Carrier Strike Group Deployment

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

First, I say to the noble Lord that his youthful demeanour belies that he was commanding this impressive operation—I think it was Ocean Wave—in 1997. I am grateful to him for powerfully encapsulating the potential that a carrier strike group has. He made the point extremely well.

As the noble Lord is aware, we have a shipbuilding programme in place; he and I have exchanged views on that in the Chamber. I think it is a healthy programme; I detected from a meeting this morning that it has excited Navy Command and people there feel a sense of purpose and anticipation. I am delighted about that, because, as the noble Lord would agree, morale within our Armed Forces is very important. So I am pleased to confirm that.

On the fleet solid support ships, the noble Lord will probably be aware this is at a critical stage of contract progress, where consideration will be given to the award of a contract. I am constricted in what I can say about that, but he will know that the Secretary of State has been clear about his desire to proceed with augmenting the solid support ship fleet, and I anticipate we may be able to disclose more on that front in the not too distant future.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am a little worried by the air of nostalgia in several paragraphs of this Statement, with references to our

“proud history … legendary Second World War vessels”,

and so on.

Does the Minister recall the speeches our then Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, made in his visits to the Middle East in December 2016 and early 2017, in which he talked about Britain returning east of Suez, having major bases in the Gulf and Diego Garcia and stationing vessels permanently out there—and, perhaps, marines and troops? Does she worry that this may lead us to overextension? Does she also recall that part of the justification for the withdrawal from east of Suez in the mid-1960s was that in order to sustain a ship on station in Singapore or east Singapore, it was estimated that four other vessels were needed—going out, coming back, working up and under refit? If that is what we are committed to, I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord West, in that we need an awful lot more frigates and aircraft carriers than we have.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I was just trying to race through the potted history of all this. As the noble Lord, Lord West, carefully and eloquently outlined, we all have an understanding of what this is about, and we all regard it as being positive. The key to this is that we recognise we are living in a world where we work more strongly with alliances and partnerships.

As the carrier strike group heads off in May, it will be the start of a series of important messages and an indication of a more persistent presence in the Indo-Pacific area. There are plans for how we achieve that, and there will be flexibility in how we take that forward.

The noble Lord may think some of the language is tub-thumping and perhaps Victorian in character. I think this is facing up to the realities of what 21st-century global opportunity is. There are opportunities, and that is one of the reasons for the carrier strike group deploying. It is also a realistic assessment of the new order of things in the Indo-Pacific area and a desire to work with our allies and partners in recognising and addressing that.

Nuclear Weapons

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I do not want to get lost in or confuse your Lordships with accountancy semantics. My understanding is that the initial money comes from the Treasury but goes into the budget of the MoD, which then has to meet its spend obligations.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, has the MoD done any contingency planning for the extra cost of maintaining our nuclear deterrent if and when Scotland becomes independent?

[Baroness Goldie]

That is not something currently presenting itself to us. There may be strong rhetoric from certain presences in Scotland, but it is also very clear that the strong majority opinion in Scotland is that independence is not something Scotland currently wants. The MoD, like the UK Government, will respond to any events as they unfold and to any changes in constitutional governance—if they ever emerge.

D-day Memorial

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very constructive suggestion that I will take back to my department.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, mentioned the importance of the Polish contribution in this respect. I have found on several occasions, in the referendum campaign and since, that people argue that we British beat the Germans in two world wars and now they are trying to tell us what to do. I have tried to argue that we had some help from other countries. I think that there were troops of 30 nationalities under Britain’s command at Normandy. Can we ensure that the memorial and the education centre stress the collective activity that made this a tremendous success?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my understanding from the trust is that that is exactly its intention. The overwhelming majority of the 22,442 names on the memorial will be British, but troops of 38 different nationalities will be commemorated. Predominantly they were from Commonwealth countries and Europe, but there is also provision to record the contribution of the Merchant Navy, French agents who were parachuted in to observe German movements and the SOE, as well as war correspondents.

Afghan Interpreters: Security Clearance

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I hardly accept anything that the noble Lord has just said. I do not believe that the Government’s scheme for previously employed interpreters is a travesty. I was glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, endorse the quality of the scheme because uniquely in the world it is there to provide for our former staff and their families, who have played such a generous role in supporting UK and NATO staff in Afghanistan. In total, through our ex gratia redundancy scheme, around 500 former staff and their families have relocated to the UK, which represents around 1,295 individuals in total. In June last year the then Defence Secretary announced that the criteria had been even more generously expanded. We are the only nation with a dedicated investigation unit in-country to investigate and provide solutions to intimidation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I regret that I have to speak from these Benches rather than my friend the late Lord Paddy Ashdown, who would naturally have spoken on this Question and knew so much more than I do. Can the Minister confirm that so far we have accepted, I think he said, some 500 out of a total of 3,500 interpreters that the British had in Afghanistan, while the United States has offered asylum to 9,000 Afghanis? It does not seem that the British position is quite so unique. Can he also comment on the fact that the leading candidate for his party leadership is deeply and publicly committed to British forces spending more time in more conflicts east of Suez? If he becomes Prime Minister, it is likely that in future conflicts we will need local interpreters for the languages spoken, so our reputation as regards how we care for interpreters afterwards matters for the future as well as for the past.

[Earl Howe]

I agree, which is why we have been careful to create not only one but at least two very generous schemes for former interpreters. Those schemes do not necessarily involve relocation to the UK. They may involve relocation in-country, they may involve financial compensation, or indeed they may involve retraining for another career altogether, and we provide the means for them to do that. In the majority of cases, I would be very surprised if complaints were raised against the UK, although I take note of the report in the Times last week, to which we are paying close attention.

Aircraft Carrier Task Force

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they consider to be the minimum size and composition of a United Kingdom aircraft carrier task force when deployed to the Pacific.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom carrier strike group will achieve initial operating capability in December 2020 and deploy in 2021. The size and composition of that group is set by the deployment requirements as determined during operational planning.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that non-Answer. Can he confirm that the normal aircraft carrier task force requires two, three or four frigates, one or two submarines and a couple of support ships, and that to maintain a task force of that size in the Pacific requires at least as many ships at home, in maintenance or on their way in and out? Does he recall the Secretary of State for Defence’s speech at the Royal United Services Institute some weeks ago, in which he promised that we intend in our future global deployment to keep six ships permanently in the Gulf and maintain a permanent presence in the Caribbean and the Asia-Pacific? He said:

“Our vision is for these ships to form part of 2 Littoral Strike Groups complete with escorts, support vessels and helicopters. One would be based east of Suez … and one based west of Suez in the Mediterranean”.


Is the Minister confident that the Navy is capable of supporting all these parts of the Secretary of State’s vision?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we will always have a sovereign task group capability. As I said, the carriers will operate as part of a maritime task group, which will be tailored to meet the required tasks in a particular case. The precise number and mix of vessels deployed would depend on operational circumstances. As the noble Lord knows, we will be able to draw on a range of modern and highly capable vessels to support the carriers, including Type 45 destroyers, Type 23 frigates, Astute-class submarines and, in due course, Type 26 frigates. We will also work routinely with ships from allied navies.

Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, having read this lengthy SI and being conscious of the other 600 or so coming our way, my sympathy for the officials working on Brexit is deeper than before. My despair at the Government refusing to rule out a no-deal Brexit is deepened when I think that some of all this is to guard against the contingency of no deal and would not be necessary if we ruled out that possibility. I know that a huge amount of extra work is going on across Whitehall to guard against a contingency that Parliament would not accept if we found ourselves drifting towards it. However, in the event of a withdrawal agreement, we will still have public procurement issues.

I want to ask primarily about the agreement on government procurement and the adjustment of moving to WTO terms, so to speak, in moving from the EU regulations to the GPA. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I heard the Minister say that others have “agreed in principle” to this and that we are “working to join” the GPA, which suggests that we will not have joined by the end of March. I hope that he can tell us when we might do so and what will happen if we leave in an orderly fashion in the next few months—I do not know how we will manage that but we will try to do it somehow—before we have joined the GPA, with a gap in between.

I note that paragraph 12.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that,

“in a no deal scenario where the UK is not participating in the GPA, it may be that economic operators would no longer have guaranteed access to the procurement markets of GPA parties (including the EU) or the remedies provided for by them”.

I understand that to mean that British companies will suffer in having no access to other countries’ markets. What would the situation be? Can the Minister explain a little about the difficulties we appear to have run into between October and November last year in applying to become an independent member of the GPA? Why was the United States so resistant to UK admission, as some of the documents I have looked at suggest? Are Her Majesty’s Government confident that, in rejoining the GPA as an independent country, we will find that procurement in the United States—by states as well as by the federal Government—will be open to the UK? I recall from my time in the US as a student that other countries constantly complained about how they could access federal procurement but states did not think that they were bound by international agreements of that sort.

Why did New Zealand express reservations about the UK becoming a full member of the GPA? Given that Liam Fox provides constant assurances that New Zealand is willing to offer open arms to the UK through the most generous possible trade deal after Brexit, it struck me as rather odd that its Government did so. New Zealand is a massive friend to the UK, ever grateful for having been colonised by British people. One would have thought that there would be no problems what ever.

Will Irish firms be in an intermediate position in any way in terms of access to government procurement? I am conscious that the Belfast agreement and our future relationship with Ireland are not exactly foreign matters. Can the Minister say anything about our confidence in standards of enforcement in the GPA? Moving from the EU framework to the World Trade Organization GPA framework represents moving to a looser framework. It is a bit like moving from Europol to Interpol. Standards of enforcement tend to be lower; for example, I know that China is about to join the GPA but I cannot imagine the Chinese opening their domestic state procurement market as fully as we have managed with France, Italy or Spain. Is a little more assurance on that point possible or are we simply accepting that we are moving from a tighter, more effective framework to a looser and less effective one?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I will begin by asking the noble Earl some specific questions, and then make some wider remarks. First, what status would British public procurement contracts have in the Official Journal of the European Union? In a no-deal scenario, is it the intention that the United Kingdom would still advertise its contracts in the Official Journal? Indeed, would it be legally possible for it to do so? If it does not, either because it is not legally possible or because it is a policy of the Government not to do so in a no-deal scenario, will that not in practice mean that our procurement market in the United Kingdom is a great deal less competitive after than it was before because, if people do not know about contracts and there is not a level playing field for them to apply, fewer people will apply? That is an important point. I simply do not understand the position in a no-deal scenario.

Secondly, from what the Explanatory Memorandum says, I assume that it will still be entirely open to UK companies to bid into the EU procurement market, in the same way as it is open to countries outside the EU at the moment. It is the issue about the advertising of contracts in respect of the United Kingdom that seems significant.

My third question relates to the point just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, of the slightly conditional language used by the noble Earl in his opening remarks about whether we will or will not be a member of the GPA by 29 March. I took him to say that we might be, but he could not give a guarantee. Having looked at the statements made by the WTO and Julian Braithwaite, the United Kingdom’s representative there, my under- standing is that our application has been accepted in principle but that there are a number of issues still being worked through. Perhaps the noble Earl could update us. That seems a point of some importance for people in these markets to understand—whether we definitely will or may not be an independent signatory to the GPA by the end of March—not least because of the remarks made by the noble Earl himself in his introduction, where he said, I think, that having that independent membership would give us,

“continued guaranteed … rights and remedies”.

I assume the reverse is also true: if we are not an independent member at the end of March, then for the period when we are not we will not have guaranteed rights and remedies, and this could leave British companies seriously vulnerable in enforcing their rights.

My fourth question relates to paragraph 7.39 of the Explanatory Memorandum and what the regime will be in respect of state aid. A number of questions arise from the paragraph, so I will quote it:

“In respect of abnormally low tenders submitted by bidders who may have been in receipt of state subsidies, the intention”,


of the Government,

“is to treat non-UK economic operators on a level playing field. Further, although a new UK State aid regime is envisaged in which the function for enforcement is to be conferred on the Competition and Markets Authority, in the area of public procurement, it would be inappropriate for economic operators established in the UK to be required to demonstrate that aid provided by the UK Government was compatible with the UK’s State aid regime in contrast to economic operators not established in the UK”.

Is my understanding of this correct, namely that whereas we intend to apply state aid rules to European bidders for our contracts, we are not intending with these regulations to insist on those same state aid rules being applied in respect of UK bidders for European contracts? The obvious point which arises if that is the case is that it will not be accepted at face value by our European partners, who will of course presumably continue to insist on the application of their state aid rules, which are the same as now. They will not change those rules. I therefore do not understand the actual effect, because the implication in paragraph 7.39 is that the UK could start, for example, flouting existing state aid rules to support UK bidders for EU contracts. As I understand it, that would be legal under the regime envisaged. What is the point of allowing that if those same rules are going to be applied by the EU in the first place? Let us think about real-life situations. It is not in the interest of the United Kingdom that we be regarded as an unreliable bidder in respect of state aid for EU contracts. If a belief gains ground that because these rules do not apply we are content for UK companies which are in receipt of state aid to bid, that will in quite short order lead to significant tension between us and the European Commission. Would a better arrangement not be to say that if we are so keen on state aid rules being applied in respect of EU bidders for UK contracts, the right, reasonable and collegiate thing for us to do would be to insist that those same rules applied in UK domestic law to UK bidders for European contracts? Is the noble Earl with me on those points? They are technical but extremely important for bidders for these contracts.

More broadly, we are again in a slightly surreal Alice in Wonderland situation. We are told—it comes up again in the impact assessment and the statement on consultation—that these changes are technical. Indeed, they are technical in the sense that they replace an existing procurement regime which operates within the European Union market with one that operates within the UK, only with minimal changes. That is certainly correct, and for that reason there is no impact assessment and there has been no consultation. However, at another level they are anything but technical; this relates to a point that my noble friend Lady Hayter made. The act of leaving the EU with no deal means that we are at one stroke potentially rupturing our entire access to these markets and the entire access arrangements of EU bidders to our market. As the noble Earl does not appear even to guarantee that we will be a member of the GPA—subject to what he says in his response—we cannot even be sure that we are able properly to enforce existing contracts which United Kingdom operators have entered into, because the ability to enforce those contracts depends upon our membership of the GPA.

While the technical wording of the rules may not have changed in terms of how we intend to operate public procurement, the act of leaving the EU will fundamentally rupture the entire regime for public procurement, including potentially closing European markets to UK operators over time and closing UK markets to EU operators. This goes against the whole drift and success of EU policy over the past 20 years, which has been systematically to open public procurement markets. I see from the latest EU statement on the three directives in this area that they are estimated to be worth €1.9 trillion a year, paid by 250,000 public buyers across the EU. This is a very significant reason why we engaged in the construction of the single market, why we have played such an active role in setting up the rules and why we have been absolute hawks on issues of state aid and intervention by EU Governments—some of our fellow European Governments have not been as open to the concept of competition in public procurement markets as we have been.

As this statutory instrument goes through, it is important to note that the loss to the UK will be huge. It relates directly to paragraph 12.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. Those of us who are becoming familiar with these statutory instruments after dozens of them are now used to this formula. The technical changes made in this statutory instrument to make it compatible with UK law on exit are minimal. However, the actual act of leaving the EU in relation to the real-world operation of the law is massive. Paragraph 12.3 is another statement exactly in that tradition. It says:

“An Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because the framework and principles underlying the Regulations have not been substantially amended”.


Three sentences later, however, it goes on to say:

“It will be open to UK economic operators to continue to respond to contract notices published on OJEU by member States but in a no deal scenario where the UK is not participating in the GPA, it may be that economic operators would no longer have guaranteed access to the procurement markets of GPA parties (including the EU) or the remedies provided for by them”.


Those euphemistic words amount to the undermining or closing of a substantial part of the markets in which UK companies currently operate. The fact that it is caused not directly by these regulations but by the decision to leave the EU in a no-deal scenario—which underpins these regulations—will not greatly satisfy or mollify those companies whose livelihoods are trashed as a result of a no-deal Brexit.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken for their questions. If noble Lords will bear with me I will do my best to answer them, although not necessarily in the order in which they were asked.

The first question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, was about the lack of an impact assessment. As I said in my opening remarks, this statutory instrument was designed to ensure continuation of the current system where possible. The impact of the amendments, including the replacement of the OJEU with the UK e-notification service, was deemed, after a de minimis impact analysis, to be below an annual cost of £5 million, which is the critical figure in this context. Consequently, in line with published guidance, a full impact assessment was not required or produced. We do not anticipate that the costs of complying with the amended regulations will be very great: in fact for all practical purposes they will be unchanged, because this amendment only fixes deficiencies and removes reciprocal rights—it does not change processes and procedures that would affect the cost of running or participating in a procurement under the regulations. That is why there was no consultation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

If I understand the Minister correctly, paragraph 12.3 should therefore read: “Provided that there is a withdrawal agreement, the impact will be limited, but in the event of no agreement there will be a considerable and adverse impact”.

[Earl Howe]

No, my Lords. These regulations are designed to ensure that the experience of businesses using the public procurement system is virtually unchanged from today. Our aim has been to produce as smooth a transition as possible—even in the event of no deal. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has pointed out, there will be changes in the wider context of bidding in the European market; I will come to that in a minute.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked what would happen if exit day was deferred. If that were to happen, and the withdrawal Act amended, that would feed directly through into these regulations, so no specific amendment would be required for that. She also asked me about the GPA thresholds and how they will be published. To update the thresholds, the Minister for the Cabinet Office will need to exercise the new regulation-making powers conferred by this instrument. The new thresholds will, therefore, be reflected in the public procurement regulations themselves and be publicly available and notified by procurement policy notice.

The noble Baroness, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked about the GPA. As I said in my opening remarks, the UK currently participates in the GPA via its EU membership. We need to accede to the GPA in our own right to maintain legally guaranteed access to public contract opportunities that the GPA provides. The offer that we have made to GPA parties maintains our existing commitments in the UK part of the EU schedule. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 aims to ensure as much continuity as possible. It is, therefore, the UK’s intention to join the GPA in its own right and, ultimately, to transpose the other international agreements between the EU and third countries. Accordingly, all suppliers should continue to be treated equally and fairly through open competition. Keeping our procurement market open to international competition clearly ensures better value for money for the taxpayer and facilitates UK suppliers being offered reciprocal rights to participate in procurements abroad.

Noble Lords asked me what would happen if our GPA accession did not take place by exit day. We have made good progress in our accession process and, as I said, we have received agreement in principle to our GPA market access offer. Despite this progress, we have taken the necessary precautions in the event that the UK’s application to accede has not been fully completed by exit day. In this scenario, economic operators established in territories and states that are GPA parties would no longer have the guaranteed access and associated remedies that they currently have in relation to UK public procurements. One of the amendments in the public procurement regulations guarantees continued access, rights and remedies for suppliers from GPA countries for a time-limited period from EU exit. This approach has been taken to mitigate the risk of a short gap in GPA membership. This will facilitate UK suppliers being offered reciprocal rights to participate in procurements abroad.

The noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Adonis, asked about the attitude of other countries—New Zealand and China in particular—to what we were doing in relation to the GPA and standards. New Zealand has, in fact, accepted our final market access offer. It continues to be interested in other aspects of the UK’s WTO membership. China’s application has been in train for many years and I am advised that it is unlikely to be completed in the near future. There will be no change to the standards that we currently operate. A draft decision inviting the UK to join has been sent to all GPA parties. It is expected that the formal invitation will be issued at a committee meeting this month. Parties were interested in how the decision described the UK’s relations with the EU during the transition period.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, also asked about oversight carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority. This instrument does not provide for oversight by the CMA of the public procurement regime. Aggrieved suppliers will, however, continue to be afforded the remedies provided for in the regulations. In that way, contracting authorities and other entities will be held to account by the courts.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked various questions about the Official Journal of the European Union and the publication of contract opportunities. In a no-deal scenario, the UK is unlikely to be afforded access to the Official Journal for the purposes of advertising public contracts. That is simply a facet of no longer being a member of the EU, and that is why we have developed our own system to which UK bidders, EU bidders and bidders from the rest of the world will have access and in which they will be able to see UK public procurement opportunities. UK authorities may continue to advertise some types of procurement opportunity in the Official Journal—where the UK is participating in EU research and development projects, for example—though we anticipate that being a relatively rare event.

[Earl Howe]

I take the noble Lord’s point entirely. I need to seek advice on the question that he asked me about Switzerland and Norway, as I do not have that information to hand, but clearly, to the extent that we are allowed to avail ourselves of the OJEU in any public procurement context, it will be an advantage. However, I am advised that the new UK e-notification system which is being developed will be accessible by the same portal that suppliers use at the moment. To that extent, the process which they go through will feel quite normal. I can advise the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that the new system is on track to be in place by 29 March 2019.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, am I correct in thinking that provided we have an agreement as we leave and therefore also a transition period, during that transition period many of the same arrangements will continue? If so, it is possible that the answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is that during the transition period we will continue to have access. The question of what happens after 2020, 2021 or whenever it is has to be negotiated; the future relationship negotiations have not yet begun.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is absolutely correct. Clearly if the agreement proposed by the European Commission is agreed, or something like it is agreed, the implementation period will kick in, and therefore we will be as if a full member of the European Union for purposes of public procurement. There will then be the question of what long-term arrangements are negotiated by and through the Commission.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

This statutory instrument is expressly designed for the contingency of no deal. Therefore, it will not come into force if Parliament agrees that the deal on the table, whatever that looks like, is acceptable.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

In that case, the impact assessment for no deal should have been part of the statutory instrument. I read it as being partly about no deal and partly about the withdrawal agreement, because if we leave with a deal before we have completed joining the GPA the consequences could be quite substantially adverse.

[Earl Howe]

The two situations would indeed be very different. The Government hope that Parliament will agree a deal, which will make for a much smoother transition in the implementation period for businesses, private citizens and everybody else than if there is no deal. However, as has been said many times in the Chamber, it behoves a prudent Government to prepare for these contingencies. Unlike the statutory instrument we will debate next, this one is purely designed to address the contingency of no deal.

Royal Navy: Deployment

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the strategic rationale for the deployment of Royal Navy ships east of the Malacca Straits.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, these ships are present in the region to provide a clear and substantive demonstration of the UK’s commitment to the peace, security and prosperity of the region as a whole, as well as to demonstrate support for the rules-based international system.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, is that demonstration short term, or do the Government intend to maintain those three ships on station east of the Malacca Straits? The Minister will recall that when a Labour Government decided 51 years ago to withdraw from the east of Suez, part of the argument was that keeping a ship on station east of Singapore required another four naval ships in place to prepare for moving out and so on. We require virtually half of the British Navy to commit to keeping three ships in the South China Sea. If we follow the Foreign Secretary’s promise—as we always do—and send an aircraft carrier with a full complement of support ships east of the Malacca Straits, with aircraft on board the carrier, that would be half of the British Navy already. Probably most of the British Navy would be committed to the South China Sea. Is that really a strategic priority over the defence of our waters and the seas around Europe?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, Royal Navy deployments are thought about and planned very carefully. They are also kept under regular review. The judgment of Ministers, and, indeed, of the Royal Navy, was that these deployments would fulfil multiple important objectives for UK plc. That remains the case.

National Security Situation

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this debate in a sense has three dimensions: one is to discuss the transformed security environment in which we see ourselves; the second is the transformed position of the UK in the world; and the third is the appropriate response.

I note that the first report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, published last month, refers to,

“major changes to the wider security environment (including the election of the Trump Administration … and the UK’s decision to leave the European Union); intensifying and diversifying threats to the UK’s security”.

The National Security Adviser told the committee that leaving the EU means that,

“the UK is now working in a ‘different context’ on foreign and security policy matters”.

The committee quotes Sir John Sawers, a former National Security Adviser, in an interview with Prospect magazine, concluding that the combined effect of an erratic and distracted Washington and withdrawing from the EU required a major reformulation of the UK’s role in the world. He said:

“One thing I don’t think we can accept is Britain adrift. A Britain without a major strategic anchor in the world”.


The report goes on to note the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, the rising asymmetric threats from Russia and the increasingly assertive nature of Chinese foreign and security policy, as well as rising cyber criminal and terrorist threats. It could have noted also the long-term threat of disorder and conflict in Africa, combined with the continuing population increase on that continent, leading to an uncontrollable flow of refugees and migrants northwards across the Mediterranean. That represents the real long-term threat of immigration, not the prospect of a limited increase in Poles and Romanians coming to Britain.

The Government’s answer to calls for a new international strategy to fit the changing international context has been to talk about a “global Britain”. The Foreign Secretary has spelled that out a little by referring to a return to east of Suez, 50 years after we left, sending an aircraft carrier group through the Malacca Strait into the South China Sea and strengthening what he calls our two major bases in Bahrain and Diego Garcia.

Last month, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place published a report on global Britain which said:

“The most frequent complaint we have heard from several witnesses is that the only thing that is clear about Global Britain is that it is unclear what is means, what it stands for or how its success should be measured”.


The report goes on:

“No minister during our inquiry was able to give the Committee a definitive explanation of ‘Global Britain’”.


Just last week, the committee published a further report to try to flesh out what the concept of global Britain means for the Commonwealth, since the Foreign Secretary himself has failed to do so. I note here that the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office told the committee that the Commonwealth is not a top priority for the FCO, saying that although it is a very important organisation to the United Kingdom, it is,

“not as important, in the next period, as the neighbourhood”—

by which of course he means the European continent—

“China or the United States”.

There are elements of illusion in UK government policy across the board. Yesterday, we heard the Secretary of State for Transport telling us that there will be absolutely no problems in border control and so on when we leave the European Union because it was so clearly in the interest of those on the continent to maintain open borders with the UK. Liam Fox assures us that we are absolutely committed to free trade and that China and India are waiting to be helpful to us, even though both countries have spelled out their hard determination to defend their interests and strike a hard bargain. The Prime Minister herself talks about the importance of the Commonwealth, while the British Government do their best to deport long-term Commonwealth residents.

How does the concept of a global Britain apply to the Middle East, given the multiple conflicts and challenges in that region? The immediate focus for this debate is of course the Syrian conflict, but we are all aware of the potential for that conflict to spill over into the rest of the region given the number of outside actors involved. In the next four weeks, as we have heard in various briefings, we have the possibility that, on 12 May, President Trump will refuse to renew the US waiver on sanctions on Iran. We also have in May the 70th anniversary of Israeli independence, and the demonstrations in Gaza will continue and build up to that. There are elections in Lebanon—we all know how sensitive those can be—and now we have the announcement of an election in Turkey, intended to consolidate further President Erdoğan’s authoritarian regime.

What is Britain’s response to the many instabilities of the region, beyond selling as many arms as possible to the Sunni Gulf monarchies and providing logistical support to Saudi weapons systems operating over Yemen? Can the Minister tell us: what is the strategic rationale for expanding the British naval base in Bahrain? Are we, in effect, committing ourselves to the Sunni side of the Sunni-Shia divide in the region by accepting the Bahraini Government’s offer to pay for the expansion of the base? Are Her Majesty’s Government still pursuing an active dialogue with the Iranians, as we should be doing, in spite of the difficulties of dealing with that regime? Do Her Majesty’s Government intend to increase the UK’s military commitment to the Gulf further, including by stationing a carrier group there for extended periods when available, as the Foreign Secretary has suggested? If so, what will be the strategic rationale for that?

The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, in opening this debate, spoke of British global leadership and our robust international partnerships—although leadership on our own and working in partnership with others are not entirely compatible approaches to Britain’s role in the world. The concept of global Britain, as I understand it, is about an image of Britain standing alone, in the lead and at the head of the Commonwealth, apart from the merely European powers on the continent. We should remember that, in negotiating the joint agreement with Iran, we operated very helpfully and very successfully as part of the E3, in collaboration with the Russians, the Americans and others. Next week, I note, the E2—the leaders of France and Germany—will go to Washington to speak for Europe with the United States. Britain will be apart; we will be absent.

Geoffrey Howe, a foreign secretary of an entirely different quality from the present incumbent of that post, used to speak about the sharing of sovereignty, rather than the assertion of exceptional sovereignty. The rationale for the Syrian airstrike was, after all, the British commitment to maintaining a liberal international order, defending with others and in partnership with others the global rule of law. That is something that we on these Benches entirely and strongly support, although we are not entirely sure that such a position is consistent with the rejection of participation in our regional international order and with the particular objection that so many Conservatives appear to have to the regional rule of law, as represented by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.

Withdrawal from the European Union’s well-developed structures for co-ordinating foreign policy, defence policy and intelligence will weaken Britain’s robust international partnerships. I note that the report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy says that withdrawal will unavoidably weaken co-operation and intelligence, among other matters. Of course, all the more important co-operation will be in a darker international environment than it seemed two to three years ago, when we were discussing whether we stayed or left. The Government have so far said almost nothing about how they will manage future co-operation with our European partners, although the Prime Minister, in her Mansion House speech, tantalisingly suggested that we now wished to stay within the European Defence Agency—something which Liam Fox, when Secretary of State for Defence, was determined to take Britain out of, so at least that is a minor shift forward. Can the Minister say when the Government will inform Parliament and the public of their plans to continue co-operation in one form or another? I think there are 40 working groups in the common foreign policy and security network, which we will no longer be part of. My noble friend Lord Campbell has already raised the question of what our future relationship with PESCO will be.

The Government have talked about a new security treaty for internal security co-operation, necessary when we leave, to ensure that we remain within those structures. Do the Government begin to see the need for a new treaty to ensure that in foreign policy and security we will continue to co-operate? Perhaps he would like to reinvent the western European Union—from years of old, which only a few of us can still remember—providing at least some sort of mechanism for Britain outside the European Union in discussing these matters with others. We need something here. We need the Government to tell us what they intend. Without this, our international partnerships will become a good deal less robust than the Minister was suggesting.

UK Defence Forces

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Soley, posed the underlying question for this debate: are we prepared to pay more to maintain our status and influence in global security, or do we have to reduce our ambition? The related question, which has come up in several speeches, is: will Brexit further reduce our diplomatic and global status or our importance both to the United States and to our European partners, or will it somehow enable us to regain our sovereign status as “global Britain”? There is a third, unspoken question: if we are to spend more on defence, what other public services are we going to cut or which taxes are we going to raise? Juggling with the aid budget, as several have suggested, might assist at the margin with the humanitarian role of defence, but it will not raise spending to 3% of GDP. Of course, the Brexit shock is likely to squeeze tax revenues and has already raised the cost of overseas procurement from the United States and elsewhere.

There are dangers of nostalgia about our global status and illusions about our global standing and influence. The image of a global Britain, re-established by freeing ourselves from the chains of EU membership, has formed a frequent theme in our wonderful Foreign Secretary’s speeches, in which he announces that we are back east of Suez, that Diego Garcia is now a major British base and that we intend to send an aircraft carrier task force through the Malacca straits. He has not mentioned whether we have to have the aircraft on it first. The reality of the 2010 defence cuts was that, as the United States recognised, we had reduced ourselves below the level at which the United States regarded us as a fully capable partner. We did that and are now in a situation where our relationship with the United States is much less clear than it was before. We lost our overall capability and found ourselves dependent on the French and others for maritime surveillance among other things. The focus, over a long period, on high-end, prestige capabilities—the independent deterrent force and the large carriers—has meant that we lack the supporting ships, forces and helicopters that we also need.

I asked the Minister not long ago where we would find the frigates to complete the task forces for aircraft carriers. His reply was, “They don’t necessarily have to be British frigates”. That is a very interesting reply, because it raises the whole question of how far we are trying to have an independent capability, or how far our future posture depends on close collaboration with others, and if so, with whom. There has been a suppressed history over the past 40 years of co-operation with our European partners. The UK-Dutch amphibious force has been there for 40 years, rarely celebrated in Britain—rarely reported in Britain. In 1999 the then Labour Government signed a UK-French defence agreement. A stronger one was signed—by Liam Fox, of all people—in 2010. He thereupon did his utmost to prevent press interest in the whole dimension of UK-French collaboration. I am told that he told the civil servant responsible that he was glad to meet him but he did not want to know too much about what he was doing.

That is part of the illusion between Britain standing alone and the realities of where we are. Fear of the Daily Mail and the Telegraph is such that Liam Fox also resisted taking a press team to see what I thought was the rather splendid Operation Atalanta joint command centre at Northwood, which had almost every single member of the European Union engaged in a joint operation. Even in the commemoration of World War I we run into problems about recognising how much we did things together with others. I am told that the commemoration of Third Ypres/Passchendaele downgraded the input of the French and Belgian troops in the battle. After an effort, there is to be a small but “modest” commemoration next year of the point at which British troops came under French overall command in April 1918. I think “modest” means, “We hope the TV won’t notice it”.

That feeds the whole idea that we are somehow an independent power on our own and we can do it all even though we do not spend enough money. The position paper published two or three months ago on foreign policy and defence co-operation with the EU after Brexit was remarkable. It was the most positive government statement I have ever seen of the importance of European foreign policy and defence co-operation to Britain’s national interest. I assume it was written by officials and Ministers did not actually look at it in sufficient detail before it was published, to cut some of that out.

More recently, the Government have welcomed the European Union’s proposals on closer defence co-operation and expressed hopes that the United Kingdom will be closely associated with it—for obvious reasons. There is logistical co-operation that saves money. There is joint procurement, which is of active interest to our arms industry. There are joint forces and joint exercises, and operations in the Mediterranean and Africa, which are dealing with the sorts of humanitarian crises, conflict prevention and conflict resolution that others have spoken about in the debate.

Can the Minister tell us more about how the Government propose to maintain co-operation in defence with our European partners as we leave the European Union? We have not heard anything in detail from the Government on this. Does he recognise that the Government are working against the onslaught from the right-wing media? I saw a one-and-a-half-page article in the Daily Mail yesterday warning about what was happening. Apparently there is a populist surge on the European continent—not here, of course—and Britain should disengage from the European continent as far as possible.

Brexit is reducing our global status and influence. Our prospects for economic growth have just been downgraded. Our public services continue to be cut and our public infrastructure is desperately short of investment. I, for one, cannot go out and persuade people in West Yorkshire, who are facing real cuts in education and further cuts in public services—local services, child support services, social services and social care—to accept further cuts in order to increase our defence spending and prop up our global status. My answer to the challenge posed by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, is that we must modify our posture and ambitions. We have to admit that we cannot claim global status for Britain on its own, whatever fantasies Liam Fox or Boris Johnson may still be pursuing. Our contribution to global peace, stability and security must be a shared one, in which our defence forces work closely with those of our allies and neighbours.

Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I think we all accept that we have moved on from the apparently benign international context of the post-Cold War years to a much more unstable international order in which the advanced democracies of western Europe and North America can no longer set the rules without carrying with them the rising Asian powers. Multilateral co-operation with like-minded Governments who share our values has been among the most important levers of British foreign policy since the Second World War—through NATO since 1949 and through the European Union since 1973. It has been a force multiplier and an influence multiplier in international institutions and in negotiations such as the six-power nuclear negotiation with Iran. We will need to work more closely with others as we face this global shift in power.

The most significant change in the UK’s international environment since the publication of the 2015 strategic defence and security review has been the defection of the United States from its position as promoter and protector of the rules-based international order, to which the Motion refers. We do not yet know what the Trump Administration’s foreign policy will become or exactly their approach to NATO and their European partners, but we have seen enough to know that Trump will put America first, as he promised throughout his campaign, and pay less attention to international order and North Atlantic security, and that Britain cannot expect any greater favours than such other close US partners as Canada, Mexico, Germany or Japan.

I want to focus on the future relationship between Britain and our other long-standing allies and partners with whom we share values in promoting and protecting the rules-based international order: our European NATO allies, which are also, with the exception of Iceland, Norway and Turkey, our partners in the European Union.

Successive Governments have kept from the public and the media how close and effective our security and defence co-operation with our European neighbours has become. Tony Blair signed a bilateral treaty on defence co-operation with France in 1998, to add to our existing collaboration with the Netherlands and Belgium, the most long-standing example of which being the British-Dutch marine amphibious force. His Government, with the then George Robertson—later NATO Secretary-General and now the noble Lord, Lord Robertson—as Secretary of State for Defence, attempted to widen this into a network of European defence partnerships. He recognised that the UK could no longer afford to procure a full spectrum of military capabilities under UK sovereign control and that it therefore made sense to share capabilities to meet shared threats. But when the Daily Mail dubbed this initiative “the European Army”, he backed off and went quiet. Co-operation continued to strengthen but Ministers said as little as possible about it.

When the Conservatives came to power in coalition in 2010, they fought with their Liberal Democrat partners to keep from the public this pattern of undeclared co-operation. Liam Fox, then Secretary of State for Defence, signed a new and closer defence co-operation agreement with France but told the official responsible for UK-French co-operation that he would do his best to keep it out of the newspapers. Since then I have read about major UK-French exercises in the French press, but rarely in the British. I have been told of the exchange programmes under which British pilots fly French military aircraft and that one interception of a Russian plane not far from UK airspace was made by a French pilot in an RAF fighter. But nobody told the Daily Mail, of course.

The level of ignorance within the Conservative Party about the extent of European defence co-operation was and is astonishing. I recall a meeting in Whitehall in which a serving Minister repeated the common prejudice about the uselessness of the Belgians, to be asked by officials whether he was unaware that the strike in Libya which had just knocked out Colonel Gaddafi had been a joint British-Belgian mission. Since the 2015 election, the latest SDSR has spelled out for those willing to read as far as chapter 5 the importance of our links with France, Germany, Italy and the Nordic and Baltic states, both through NATO and through the European Union which, it reminds us in paragraph 5.41,

“has a range of capabilities that can be complementary to those of NATO”.

It goes on to say:

“We will ... continue to foster closer coordination and cooperation between the EU and other institutions, principally NATO, in ways which support our national priorities and build Euro-Atlantic security”.


This underpublicised admission of the extent of our security interdependence with our neighbours did not prevent the leave campaign from repeatedly insisting that the European Union has no security role or value, and no relevance to NATO. When the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, repeated this piece of fake news in a debate in this Chamber I gave him a copy of the 2015 SDSR, with chapter 5 carefully annotated; he seemed genuinely surprised to read what it said. I made some effort when in government to persuade Conservative colleagues to give more publicity to the impressive UK-led EU operational headquarters for Operation Atalanta, the anti-piracy mission off Somalia, based at Joint Forces HQ Northwood. Conservative colleagues agreed to invite ambassadors from other EU states to visit, and I understand that a number of Conservative MPs were also invited, but the press was kept well away. The same happened with the Review of the Balance of Competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union Foreign Policy, which stated in its executive summary that “the key benefits” of common action to the UK,

“included: increased impact from acting in concert with 27 other countries; greater influence with non-EU powers, derived from our position as a leading EU country”,

and,

“the range and versatility of the EU’s tools, as compared with other international organisations”.

But again, No. 10 delayed publication until the day after Parliament rose for the Summer Recess, and allowed David Lidington and me to brief EU ambassadors but not the domestic media.

Yesterday several newspapers carried the story that the Prime Minister is now seeking a defence pact with Germany. No mention that we already have one with France, I noted: the Government still seem unwilling to admit how close our security and defence co-operation with our neighbours has become. The Government, from the Prime Minister downwards, endlessly repeat the empty phrase, “We may be leaving the EU, but we are not leaving Europe”, with the implication that it will be in the defence and security sphere that we will remain engaged as we cast all economic integration away.

So can the Minister tell us what sort of defence pact is now planned with Germany? Will it be modelled on the treaty with France? Do we plan any other bilateral treaties of this sort—for example, with the Netherlands, Spain or Italy, or with the Nordic states, which are very grateful for the co-operation that the British quietly gave them in increasing their own multilateral integration? Or do we even consider a network of arrangements that might become in time a multilateral organisation—a sort of revived Western European Union of blessed memory?

Does this announcement mean that security in Europe and around its neighbourhood remains the first priority for UK defence, in contradiction to Boris Johnson’s promise that British forces are going to sail off again east of Suez to defend India and confront China? Do we intend to remain a member of the EU caucus within the United Nations and other international organisations, if it is possible to negotiate that? Are the Government willing to face down the hostility of the Europhobes within their party to any continuing links of this sort with our continental neighbours? Unless the Government are willing to reassert our commitment to continuing European co-operation in foreign policy, security and defence, clearly and publicly, our ability to meet the current challenges to the rules-based international order, severe as they are, will be sadly diminished.