Al-Sweady Inquiry Report
Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Baroness Garden of Frognal(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
May I just remind noble Lords that there are 20 minutes for Back-Bench interventions? It would be much appreciated if Members could keep their contributions succinct to enable all those who wish to contribute to do so.
Education: Languages
Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Baroness Garden of Frognal
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Baroness makes a very valuable point. Indeed, many universities are already doing this. We know, for example, that UCL, Aston University and the University of York already have a language provision for all students in their first year. Other universities are combining a language with a science, say, or with another discipline. However, we must encourage them to do more. As to making it compulsory, that is a step that we will probably not be taking.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that one of the reasons why we punch above our weight in global influence is our wonderfully disciplined defence forces? Does she also agree that successive cuts have put that influence severely at risk?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord takes us slightly away from the Question. However, I would say that it is very encouraging to see that the MoD has always had a language provision, and, indeed, that the Foreign Office provision in languages has been resurrected by this Government after being cut by his Government. It is therefore encouraging to see that the MoD and the Foreign Office are collaborating on the provision of modern languages for their people.
Violence against Women and Girls
Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Baroness Garden of Frognal
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend raises some very important issues. The safeguarding of children in schools is an important part of the training of teachers. They should all have the skills and knowledge to identify and respond to bullying, violence and signs of abuse or neglect. As she points out, if the abuse is happening at home, that is an area where one might hope that children would acquire some moral confidence, strength and values. Teachers have a particularly challenging role if they have to identify that it is the domestic situation that is causing the problem. Of course, schools try to address all these topics within the curriculum.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, would the Minister not admit that one of the most pernicious and dangerous aspects of violence against women is female genital mutilation? When I was a Minister I became aware of this obscene business and I am afraid that I was not able to stop it as much I would have hoped. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to achieve some results in this area? At the moment, what I have seen of it seems rather Autolycus-like, and we know what happened to him.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord is right. To ensure that female genital mutilation is tackled, cross-departmental work is going on between the Home Office, the Department for Education and the Department of Health to try to identify the particular cohorts of girls who might be most at risk and to prevent this happening before it takes hold in particular cultural parts of society.
Armed Forces: Future Size
Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Baroness Garden of Frognal(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for raising this debate. It is very pertinent. I apologise for not having put my name on the list of speakers. I was more focused on my Christmas festivities than on knowing what the business of the House was, but I felt it was very important to speak.
I will speak very briefly on the aircraft carriers—otherwise people might think that I am a one-trick pony on that. The Government have begun to get their mind around that and understand the importance of them. They are something that we should be really proud of, rather in the sense that we were proud of the Olympic work, employing some 20,000 people across the UK, building these amazing ships. The Government have made it quite clear—certainly the Secretary of State did in a conference I was at—that they intend running both of them. Yes, there have been a lot of problems. Yes, there have been issues about what aircraft they will have; we now know what aircraft they will have. I am glad that the Government are getting to grips with that.
However, I believe that our nation is standing into danger. Since I joined the Royal Navy 48 years ago, our military has suffered a steady attrition in size and resources. That has happened year on year in all my 48 years in the Navy. The 2010 strategic defence and security review is, I believe, the straw that has almost broken the camel’s back, but a further £1.3 billion has been taken from the defence budget.
Our military is not now capable of what the people of our nation expect of it. If Ministers think that it is, I fear that they are deluded. The international developments in the Middle East—the Arab spring was referred to as the basis of this debate—are just one example of what a chaotic, unpredictable and dangerous world we are in. At the time of the 2010 SDSR, a number of us—some of whom are in the Chamber tonight—pointed out that the cost-driven exercise took no account of strategic shock. The events in Libya and Syria have proved the point. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, asked: where will the next one be? We have no idea what the next crisis might be. That is why we need capable Armed Forces. As an aside, Libya was a minor operation, but we could not have done it without the United States. I would strongly advise that we do not get involved militarily in Syria.
I come back to defence spending, because that is what I want to focus on. It is complacent and, I believe, shows a lack of understanding, to parrot the fact that our defence spending is the fourth highest in the world, as if that answers criticism that it is too small. First, figures can be very misleading, as many nations, as I know from my time as chief of defence intelligence, hide what we see as defence spending in lots of other areas, so it is sometimes difficult to know what they are actually spending.
Even if we are in the top six, so we should be. We are the fifth or sixth richest country in the world; we are a permanent member of the Security Council. Unlike many nations, we have a responsibility for 14 dependencies world wide. The Government recently reiterated our responsibility for defence of those dependencies. We run global shipping from London, the sinews that hold the global trading village together and are a huge earner for this nation. We are the largest European investor in South Asia, South-East Asia, Australasia and key parts of the Pacific Rim. Global stability is crucial to our investments and our nation’s wealth and security.
I share in the congratulations to the Minister, because he has been very good about briefing us in this House on defence issues, but he will, because he must as a Minister, no doubt talk about balancing the defence budget. Yes, the MoD equipment programme was overheated—there is no doubt about that—but talking about a balanced budget is sophistry. Future Force 2020, the headmark for the SDSR—
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise for interrupting, but the noble Lord will be aware that speakers in the gap have a limit of four minutes.
Lord West of Spithead
I am aware of that.
Future Force 2020, the headmark for the SDSR, required a 1% increase in defence spending year on year from 2015-16. The Treasury has allowed only a 1% increase in the procurement budget. Therefore, the programme is underfunded; and therefore it is not balanced. The cuts so far have led to an underspend of £1.3 million, and they are being taken from money that has been voted by Parliament for defence. If, as David Cameron has argued, defence is the highest priority, we must increase defence spending, even if it means cutting other departments’ budgets. Certainly, involvement in any more foreign adventures without that commitment could be catastrophic. I repeat: our nation is standing into danger unless we increase defence spending as a matter of urgency.
Armed Forces: Reserve Forces
Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Baroness Garden of Frognal
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend picks up an interesting point. We do not currently keep statistics about Reserve Forces membership. It is not asked for and nor is it necessarily supplied, so it is not possible to give an accurate figure. We have an estimated figure of 2,400 clinical staff in the reserves, but this excludes auxiliary staff who may serve in other, non-medical reserve units.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, I had not intended to ask a question but I was rather shocked by the response to the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. It seems from what the Minister said that we do not quite know how we are going to provide these people from within the National Health Service; that we have no knowledge of exactly how many people are part of the Reserve Forces anyway; and that there is no central ability to monitor any of this. Can the Minister reassure me that we have got a grip on this and that we are not stepping into the unknown?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I think that the noble Lord somewhat misunderstood me; perhaps I was not clear. I said that individual trusts do not necessarily have a note of which of their people are reservists when they are away. However, the overall tally of reservists is monitored for numbers and a note is kept of the numbers we have and how many we will need. We hope that the consultation paper will clarify how we can keep a record of that.