Strategic Defence Review

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Strategic Defence Review.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, after the election in July, I was asked by the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister to lead a team of three to do a unique strategic defence review, working with, but not to, the Ministry of Defence. I was delighted—I think that is the word—to accept this task. I am here today to give Members of this House the opportunity to offer a view on what should be in that review and how Members of the House might want it to conclude.

This debate today will add to and contribute to the 14,500 submissions made so far to the secretariat of the review. They have come from the services themselves, from other government departments, from academia, from think tanks, from industry, from our allies and from the public. It is, quite frankly, an unprecedented exercise in participation in one of the most important issues of our time. I am working on this historic endeavour, as reviewer, with General Sir Richard Barrons, who was the chief of Joint Forces and previously deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, and we have been joined by Dr Fiona Hill, formerly a senior official with the United States National Security Council and presently chancellor of the University of Durham.

We are the three reviewers, but we have been assisted in this exercise by a defence review team of six experts, including an assistant Secretary-General of NATO, and by Sir Jeremy Quin, the well-regarded and well-respected former Conservative Defence Minister and former chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee. This is, therefore, emphatically not a Labour defence review; it is the British effort to ensure that the United Kingdom is secure at home and strong abroad. Its terms of reference and the instructions to the review have been publicised and are on the GOV.UK website. I am sure that all Members of the House have carefully consulted them all before the session this afternoon.

As noble Lords will know, this is not the first strategic defence review that I have led. I did it in 1997 and 1998, which was, after all, only 26 years ago. It is worth reflecting that at that time we had 20,000 troops either in Northern Ireland or preparing to be in Northern Ireland. We had just signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act—I still have the cufflinks that were made to commemorate that—China was in the shadows and globalisation was hailed as a prosperity machine. There was no perceived danger to the British homeland at that point. That world has gone and it has gone for ever. So too have the subsequent worlds that were looked at and examined by reviews since then.

I have been reminding people that, when I concluded the review, I said that if it was a success it would be known as the SDR 1998, but that if it was a failure it would be known as the Robertson review. I am delighted to announce that it is commonly—universally—known as the SDR 1998.

This country now has to contend with a volatile and complex world of great power competition, with a war in Europe initiated unprovoked against a peaceful neighbour by a permanent member of the UN Security Council, with a horrific conflict ongoing in the Middle East and with enduring challenges to do with climate, grey zone attacks, nuclear proliferation, global inequality and greater mineral competition—and from the same failed and fragile states. It is a formidable cocktail for us to contend with.

This review must therefore chart the reset of defence, dictated by these factors, if we are going to keep our country safe and secure. There will, of course, inevitably be choices in any review. Some of them will be hard choices indeed, but they will have to be made, and denial of the problems is not among the choices that we have today. The purpose of the review is clearly set out: to make sure UK defence has not only the capabilities required but the new roles and reforms in place to meet the challenges faced by the nation and the world.

NATO is the bedrock for the review. As the first and, as yet, maybe the only person to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty myself, I know the value and importance of our NATO allies and their strength. They, too, like our adversaries, acknowledge and value our independent nuclear deterrent, which will remain a central feature of UK defence.

As I told the 300 top officials in the Ministry of Defence just two weeks ago, there can be no business as usual in defence. There is no business as usual among our adversaries and our potential adversaries, and there can be no business as usual for us. We dare not do it. Therefore, we are interested in the views of Members of the House, as distinguished people with expertise and background. I look forward to listening to those views today and I give your Lordships the promise that they will be taken account of in the review and its challenge process, which is being undertaken at the moment, involving some distinguished Members of this House. That process will make a contribution to the recommendations that the review will ultimately make to both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister, in the interests of a strong and enduring defence policy for this country. I look forward to listening to this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, tempted as I am to intervene in this debate to answer some of the points that have been made—or even to endorse the concept of me putting on my Islay boots and doing something violent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I am going to restrain myself, because this was designed as a listening exercise. It was an opportunity for Members of the House of Lords to have a say and to have those views then incorporated into the process that we are undertaking at present. As I said, 14,500 submissions have already been made, some of them very substantial and a lot of them coming from organisations with different views. They will be considered properly and so will the outcome of this Grand Committee.

During the last review that I did, as part of the consultations that took place we had a dinner in Admiralty House for former Defence Ministers. I had the privilege of sitting around the table with Denis Healey, Peter Carington, George Younger and a number of other Ministers who had served in the Ministry of Defence in order to hear their views about defence. It was a very rich experience and a very entertaining evening, which largely involved anecdotes about gifts that people had received—always an entertaining subject for Ministers and former Ministers, it has to be said.

At the end of it, Lord Carrington got up and said: “We thank you very much for the opportunity of coming along this evening. We’ve all enjoyed the dinner and the conversations about it but frankly, in terms of the defence review, you’re much closer to the subject than we are, so we’re going to leave it to you—and once you’ve reported, we’ll attack it”. To avoid that fate, I thought it would be useful to have this debate in the Grand Committee. Much has been gained from it and members of the review will certainly be reading the debate with enormous interest. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

King’s Speech

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friends who have made the transition from Opposition to Government swiftly and highly successfully. They are good, clever people and the country and its defence are in good hands.

Secondly, I have to make an apology. On 25 April this year, I asked a question in the House of the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and inadvertently omitted to preface my question with a reference to my main entry in the register of interests. I apologise to the House for that error and refer today to my current and more innocent entry.

As many noble Lords have said, the gracious Speech says that

“my Government will conduct a Strategic Defence Review”.

As so many have already said, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence have asked me to lead that review, along with General Sir Richard Barrons and Dr Fiona Hill. With great pleasure, we have agreed to do that.

This will be my second strategic defence review but probably the more difficult. The world has changed dramatically since the last one in 1998 and, in the intervening period, the range of challenges, threats, complications, instabilities and fragilities has multiplied. The sheer volatility of events in the world today has combined with the velocity of dynamic change to produce new vulnerabilities in our society. We must all face that new global turbulence with serious intent. Therefore, our Armed Forces must be agile, lethal, survivable and robust enough to deter any threat to our country. That is the imperative.

I do not intend to give a running commentary during the period of the review. After all, we are out to listen and consider, but not yet to proclaim. I just make two brief points. First, we invite the maximum input to our review, including from parliamentarians. I am conscious that Select Committees of both Houses will not be able to give us an early submission, but they will be taken into account. What we mainly seek in this review, from all people, are solutions and frankness about the choices before us. We all know the problems. However, we need honesty about the answers and the trade-offs that are involved in confronting these problems, and we would like to hear all views on that. Send your views to [e-mail].

Secondly, we and the country need to recognise that the threats to our country and citizens are no longer theoretical. They are no longer a distant possibility. They are alive and well in Ukraine today. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has brutally invaded and sought to occupy a peaceful neighbouring independent sovereign nation state. Anybody who needs reminding of what is at stake in the world today needs look only at the depraved conduct of Putin’s occupiers in those parts of the Donbass and Crimea that they presently and temporarily occupy. In that changed world, we have to look afresh at how we keep our people safe from that grim reality and other deadly and disruptive threats—not just now but for decades to come. It is a daunting task for this review, but I hope that we will help point a way towards a more secure and safer future.

Defence Spending

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, the financial detail is quite complicated and I think it is better if we write and explain how the figures are built up.

It is clearly an ask for the British public. The cake is finite, as I have said before, and defence needs more. It is not an inconsiderable amount of money that we are increasing the defence budget by, and there is a question of how much money you can spend over time. It is rather like building a house, in that you cannot spend it all at once; you have to build up. If you look at where the investment focus is within the next few years, you find that, first, it is on firing up the UK industrial base, including £10 billion for a new munitions strategy. That is extremely important. Secondly, it is on ensuring that our Armed Forces benefit from the very latest technology, through the DIA. Thirdly, it is on guaranteeing long-term support for Ukraine; if we do not do that, it is just going to become more and more expensive. As the Secretary-General said the other day, this is the cheapest time to defeat the Russians. Fourthly, it is on ensuring that expenditure is effective through radical procurement reform, which I have already covered.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, all of us will welcome any increase to defence expenditure at a time of maximum turmoil and trouble in the world. There is much in this Statement which is to be welcomed, not just the extra money but the aspects on resilience and the rest.

However, I turn the Minister’s attention back to what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said. These increases in defence expenditure matter only in terms of the capability that they will produce, and that depends very much on whether or not these figures are accurate and whether the contention that they are going to be fully funded is correct. Many of the economists and experts outside, having looked at the figures overnight, are questioning very deeply their veracity—not only the fact that the £75 billion championed here is based on an assumption about flat cash values of expenditure but the fact that there is a gap between the £4.5 billion a year the Government say they will spend and the £7 billion. How is it going to be produced? Mr Ben Zaranko of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that what is proposed will not be fully funded. He said:

“It’s in the ballpark of full-throttle austerity”.


The Resolution Foundation says that the contention that it is fully funded is a “joke”. Since we are not laughing, and since these matters are of national and international importance, can the Minister now tell us precisely what is the veracity of the figures that have been produced?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I really appreciate the detail of that question. Of course, the importance of getting the figures right and where the money is coming from is critical to the success of the entire endeavour. The detail is such that I would rather write than try to answer the question now, but there is no doubt that the commitment to this level of expenditure has been made and will be delivered.

Ukraine

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Government and the Minister for providing this debate. It has been a long time coming, but it is welcome none the less, and I congratulate her on the strong statement she has made this morning, and my noble friend, Lady Smith, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, on their powerful speeches. It is right that a conflict such as this, which we are involved in, should be debated regularly in this House and Parliament.

If we, as a country, had been invaded by Russia, or indeed by any other country, we would be discussing it every day. If it was our Armed Forces battling for national survival, we would be bending every sinew to throw out the invader. We would have factories turning out ammunition, using every single weapon at our disposal, rallying every part of society, just in the same way that the Ukrainians are doing just now. We would make the sacrifices, pay the price, mobilise our people—all our strengths and all our military might. We have done it before, and we would do it again. We would defend our land, our territorial integrity, our borders, our people, and we would do it with tenacity and with national unity. It almost goes without saying. But we need, of course, to remember this: the Ukrainians are not simply fighting for themselves alone. They are fighting for us as well.

The aggression of Russia, and the gross violation of the United Nations charter, as the Deputy Prime Minister of this country said at the United Nations today, by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council itself, is a threat to our way of life as well, and to our values, our right to live in a world of safety and security, and our territorial integrity. That is why we stand with the people of Ukraine and why we need to do much more, in our own interests as well as theirs.

Maybe on occasion we have lost sight of the stakes that are involved in this conflict. They are mighty. If Putin wins and destroys Ukraine, and makes even part of that country a colony of the Russian Federation, we lose as well. Why is that? First, the new rules of the world would be rewritten by the authoritarians— the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans and the Iranians. That would assuredly make for a very dark and uncomfortable world to live in. Secondly, as we know, Putin would not stop at Ukraine. Moldova, Kazakhstan and Armenia—which is already under attack, as we speak—would all feel the cold wind of an enervated Russian Federation and elite. A world where borders can be changed by military means at the whim of a single paranoid authoritarian would be a very chaotic world indeed.

It is true, of course, and worth putting on the positive side of this terrible calamity, that Putin grossly underestimated the unity of the western Europeans, whom he thought were fragmented and weak-willed. He saw some evidence of that in our weak response to the invasion of Crimea and in the shambolic exit from Afghanistan, but he then underestimated the link between the United States and Europe, which has been welded firm. He underestimated the attractions of NATO, with Finland newly in and Sweden on the brink of membership. His fictional so-called threat has multiplied. More than anything, he seriously underestimated the tenacity, grit, spirit and sheer determination of his fellow Slavs in Ukraine to defend and repel the naked aggression of their neighbouring state.

At the same time, we should not underestimate Vladimir Putin or the small group around him who tell him what he wants to hear. We should not underestimate his capacity for limitless cruelty against the Ukrainians, given the dreadful war crimes already committed, as outlined by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the forced abduction of children—for which the admirable International Criminal Court has now indicted him. We should not underestimate the pain that he is willing to inflict on his own people to pursue his grim vanity project, or his willingness to bear the huge, long-term damage to the Russian economy of an unnecessary war and the serious effects that sanctions are having on that economy. Hundreds and thousands of the young—the brightest and best of Russia—have left the country; it is a country weakened as a consequence.

We should not underestimate Vladimir Putin’s willingness to subordinate Russia to the Chinese and now, bizarrely, the North Koreans, as he takes risks such as opening the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic to soft-skinned tankers of oil, as he has done in recent days. We must not underestimate the enormous propaganda exercise that is being undertaken by the Kremlin, which uses disinformation, espionage, RT television, Sputnik radio and YouTube channels, all designed to undermine western support and encourage the global South countries to bend to it. It is already having an effect on European opinion. According to a recent opinion poll, up to 70% of Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians think that providing weapons to Ukraine provokes Russia and drags their own countries closer to the war.

We should not underestimate the efforts that Putin is making to win this conflict, dodging sanctions and smuggling in the components to create accurate missiles. I am told that Russia is producing 200 tanks and 2 million artillery shells a year—twice as many as it was producing before the conflict. Apparently, that exceeds western production by a factor of seven. Russian artillery shells cost $600 a piece, compared with $5,000 in the West—a lesson that we need to take on board. We should not underestimate his capacity for evil, because short of using nuclear weapons, which I think is unthinkable even for him, that capacity for evil may be boundless.

It was one man who took the decision to invade, and it will take one man to decide that enough is enough. One might seriously ask whether that is possible? It is a fair question, but we should always remember that, in 1989, when the Soviet Union decided that it was not winning in Afghanistan and that it was costing it lives and money, it simply folded its tents and came home. There were no off-ramps and no face-savers; it simply came home. Only a few weeks ago, President Xi Jinping of China ended his draconian lockdown without giving any notice to the population. At the same time, the Supreme Leader of Iran released thousands of women prisoners from jail. In both cases, the authoritarians could see that the ground was moving under them. Personal survival matters to them much more than saving face.

That is why it is imperative that Vladimir Putin gets the same message. He will get it by the West standing firm and resolute, with western leaders regularly and loudly telling their people what is at stake and why sacrifices are in their own personal interests and in our nation’s interest. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has said, it is therefore crucial that we supply the Ukrainians with all the weapons and ammunition that they need and when they need them. The delay in sending long-range missiles and artillery shells has hurt the counter-offensive, expectations for which were probably unrealistically high. With the Russians digging deep World War I-type trenches and sowing multi-level minefields, it was never going to be easy to recover the poisoned territory that they had taken. However, as we have seen in the past few days, it is not impossible, and progress is being made.

I say again that we need to guard against the fear and apprehension of escalation that we see in so many leaderships in Europe. Instead of the West being nervous of Russian escalation—something it has maxed-out already—we need to breed in the military hierarchy in Moscow the worry that, if they overdo what is being done in Ukraine, then an actual rather than a fictitious war with NATO might be the result; a war that they know they could only lose.

I saw a lot of the Russian military in my time, including being asked, after my time in NATO, to address the military chiefs club of the Russian Federation, an organisation of retired high-ranking officers. My impression was that they are very patriotic and conservative. The motherland is all important and, in the end, they are not prepared to risk it for a failing Putinesque adventure, especially one which has been so spectacularly unsuccessful, wasteful and humiliating.

The rebellion by Yevgeny Prigozhin showed the fraud of the war’s justification, which he called out, and the inner tensions in the authoritarian glasshouse. Only by ramping up our political pressure and maintaining targeting on Putin himself will the edifice crack and will the military, which has supported him until now, cavil at the damage that he is doing.

Sir Basil Liddell Hart, the greatest strategist of the Second World War, once memorably said that

“the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men”.

It was a salutary reminder that more than Prigozhin have doubts about this war. They need, with our united front, to notify Vladimir Putin that, just as in Afghanistan, the time to go home is now. It is our solemn duty to stand with those who are fighting for us in Ukraine. I quote President Zelensky:

“Human morality must win this war”.


The Ukrainians need to win, they must win, they have to win and we must ensure that they do win.

Defence Command Paper Refresh

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my tribute on the impending retirement of the Defence Secretary in the House of Commons. He is the longest-serving Conservative Defence Secretary and, especially in his role in connection with Ukraine, he has been outstanding. We will miss him. I am in many ways sorry that he did not get the job that he aspired to, which I once had the honour of holding. After all, he had the primary qualification that the Minister and I both have—he is Scottish. Sadly, that was not sufficiently appreciated among the other 31 countries and therefore, the Back Benches beckoned to him as well.

The Minister held up the document, and I could see that it has been well flagged by the department for her. It is called not “Refresh” but Defence’s Response to a more Contested and Volatile World. On page 63 it states:

“As set out in the IRR, the most urgent priority in the Euro-Atlantic is to support Ukraine to reassert its sovereignty and deny Russia any strategic benefit from its invasion. Our continued and unwavering support to Ukraine has shown the UK at its best”.


If that is the case and we are now involved in helping Ukraine in the existential battle it is undertaking with the Russian Federation, why is this Parliament debating and discussing this at the fag-end of the day, just before the Summer Recess? Will the Minister reflect on the fact that the last time we had a full-scale debate on the subject of a war in which we are participating was a year ago? Will she take the message back to her department and through it to the Prime Minister that Winston Churchill came to Parliament almost every week during the Second World War in order that the Parliament of the country was as involved in the conflict as Ministers of the Crown? I have made this point to her before, but it needs to go beyond her because I am sure she actually agrees with me. We really have to have proper debates about this matter; otherwise, documents such as this will lie on a shelf and will not help with the campaign or the fight any more than is happening at the moment.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his kind remarks about my colleague and friend Ben Wallace. I will convey them to him and direct him to Hansard. I know he will be much comforted by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and I know he will not bear any resentment that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, enjoyed what has eluded him. He is looking remarkably free and easy. He is looking positively liberated, so I think he is clearly anticipating with great pleasure whatever lies ahead.

I omitted to respond to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, raised at the beginning of his remarks about an opportunity to debate this in the autumn. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has just articulated a very similar sentiment, which reminded me. When the noble Lord previously passionately expressed his disquiet and dissatisfaction with the amount of time devoted in this Chamber to debate on the Ukraine war, I did convey that, and I fully understand that this paper is a very significant component of our defence plans. Again, I will take this back direct to the Leader and the Chief Whip and say that there is clearly an appetite for more time to be set aside. Your Lordships will understand that in this House we do that through the usual channels. I would appreciate it if your Lordships would convey the same message through your avenues on your party Benches, because I think the Leader and the Chief Whip would find that helpful.

I am very clear about the significance of where we are now, with another war in Europe, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, indicated—an illegal conflict in Ukraine. The pivotal decisions that now lie in front of defence, our change of direction and how we will take forward this new model, genuinely require debate and discussion. I am very sympathetic to that, so I reassure both noble Lords that I hear what they are saying and I will repeat that as cogently as I can.

Defence Policy (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Friday 30th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who chaired with great distinction the committee before I joined it. Although I joined it only this year, I fully endorse what she said and what it says, and I congratulate it on its perception and insight. Like others, I am sure, I regret that it has taken so long to get to a debate on the important analysis provided by the committee.

The committee rightly made a very important point in its conclusions:

“The strategic assumptions that underpinned the Integrated Review and the Defence Command Paper have changed. In particular, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally changed the European security environment”.


I emphasise “fundamentally changed” because that is now a self-evident truth, but a truth with enormous implications. Indeed, the Government’s response to the committee went further and was even blunter. They said that

“we misjudged the pace of change and the range and severity of the threats we would face. As a result, we can no longer tolerate some of the risks we felt able to bear at the time, and we need to ensure that our capabilities and their supporting enablers are credible for the challenges both of this decade and the next”.

So, here is my question for today: given the huge importance to our country and its people of what is acknowledged to be a fundamental change in the security environment we live in, why have we had so little time allocated to debate these issues? This is only the second debate in this House on the war in Ukraine and its enormous implications since the invasion took place 16 months ago—and this debate is not even actually about Ukraine. There have of course been a number of Statements, and they are welcome, but they simply involve a Q&A session with the Minister concerned, not a full House debate.

This is the Parliament of our country, and it seems obvious to me and to many others that we should be debating, discussing, challenging and deliberating on that “fundamental change” and the Government’s acknowledged misjudgment of the risks we face. The people of this country, in my view, are being short-changed by the Government denying Parliament the ventilation of the crisis, which is what a debate here and in the Commons would represent, because—this is the second issue I wish to raise in this very short and very rare debate—we need to recognise the gravity of the stakes at play in Ukraine today.

This war is not just about saving Ukraine as a sovereign, independent nation state and the survival of its people, important and life-saving as those are. It is about our safety and security as well. Make no mistake at all: if Vladimir Putin prevails in this bloody, unprovoked attempted conquest, the resulting world will be a very different place—and not a very comfortable one. There will be a new rules-based order, that is for sure, but it will be written by the Chinese and a subordinate Russia. It will have the acquiescence of what we have come to know as the Global South—those countries such as India, South Africa and Brazil which are, almost unbelievably, sitting on the fence but edging towards Russia, ignoring as they do the stark fact that, if the principle of nuclear blackmail and of borders changed by force prevails, it will devastate them as much as us in Europe. That new world order assuredly will not enshrine the values and principles we have adopted throughout my life.

Authoritarians do not believe in the rule of law, free speech, a free press, free elections or private property. That is amply on display today in Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. We neglect at our peril the present manoeuvrings of those authoritarians—for example, meddling in the Middle East. As the report says, and the refresh underlines, in this region that is almost ignored by the integrated review, meddling is now on vivid display.

Who here would have imagined the day when China would be the midwife to the rencontre between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Just look at the western Balkans; I know the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, will speak on this authoritatively later on. Neglected as it has been by the West, this area, which we did so much to settle and save, is being used today by Russia and China as an adventure playground for their deadly mischief. I ask noble Lords to imagine for a bleak moment what these two areas will be like if Putin succeeds in Ukraine.

What about the Arctic, the subject of the committee’s present investigation? Russia has long protected and projected its strategic and resource role in the region, but now, as Russia has become the little brother, China has become an Arctic nation—avariciously watching the opening northern sea route and the data-rich domination at the very top of the world.

Eastern Ukraine is on our TV screens every night that something dreadful happens, but its plight and its umbilical connection to this country’s safety and security are amazingly absent from the serious deliberations of our Parliament. That should be unacceptable to all of us. I believe that the Government’s support for Ukraine is justified and praiseworthy. A debate in Parliament would emphasise that point and produce a signal to Putin, in the cracked glasshouse he now inhabits, that our collective resolution is strong, unanimous and durable. When he knows that, even his fevered mind might change. He cannot, and must not, succeed.

Ukraine

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, who has worked hard as the Prime Minister’s envoy on Ukraine. It is also good to look forward to the maiden contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, who is not only an old colleague and friend but a former Minister for the Armed Forces, with a distinguished record that was only enhanced by him being denied the Conservative whip in the House of Commons before he came here.

The most famous expert on strategy during the Second World War was Sir Basil Liddell Hart, who once wisely said:

“The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.”


Therefore, the question for us is: given that Vladimir Putin, in his own mind, made the decision to invade Ukraine, ignoring the advice of his military experts and recklessly misreading the intelligence on the resistance of the Ukrainians, can we change his mind? I believe that we can and that we must do just that. Getting into the mind of someone like President Putin is not easy, even for me who dealt with him personally 20 years ago in what now seems to be another universe. But I offer to the House some recent examples of the kind of mind shifts among authoritarians that might just give us an indication of where we could go in the future.

The first example is the decision of President Xi of China only a few weeks ago to abandon overnight the draconian lockdown policy on Covid. Even an authoritarian in a country such as China will watch public opinion closely, and he could see that the ground was moving—and fast. My second example was less than a week ago. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran, a notably repressive regime, decided without notice to release thousands of prisoners who had defied the law on headdress. Even the Supreme Leader could see that the ground was moving against the regime. With women’s demonstrations escalating all the time, the mind of the commander was changed as a consequence. My third example was the exit by the Soviet Union in February 1989 from its disastrous invasion and intervention in Afghanistan. In the Kremlin, they understood that they were losing the war, the casualty list was producing a massive backlash among mothers and it was costing an already troubled economy a substantial amount of money. So, without any off-ramp being offered, no face-saving formula being available, they ordered their troops simply to come home. My fourth example to the House is 4 June 1989, when Solidarity was elected the Government in Poland. On that day, there were 55,000 Soviet troops in Poland but the Soviet Politburo ordered them to stay in their barracks. It could see the writing on the wall, that the ground internationally was moving and that its mind had to change—and it did so.

What, then, will it take to change Vladimir Putin’s mind without, as it happens, the advice to him of a politburo, a parliament or even a security council? The answer is: primarily by the determination of the West to stand by the territorial integrity of Ukraine and its people. Only by the united resolution of the countries of the free world insisting on the right of Ukraine and the Ukrainians to live as they want will the mind of Putin change when he sees that he cannot succeed. That unity of western Europe was Putin’s first serious miscalculation and so, too, was the renewed link between Europe and the United States. Both must be reinforced.

We must give President Zelensky, who inspired us all yesterday in Westminster Hall, the tools to defend his nation. The main thing, however, is to give long-term commitments to providing help. Piecemeal decisions do not have the same effect on the Kremlin as our united promise to continue providing the missiles, guns, ammunition and training that will help Ukraine to throw out the invader.

It is a brutal fact that the people of Ukraine are fighting for their lives, their country and democracy, but they are also fighting for us. It is again a brutal fact of the new world that Vladimir Putin has created that our front line of defending Britain is no longer the white cliffs of Dover or the north German plains but the mud and blood of the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. We must make sure that that front line is defended with vigour, determination and total resolution. That means that the Government must make a difficult but necessary choice to spend the cash, replenish all that we have sent to Ukraine and restore the defences of our own country. We can all now see the threat to us that is on display in technicolour in Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol. There is absolutely no excuse possible for skimping on the defence of our nation and our people. The first and overwhelming duty of any Government is the protection of the nation, and that duty cannot and must not be avoided.

Armed Forces: Resilience

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hintze, in his maiden speech. I applaud and agree with his final sentiment that complacency is not an option. I know him well and recognise his remarkable and successful business career, his pride in his Australian background, especially so on this Australia Day, and his remarkable record for philanthropy, not only to the Armed Forces but to institutions such as the Natural History Museum. He has a lot of experience and wisdom, and we therefore look forward to hearing more from him in future.

I will speak about Ukraine, about which we really should have a full debate in this Parliament, both in this House and in the other House. It is increasingly clear that Vladimir Putin has declared war on the West. It is also clear that we are not responding adequately to that overt challenge to our countries and what we stand for. There is no visible urgency in our national behaviour. It is, of course, a war unlike the wars of the past. However, that old-fashioned type of brutal war is being waged against the territory and the people of the sovereign state of Ukraine. In contrast, Putin’s war on the West is much more subtle, more hybrid, less visible and more multifaceted, but just as potent and damaging. By using misinformation, election interference, cyberattacks, corruption, organised crime and malicious diplomacy, and by exploiting every crack in our democratic societies, he is seeking to disrupt and to weaken the fabric of our liberal, open democracies.

At the same time, that has nothing to do with promoting an alternative economic or social model, as the Soviet Union sought to do with its brand of Marxism-Leninism. Putin may well harbour, in secret, demented dreams about recreating that oppressive empire, but, in reality, he is violently posturing to gain attention and hoping to establish some parity with the United States of America. With his economy tanking and his young, economically active population draining away, those are simply foolish delusions.

The issue for us today as we approach the 365th day of Putin’s three-day war against Ukraine is: what should we be doing in response to the declaration of war by the Russian President? Here is my checklist of what we need to do. First, we need to secure our own societies and democratic systems. With London still a reservoir of Russian dark money, as we heard earlier, and London’s lawyers still doing the dirty work for Russian money men and women, more needs to be done to enforce and toughen sanctions against those who do the Kremlin’s bidding or who profit from his regime.

Secondly, our defences need strengthening, as has already been said and will be said again in this debate—and I am sure in the other maiden speech, from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, who I know and respect very well as a friend. That does not just mean spending more on defence; it means replenishing the stocks we are giving to the Ukrainians. Thirdly, we need to give the Ukrainians more. If, as Ministers continually say, the Ukrainians are fighting for themselves, their country, and for us, as indeed they are, by holding stocks and equipment here, when our front line is actually in eastern Ukraine, we leave ourselves dangerously exposed.

The fourth thing we need to do is to tell the Russian people that we, NATO, the European Union and the West are not attacking Russia. Instead, we are helping the sovereign state of Ukraine to defend itself against an unprovoked attack. How do we get that message across? The answer is that we did it in the Cold War and can do it again. More Russian language information needs to get into Russia, and we need to promote the independent BBC World Service, as well as YouTube, Instagram and a host of means that can get past the wall of deceit and lies which characterise Russia’s propaganda outlets. A younger generation can access the web, but the older folk—that is, the majority—in Russia depend on the official media, with its Orwellian approach to truth and facts.

Fifthly, we need to tell the Russian military, whose advice Putin clearly ignored when he ordered the invasion, some bold truths. The Russian high command knows that it was ill-prepared for such an ambitious war, and that it had, through faulty and over-optimistic intelligence, completely underestimated the opposition, resilience and ingenuity of the Ukrainians. The Russian military know that they are struggling against a formidable, highly motivated Ukrainian population, now being armed with western-supplied, sophisticated weaponry that they have no answer to. In their collective memory must be the parallel with the Red Army in Afghanistan in February 1989. They were faced with an endless, unwinnable war costing lives and precious resources, so the Kremlin ordered the mighty Red Army of the Soviet Union to come home. Nobody was asking at that time for an off-ramp or a ceasefire, or some face saver for the Russians. They simply folded their tents and left—and 32 months later there was no Soviet Union.

Sixthly, we need to tell Putin and the small number of cronies around him advising him and telling him all the time what he wants to hear, that all his strategic objectives have failed. He wanted to stop NATO enlargement, he wanted to split Europe, and he wanted to split Europe from the United States of America—all failed. He wanted to crush and eliminate Ukraine from the map, and instead he has produced a new, deep, permanent feeling of nationhood in that country. He wanted to annex and absorb the Donbas and the land corridor to Crimea, but now his spokesman cannot even describe what has been annexed and what they still hold.

We need to tell Vladimir Putin this: one step over the Article 5 NATO line and there will be an existential risk to the Russian motherland. Here is another message for the man in the Kremlin, who gave us this terrible war. Speaking, as I do, as the only person ever to announce the invoking of Article 5—that guarantee that an attack on one NATO country should be seen as an attack on them all—I can tell Vladimir Putin this. I met him nine times during my time in NATO, and at that point we did good business together, but I tell him now that the Article 5 guarantee of a nuclear weapons alliance goes well beyond normal red lines.

Finally, we need to address the global south and the lack of understanding of Ukraine’s position in Africa, South America and India. It seems that many countries in the south see this is as a regional conflict of payback for NATO enlargement or a challenge to the over-mighty US and the arrogance of the West. However, they must understand that, if it becomes accepted that borders can be changed by force and that sovereign states can be invaded and annexed, if nuclear blackmail intimidates neighbouring states, many more countries than Ukraine will be on the danger list. We need urgently to get that message over and to make an effort to get it heard loudly.

I end with a sentiment worth the House pondering on if anybody is worried about further escalation. The greatest nuclear threat we face today is a Russian victory. We must do everything possible to prevent that happening.

Ukraine: Update

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

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

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for their helpful comments. As I have said before, that unanimity of political support in the UK is really important. It has been commented upon to me, and it sends out a very significant message, so I wish expressly to thank both noble Lords for their contributions.

On the latest situation in Ukraine, noble Lords will be aware that the announcement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place on Monday reflected a very significant augmentation of everything we have been doing. In fact, as I prepared to address the House on the Statement, I looked at the list of equipment, ammunitions, help and provisions, and I thought it might be useful if we managed to produce some kind of summary of everything that has been produced, because in aggregate it is a fantastic amount. With the help of not just the UK but our partners and allies, we have in aggregate produced something really substantive that has absolutely put energy in the Ukrainian armed forces to defend their country and take forward courageously the difficult and deadly fight in which they are engaged. There is no doubt that, by listening to their needs and requests and assessing their intelligence, our intelligence and United States intelligence, we have been able to respond very positively to those needs.

Very importantly, because a request was made for co-ordination, what exactly is happening? I remind the Chamber of what I alluded to yesterday, which is that there is a NATO CHODs meeting yesterday and today, where we are represented by the Chief of the Defence Staff. The Secretary of State is currently in Estonia, at Tapa, and tomorrow there will be the donors conference being convened by the United States in Ramstein, which will be attended by the Secretary of State and the Chief of the Defence Staff. These fora illustrate the extent to which everybody is speaking to one another. There is a very fluid dialogue going on, and if you marry that into structures that have been put in place, such as the international donor co-ordination centre and the international fund to help Ukraine, I think noble Lords will understand that there is a really solid framework to support Ukraine in its endeavour to defend itself.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked specifically about the situation in Ukraine. As I think we are aware, it has been going through considerable challenge with the relentless and merciless onslaught from Russia. The nature of that onslaught is in itself interesting, because it suggests that Russia continues to be disorganised, in a sense. Its strategic aims are not clear. From the Russian end, I think the recent switch of commanding officer—the commanding officer has now been sacked and the original one brought back in—indicates that there is some disarray in Russia’s activity.

None the less, we can try to help on both the military front and the humanitarian front, and that is what we have been doing. I think Members are now pretty conversant with where we have got to on the military front and everything we have been offering. On the humanitarian front, Members will be aware that we have been a leading humanitarian donor, with a £220 million package of humanitarian aid, a fiscal support grant of around £75 million and a £100 million grant to support Ukraine’s energy security and reforms.

We have also been doing grant-in-aid medical equipment to the armed forces: ambulances, tourniquets, field dressings, individual first aid kits, medic packs and hospital consumables. We have used the conflict, stability and security fund to support payment of salaries to the Ukrainian armed forces. Over and above that, the Prime Minister confirmed in November that we would provide £12 million to the World Food Programme and £4 million to the International Organization for Migration to help meet some urgent humanitarian needs, particularly of course during winter. That funding will help provide generators, shelter, water repairs and mobile health clinics.

The UK has more than 350 staff in the region working on the response to the crisis—so that is no small amount of support. That includes humanitarian experts, and within the UK more than 70 staff are working on our humanitarian response. I think it is important to mention that the UK has matched pound for pound the public’s first £25 million for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine humanitarian appeal. That is the UK’s largest-ever aid-matched contribution.

On more specific things, as Members will be aware, we have been trying to help with work to restore energy supply and with provision of generators. Very interestingly, we have been trying to help with an array of measures, not least the provision of some military equipment, to assist with de-arming equipment that has been left and also with minefield hunting, to try to identify where there are perils. That is all a very necessary precursor to trying to do anything in the rebuild sense.

In an earlier debate on Ukraine, the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, brought to my attention the Wilton Park report in December, and I was very grateful to her. I commend this report to any of your Lordships who have not yet read it. It is a really interesting analytical and constructive suggestion as to how we may go forward with rebuilding the country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked about the tragic helicopter crash yesterday. We were desperately saddened to hear about that, and our thoughts obviously go out to the families of all those affected by that tragedy, including the Minister and the other 14 people. Our thoughts are very much with the Ukrainian Government at this time. I have no further information about the crash, so I am unable to give your Lordships any more detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked me about the location of the Challengers. For security reasons, I cannot disclose that, but I can say that training has already begun. Somewhere in this voluminous briefing pack, I saw a reference to training starting as soon as the Ukrainian troops arrive in the UK. That is likely to be by the end of this month, which is quite encouraging. All the equipment that we have announced—the subject of this repeated Statement—will be operated by Ukrainian troops on the battlefield in the coming months. I cannot be more precise than that but I think your Lordships will understand that there is a mutual desire on the parts of both the UK and the Ukrainian Government to accelerate this as best we can.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about the Prime Minister’s earlier reference to a review of what we have been providing. I think your Lordships will now understand that that was more a mechanical inquiry in order to be satisfied that what we have been providing has been used to good effect and is actually changing the dynamic of the conflict, which I think it is. The Prime Minister’s subsequent personal commitment to the new tranche of equipment bears testament to his resolve that the UK Government will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government of Ukraine to support them in this conflict; there have been significant aid gestures from the United Kingdom since the Prime Minister talked of his review. The noble Lord raised that question with me earlier and I said to him that I saw nothing sinister or alarming about that; to me, it was just a routine check to make sure that we are providing the right things and making a difference.

The noble Lord also referred to the language used by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State when he talked about the war changing from resisting to expelling Russian forces. I have checked Hansard to see what he said. He was talking of Ukraine. He meant that Ukraine can go from resisting to expelling Russian forces from Ukrainian soil. We have always been clear that our defence policy is to support Ukraine in defending itself against this illegal aggression and to take whatever steps it needs, within international law, to repel that aggressor.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about replenishment. I can provide some information that may be more specific than she thought I might be able to give her. We are fully engaged with industry. That is happening not just within the United Kingdom; it is happening across the piece with our NATO allies. As I said yesterday, none of this can be done in a silo. The United Kingdom cannot have a solitary conversation with a producer; we have to be doing it in tandem with our allies and partners to work out clarity on what is needed, who is going to provide it and when. So we are fully engaged with industry allies and partners to ensure both the continuation of supply to Ukraine and that all equipment and munitions granted in kind from UK stocks are replaced as expeditiously as possible.

Exact stockpile details are classified for obvious operational reasons so I cannot give further comment on that, but I can say to the noble Baroness that a number of substantial contracts have already been placed to replenish UK stockpiles directly. These include the replenishment of the Starstreak high-velocity, lightweight, multirole missile. I can confirm that the replacement next-generation light anti-tank weapons, NLAWs, are currently being built, and several hundred missiles will be delivered to UK stockpiles from 2023 onwards. A contract for further NLAWs was signed on 7 December 2022. I hope that reassures your Lordships that this is actively being engaged on.

I have tried to deal with the points that have been raised. I will check Hansard and, if I have omitted anything, I apologise and I shall write.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Through her, I thank all those at the Ministry of Defence who are assisting Ukraine at this difficult time. The Ukrainians are defending themselves but, in defending their country and themselves, they are defending us as well. Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he is at war with the West and with us; we must take that extremely seriously.

The decision to send the Challenger tanks is a good one. I hope that it will put additional pressure on the German Government to release the Leopard tanks that other countries wish to give at present, so it is symbolically important too. I associate myself with what my noble friend Lord Coaker said: it is time that we had a full-scale debate in this House on this issue. We are at war. Vladimir Putin is at war with us and, in a wartime situation, we really need an opportunity for Parliament to say its word.

Finally, can I offer a suggestion to the Minister that she might take away? When the Prime Minister goes to Kiev, as he will and as he must, he should issue an invitation to the Leader of the Opposition to join him. It is extremely important that the Ukrainians and the Russians see that it is the British people who are fighting at present, not simply the British Government. I hope that she will pass that message on.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. The matter of a debate in this House was raised with me by someone from my own Benches yesterday. As I indicated, it is a matter for the Government Whips’ Office and the usual channels but I am sure that, if they pick up that there is an appetite for it, they will pay close attention. The noble Lord’s other suggestion is interesting. It is certainly something that I will take back and relay to the department. I do not know when the PM is next scheduled to visit Ukraine but I understand the point that the noble Lord makes.

Ukraine

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, there is an old saying: in Russia, everything changes in 20 years and nothing changes in 200 years. It maybe gets to the heart of the recent crisis, when the unthinkable has become the inevitable.

Over the last few weeks I have been wondering, with the rest of the world, what is inside the head of the man who has, on his own, ordered the violent invasion of a sovereign nation state in this year 2022; whom I met nine times in the Kremlin and in Brussels; with whom I did good business and with whom we created the 20-strong NATO-Russia Council, with Russia as an equal at that table; who personally signed accords guaranteeing the right of nations, and Ukraine specifically, to choose their own

“inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security, the inviolability of borders”;

and who asked me about when we were going to invite Russia to join NATO.

So I ask this today: what irrational thought process has changed that man into the monster who violates the sovereignty—indeed, the existence—of a neighbouring country? What changed that man of the KGB, who this week publicly humiliated the head of his own foreign intelligence service in the full sight of a dismayed world? The answer to many people, and widely accepted, is that he is paranoid about next-door Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. I disagree. I do not think that the organisation that I used to head is the fuel on the Putin fire; it is just a useful demon to scare the Russian public. His real and well-justified fear is of democracy. He has seen how the aspiration of former Communist countries to join the European Union changes these countries permanently and fundamentally. The EU is, in fact, the bogey.

Nations becoming democracies, with a free press, free elections, the rule of law and mixed economies, are a serious challenge to the Putin model of brutal authoritarianism. In his fevered mind, if Ukraine travels in that direction, as indeed it wants to do, then what about the rising revolts in Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan? It is getting, for him, much too close to home. This attack—this breach of international law and of the UN Charter, this heavy-handed assault on a fellow Slavic nation—is actually a sign of weakness, of vulnerability in the face of an inexorable tide of democracy.

So what do we do now? First, we stand absolutely firm and resolute with the Ukrainian people. Secondly, we should finance and supply the resistance to these invaders—make Ukraine the new Afghanistan for Russia. Thirdly, we must build our own defences, protect our own democratic values and imprint in the mind of Putin and his generals the inviolability of the Article 5 guarantee, and the danger to their motherland if they ever thought of crossing that line. Fourthly, we must mobilise the whole world against this outrage and make sure that the sanctions bite savagely and affect the Kremlin’s thinking.

Finally, I remind the House of what President Putin said in May 2002, standing beside me in Rome at the NATO-Russia summit. He said this:

“Russia always had a crucial role in world affairs. The problem for our country has been, however, that over a very long period of time a situation arose in which Russia was on one side and the other side was … the rest of the world.”


He continued:

“Nothing good came of that confrontation between us and the rest of the world.”


These were wise words in 2002; they are even more true today.