Defence Reform Bill

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Grand Committee

Why was Dr Reid so sure? Why were he and, indeed, his successors, so content? We mere Back-Benchers can never know the details, and we would not expect to.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

The said Mr Norman Baker is now a Minister at the Home Office. Has the noble Baroness any indication that he has perhaps pursued these matters and some of the other eccentric matters that he was interested in before he became one of Her Majesty’s Ministers?

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I do not know why the noble Lord finds it an eccentric matter, but I have not discussed this with Mr Baker before speaking today or, indeed, at any time. I am simply quoting the Hansard entry from those years as an example of one of the parliamentarians. I could give many others, but I do not want to take the time of the Committee. They are certainly not eccentric.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I should clarify for the noble Baroness that I was referring to Mr Baker’s other eccentric issues. This one might not be classified as that at the moment.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I do not think we are discussing the other issues at this moment, so I shall return to the matter of the debate. The fact is that Parliament has time and again raised this issue. Indeed the Defence Select Committee in another place also raised it. In October 2004, a number of changes of use at Menwith Hill were put through as Written Statements prompting the Defence Select Committee to tell the then Secretary of State, Geoff Hoon, that:

“Despite the Secretary of State’s unequivocal statement that he wanted the decision to be informed by public and parliamentary discussion, he has acted in a way that has effectively curtailed such discussions”.

It went on to recommend full parliamentary debate of the proposals. There were none. In January 2008, my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire spoke about how much Menwith Hill remains subject to British control and said that he was,

“extremely unhappy about the extent to which it remains effectively under British sovereignty”.—[Official Report, 10/1/09; col. 987.]

There is a long history of Parliament being left in ignorance on this issue. I do not know the reason for that. Was it because Secretaries of State did not know what was going on there or chose not to let Parliament know? However, the fact remains that the legislative framework applies to UK operators and all communications between the UK and abroad. We now have the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was brought in to cover some of these advances in technology. It will not come as a surprise to Members of the Committee that, under the framework, authority and warrants must be given if anything is to be done that would interfere effectively with the private lives of UK citizens. We need to know that what happens on UK soil, whether it is done on American bases or by people in the UK, is covered in the same way. That is the point of these amendments. In Amendment 15, we would give responsibility to an individual to ensure a reporting mechanism. My noble friend Lord Hodgson already referred to what an unenviable position that might be.

We have a heavy responsibility here to make sure that the very unsatisfactory state that has continued for decades comes to an end. In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama promised to work with the US Congress to reform surveillance programmes. All we suggest in these amendments is that we in the UK Parliament play our part in making surveillance accountable. I fully accept the need for a security programme but of course I am equally concerned about where the lines are drawn and whether GCHQ overstepped its remit. At least I am assured that GCHQ has a line of accountability to the Government and our Ministers, and appears before committees of Parliament. In the case of the visiting forces, that is something we can remedy by amending the Bill as we suggest. I strongly feel that that needs to happen.

To conclude, when in 1994 Bob Cryer brought up the worry about these developments at Menwith Hill, the then Minister, Mr Hanley, said that,

“what he peddles is ill-informed, second-hand fantasy based on prejudice against our allies which in itself is not in the national interest. His colourful language may well make good sound bites, but it is pathetic in its paranoia”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/3/94; col. 616.]

Since then, Mr Cryer’s worries have proved to be absolutely sound. It is our duty today to put in place very belatedly these amendments that would ensure full accountability.

Defence Reform Bill

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I work for the Cohen Group, a Washington-based consultancy led by a former Secretary of Defence, William Cohen.

I support the idea and concept of a GOCO. However, I also recognise the powerful case made by my noble friend in relation to secondary legislation. We should consider the GOCO because something radical needs to be done about defence procurement. I was Secretary of State for Defence for two and a half years, too brief a period to get to terms with the scandal that has been the continuing story of defence procurement in this country. The story of cost overruns and time overruns is deeply disturbing and worrying.

Over the past weekend, I took part in a security conference in Munich. There was a special session with a number of talented and experienced people talking about European defence and the crisis of diminishing defence budgets in the face of both existing and emerging threats. I made the point in that discussion that we were unlikely to get defence budgets stabilised or increased. Unless the case can be made to the general public that there are threats that need to be dealt with, defence budgets will continue to go down. At the moment, advocacy of the need for defence is missing.

At the same time, the case is consistently undermined by the fact that we do not use existing defence budgets properly or effectively. First, there is a multiplicity of defence projects across Europe which duplicate in many areas what we could do; a focus on items of capability which are related to the Cold War and not to future threats; and the sheer number of tanks and hopeless aircraft in the European arsenal which relate to yesterday’s enemy and not to the future. Secondly, and importantly, a large amount of money is wasted on the way in which we procure defence. As Secretary of State, I thought it was important that we should deal with that issue and look at it radically. In the strategic defence review of 1998, which I supervised, we made radical changes to defence procurement. I am sad that I did not stay there long enough to pursue it. My successors also tried and failed to get to grips with it as well. The term “smart defence” was coined by me at a press conference during my time at the Ministry of Defence, but it has become less and less smart as time has passed.

The saga continues and will do so until something radical is done. The thinking at that time was put together by me and my special adviser, Bernard Gray. He was employed by me—I took him away from the Financial Times, where he was the defence editor, in order to be my special adviser—and I frankly admit that we would not have had such a good and long-lasting defence review if it had not been for Bernard Gray’s clear thinking and his powerful purpose during that time. People criticise him now, but I believe that he is one of the few people who has the intellectual grasp and dynamic conviction to drive through the required changes. The noble Lord, Lord Levene, was appointed by Lady Thatcher to look at defence procurement, and he made a good fist of it then, but again he moved on before it could be fully put into practice. If my private sector experience since I left NATO has taught me anything, it is that execution is a critical area to focus on to get outputs instead of just excellent inputs.

The GOCO concept is certainly radical—and my noble friend is right that it is in many ways untried—but many people are watching us because many countries have exactly the same problem. We have to look at that. It is sad that the process failed, and that only one competitor—if that is the right word—was left standing at the end, but the process produced a number of proposals, as part of the tendering, that indicated that major savings could be made. There may only have been one left at the end of the day, but each competitor put forward proposals that would have saved the taxpayer money and made sure our troops got equipment much more on time. DE&S+ is second best, but it has to be tried, given the situation. The radical nature of what we have to do is utterly justified by the fact that our troops do not get the equipment at the right time and in the right form, and the taxpayer also pays well over the odds for it. If we do not think radically, the same old mess will continue.

However, my noble friend has made a powerful case for the GOCO, having been shunted into a siding, remaining there until it is a reality and we have had time to test it properly—and secondary legislation is not the right way to do that. Therefore, Amendment 25 is a good way of making sure that when the day comes, as I am sure it will, when we go down the GOCO route, there will be the proper scrutiny that the idea deserves.

[Lord Roper (LD)]

My Lords, I believe we should give consideration to Part 1 at this time, and that it should remain in the Bill. I am therefore unable to support the suggestions by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that these clauses do not stand part of the Bill. His points about the gap between now and when the GOCO comes into effect are important; that is why I asked the Secretary of State, when he came to see some of us, for an assurance that there would be an opportunity for Parliament to make a clear decision before Part 1 came into operation. That is why the Minister tabled Amendment 24, suggesting that there would have to be affirmative Motions in both Houses. My noble friend Lord Palmer and I have added our names to that, because it is in response to the request that we made to the Secretary of State. Since then the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has tabled Amendment 25.

The case for a super-affirmative resolution needs to be examined. It will be useful between now and Report to consider the value and possibilities of such a procedure, perhaps making rather more explicit the scrutiny which would be given in this House, as well as by the Defence Committee of the House of Commons, of any proposal at the time when it is put forward. The super-affirmative procedure is a useful development of recent years, and there is a case for its consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I tabled our amendment after approaches from a number of noble Lords from different parts of the House who wanted to allow any future Government flexibility with which to introduce a GOCO, if that was thought to be the best thing at the time. In reply to the noble Lord’s question, one simply would not have the legislation without the commencement.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

Can the noble Lord reflect after this debate on the fact that in the House of Commons, as the Commons Library statement says:

“Several amendments relating to the GOCO (Part 1 of the Bill) were tabled for Report Stage but were subsequently not called. Instead the main focus of the Report Stage was on the Government’s plans for the Reserves”?

So there was limited scrutiny in the House of Commons of this part of the Bill. Now the Government are proposing to promote the idea that a GOCO will be a matter for secondary legislation and affirmative resolution. Can the Minister take away the fact that in this sitting, we have had a former Chief of Defence Procurement, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, a former Minister for Defence Procurement and a former Secretary of State saying that, on balance, although they are in favour of radical reform, they all think that Amendment 25 is actually the best way of proceeding? Would it not look rather odd after that if the Government were to say, “We will ignore the advice that we have been given at that level, and arrogantly go ahead with a procedure that is perhaps inadequate”?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I will certainly reflect on that. We never ignore advice given by the people that the noble Lord mentioned. I am very happy to organise a meeting to discuss the issue, if he feels that that would be a way forward, before Report. I will certainly take it away to reflect on it. I have just been told there were eight sittings on this issue in the House of Commons.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, said that cost-plus is the most appropriate type of contract for this class. The GOCO will have the commercial expertise that the MoD does not possess to identify the most appropriate contracting arrangements. In future, budgets will lie with the commands, ensuring that we can more quickly respond to changes in equipment requirements. The noble Lord asked about contracting arrangements for first-class major equipment. The target cost incentive fee contracting arrangements are one of the options available to the MoD for the reasons that he described and will continue to be utilised where they are the best option to deliver and support equipment procurement.

In the light of the government amendment and the points that I have just set out, I commend Amendment 24 to your Lordships; I will take away the point that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, mentioned; and I urge noble Lords not to press Amendments 17 and 25.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I shall certainly write. I said that officials were in discussions with Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Cabinet Office regarding the nature of the delegations required within the DE&S budget. As far as I am able, I will write as detailed a letter as possible to the noble Lord and make sure that copies are sent to all other noble Lords who have taken part in this Committee. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, that I will organise a meeting to see whether we can come to some meeting of minds. We all want to do what is best for the Armed Forces and for procurement. I shall organise that meeting as quickly as I can.

On Amendment 6, I am grateful for the points raised by the noble Lord. I fully accept the critical importance of protecting the interests and integrity of decision-making within the Ministry of Defence and wider government by maintaining the highest standards of propriety of those Crown servants within the Ministry of Defence, which includes civilian staff as well as members of the Armed Forces, who interact with defence contractors. I believe strongly that the integrity and propriety of those Crown servants who may be in a position to influence decision-making should be seen to be beyond reproach.

However, I must resist the inclusion of the amendment as the issue is already effectively addressed. The code of conduct that the noble Lords wish to include seeks to address general concerns that senior government officials could be perceived to be in conflict or have vested interests when dealing with defence contractors in their day-to-day work. Further, the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, in his evidence session of 3 September to the House of Commons, also made mention of Title 10 of the US code, the section of the code relating to the Armed Forces of the United States.

The code of conduct that the noble Lords seek already exists within the Ministry of Defence in two forms. The first is in the form of the business appointment rules, which govern situations in which Crown servants wish to take up a relevant offer of employment within two years of leaving the Ministry of Defence. The second is the gifts, reward and hospitality rules, which govern situations in which Crown servants are offered a gift or hospitality. Together, these two important sets of rules set out the standards of conduct expected of Crown servants within the Ministry of Defence. For civilian officials within the Ministry of Defence, both the business appointment rules and the gifts, reward and hospitality rules are contained within the Civil Service Management Code, which was issued under Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. For military officials, the rules are contained within the Queen’s Regulations for each of the services, and the provisions of the business appointment rules have been in effect since July 1937.

The Civil Service Code states that civil servants must not accept gifts, hospitality or benefits of any kind from a third party that might be seen to compromise their personal judgment or integrity. The Queen’s Regulations lay down the conduct and procedure to be observed by service personnel on the acceptance of gifts, rewards and hospitality. In all cases, any offers of gifts or hospitality must be registered by the individual in receipt of the offer. The provisions of the business appointment rules for both military and civilian officials differ depending on the seniority of the individual, with the most senior officials requiring permission from the Prime Minister to take up an appointment following the end of their service within the Ministry of Defence.

The specific provisions of the business appointment rules are as follows. For the most senior officials in the Civil Service—at three-star level or their military equivalents—the rules require that they submit an application, which must be referred by the department to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which will provide advice to the Prime Minister to enable a decision to be taken. Due to their role at the highest level of Government and their access to a wide range of sensitive information, all Permanent Secretaries will be subject to a minimum waiting period of three months between leaving paid Civil Service employment and taking up an outside appointment or employment. As a general principle, there will be a two-year ban on civil servants at three-star level and above lobbying the Government—communicating with a view to influencing a government decision or policy in relation to their own interests. For civil servants at two-star level and their military equivalents, the rules require that an application be made to the Permanent Secretary, who is responsible for making a decision and providing a written recommendation to ACOBA—the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

The Minister was reading rather quickly. Did he say that the quarantine period was to be three months only?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

Yes, I did. I shall be able to answer the noble Lord’s question at the end.

Applications from one-star level and below and their military equivalents are considered internally within the MoD. An application at these levels is required only if the individual’s circumstances mean that, in their last two years of service, they have been subject to one or more of the following: first, they have been involved in developing policy affecting their prospective employer, or have had access to unannounced Government policy or other privileged information affecting their prospective employer; secondly, they have been responsible for regulatory or any other decisions affecting their prospective employer; thirdly, they have had any official dealings with their prospective employer; fourthly, they have had official dealings of a continued or repeated nature with their prospective employer at any time during their civil service career; fifthly, they have had access to the commercially sensitive information of competitors of their prospective employer in the course of their official duties; sixthly, the proposed appointment or employment would involve making representations to, or lobbying the Government on behalf of a new employer; and seventhly, the proposed appointment of employment is consultancy work, either self-employed or as a member of a firm, and they have had official dealings with outside bodies or organisations involved in their proposed area of consultancy work.

The number of applications made under the business appointment rules is relatively modest and has averaged around 200 per year over the past five years across grades 1 to 4. For example, in 2012-13 there were 258 applications, of which 172 were approved with conditions, and the rest approved unconditionally.

--- Later in debate ---

In summary on this amendment, the extant MoD policy already contains the required protection against perceived conflicts of interest or impropriety that this new clause is seeking to achieve, and it is therefore not needed.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I do not want to pre-empt my noble friend, but there is an air of astonishment around the Grand Committee that the Minister said that Permanent Secretaries have only three months before they can take up some paid employment. If that is what is being said, it is a remarkably short period. Who wrote that rule? Was some Permanent Secretary responsible for it? If that is the case, there is a real cause for alarm that junior civil servants are being constrained in a remarkable way but Permanent Secretaries at that level seem to be given a remarkably short period before they can take up a new job. I have to say that I am profoundly sceptical about the operation of the committee on business recommendations, or whatever it is called, because it is completely toothless. It can make recommendations that senior people in government are not obliged to follow. The current record is that quite a few people completely ignore the recommendation and time limits, even the three months that is talked about. Perhaps the Minister would like to explain.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

Can my noble friend clarify whether the minimum three months would relate to an employment which was absolutely nothing to do with the previous work? In practice, people who go to work for defence contractors tend to have to wait considerably longer than three months before they can take up that appointment, do they not?

Armed Forces

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his remarks, and I associate myself and, I am sure, all Members of the House with the comments he laterally made about remembrance. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, to the Front Bench. She has a long and illustrious history on these subjects, and I remember her and her husband, the late Lord Garden, being great supporters of British defence and the issues surrounding it.

As the Minister said, it is the time of remembrance. We wear poppies with pride and with meaning. We show respect for lives lost and for survivors whose lives have been shattered by wounds. We remember sacrifices made and service delivered, and it is right to pay tribute to the courage, professionalism, dedication and commitment of those who serve in our Armed Forces. Out of the present turmoil in the Government’s business programme, we are in many ways lucky to have this opportunity at this time for this debate.

It is right and proper, and worth remembering, that today we speak in our own language, enjoy a parliamentary system of government, have a free press and the rule of an independent legal system because—in many ways, only because—of what was done in our country’s name in past conflicts. I once walked through the park at the bottom of Park Lane, where a number of war memorials are all too unnoticed because they lie on a roundabout, and it is therefore dangerous to get to them. However, there is a huge monument to the Royal Artillery, on which it is stated:

“They died with the faith that the future of mankind would benefit from their sacrifice”.

Some 49,000 men of the Royal Artillery died in the First World War, and 30,000 died in World War II, some 79,000 men who gave their lives in both wars in order that we would benefit; and there is no doubt that we have benefitted.

However, tributes to those who wear the Queen’s uniform, the civilians who support and back them up, and the way that they go about their dangerous and difficult business, lack one thing that is critical to them—full-blooded support for the missions that they have been sent to carry out. Wars such as the conflict in Afghanistan are not won or successful through military means alone. They are won when the enemy knows that you will not give in, when the enemy knows that your cause is mightier than theirs, and when those who fanatically want to impose a brutal, illiberal, theocratic and undemocratic regime on a population simply will not be allowed to prevail. We will succeed in Afghanistan when our troops know that they fight for a noble cause and that the enemy, in contrast, fights to enslave its own people. Our troops have a right to know that the people of this country and those of the other 49 countries in the NATO-led ISAF mission are behind it and those who risk their lives and limbs every day to deliver it. However, that requires leadership in our nation. It requires that the political leadership of the United Kingdom—all of it—asserts day and daily why that mission in Afghanistan is about our security here at home, and that its success or failures matter to the safety of our citizens in this country.

The great United States journalist, Edward Murrow, after the Second World War said the following of Winston Churchill:

“He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle”.

Churchill knew instinctively the power of rhetoric in order to get the people of Britain behind the war effort, of the need to build confidence at times such as in 1940, after Dunkirk, when we were militarily powerless and when his Cabinet was enfeebled by division. He rallied the British people, galvanised the troops and, much more importantly, he convinced Hitler that we would never give up and that he would be defeated. He used, in public and in private sessions, the platform of the House of Commons to deliver the message to the people and to the enemy that we were, irrespective of the facts on the ground, invincible. It worked. We know that and we benefited from it. That is why today we speak in English and in freedom in this House.

What would Churchill have made of the fact that, with 9,000 British troops committed to fight in an ongoing war in Afghanistan, the last time that our Prime Minister made a speech about Afghanistan in the House of Commons was on 4 July last year? It is nearly a year and a half since the Prime Minister made a speech about Afghanistan. It is difficult for any of us to put thoughts into the minds of the great Churchill, but he might have said, as I say now, “We seem to have lost the will to win”. Where is the mighty and necessary psychological assault on the Taliban today? Where are the stirring speeches designed to intimidate the insurgents in support of our mission to normalise a country that was brutalised by the medieval criminals who filled the vacuum left in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union left in 1990? Where are the arguments which should be put to the British people, the arguments that I used to make regularly in NATO, as have my successors and Ministers at the Ministry of Defence, about having to go to Afghanistan or Afghanistan will come to us?

We have an exit strategy that appears to be all exit and no strategy. It signals to the Taliban to wait two more years and then we will all be gone. It signals to our troops that, although they see progress on the ground, as they risk their lives to consolidate it, they get little backup or encouragement from the political leadership of this country. We admire and rightly value their guts and their professionalism but we say to them, “Just hang on because in a couple of years’ time this mission”, which is rarely spoken of here, “will be over and you will be back home”, in some cases, as the Minister has admitted, to redundancy notices instead of the thanks of a grateful nation. It signals to the British people that their weariness at the deaths and injuries and the Treasury cost are justified as it appears that no case is being made for why we went, why we stay and why it matters to people on British streets.

I recently heard a very senior American officer with responsibility for that area say that the closer he got to Afghanistan the more he saw progress but the closer he got to Washington, Brussels or London the more pessimistic he was about it. The picture in Afghanistan shows signs of success, hard and expensively achieved as it has been. Last week, Secretary General Rasmussen laid out the progress made: 80% of insurgent attacks take place in areas where only 20% of the Afghan population now live; and in Kabul and its immediate surrounding areas the number of enemy-instigated attacks declined 17% in the first eight months of this year.

In the first six months of 2012, Afghan troops led 80% of all operations. They do 85% of their own training. Afghan troops and police, trained in their thousands, now take the lead for security in areas where 75% of the population live. Schools are open. Women are being educated again. Even in Helmand province, street markets are being reopened. Many of us had the opportunity to talk to soldiers during the Olympic Games, where again they performed with professionalism. They can see, and will talk about, the progress that is being made. They are proud of their success and we, too, should be proud of it.

We all know why we went into Afghanistan. The move was popular because it was universally seen as necessary to rid Afghanistan of the medieval regime of the Taliban that had incubated the criminal terrorists responsible for the attacks of 9/11 and for many others before that. It was also about making sure that Afghanistan would be sufficiently normalised and assisted so that it would never again host the kind of criminal terrorism that we saw in the early part of 2000. However, the job is not over. Leon Trotsky said, about another war at another time: “You may not be interested in this war, but this war is interested in you”. The job in Afghanistan is not yet over, and if we leave with it only half done, the carnage that may follow will not stop at the mountains of the Hindu Kush or at the national boundaries of central Asia; it will come to us. The lesson of history remains that we should finish the job properly or we will face bleak prospects as a result of failure.

Scotland: Trident Nuclear Deterrent

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the UK Government are not contemplating losing the argument on Scottish independence, and are not considering the issue that my noble friend raised.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will make it clear that the debate about Faslane is not simply about the thousands of jobs involved at the naval base there—which are prejudiced, of course, by the semi-neutralist policies of the Scottish National Party—but is also, is it not, about the defence of the United Kingdom? The independent nuclear deterrent—which, as he says, is an integral part of the NATO alliance—has protected us and the world from the kind of conventional war that we saw in the 20th century. It will also be a unique and irreplaceable asset for the security and safety of the United Kingdom for the next 30 uncertain, unpredictable years.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Lord said.

Defence Capabilities: EUC Report

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

My Lords, this is a valuable report and I congratulate the members of the committee and its chairman on presenting it here today. It is timely, wise and important and it makes a lot of significant recommendations, which we should all listen to. I feel as though I am in an echo chamber. I seem to have been making that kind of speech now for about 16 years both in opposition, then in the Ministry of Defence and in NATO—exactly the same lessons. As one of the architects of the St Malo agreement, I watched with dismay. Although it revolutionised thinking—it certainly came as a surprise to many people at the time—it has not lived up to anything like the expectations that it should have because it was trailblazing and crucially important.

The report said many of the things that I used to repeat, and that members of NATO and others in this small community who are interested in European security have been making all the time. The sad thing, in a way, looking at this Room today and looking up at Moses with the tablets of stone, is that we are speaking again to the converted. We need to get that message further afield as well. What the report says is right: Europe is not doing enough in its own security interests. That is what is so aggravating. We are not advocating something that is academic. There is a security interest and there are threats out there. We are not doing enough to recognise that.

We spent a huge amount of money during the Cold War against what happened to be a threat that never appeared. As a consequence, we saw off the adversary of the time and we stopped the dominoes that Stalin had designed for the rest of Europe. There is complacency and a lack of political will across the European continent that could be very expensive in later days as well.

The report highlights the capability gap between Europe and the United States. The chairman made the point that there are 1.5 million troops in the NATO European countries but only 2% of them are deployable outside national boundaries. The point that has been made effectively in this report and with which he just concluded his peroration, is that we spend a huge amount of money on defence and waste most of it. If that amount of money was spent effectively, Europe would be a superpower in the world. As it is, it is an economic giant but a military pygmy and taxpayers are being short-changed as well.

Of course it has to be said that Libya was a success. Winning is everything. Winning ugly is still winning and we won that one but, boy, did it not illustrate our capability gaps? If it took so much effort and with so many difficulties to overcome the like of Colonel Gaddafi, what if we are up against a bigger adversary in the future? It beggars description.

The report says that what is good for the EU is good for NATO and I am glad that the government response endorses that point. Did I not have to make that point over and over again to people in this country as well as in the United States of America? It is right. If the capabilities are increased, they are available for national purposes, European purposes and for NATO as well.

The report goes into pooling and sharing and the need for more co-ordination in Europe, and that is critically essential. Some 30 years ago, the NATO AWACS fleet was created because countries except for America, Britain and France could not afford the cost of the AWACS. An AWACS fleet commonly owned, commonly operated and successfully operated was created as well. Since then, the only real pooling arrangement has been the C17s and the SALIS formation. That was a hard-won achievement as well.

The report points to the frustration of practically all Europe's ambitions by the conflict between Turkey and Cyprus. One can only hope—and there are greater experts than me around here—that we might see a way through that. But again, it is Europe acting against its own best interests. It was an aggravation to me when I was in NATO and it continues to be an aggravation to my successors.

In the headquarters in Brussels, I had on my desk a variety of encrypted phones and one of them was specifically dedicated. There was a button you pressed for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and another for the Greek Department of Foreign Affairs. I had occasionally to use that as well.

One of the great graphs in the report points out the amount of money that Greece, already almost bankrupt, is spending on defence, with the vast bulk of it dedicated to defending itself against a NATO ally on its boundary. That is a scandal. One of our great misconceptions is that all we need to do is mobilise the United States to persuade Turkey to stop being obstructive in this. As Xenia Dormandy of Chatham House said to the committee, we have to forget the illusion that the Americans have muscle over Turkey. We all have an obligation in that situation.

I am glad that the report talks about the Berlin Plus arrangements. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and I were the only ones who ever knew what those arrangements were. Getting them took up a vast amount of my time at NATO, and they were a huge bargain for the Europeans by basically allowing American assets to be available to the European Union. The documents that led us to arrive at those arrangements take up almost a whole shelf in my office, but the basic principle is simple and they need to be used.

The final thing that the report highlights, if it needed highlighting, is the role of the French. France coming back into the integrated military command from which it had excluded itself for so long was a major and significant step forward for NATO. It stopped a lot of the internal aggravation that was created during my time in office there. However, I always had to explain, especially in America, that despite France’s rather peculiar and very French approach to NATO in the military context, France was there in every conflict. Every time that a military presence was required, France was there. In every decision that was taken, especially after 1996, France was deeply involved. There was the fiction that France was a country member of NATO, and now that that is resolved we have taken a major step forward.

I want finally to concentrate on a couple of areas—Afghanistan and NATO itself. As regards Afghanistan, I genuinely fear—and I say this with some passion—that we have lost the will to win. We have 9,000 troops in Afghanistan today, every day risking their lives. Some 400 UK troops and 2,000 American troops have died and countless thousands of the British, the Americans and the other NATO allies have been crippled and maimed for life. In a few weeks’ time at the remembrance parades, we will remember them. A great deal of affection will come out and a great deal of sentiment will be aroused for those individuals. Yet we are paying little or no attention to the mission that they are on. What comfort can it be to the bereaved families to know that we care so little about the mission that the troops are involved in.

Here is one statistic that I use regularly and which shocks the people I tell, and should shock everyone in the country. The last speech made by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on the subject of Afghanistan in the House of Commons was delivered on 4 July last year. That was the last occasion when a speech was made on that subject by our Prime Minister in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. What does that tell the people who have been bereaved, the soldiers who have come back and those from the forces who have been maimed for life about the commitment of the British Parliament and the British Government to what is going on. Actually, the previous Administration was not much better in many ways in terms of that. We do not win wars by military means alone. We do it if the enemy believes it can and must be defeated. Psychology is as important as military tools. We found that out in the Second World War, in the Cold War and in Bosnia and Kosovo—and we do not seem to have learnt the lesson in Afghanistan.

Leon Trotsky once said something very wise. I do not often quote him, but he said of another war at a different time, “You may not be interested in this war, but this war is interested in you”. That says it all about Afghanistan. As an American general recently said to me, “The closer you get to Afghanistan, the more you realise that we are winning”. Some 80% of the violence in Afghanistan is taking place in territory where only 20% of the population lives. The violence in Kabul has reduced by 20% from last year alone. The general added, “The closer you get to Brussels, Washington and London, the more you realise that we are not succeeding”. We should bear that in mind. We need to tell the enemy that we are not going to be defeated, that NATO does not do defeat; and we need to tell the people in this country that it is in their interests that troops are risking their lives and dying, because it matters to them as well.

My final point is about NATO itself. In the past couple of weeks I have been engaged in a debate in Scotland about NATO membership. It has engulfed the Scottish National Party in the debate about separation at the present moment, and I—sad person that I am—watched the whole of the SNP’s debate on NATO last Friday. I did so because I care about the subject, I care about my country and I care about what people think. It was a passionate debate that divided the SNP. It lost two members of the Scottish Parliament from its ranks yesterday as a consequence of what was ultimately a totally dishonest decision. It simply said that it would join NATO, but on its terms—terms that would be unacceptable to the alliance.

What was amazing about that debate and the wider debate around it was people’s colossal ignorance about what NATO does and its importance. If it had not been for NATO, we could not have won the Cold War. If it had not been for NATO, the transition of the Warsaw Pact countries towards civilian control of the military and to normality simply would not have happened. If it had not been for NATO, Milosevic would have won the civil war in Bosnia and would have exterminated all of the Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo. If it had not been for NATO, we would have had another civil war in Macedonia. If it had not been for NATO, the mission in Afghanistan would have collapsed immediately after the coalitions of the willing had run out of steam. Yet people do not seem to realise the unique nature, as the noble Lord said, of an organisation that brings the Americans around the table every single week of the year to discuss security issues with European allies. The Government recognise that and state in their reply to the report:

“NATO remains the cornerstone of European security and thus the principal vehicle for collective defence, although the EU and UN can play a role to compliment NATO”.

So I ask the Minister, and the country in general, why do we spend no money at all on educating the public about NATO? Why is there no information campaign to tell the country how important, how valuable and how necessary NATO is? I asked some Parliamentary Questions before the summer. Nothing is being spent. If you search the website of the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence for any real information about NATO it is hardly there at all. It is the cornerstone of our defence and we all agree that, but we do not bother to tell anything about that. That is, I think, a recipe for disaster. It is also a recipe for enfeebling the organisation that is so important to all of us.

This is a wise, masterful and educational report of some importance and significance. I believe that it requires further dissemination and discussion, and I hope that this is not going to be the only debate about what this report says. It goes to the very heart of this nation’s and Europe’s safety and security. Much of what it says needs to be said but, much more importantly, it needs to be heard as well.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an adviser with the Cohen Group based in Washington DC which has a number of clients in the defence industry. I start by paying tribute to Senior Aircraftman Hughes, whose death has just been announced, and, indeed, to all those who have died and been injured in the conflict in Afghanistan. They died defending their country and its values. We should remember them not just this weekend but should pay tribute to them and remember them throughout time.

The mission in Afghanistan was described as crisply in the strategic defence review as I have seen for a long time. The review refers to,

“a UN-mandated, NATO-led mission of 47 nations … helping to deliver a stable Afghanistan able to maintain its own security and to prevent Afghan territory from again being used by Al Qaeda or other terrorists as a base from which to plot and launch attacks on the UK and our allies”.

That is why people are dying and that is why people are serving. We need to say that more and more often to ensure that the tributes we pay are meaningful and that the Taliban and others get the message that we are not going to give up until we succeed.

Noble Lords will know that I have reservations about the coherence and strategic nature of the review, but I wish to start by saying a few positive things about it and the process. I was asked by the Secretary of State for Defence to advise him on this matter and I was part of the previous Government’s advisory board on the Green Paper. I am grateful to the Government for providing me with the opportunity to give advice.

I thank and congratulate the staff under Sir Peter Ricketts, the National Security Adviser, on the work that they have done in a ludicrously short period. They were not to blame for the timetable but the quality of the work is still good, and they deserve our thanks. I also congratulate the coalition Government on taking up the recommendations in the report that the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and I produced last year for the Institute for Public Policy Research, which advocated the strategic defence and security review, a national security strategy and the concept that defence reviews should take place on a regular four-yearly basis. The Government are to be commended for picking up good ideas when they see them. I also acknowledge that the Government are under severe constraints in the present circumstances. The Secretary of State for Defence sent me a copy of the review and wrote at the bottom:

“You will understand the constraints”.

I do. I carried out a defence review and I, too, was faced with a predatory Treasury.

[Noble Lords]

Unfair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I hear the ghosts of Christmas past behind me. However, I and my colleagues—some of whom are now in this House—saw off the Treasury.

I, too, faced a legacy of a 30 per cent cut in the defence budget over the previous six years. That was done without any major defence review and left us a very difficult legacy with which to deal, not least in the area of defence medical services and the defence accommodation estate.

Finally, I congratulate the Government on maintaining the deterrent and continuing with the modernisation of the Trident system. However, this review is not strategic. It could not be given the time-scale involved. It does not really follow even the national security strategy. It needs more time and it is a wasted opportunity in that context. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield said, it looks, and indeed is, an interim report, driven mainly by the Treasury’s desire to achieve cuts. I hope that it will be reviewed quickly. One of its serious weaknesses is that it is not inclusive as it has not involved everybody in the ministries concerned or those in the outside world who wanted to give a view. One of the strengths of the review that I conducted in the Ministry of Defence in 1997 and 1998 was that by the end we had built a consensus. That was the strength of the review which took it through so many years to come.

This review has led to a hollowing out of our forces and, indeed, to the same old salami slicing which weakens the case for defence. The Defence Secretary’s letter to the Prime Minister was leaked. It is interesting that a lot of noise was made about the leaking of that letter, but my whole review was leaked to the Tory Party the day before it was officially announced. Given that we accept that these leaks are bad and immoral in principle, one would have expected that the Tory Party would have immediately returned the leaked review to the Ministry of Defence, but instead it gave it to the Daily Telegraph. However, as the Defence Secretary himself wrote:

“This process is looking less and less defensible as a proper strategic review and more like a super CSR”.

He added:

“We do not have a narrative that we can communicate clearly”.

Those are his words, not mine, and I am not sure that in the following days he changed his view massively.

I wish to make a couple of serious points. One concerns procurement. There is a serious crisis over procurement. A lot of the money that the country devotes to defence is simply being wasted. My noble friend Lord Hutton commissioned Bernard Gray, who had been one of my special advisers, to report on procurement. It was a very good and thorough report that concluded with very strong recommendations. He was so frustrated by the previous Government’s response to that report that he offered his services to the current lot when they were in opposition. I hope that the Minister might be able to offer us guidance on why we have to have yet another review when there is one on the table which gives a proper diagnosis and the right prescription. Why has the noble Lord, Lord Levene, been asked to duplicate that? When can we expect him to produce his report?

Other speakers have mentioned Nimrod, as did the Secretary of State for Defence in his letter. Two things worry me about this defence review. First, it is more focused on the year 2020 than on 2012 and 2014. There are serious questions about what will happen in these years if it goes forward on the present basis. Secondly, I do not think that it says nearly enough about European co-operation. Yes, we have the 50-year treaty with the French, which is commendable and extremely good, but other countries in Europe would like to be part of these consortiums and I hope that they will be taken account of. Perhaps this mothballed aircraft carrier that has been produced might yet be seen as a NATO shared capability. That idea has been put forward. It is a wasted opportunity but that does not mean to say that in the interests of our Armed Forces and our country we cannot think again and do better the next time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I just want to clarify that I was talking about the leadership in the Treasury, more than the people who executed the policy.

[Lord Boateng]

I am comforted by that, and I am sure that the civil servants, who follow with great attention the debates in this House, will be similarly comforted. In response to the noble Lord, I make one observation about my time as Chief Secretary that he may find comforting. My experience is that if you are to have comprehensive spending reviews, which are necessary, and if you are to have strategic defence reviews, which are certainly necessary, it is better that the strategic defence review follows the comprehensive spending review, in this sense. The strategic defence review ought to impact on the comprehensive spending review that follows it, rather than the other way round. To have the two at the same time runs a danger—and it must be said that this strategic defence review demonstrates that danger all too clearly. As Chief Secretary, it is a help to have your feet held to the fire by the chiefs and Ministers who are able to refer you to a strategic defence review, to say that this is the commitment that the Government have made and then to expect you, as Chief Secretary, to live up to that commitment. That was certainly the approach taken during the two CSRs that I conducted and, yes, I was duffed up—Chief Secretaries always are—but at the end of the day there was a result that I think did justice to the cause, the national interest and to the service.

I fear that this strategic defence review has been unduly impacted upon by the fact that a CSR was taking place at the same time. There is too much influence of the concerns that have to dominate a CSR evident in the strategic defence and security review, but we must give it time to sink in, and we will see what emerges.

There is one very welcome statement within the review:

“Recent experience has shown that instability and conflict overseas can pose risks to the UK, including by creating environments in which terrorists and organised crime groups can recruit for, plan and direct their global operations ... A lack of effective government, weak security and poverty can all cause instability and will be exacerbated in the future by competition for resources, growing populations and climate change”.

That is true, and during my time as a high commissioner in sub-Saharan Africa, I certainly found that to be true.

One of the greatest bulwarks against that insecurity is an all too often under-remarked upon and under-recognised aspect of the Ministry of Defence’s effort: defence diplomacy. It is the soft power instrument applied by the MoD and by the dedicated band of men and women who do the business of defence diplomacy, which the MoD described in its policy paper 1 of 2000. Defence diplomacy is,

“activities undertaken by the MOD to dispel hostility, build and maintain trust and assist in the development of democratically accountable armed forces, thereby making a significant contribution to conflict prevention and resolution”.

That is a very important task, and it is conducted by very skilled and experienced service men and women who deserve credit for what they have done and are doing. However, the sad thing is that—and my own Government must take their fair share of responsibility for this—having made a very good start in the strategic defence review of 1998, which identified Africa as being a place where we ought to be applying this form of soft power, in the intervening years defence diplomacy activity in Africa and elsewhere has slowly declined. We have in fact cut back on the British military advisory and training teams, the short-term military teams and the consultancy services undertaken by security sector advisory teams. They have all been cut back as a result of the distorting influence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I hope that this new strategic defence and security review will begin to reverse that process. I hope that the conflict pool, which is now to be increased to some £300 million by 2014-15, will not be used just to fund programmes but will be underpinned by a strategy. That is the one question I have for the Minister. Is there to be an Africa strategy? Is there to be a strategy that calls upon DfID, the FCO, the MoD and, importantly, on the very considerable resources available to DfID that are not available to the FCO and the MoD to underpin that strategy? If so, that will be welcome news in Africa because there cannot be development without security and there are no better men and women at doing it than those in our military services. They deserve credit and support, and I hope they get the resources from this conflict pool and a strategy that underpins the application of those resources. All of us across government, in both Houses and on all sides, need to be concerned about not just the quantity of our spend, but its effectiveness, and give the strength and support to the men and women of our services that they deserve in their valuable work in Africa.

EU: European Defence Agency

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the presidency of the Western European Union announced on 31 March that the signatories to the modified Brussels treaty had decided to terminate the treaty, thus effectively closing the organisation, with WEU activities ceasing preferably by June next year. We remain committed to inter-parliamentary debate on the common security and defence policy which the WEU assembly currently performs. We continue to examine the options for inter-parliamentary scrutiny of CSDP and will report to the House in due course.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

My Lords, I express my sympathy for the death that has been announced and recognised here today. Let us all hope that that death will not be in vain and that we continue to fight in Afghanistan for what we know is right in order that all these deaths will be seen to have been in the right cause.

I congratulate the Minister on his statement today about the European Defence Agency. It seems to have escaped the noisy pre-election rhetoric about European co-operation and about this agency, which was initiated largely at the behest of the previous Government. Given the likely outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review and the reductions in the defence budget, we must as a country—as, indeed, must all European countries—look to collaborative projects to get the kind of defence equipment that will be required for the future.