Drones: RAF Bases

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Coaker

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of recent reports of drones flying over RAF bases in East Anglia.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

The Ministry of Defence is aware of these reports and is working closely with the US visiting forces, Home Office police forces and other partners to respond to recent events. We will work with the civil authorities to prosecute those responsible. We take any safety issues seriously and maintain robust measures at Ministry of Defence sites, including counter-drone capabilities. My noble friend will understand that I am unable to comment further on the specific security procedures at our sites. This remains a live criminal investigation.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Answer that he was able to give. There have been additional sightings of unidentified drones over our aircraft carrier HMS “Queen Elizabeth”. It may be that these flights are not a coincidence. Does my noble friend agree that these are matters of potentially serious concern, given that drones are now so ubiquitous and given what we know their role is in warfare? The House will remember that Gatwick Airport was completely closed a few years ago by unidentified drones. As a result of that, the RAF has acquired new equipment, known as ORCUS, designed to deter drones. Do our Armed Forces have enough of it? Can my noble friend reassure the House that the Government are doing all they can to work with our international partners, especially the Americans, to find out what is going on and how best to protect our bases?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. We are working with our international partners, including the United States. Of course, we are trying to ensure that we have all the equipment that is needed to tackle any of these attacks that we face. Similarly, with respect to the aircraft carrier, I can say that a civilian drone was observed in the vicinity of HMS “Queen Elizabeth” on 22 November, but it got no closer than 250 metres. I can reassure my noble friend that we take all of this seriously, and we will work closely to ensure the safety of all our sites.

Afghan Special Forces Relocation Review

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Coaker

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord is completely right that we need to remember our obligations to those who supported and helped us, and our international reputation. He is also right to point out that the review and the Statement have identified the need to do the right thing by the Triples. Many individuals, including the noble Lord, helped with respect to this, and I acknowledge all the contributions that people have made.

I will also say that 25% is a rounded and approximate figure, which came to light with the first 1,500 reviews of the approximately 2,000 people we regard as eligible. I am sure that people will have noted the noble Lord’s comment. I also thank him for everything he did during his time in service.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s repeat of the Statement. It raises issues of which we must not lose sight. Although he has already answered the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, by saying that interpreters are not covered by the Statement, I nevertheless know of a case where interpreters put their lives at risk just as much as anybody else. I have in mind the case of Mr Mirwais Adil, whose family was unable to be rescued at the time of Operation Pitting. I would like the advice of my noble friend as to whom to write to in order to raise an individual case of an interpreter and his family who have not been reunited.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The short answer is that, if I were my noble friend, I would write to me, and I will pass it on to the appropriate Minister and ensure that it is properly looked at. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, if noble Lords write to me on individual cases, I will ensure that, if neither I nor the appropriate Minister in the Ministry of Defence is dealing with it, it goes to the appropriate Minister to ensure that there is a proper response.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Coaker

Report stage
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make one point about Clause 11, which in my view should not be in the Bill. I appreciate that the previous speaker has just given a very lawyerly defence of the Government’s view. I am not a lawyer, but I want to say this: I wonder why the Government want to be on the wrong side of history by including Clause 11 in the Bill. I look at Members around the Chamber and think to myself, “What on earth would you feel like if you were ever arrested, stopped and searched without suspicion by a police officer?” I would like noble Lords to bear that in mind when they come to vote, if we are going to vote on this. A lot has been made of the younger generation, and I personally believe that Clause 11 would damage relations in the way that has been outlined by many people making very able speeches. But your Lordships should ask yourselves: how would you feel if you were stopped and searched without any reasonable suspicion by a police officer?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 47 in my name, for which I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Just in case I forget, I say now that I want to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 47.

Before I do so, I want to say how much I sympathise and agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others have said about Amendment 46 and stop and search with suspicion. It is worth reflecting that many of us are grappling with a Bill with much of which we disagree, but we are at Report stage and difficult decisions and choices are before us about how we might improve the Bill—if the votes are won in your Lordships’ House—and send it back to the other place with the best possible chance of it not being overturned, thereby impacting on the legislation in a way which will protect, as many of us want to, the rights and freedoms that the people of this country have enjoyed for generations and which parts of the Bill seriously threaten to undermine. That is the choice that lies before us. That is the difficult choice I have in saying from the Labour Front Bench that we are focused on Clause 11 in particular. That does not mean that we agree with other aspects of the stop and search powers, but it means that we think that Clause 11 in particular is an affront to the democratic traditions of our country.

We have heard what it actually does. We have had a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a former senior police officer of the Metropolitan Police, and others, telling us about stop and search without suspicion and the impact that it has on black and ethnic minority communities, particularly on the young. Will your Lordships seriously pass into law something that will make that fragile relationship between the police and those local communities even worse? Is that what we want to do? And what is it for: terrorism, serious gun crime, serious knife crime, or the threat of murder and riots on our streets? No, it is because some protests may take place somewhere, and we will have stop and search without suspicion to deal with it. Is that in any sense proportionate or a reasonable response to public disorder? Clearly, it is not.

I cannot believe that His Majesty’s Government are seeking to introduce into law stop and search without suspicion for protest-related offences. I do not believe the Government themselves would have believed it—they certainly would not have believed it in the time of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, with the Conservative ideology as it existed then. Margaret Thatcher would not have introduced it. She would have regarded it as an affront, even in the face of the poll tax riots and the miners’ strikes—although there were certain things that went on there. In the face of all that, she did not introduce that sort of legislation. I will be corrected by any member of that Government—there are a few here—as to whether that was the case. She understood that the right to protest was fundamental, however difficult that was for Governments. Yet the Conservatives of today believe it is perfectly reasonable to introduce this not for murder, terrorism or knife or gun crime, as I said, but for protest. Is that the Tory tradition that this Conservative Government want to lay out before the country? It cannot be. It is a totally disproportionate reaction to what is happening, but the consequences are serious and dramatic, and potentially catastrophic. As so many noble Lords have said, at a time when there is a fragility of confidence between the police and certain communities, it is like pouring petrol on the flames. It is just unbelievable.

However, it is not just that. In the debate last week I gave an example, and I will give another one, because that brings it home and makes it real. When your Lordships vote on leaving out Clause 11, consider this. If it is in the Bill, there is a fear about what happens when there are protests around Parliament—there will be protests; I do not know what they will be about. Let us say that people lock arms—disgraceful—so they have attached. The police are worried about it and so an inspector declares that, for 24 hours, it is an area that they are concerned about. That gives an additional power to the police to stop and search without suspicion. Your Lordships can be searched. I know you would think that was an affront, but that is the reality that many black and ethnic minority communities face every single day, sometimes—that is an exaggeration, but they face it in certain circumstances.