Foreign Affairs

Lord Stevens of Birmingham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, at this stage of the evening, I will make one point— I hope in less than five minutes—and in doing so will draw heavily on the stark and authoritative soundings and warnings that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and others have laid before us. That point is that, as a nation, we are not yet facing up to the fiscal consequences of the defence capabilities we now require.

For all the reasons we have heard this evening, sadly, the era of the peace dividend is over—the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary may recall that when he was Prime Minister from time to time I helped him spend the peace dividend in the NHS. However, when the threat facts change, our defence posture needs to change with them. In fairness, of course, the Government can point to increasing military expenditure, support for Ukraine, a procurement pipeline, Archer artillery, the Type 26 and Type 31 new ships for the Navy and so forth, but the fact remains that we clearly have capability gaps.

Those were laid out starkly by the House of Commons Defence Committee in its report at the beginning of February and we must square up to them. For every five service personnel joining the military, the MoD reports that eight are leaving. When it comes to the Equipment Plan for the Ministry of Defence looking out over the next decade, which accounts for about half —49%—of forecast defence spending, we see, according to the National Audit Office, a funding gap of £17 billion, at least. Indeed, there is a rather curious feature of the way in which that forecast defence equipment budget has been established. In the case of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, the full predicted costs of their equipment requirements to deliver the Government’s objectives, set out in the integrated review and the defence Command Paper, are priced up, but in the case of the British Army, they are not. I asked a Written Question as to why there was this difference in the internal budgeting between different parts of the Armed Forces in the MoD. I was told on 21 December that the Ministry of Defence’s operating model allows top- level budget holders

“to have different financial positions and to be at different stages of addressing their financial pressures”.

I think one way of interpreting that Answer is to say that, in effect, the Army is being used as the balancing item for a set of unbudgeted requirements. As a consequence, it is very hard for Parliament and the Government to have a transparent debate with the public about the costs of resourcing the military capabilities that we say we need as a nation.

Of course, better procurement and stronger economic growth would, to some extent, dissolve these trade-offs. We will have a Budget tomorrow, so it is possible that the Chancellor will answer the question of when we will get to 2.5% of GDP and rise beyond that. However, I rather doubt it, because we all know that at this stage of the electoral cycle what is going on is a torturing of the OBR forecasts until they confess. The likelihood is that, at best, these commitments will show up in manifestos. To the extent that they do not, it will be vital that at the start of the next Parliament—whoever holds the reins of power—we are in a position to have a frank conversation with the British people about the progress, the trade-offs and the trajectory required to give us the capabilities we need. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said at the start of the debate, to will the end is to will the means.

Guyana: Sovereign Territory

Lord Stevens of Birmingham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The noble Lord will have noted our statement at the United Nations Security Council. I was not there but elsewhere; I cannot remember where I was on that date, but I was somewhere in the world. The United Kingdom is engaged extensively on the issue. Yesterday, the Minister for Development covered the meeting with the Commonwealth Secretary-General, and my noble friend, when he travelled to the United States, had similar discussions with our partners and allies in Washington, together with Secretary Blinken, on this issue. It is important that we stand by Guyana at this time, and I know that His Majesty’s Opposition agree. The position has been agreed and that agreement is long-standing. In Venezuela, there is a lot of political rhetoric and an election next year. We know the status of Mr Maduro. The United Kingdom does not engage with him directly and recognises that he is desperately in trouble in Venezuela. This may well all be rhetoric, but we must be mindful of that to ensure that any action taken gets a unified response diplomatically from across the world.

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

Having been in the Essequibo region earlier in the year, I think it right that Guyana pursues this matter through diplomatic routes—the ICJ, the UN and other forums. But the fact is that the Venezuelan military is much stronger. It has tanks, jets and naval assets sourced from Russia, Iran and elsewhere. In addition to the support that the US Southern Command and the Brazilians reinforcing the border are providing, are the British Government willing to commit that Guyana will get defence support from this country should Guyana seek it to deter Venezuelan military aggression?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, we have supported Guyana over a number of years. The noble Lord raises a valid point. I assure him that we are very much seized of the issues of protecting the sovereignty of Guyana. I do not want to go into what may happen. The United Kingdom, including its military assets, is engaged around the world but, for now, we are very much focused on the diplomatic channels. We are urging all partners with leverage over Venezuela and its Administration to ensure this does not escalate, and that is where our focus is.

Israel/Gaza

Lord Stevens of Birmingham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, unlike the last speaker, I do not accept that the Israeli response to date has been disproportionate, nor do I find it inconceivable that Hamas would conceal themselves in churches or mosques or schools, because there is years of evidence showing that that is precisely what they do.

Those of us at Sunday’s Trafalgar Square vigil heard raw and direct from the families of the hostages and the relatives of the dead. The tragedy they recounted was scarcely believable but all too true. All suffering and every innocent death count, but there can be no equivocation or false equivalence about what has just happened, as the noble Lord, Lord Reid, so powerfully reminded us.

Like most of us, I suspect, I support Palestinian as well as Israeli self-determination and nationhood, but all decent people can readily discern the difference between innocent murdered Israelis and murderous Hamas terrorists—all decent people can but not, it turns out, everyone. The past fortnight has exposed some uglier, darker and older reflexes. What were some of the responses by Islamist extremists parading on our streets on Saturday? They demanded the total eradication of Israel “from the river to the sea”. Let us not be coy about what that actually means. For the past 75 years, being an anti-Zionist has, in practical terms, meant being an advocate for the annihilation of the world’s only majority-Jewish nation, an actually existing UN member state and the Middle East’s only liberal democracy.

As if to prove the point, what was the response here from some of the far-left organisations, such as the Socialist Workers Party, to people shot in the head at a bus stop, murdered at a music festival and decapitated in front of their parents—British citizens among them? The SWP said, “Rejoice”—that headline is still on its website as I speak. At times like this, the mask slips and we see the ugly face of anti-Jewish racism.

Criticising particular actions of particular Israeli Governments is not anti-Semitic, but categorising everything Israel does as inherently illegitimate most certainly is. When dead Israeli babies and grandmothers are said somehow to bear responsibility for their own murders, when Israel is blamed because Hamas conceals bombs and rockets in schools and mosques and when jihadists blow up a Gaza hospital, and yet Israel is instantly condemned, then a centuries-old virus is present in our midst.

At times like this, we need what Bernard-Henri Lévy calls The Will To See: to see that when the Iranian theocracy hangs its own citizens from cranes, denies the Holocaust and demands Israel be wiped from the face of the earth, they mean it. Therefore, we need the clear-sightedness to see that, all the while Hamas and other Iranian terrorist proxies control Gaza and deploy from Lebanon, they will continue to murder and oppress and destroy, including, as our own security services have confirmed, here on the streets of Britain. As the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, has so powerfully explained, while they remain free to do so, there will be no two-state solution, or any other version of a just peace. They must be stopped, which means standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and our allies, just as we do with Ukraine.

In doing so, many earlier contributions this afternoon have addressed vital immediate questions: how to get the hostages back, how to protect civilians, how to sustain recently improving relations between Arab states and Israel, which Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed the latest atrocities were specifically designed to destroy. However, we must also confront the full implications of 7 October by asking some wider questions. First, will the Government now follow the lead of other countries in proscribing Islamist extremists such as Hizb ut-Tahrir? Why should we tolerate hateful ideologies, the poison on our streets? If there are gaps in our current incitement legislation, as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner believes, surely the Government should use the forthcoming King’s Speech to put the matter beyond doubt?

Secondly, the Prime Minister yesterday rightly announced more humanitarian aid for Gaza, and it is obvious that much more will be required. However, in response to the question about the concern for the state of the Palestinian economy, it is not illegitimate to ask why, when over the past decade over $6 billion of international funding has flowed into Hamas-controlled Gaza, the people of Gaza have been confronted with the situation that they have. What guarantees do we have that none of the future humanitarian aid and assistance will cross-subsidise jihadist tunnels, rockets and death?

Thirdly and finally, can the Minister update us on progress on disrupting Iranian weapons flowing to Hamas and Hezbollah, and to Russia for use against Ukraine? As we all know, the Iranian regime is also brazenly developing its capabilities for nuclear weapons of mass destruction, yet just this past week UN sanctions under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 have expired. Can the Minister tell us what alternative action is being taken with our allies to guarantee that Tehran can never threaten nuclear terror? As the Minister so rightly said, sometimes it takes a shock such as this to focus our minds. The 7 October was a tragic and terrible day. Grant us the will to see and the strength to act.

Iran

Lord Stevens of Birmingham Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I can answer that: yes, we have recognised, both privately and publicly, that there are state actors and others who seek to target the United Kingdom and our key allies. Technology is a new tool, and we need to be very vigilant on mitigation to ensure that the private sector and our public sector services are fully protected.

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

The UK Government rightly proscribed Hezbollah in 2019 and Hamas in 2021, both of which receive material support from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Can the Minister say whether there are circumstances in which proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be contemplated? If so, what are they?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and I have said, on whether the IRGC is sanctioned in its completeness, we take any issue of proscribing organisations seriously. It is very much a decision for the Home Office, as the noble Lord will be aware, but we co-ordinate our activities extensively. Any decision we take in the future remains an option for us to consider, but I do not want to go further than that, nor would noble Lords expect me to.