Yemen: Breaches of International Humanitarian Law
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, as I mentioned a moment ago in repeating my honourable friend’s Answer, the UK Government do not carry out investigations in these circumstances. Those taking part in the incidents are better placed to report on them. I referred to the press statement put out by the joint incident assessment team, which makes clear its conclusions with regard to the eight incidents. I would be happy to make sure that a copy of it is available to the noble Lord by putting a copy in the Library, as other noble Lords may wish to see it. We have very carefully taken an overall view. Looking at the available evidence, it is clear to us that, given the guidance under the consolidated arms criteria and the EU criteria, the level has not been reached where those criteria have been breached. We therefore do not believe that we are in a position where any of the contracts awarded should be withdrawn.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Statement says that we are not a party to this conflict but surely the supply of arms and weapons to the Saudis makes us an indirect party to it, which gives us a degree of responsibility. We have just had a referendum result which those who supported leaving Europe declared was a declaration of independence from Europe. Those of us who are concerned about British foreign policy are anxious that we should not as a result become more dependent on the Sunni Arab states and the Chinese, since we depend on their markets. Since the Saudis appear to be making a huge mistake by defining a conflict which has deep historical and local roots within Yemen as a Sunni-Shia regional conflict, should we not be more critical of and a little less acquiescent to the Saudi approach?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we are never acquiescent if there are breaches of international humanitarian law and there is evidence to that fact. With regard to the conflict in Yemen, a UNSC resolution—I think that it is Resolution 2216, but if I am to be corrected I will make sure that the noble Lord knows of it—recognises that the current President is a legitimate President. Saleh is not the legitimate President and therefore the Houthis are carrying out a violent activity which is not legitimate. The United Nations has clearly made the point that it is right for us all to seek a solution to the Yemen crisis. I am certainly disappointed that it has not been possible in these last weeks—my honourable friend Tobias Ellwood has recently been in the region—but we strongly support the work of the UN special envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and his tireless efforts. That is what we need to do.
Commonwealth Countries and Overseas Territories: European Union
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, we have yet to hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches and there are other minor parties also trying to intervene. I suggest that we start with the Lib Dem Front Bench and see where we get to after that.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, do the Government recognise that if we were to restrict access to the other 450 million people in the European Union and open access to immigration for the 2.3 billion people in the Commonwealth—with the rapidly increasing population in west Africa and south Asia—immigration to this country would be likely to increase, rather than decrease?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, if the UK were to vote to leave the European Union that should not have a direct impact on the way in which applications from other countries outside the EU would be taken into account. Our current controls would continue to apply.
Burma
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we are training the army so that its members know that they should not carry out atrocities. I feel as strongly as the noble Baroness that when members of armed forces carry out atrocities against civilians, not only are they in breach of humanitarian and international law, they are acting in an inhumane way. We are training the Tatmadaw to adhere to human rights norms. I appreciate that in certain circumstances those norms are breached, but its members are taking part and they are listening. We have the patience to carry on with that process.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, can the Government tell us how much co-operation we are getting from Myanmar’s neighbours in our efforts to encourage this rather weak new Government, faced with a surge of right-wing Buddhist nationalism against them within Myanmar, to provide negotiations on these long-standing problems? I refer to Malaysia, for example, and China is a major actor. How far are they willing to co-operate with us on this?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, clearly it is important that there are discussions across the region, not only on this but on other aspects of confidence-building and stability-building across the area. Those discussions are going ahead. The ones of which I am aware take place in both the United Nations and the Human Rights Council. I hope they are always considered valuable, even if we do not get quick or easy results.
Companies: Overseas Territories Registration
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what further discussions they have had with Overseas Territories since last year’s Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council about moves towards greater transparency of beneficial ownership for companies registered within their jurisdiction, in the light of the United Kingdom’s chairmanship of the International Anticorruption Summit in May 2016.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have had extensive technical discussions with overseas territory leaders and officials to help them develop a timely, safe and secure process of exchange of company beneficial ownership information for law enforcement purposes. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister informed the other place on 11 April that we had reached agreement to provide UK law enforcement agencies and tax authorities with full access to company beneficial ownership information held in the territories.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
No doubt the Minister will recall that in 2013 the Prime Minister called for public registers of beneficial ownership from our overseas territories. Can she explain to us what British sovereignty means in relation to the overseas territories, which benefit from being under British law and protection, when they have refused to accept the Prime Minister’s proposal and we are told that some actually refused to meet Treasury Ministers last December when they were over here for the overseas territories conference? Does the Minister recognise that this is a question not just of tax but of money laundering? Substantial properties in the UK, including in London, are owned through shell companies by dubious men and dubious countries that have earned their money by dubious means.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, this Government are leading the way in ensuring that there is transparency in tax matters internationally. We often find ourselves leading but not necessarily having the support of all those around the world. The overseas territories are indeed separate jurisdictions with their own democratically elected Governments, under which they are responsible for financial matters. We have worked in partnership with them on this matter and have made great progress on having central registers of beneficial ownership. When my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer met the G5 in the United States last week, he made it clear that further reforms can be made in the future. So this is a work in progress for everybody, but let us recognise the great strides already made by the overseas territories.
Safeguarding Children: British Overseas Territories
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I know that we have a somewhat generous approach to interpreting the words before us on the Order Paper, but may I urge the noble Lord to direct his question at me again when we reach the point next Wednesday at which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has a Question on the Order Paper that will give me the opportunity to answer him?
Saudi Arabia: Executions
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, Saudi Arabia has a substantial Shia minority. Will this Government, in the private conversations they have with the Saudi Government, tell them very strongly that the last thing we want is to see Middle Eastern politics deteriorate into a Sunni/Shia international conflict? The way that the Saudis treat the Shia minority is important regarding whether that will happen.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, it is important in all countries, whether there is either a Shia majority or a Shia minority, that all those holding the faith are treated with respect. It is worth noting that when Shia members at a mosque were killed so appallingly by a suicide bomb this weekend, the Sunni Foreign Minister not only ensured he made a public statement but commiserated with the Shia minority.
European Council
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, a Private Notice Question is not the same as a Statement so we do not have to go round the Front Benches in the same way as we do on a Statement. I do not know whether the noble Lord might want to give way to my noble friend Lady McIntosh.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, there were indeed wider discussions than the renegotiation reform agenda of the United Kingdom. The PNQ refers to a specific part of that. I can reassure my noble friend that wider issues such as that of Denmark and on security and terrorism will be dealt with in the Prime Minister’s Statement.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we on these Benches recognise that the Prime Minister has made very good progress and we wish him luck in finishing the negotiations in February in the national interest. We recognise that there are parallel negotiations to be conducted within the Conservative Party and we hope he will put the national interest before the party interest as well. On the most difficult issues of migration and welfare benefits, will the Government do their utmost to ensure that we are all provided with accurate evidence on the situation? It has always been very difficult to get out of the Home Office and the DWP accurate evidence of how serious the problem is, rather than the campaign promoted by the Daily Mail and others. If we are to have a mature debate on all this as we come up to the referendum, we need to know how much of a problem there is on in-work and out-of-work benefits as a pull factor.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The noble Lord is right to say that discussions on a matter as important—a once-in-a-lifetime decision—as the position of the United Kingdom in the European Union should be made in a cool, rational and evidence-based way. With regard to in-work benefits, I simply say that taking a look at the DWP’s own figures for March 2013—the latest usable figures in this connection—shows that about 40% of all recent European Economic Area migrants are supported by the UK benefits system.
Daesh in Syria and Iraq
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier in the other place and I apologise for the absence of my noble friends Lady Morgan of Ely and Lord Collins of Highbury. Both are unable to be in the House this evening.
The scale of the humanitarian catastrophe stemming from the civil war in Syria is almost too great to comprehend. The death toll is well over 250,000. Millions of men, women and children will spend this Christmas living in tents in Lebanon and Turkey, across Europe in Greece and Serbia, and just 20 miles from our own shores in Calais. Even after all the brutality we have seen over the past four years, the situation continues to deteriorate. This week there were reports that ISIL will murder children who have Down’s syndrome. My late wife was a Mencap volunteer who worked with Down’s syndrome youngsters, so I am sickened by these reports. For too long the international community failed the people of Syria and we must now do everything we can to address the situation.
British military action is focused on ISIL’s economic infrastructure, particularly oil. During the Syria debate, I urged the Government to target ISIL’s wealth-creating, oil-exporting capability, and I am pleased that this was the first target of our air strikes. Can the Minister tell us what assessment has been made of the degree of success of our operations in destroying that oil-exporting capacity? Most welcome in the Statement is the report that there have been no civilian casualties. God knows, the people of Syria have suffered enough. But there will be civilians working and living in and around the oil facilities we are targeting. What steps are being taken before a strike to minimise civilian casualties, and then after a strike has occurred, to ensure that any possible civilian casualties can be investigated?
I shall return to the question of ISIL’s wealth and its ability to fund its evil activities. In the Syria debate, I asked what steps we are taking to cut off the flow of money earned from investments worldwide which are controlled by ISIL. I note from the Statement that Finance Ministers are to meet in New York and that it will be attended by our Chancellor of the Exchequer. Will the Minister say whether we are doing anything here, bearing in mind that London is the world’s premier financial centre?
Many noble Lords have expressed doubts about the Prime Minister’s statement that there was a force 70,000-strong of moderates who would engage in the ground war against ISIL. What progress have the Government made in identifying and co-ordinating with such forces? More, will the Minister say whether we are undertaking operations to help alleviate the pressure on the Kurdish Peshmerga forces operating in Syria? We certainly share the Government’s view that military action can only ever be part of a package of measures needed to defeat ISIL and end the Syrian civil war. Britain’s overriding priority has to be supporting a diplomatic agreement which unites the elements opposed to ISIL within Syria and paves the way for the departure of Assad. The first step to this is an agreement between the Sunni factions opposed to both Assad and ISIL. I note the progress towards this achieved in Riyadh.
There has been a lot of speculation about these talks so will the Minister say how the groups were invited to attend these talks? Did Britain make representations to the Saudis as to who should be invited? In particular, were key Kurdish groups, such as the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Democratic Union Party, present at the talks? It has been said that the Salafist group, Ahrar al-Sham, pulled out of the talks and were opposed to any peace talks with Assad. However, it was later reported that it had signed the agreement. Can the noble Baroness shed any light on this? This group has an estimated 20,000 fighters. Did this form part of the 70,000 figure the Government previously said would be moderate forces opposed to Assad and ISIL?
The key test for the Riyadh agreement will be whether it facilitates meaningful peace talks and a ceasefire, as outlined at the second Vienna conference. Will the Minister confirm whether, following the Riyadh agreement, the Syrian opposition will have a common position and a single representative at these talks or whether there will be distinct, separate factions represented?
The original timetable was for a possible cessation of hostilities to coincide with the start of peace talks on 1 January. Do the Government still think that this is achievable? Was there a clear commitment to this timetable from the parties present at the Syria talks in Paris on Monday? Following the Paris talks, will the Minister confirm whether further talks of regional and international powers will take place in New York this week? If these talks clash with the EU summit, who will represent Britain?
With so many different parties to the Syrian civil war, maintaining a ceasefire will be extremely difficult and complex, which I think we all appreciate. But have the Government explored the possibility of a UN resolution reinforcing the outline agreement, including the ceasefire, agreed at the second Vienna conference? Can the Minister confirm whether Britain will seek a UN resolution to support any agreement reached between Syrian opposition forces and Assad?
Finally, many nations have responded to the Syrian refugee crisis. In Lebanon, nearly one in four of the population is a recent refugee from Syria. Jordan is hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees. Around 340,000 refugees have been resettled in Germany. This week, we saw Canada welcoming the first of 35,000 refugees who will be resettled there by next October. On this side, we certainly welcome the news today that the 1,000 refugees the Prime Minister promised would be here by Christmas has been honoured. It is an honour to the whole of Britain that that has happened. Taken together, this gives us hope that humankind will not pass on the other side of the street when people are suffering as much as they are in Syria.
We are approaching one of the most special and, for many, one of the most holy times of the year. Whether we have faith or not, as we prepare to share the Christmas joy, I want to pay tribute to the outstanding bravery and professionalism of the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces who have made the success of these early missions possible. When we are at home this Christmas, many perhaps with our families, I have no doubt that the British people will keep in their thoughts and prayers our fighting men and women and their families. They serve our country in dangerous and difficult circumstances. For this, they deserve our unflinching admiration and respect.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Government for coming back so early to report to Parliament and to encourage them to continue to do so both on the Floor and, since there are things that cannot be said on the Floor, off the Floor as far as possible on an all-party basis. It is very important to hold cross-party consensus together on what we are doing in this incredibly complicated situation. That includes carrying the country with us, including Britain’s Muslim minority, which needs to be reassured that we are not taking part in any sort of western crusade against the Sunni and Muslim world but that we are part of a campaign with Middle Eastern partners against this perversion of Islam.
We are all concerned about this as a war across the Middle East. We have been concerned at those who wanted to switch from being preoccupied with Assad to being preoccupied with ISIS and allowing Assad to stay in place. From all the evidence we have, we know that the refugees fleeing to Europe are overwhelmingly fleeing Assad rather than ISIS. We cannot therefore merely move from one to the other. We are also aware that the Saudis are distracted by Yemen, in which a number of other Gulf states are also engaged. What is happening in Libya is increasingly worrying. Sinai is no longer under Egyptian Government control. The worsening situation in the occupied West Bank is a matter of concern which could worsen further and continues to act as a recruiting rationale for confused young men in all sorts of countries to join ISIS. We need a broad approach.
Therefore, I should like to ask how Her Majesty’s Government are engaging in the very important diplomatic side, since we are never going to win this conflict except through diplomatic, multilateral agreement. Where are we post-Vienna? How actively are the Government engaged and with whom most closely in pursuing the tasks agreed at the Vienna conference? How actively are our Government engaged with the more difficult of our partners in this endeavour? The Russians, after all, appear to have been focusing their attacks in Syria on the Turkmen rather than on ISIS. We have to have the reluctant co-operation of Iran in any transition away from the Assad regime. It is necessary to insist that border control is extremely important to Turkey, while the Kurds have to be seen as an asset in the fight against Daesh/ISIL rather than a threat to Turkishness as such. Finally, in so many ways, the objectives of the Saudi Government do not coincide with ours.
It was splendid to hear the statement on what has been agreed in Riyadh on human rights and so on. I do not think most of that is intended to apply within Saudi Arabia. There are many things to do on the diplomatic front. I do not want to repeat the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, on the military side. We welcome the greater visibility of the Syrian Democratic Forces and a degree of cohesion among different factions, which appears now to offer a more effective counterweight to Daesh in north-eastern Syria. We were worried by the contradictory statements about Kurdish exclusion from the Riyadh talks and would welcome the Government clarifying how far Kurdish elements, which are now co-operating with Arab, Christian and other forces much more effectively than they were, are to be pulled in.
Finally, next summer we are likely to see if the civil war has no sign of reaching an ending and whether there will be a further surge of refugees towards Europe. The best way to keep refugees in the region is to offer them the hope that this war will come to an end. I would like to hear a little more from the Government on how far we are working with others to ensure that, while the conflict continues, those who are really struggling in underfunded refugee camps are fully supported.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their thoughtful and compassionate tone in reflecting on those who are affected by the evils of Daesh and those who are seeking to defeat it. I join with their tribute to the Armed Forces.
I was asked whether I would give an assessment of our success in our operations, both to destroy oil capacity and more generally. Clearly, a careful analysis is taking place of the impact of combined air operations and how that affects Daesh’s ability not only to produce oil but to transmit it. When one carries out air assaults it is important to disrupt the arterial network—the roads. I was in northern Iraq last month on the day that the assault on Sinjar was launched. The importance of that was not only to recover the town and give it back to its people but to provide a break in the supply lines. So it is not a simple matter of saying what disrupting oil production can do to reduce the overall supply of oil for sale, which Daesh then profits from; it is part and parcel of a wider picture.
I was rightly asked about civilians and the steps that the RAF and UK aircraft personnel take to avoid any civilian casualties. I can say, as I did when repeating the Statement last time—I beg the House’s pardon; the Leader repeated the Statement—that we still do not have any reports of casualties that have occurred to civilians in either Syria or Iraq as a result of RAF air strikes. I appreciate some of the processes that go into the careful selection of targets and the avoidance of risk to civilians, but, as I mentioned in the Statement, there is always a risk. It is how one contains that risk. We hope that we remain in the position where there are no such reports, but when that happens there are processes in place, not only for reports by others but for self-reporting, too. It is a matter that we take most seriously.
I was also asked how we are taking steps here to prevent the funding of Daesh. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has been working across government to ensure that the sanctions imposed on Daesh are properly effected here—as, indeed, has the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Treasury—and that we trace those who may be involved in such activities. I know that noble Lords would not expect me to comment in any further detail on that.
I was also asked about the position of the Kurds in Syria who need help. The Kurds in Syria have indeed been fighting against Daesh, as well against the depredations of the Assad regime. First, on the question of military help, we are not supplying weapons to anybody on any side in Syria, but we have delivered more than 4 million articles of life-saving equipment, including communications, medical and logistics equipment, and we have provided equipment to protect against chemical weapons attacks, including 5,000 escape hoods, nerve agent pre-treatment tablets and chemical weapon detector paper. That is available for all those seeking to defeat Daesh with whom we seek to work. We cannot contact all of them, but where we do, that is the kind of assistance that we can give.
A wide range of people was brought together at the Riyadh conference, which was held between 8 and 10 December. I understand that the Syrian opposition agreed a representative negotiating team for the upcoming UN-brokered negotiations with the regime. The national coalition will play a leading role in the new team as a result of that. A wide group of people was invited. Some would fall into the category of those with whom we have contact on a regular basis; others would not. I think noble Lords will understand that I am not in a position to identify particular groups. I was asked to say whether they are part of the 70,000 persons who were described as those who would fight against Daesh. We have to be careful not to identify individual groups or people, for obvious reasons, but I can say that we estimate that there are around 70,000 non-extremist opposition fighters in Syria. The majority of them are linked to the Free Syrian Army.
In addition—to come to the Kurdish matter—some 20,000 Kurdish fighters are playing an important role in combating Daesh in Syria. Politically, over the last 18 months the major opposition armed groups have come together to affirm that they are prepared to negotiate a political settlement to the Syria conflict, based on the Geneva communiqué of 2012. That is a major advance. I know that it looks as if there are only small steps, but it has made a real change.
I was also asked whether the Syrian opposition would have a common position. As I just explained, they have said that they will be in the position to play a leading role in the talks as they go forward.
I was also asked about the timetable and whether it can be met. We hope that the timetable can be met so that the talks can begin in January. Lots of things in this world can intervene, but the important thing is that those who met together to give this commitment agreed on a structure—not necessarily a day-by-day timetable, but a structure—by which we could ultimately achieve the transition of power and preserve the institutions of Syria, so that we can learn from past events and not repeat them in Syria so that transition is practically possible.
I was also asked about UN resolutions and whether we would seek one regarding the agreement in Syria. I referred to that; my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be in New York at the end of this week. I know that we will continue to work very closely with the UN, as we always do. Where it is appropriate for a resolution to be considered, our normal practice is that we would seek to do that—but we will have to see how those talks develop.
I was also asked who our real, like-minded friends are with whom we engage in this. I think that I gave a flavour of that in the Statement. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary mentioned that he met on Monday the United States, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It is important that we continue to engage with them.
I was asked a practical point by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, which was: if the talks are happening in New York at the end of this week, yet we also have the EU talks carrying on, how will the personnel be divided? I can assure him that it is normal practice that the Prime Minister attends the EU talks; the talks in New York are being attended by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Clearly, the Foreign Secretary is engaged continually in talks, either in person or on the telephone, with all the main actors in this. All of us want to ensure that those suffering the vile attacks by Daesh that have shocked the world should receive not only compassion but help. We continue to give major help in humanitarian aid to the region. That will continue beyond the defeat of Daesh. We are already committing to continuing our assistance.
India: Human Rights
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, when we discuss human rights matters with countries around the world, we never allow issues about our economic relationship to get in the way of upholding international law and international humanitarian law, and it is important that that should be the case. I can say of course that during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the UK, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister discussed intolerance in India with him. We should note that Prime Minister Modi has on numerous occasions reaffirmed his commitment to and respect for India’s core values of tolerance and freedom, as well as reaffirming the importance of social harmony and inclusive development. That is most welcome.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we have a thriving Indian diaspora in this country, and many British NGOs have counterparts in India and work very closely with them. However, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010 in India does now inhibit the extent to which our NGOs and theirs can co-operate, and discriminates against British NGOs providing finance for their Indian counterparts. Have we raised that major and very illiberal Act with the Indian Government?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The noble Lord is right to point to the importance of the work of the diaspora, which is a valued part of our community. We are aware of concerns that some Indian NGOs have about the use by the Indian Government of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act to which the noble Lord referred. We are monitoring the situation closely. When, for example, Greenpeace has made representations about the Act, we have encouraged it to pursue these matters through the courts in India.
NATO and the European Union
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to strengthen defence and security co-operation, bilaterally and multilaterally, with their European partners in NATO and the European Union.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, my aim in putting down this Question for Short debate is to draw attention to the constructive co-operation in defence which the UK now pursues with its neighbours within the context of NATO and the European Union. I am conscious that much more co-operation is going on than is reported in the British media—or even reported to Parliament. The gap between the rhetoric of national sovereignty and the realities of international interdependence has been demonstrated by the admission that French maritime patrol aircraft have been searching for non-NATO submarines in the Irish Sea, protecting the access routes to the UK’s submarine base for us while we lack maritime surveillance aircraft of our own.
The British public, and indeed most Members of both Houses of Parliament, remain unaware of how far Franco-British defence collaboration has moved since the Lancaster House agreement of 2010. Several major exercises between the two countries have been conducted—well covered in the French press but scarcely noted in the British. Co-operation in nuclear research and facilities is moving forward. Co-operation in defence procurement has continued to prove more difficult, but joint work on drones and missiles continues. It is a matter of regret to both Governments that the construction of the new British aircraft carriers reached a point in 2010 beyond which it proved financially unjustifiable to install catapults to permit the flexible operation of aircraft between British and French carriers. I remember the efforts that Liam Fox made to achieve this, sadly without success.
Small British contingents are working with their French counterparts in the Sahel, and the two air forces,
“work closely together on operations in the Middle East and North Africa”.
Also, a,
“Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, which will be operational in 2016, will provide a potent combined reaction force of up to 10,000 personnel available to plan for and respond to crises, including beyond Europe”.
I am quoting from page 52 of the SDSR White Paper. I wonder whether the Government will wish to celebrate the achievement of this significant step forward through any public ceremony or joint parade, to catch the attention of the public, or whether they will leave awareness to the tiny number of us who actually get as far as page 52 of the SDSR paper, with Ministers hoping that the Daily Mail and the Telegraph will not notice and that the French Government will not complain that our Government appear to want to keep its existence as private as possible.
I am struck that the SDSR paper makes no mention of the oldest and most closely integrated joint force in which we share with a close partner: the British-Dutch marine Amphibious Force, through which Dutch troops train in the UK and are integrated for operational purposes into the UK marine brigade. This was, after all, established in 1973, although I know from its website that joint operations between British and Dutch marines stretch back to the joint operation that captured Gibraltar in 1704. British and Dutch troops served together in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991, and train together regularly in Arctic warfare. Yet I would guess that at most a dozen MPs are aware of the existence of this force, and I am not aware of any occasion on which the British Government have wished to publicise, let alone to celebrate, this pattern of shared defence that has been going on for more than 40 years.
The SDSR paper does mention,
“our partners in the Northern Group”.
However, it does not explain what the northern group is or how it operates. I have heard from Swedish and Baltic officials that the UK has played a very helpful and constructive part in assisting the development of integrated forces among the Nordic states, and in working with them to strengthen shared defence capabilities in the Baltic Sea, across the Baltic states and into the Arctic north. It is good to learn from others how much they appreciate the quiet work that British officers and men have undertaken over an extended period to assist states that are members of NATO and the EU, and some that are not formal members of one or the other of these two closely linked bodies. However, again, I regret that so few people in the UK have been told by our own Government what has been achieved.
Quietly, German tank forces and aircrew have trained in Britain over many years. The SDSR paper commits the Government to,
“intensify our security and defence relationship with Germany”.
That includes closer collaboration in procurement of equipment and common support facilities for common aircraft such as the Typhoon and the A400M transport. There is a passing reference to the withdrawal of the remaining British forces from Germany by 2020, and efforts that will be made to continue, nevertheless, joint training exercises with German forces. But there is no indication that our Government cherish the close collaboration that we have built up with the German armed forces in the 50 years since they were recreated, while a substantial proportion of the British Army and Air Force was stationed in Germany.
When in government, I argued that the withdrawal of British forces from their garrisons and bases across Germany, after 60 years and several generations of soldiers and airmen, with much interaction and some considerable intermarriage, should be marked by joint parades and ceremonies to celebrate the transformation of our relations and our commitment to future partnership. I was told by a Conservative Cabinet Minister that something like this was entirely unnecessary, that the Germans “are very transactional” and unemotional, and that in the circumstances a silent and unceremonious withdrawal was the best way to let sleeping dogs lie.
I welcome the slow but real progress that successive British Governments have made in developing closer co-operation with our European partners since Tony Blair first signed a bilateral treaty with the French in 1998. I actively supported the further moves forward made during the coalition Government between 2010 and 2015. I hope that these moves will go further: towards more common procurement, and the shared training and maintenance economies that go with it; towards more effective combined forces, both bilaterally and multilaterally constituted; and towards greater specialisation, rather than each European state struggling to hold on to smaller and smaller units in every military field. We all recognise the problems of sovereignty and command that follow such efforts, but they are not insuperable and not novel.
I recall meeting Liam Fox as I came out of an exchange in the Lords in which a Cross-Bencher had declared that it was unthinkable that British troops should serve under foreign command. His response was to list all the different NATO member states under whose rotating command British troops had served in Afghanistan, adding that some of our forces had also served under French command in the last year of the First World War, in 1917 to 1918.
I recall the French and German Governments building mutual confidence out of previous hostility through joint military parades and ceremonies, as well as through efforts at practical co-operation. The depth of German inhibitions over defence deployment has held that practical co-operation back until recently, although the recent German decision to deploy significant air, sea and land forces to the Middle East suggests that at last that inhibition is giving way.
Practical co-operation between the British and the Dutch has, as I have said, been close since the 1970s, and practical co-operation between British and French forces has developed with, I am told, growing mutual respect since contingents worked closely together under very difficult circumstances in Bosnia in the 1990s.
We all know why successive Governments—from Tony Blair in 1990-91 onwards—have shied away from spelling out to the British public the implications of unavoidable, mutually advantageous, defence co-operation with our neighbours. In 1990-91, the Daily Mail mounted a campaign against Franco-British and wider European co-operation, labelling it “the European Army”, and first Blair, and then those followed him, shied away. Eurosceptic myths have sunk into so many aspects of British public policy that it takes courage to disentangle reality from fantasy. Some in Brussels, and others in Berlin, have wanted to create fully integrated European forces with a common European command, but their national Parliaments would without doubt have refused to vote for their proposals, and issues of sovereignty and legitimacy would have blocked their overseas deployment.
Over the past 20 years or more, therefore, British Governments have found themselves in the uncomfortable position of pressing for closer practical military co-operation, spending more money on the defence of Europe than most of our partners and neighbours, while at the same time working desperately hard to downplay the significance of what they were doing for fear of domestic misrepresentation.
There are now, as the 2010 SDSR has already spelled out, no security threats to Britain that we do not share with our neighbours, so it makes sense to share our military response, as far as we can without abandoning the principles of national sovereignty and accountability, with our neighbours. It makes for more effective use of scarce resources and expensive weapons systems. Liberal Democrats have supported these efforts as they have slowly moved forward. However, our partners and neighbours read our newspapers, and some even watch our TV—the disadvantage of English as an international language is that it is easy for others to follow our domestic debate—and note the almost clandestine way in which our Government operate on defence co-operation, hiding its extent from Parliament and the public.
Having sat through innumerable interventions from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and others, insisting that NATO has nothing to do with the EU and the EU has nothing to do with defence and security, I was glad to see on page 53 of the SDSR White Paper some substantial paragraphs on the security dimension of the European Union, and the several EU operations in which British forces have played an active—sometimes even a leading—part. These included, most strikingly, the various operations around the Horn of Africa, such as Operation Atlanta, the anti-piracy force directed from the UK Joint Operations Centre at Northwood. That was another shared operation of which our Government should have been proud, but which they have made too little of.
If we are to move further along this path towards more effective co-operation, as the SDSR White Paper quietly recommends, we have to engage more widely with political elites in our partner countries to make sure that we build their support. It was, for example, a mistake for the FCO to cut its grant to the Franco-British Council by 80% in the latest spending review, when that council, among other activities, sponsors one of the most useful dialogues on defence and security between British and French parliamentarians and outside experts. The Government are right to wish to take European defence co-operation further—bilaterally and multilaterally—but wrong not to publicise it or celebrate it, which would help to build a broad base of public support both within the UK and within our partner countries.