Russia: Baltic States

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend has made some very important points and he is right. The UK is leading the way in defence expenditure. We have committed to the NATO 2% target and, during this Parliament, a 0.5% real-terms increase in the defence budget. However, he is right that spending across the alliance is still too low. Having said that, the alliance is making good progress. There are now five allies spending 2% of GDP on defence, an increase from three before the pledge. Twenty allies have increased defence spending in real terms and eight have put plans in place to work towards reaching the 2% guideline for defence spending, which demonstrates a clear political will. The issue now is to translate the political will into actions.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, Russia is actually running a wartime economy. It has the GDP of Italy. Putin is replacing all his strategic triad of nuclear weapons; he is spending an immense amount on arms. He is a revisionist; he believes in spheres of influence. He has espoused the unbelievable policy that he calls “de-escalation”—in other words, if fighting starts you use a tactical nuclear weapon to de-escalate—which I find quite extraordinary. Does the Minister not believe that in this very dangerous period, we must open every channel we can of dialogue with Russia? We must try to have means of access to Russia in order to talk about these issues and have some dialogue about reducing tension and the escalation that is happening right now.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes some very telling points. There is a balance here. He is right that it is important that we continue to engage with Russia, to avoid misunderstandings, to make clear where we disagree, to push for change where we disagree, but to co-operate where it is the UK’s national interest. We are committed to building stronger links—in particular, between the British and the Russian people. People-to-people exchanges will therefore remain important. Cultural and scientific exchanges are in our long- term interests, so we have to keep that balance as it should be.