Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

I am delighted. I can move swiftly on to my other small, brief point, which is simply that after a battle the battlefield is covered with broken lances, some of which are worth picking up and mending. We have to distinguish between “equal” and “the same” and the difference has to be understood. Underlying this there is an assumption that if something is different it cannot be equal. I ask your Lordships to look at other noble Lords around the Chamber for a moment or two and remember that this is a House of Peers. We are all equal and, by gum, we are all different.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, in the mid-1990s I was the Naval Secretary with responsibility for naval personnel and the Special Investigation Branch. On taking up that post, I discovered the degrading treatment that was meted out to people suspected of being gay, who had anonymous phone calls made about them. It was still illegal to be gay in the services. I was shocked and appalled at how gay people were treated. I stopped that behaviour immediately and then pushed very hard to allow them to be accepted in the Armed Forces. Thank goodness, that happened because it worked brilliantly and it is a good thing to have done. We have a terrible baggage from how we have treated homosexuals and lesbians in this country, as was said by the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Fowler, and others. I am afraid that this is a wrecking amendment. When I came into the Chamber, I did not know how I would vote on the amendment. However, having listened to the arguments put forward, I fear that this is a wrecking amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is absolutely right: every marriage is different. Will this demean my marriage? It will not do so at all. I believe that the people we are discussing should have the opportunity.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I have not made a speech in this debate, just two short interventions, and I wish to speak briefly now. Having talked to dozens of gay people recently and to my ordinary friends who wanted to discuss the Bill, it is clear that the only thing gay and lesbian people want is to be treated as ordinary people. They do not want to be (extraordinary) people. People who are on the receiving end of prejudice, particularly when they are practising Christians and live profoundly Christian lives, know what those brackets mean. They mean that you are different; you are not ordinary. Being ordinary means living in your community and bringing up children—maybe lots of children. It means going to church regularly and being accepted on the same basis as every other Christian in your community. It means sharing with your fellows on an equal basis. Gay and lesbian people do not want brackets as they make them different and will make them even more different as they travel across the world. I beg your Lordships, in common decency, to give gay people what they want: simply to be ordinary.

The Economic Implications for the United Kingdom of Scottish Independence

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, to my mind the separation of Scotland would diminish the defence and security of all of us. The SNP statements on defence just do not stack up. The complexity and cost of establishing a new Ministry of Defence, all of the administrative functions and intelligence, logistics, medical support, training and procurement organisations are absolutely huge. Just looking at the intelligence world, for example, would a separate Scotland want a GCHQ equivalent? Having worked in that world for a time, I can assure your Lordships that this is hugely difficult to create and hugely expensive. Would it have an SIS? Again, there are huge complexities in doing something like that. Would Scotland be part of the Five Eyes arrangement? I have severe doubts, because the Americans would not be at all happy to have a country in the Five Eyes which has said the sort of things about nuclear that the SNP has said. Bearing in mind all of those costs and with the money that, by any calculation, one could see being available for defence in a separate Scotland, the front line would be dramatically smaller than the figures that the SNP has talked about.

To talk of Denmark as a comparator is nonsense. Denmark at one stage had a very large military and over many, many, many years has reduced it, so the infrastructure was all there and all those things were there. That is not an accurate comparator. There would be huge implications for the forces available. There would be massive job losses, to my mind, at Faslane, where jobs would be down from about 8,500 to, at a maximum, about 500 if you consider the force level that Scotland will have in terms of ships. I believe that there will be massive job losses elsewhere in Scotland. It is very unfortunate that we have had no accurate assessment from the MoD or the SNP of the reality of what those would be. A lot of nonsense has been talked.

As has been mentioned, the large defence firms would without doubt come south. I have talked to the boards of some of those firms; they are scared stiff to mention anything about it. I think that that is appalling. There is a climate of fear. They would move south because there will be no money, or tiny amounts, for procurement in Scotland. Those firms move where the money is. That is bound to happen. I think it is quite likely—a horrific thought, because I went to school up on the Clyde and remember seeing magnificent ships being built there—that warship building would finish on the Clyde.

The SNP positions on nuclear weapons and being part of NATO, which is a nuclear alliance, are, to say the least, confused. I think that they are totally confusing and make no sense at all. I am not sure where the SNP stands on that.

To end, because I may speak for only a short time in the gap, I believe that it is the task of the military to plan for the unexpected. That is our job; that is what we have to do all the time. Even with very unlikely things, we have to be prepared for the unexpected. For us not to be looking at the defence implications of the separation of Scotland and doing contingency planning is, I believe, dereliction of duty. That work should be going on. I hope to goodness that it is going on somewhere, because if it is not, that is wrong. There is a very short timescale and it is important. Should separation occur, I fear for the future security of our islands, on which we all live.

Scotland: Independence

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as my noble friend will know, the commission established to look at the so-called West Lothian question, under the chairmanship of Sir William McKay, reported a couple of months ago, and obviously the Government are looking at and considering the detail of that report. It has been made clear on a number of occasions that the Government do not have any plans to reform or revise the Barnett formula, as our primary objective is to get the UK government finances back into a healthy situation.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister agrees that defence and security are the most important duties of any Government. Is the Minister content that sufficient work is being done on looking at the full detail of the inconsistency of what the SNP says about providing a new MoD, command and control, intelligence and the Five Eyes community? These are a whole raft of issues that are crucially important for the defence of these islands in the future should, by some error or whatever, Scotland become separate. Those things need to be looked at, and I am not sure that they are being looked at.