. The country is going to need our diplomats and the expertise they have even more if we are to go through successfully the dislocation in our foreign policy that confronts us. Our embassies in Europe will, of course, have to track every nuance of the debate on Brexit in their countries. They will have to advise Ministers here, and do what they can to build a climate in favour of the best possible relationship bilaterally with these countries in future. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, reminded us, the bilateral relationships in defence, security and other areas will be all the more important.

In the wider world, we will need our diplomats working in the UN, NATO and the major capitals to be at the forefront of showing that Britain remains actively engaged in promoting a rules-based international system, makes a serious contribution to reduce tensions and conflict, and champions free trade. At home, the FCO will have to play a crucial role as the glue holding together the rather baroque structure we have in Whitehall for dealing with Brexit issues.

To be an influential global player is hard work. It takes initiatives, risks and mobilising international support behind ideas. We can have full confidence in the professionalism and commitment of the staff in the FCO but, if Britain is to carve out the new international role that Ministers talk about, the Government will need to have a fundamental look at the resources available to the FCO.

The FCO’s budget has been cut successively over the last 20 or 30 years. I experienced that as Permanent Secretary. At the same time, the budgets of other government departments doing international business have been rising. If you put together the delegated budgets of the four main departments dealing with international affairs—the MoD, DfID, the intelligence community and the FCO—you come out at around £40 billion a year. The FCO’s share of that total is 2.7%. I ask noble Lords to reflect on whether 2.7% of the available money is the right share for the department that will have to spearhead Britain’s new post-Brexit independent role in the world.

The FCO’s budget is not only tiny but tied up in knots. So, 30% of the FCO’s budget has to be spent on what is known as overseas development assistance rules—that is, spent on or in the poorest countries in the world. Fully one-third of the FCO’s budget is dependent on successful bids to interdepartmental funds for conflict and security. At a time when our diplomacy will need to be more agile and more flexible than ever, this makes no sense.

The FCO has always been a good corporate citizen in Whitehall. In keeping with that tradition, the excellent current Permanent Secretary of the FCO told the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place recently that the FCO had made a joint bid with the international trade department for new funds of £10 million to reflect these heavy new responsibilities. They got that in the Autumn Statement, so each received an additional £5 million.

It is probably not fair to ask the Minister to comment on whether the FCO’s budget is adequate to meet the ambitions set by the Government in a post-Brexit world, but I ask him to take back to colleagues this modest suggestion from the UK’s first National Security Adviser. The National Security Council might consider whether the current balance of spending among the four international-facing departments is right at a time when Brexit will throw so much weight on to British diplomacy. To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, give our diplomats the tools and they will do the job.