Afghanistan

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I cannot give my noble friend an answer about NATO and air support post 2014. All I can confirm is that it is the intention of the British Government that British service men and women should not be in combat roles after 2014.

My noble friend’s first question was entirely different, being about the role of the constitution in negotiations. It is sometimes nice to believe that we, sitting or standing here, can micromanage this process of negotiation, and I am sure that my noble friend will agree with me that we cannot. We have to believe that those who are most involved in the Afghan-led process can work—for example, by making the preliminary contacts, as they have done—so as to try to deliver a settlement that is inclusive and that addresses the political and economic aspirations of all Afghan citizens, including women, who have been treated so badly in the past, and to try to promote security and stability in the wider region. The process must be actively supported by Afghanistan’s neighbours and international partners, including us. My noble friend is not wrong to raise these issues, but it is important that we should not micromanage them.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating that Statement. All of us in this House are very aware of the commitment of our troops and of the civilians working for us in Afghanistan. I would like to point out that one always refers to troops, soldiers and whatever, but the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force are very deeply involved as well and I think I am right in saying that more Royal Navy personnel are involved there at the moment than the other two services.

We are in danger of deluding ourselves. We are a minor partner, albeit an important one, in an alliance, but the key driver of what is happening in Afghanistan is the United States. Does the noble Lord the Leader of the House agree that once the United States decided that it was going to go and to a certain timetable, we had to fit in with it? It is right for us to be getting out of there, but there was no alternative other than to fit in with that. It is wrong to pretend that we are setting an agenda, which is how we have deluded ourselves in the past.

My other point is that I have real concerns about categorising Afghanistan as of major strategic interest—I think the Leader said—to this country in future. I produced the first national security strategy. A country that is of major strategic interest to us demands from us considerable resources and a willingness to intervene again to do all sorts of things, and I do not believe that, looking to a long-term future, we can afford to make countries such as Afghanistan of major strategic interest. There are areas of major strategic interest, but we cannot go on like this or we will find out that we are involved across the whole world.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord West, reminded the House that the combat role in Afghanistan is not limited to the British Army. My noble friend Lord Astor of Hever reminded me that there are also marines, Royal Navy and RAF personnel in Afghanistan. Indeed, the whole spectrum of the British Armed Forces has been working hard, as have many civilians. It is right that we should support every one of them in the work that we do.

The noble Lord, Lord West, is also right, inevitably, when he says that the key driver is the USA. However, the links between us and the USA are extremely strong. I do not think there is any sense of delusion that the British would carry on operations in Afghanistan without America.

On the point about us having a major strategic interest in Afghanistan, I hope the noble Lord would agree that we may have such an interest not just in Afghanistan itself but in a region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Given the history of terrorism in the last 10 years or so, there are reasons why we should maintain a major strategic interest in the region. I also agree with him about not deluding ourselves—to use his words again— and I do not think we should delude ourselves about our ability to change as much as we think we would like to. We work in partnership with our NATO allies and our American allies to bring as much peace and stability to the region as we can.

Libya

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I join my noble friend, as I know the House does, in paying tribute to our troops who have reacted immensely quickly to the challenges put upon them and who even now are in action or redeploying—particularly the RAF—to a new forward base in southern Italy. My noble friend encouraged me to use my influence with the Prime Minister to urge him to encourage Arab states to stay on board. The Prime Minister needs absolutely no encouragement from me. He is actively involved in this work and is speaking by telephone to members of the Arab League continually. There were stories yesterday in the news that the Arab League was withdrawing its support because of civilian casualties. I can confirm that that is not the case. The Secretary-General, Amr Moussa, said:

“It is for the Security Council to take decisions as it sees fit. What we did in the Arab League is make an official request to impose a no-fly zone on military activities against the Libyan people”.

In creating these alliances and coalitions, a lot of people need to be brought together. This needs continual diplomatic work and the Prime Minister is at the forefront of that.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, perhaps I may carry on that theme by suggesting to the Leader of the House that it is not a question just of the Arab League giving diplomatic support. Will he assure the House that we will ensure that the Arab League takes part militarily in the operation—the more members, the better—and that if it does not, and if we find that Arab support evaporates, we will think very hard about extricating ourselves from this military action?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an extremely good point. Qatar is sending military assistance. We anticipate further assistance from other Arab League members, although we are currently not in a position to say what form this will take. Arab partners made it clear that if the action was authorised by a Security Council resolution, they would contribute military assets. We are continuing to discuss this with them and to lobby our partners to contribute to a coalition force from both NATO and the wider international community.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the House will know just how grateful I am to hear my noble friend, with all the common sense that he speaks born of experience and of having given these warnings over many years while we were in opposition. I entirely agree with him that we must now look to the future, deal with the damage of the past and focus our best resources on getting the best result.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I am afraid that I have to share the view of a number of noble Lords and, I think, a number of people across the country that this review is not really strategic but is cost driven. However, we are where we are and a Government have to govern. Therefore, they have to explain what they are going to do. It is no good having some political knockabout about what might have gone on in the past.

I shall focus on the carriers. I happen to have an interest in them in that I have spent quite a large amount of my life on aircraft carriers, so I think that I know quite a lot about them. I am delighted by the decision that we will go ahead with the two new aircraft carriers. That fits in exactly with the view that I think all of us have of the United Kingdom; namely, that we need global reach and that we are still a great power. A lot of people might deny that, but I argue that we are. We are one of the six richest nations in the world. We have commitments all around the world; we have huge investments around the world; we run global shipping; we are an important and great power. There is no doubt that, when it comes to flexibility and capability for global reach, aircraft carriers have it in spades. Therefore, I find it extraordinary that a member of the coalition should say, “Well, we only got another one because they were bloody well ordered and it was going to cost so much”. It was a good decision to go for them, but I am concerned by the inconsistencies in what is being done.

The Leader of the House mentioned that we will put cats and traps in only one carrier. That means that, for a percentage of the time—I would be interested to know what his assessment of it is—there will be no carrier available because, if you have one of something, it cannot always be there. You can bet your bottom dollar that, at the time when you really need it, it will be deep in refit; that is my experience. Therefore, I believe we should have cats and traps on both of them and run both of them.

There is also an inconsistency in how we go from where we are today to there. In a hospital where there were old-type scanners, one would not dream of saying, “We’ll get new ones in 10 years but we will stop using the old ones for 10 years”. That would be bonkers, and it is bonkers to get rid of the Harriers. The noble Lord says that it was a military judgment that the Harriers and not the Tornados should go, but the Harriers’ job cannot be done by any other aircraft while the Tornados’ can. I should be interested to know why that decision was made.

Finally, the Leader of the House mentioned DfID. I find it extraordinary that we give money to India and China, which are developing carrier programmes, yet we have difficulty in funding ourselves. Will we continue doing this in future?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, to take the last point first, the DfID budget is protected and substantial and was built up by the previous Administration. That department needs to decide how to make its priorities in view of the Government’s overall priorities. On the whole, I welcomed the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead. He certainly started off in a very positive light. He asked one straightforward question about the carriers and the cats and traps. We have given a commitment to putting cats and traps on to one carrier—that will go ahead—but we have not yet decided finally on what should happen to the second one. We do not need to make that decision now but, when we do, it will be widely announced to the House.