Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I join other Members of the House who have thanked the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, and congratulated him on getting this debate this morning. It is very timely and terribly important in this whole area of Brexit. It is good that we in this House examine the issues that face us as we do, because, unfortunately, we appear to be in a period in our country when opinions are polarised. If we talk about needing more funding for defence—and I believe we do—we are warmongering, trying to make people scared and stressing something that is not necessarily a priority. The responsibility of this House is to address these issues, and we owe a debt to the noble Lord.

One wonders sometimes just what we learn from history. Here we are today at the crossroads of a very important and hazardous period for our nation, yet our Armed Forces are stretched to the limit; the country appears not to regard that as important; we have uncertainty because of Brexit; and we have the result of an American election that most people never thought would happen, with a President-elect who, a bit like the song, “First he says he will and then he says he won’t”, as regards NATO.

I shall concentrate on the Armed Forces. A briefing paper from the other place in August this year was entitled Brexit: Impact across Policy Areas. Tucked into it was a section on defence entitled:

“Impact on UK defence budget and future equipment plan”.

It refers in particular to the impact of the decline of sterling on the budget and therefore on procurement, mentioning in particular the Joint Strike Fighter, which is a crucial part of our defence strategy. It raises the issue of whether we can afford it. It also questions whether we can continue to spend 2% of GDP on defence. That is a question I should like the Minister to answer in his winding-up. As the right reverend Prelate asked: what is 2% of GDP? It is a sum we need to ensure we have, and perhaps should be converted to an actual figure, because GDP is now being questioned. Of course, it is also about procurement of personal equipment for our Armed Forces, on which at times we have not had a proud record, although it has improved in recent years.

In a report of 10 July, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy expressed concern and referred to a report in May, before Brexit, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It highlighted analysis that GDP may reduce by between 2.1% and 3.5% by 2019. I think we are probably in the honeymoon period over Brexit: we will start to really feel the economic impact over next year and the year after. The result of that would be a decline of between £20 billion and £40 billion in the money available to us. That is more than our defence budget, if it is at the upper end. One has to ask: will that 2% be maintained, and what is it?

In 2004, the European Defence Agency was set up. Its role was to defend member states in Europe—I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. Will we seek to stay in the European Defence Agency? Will we be seeking to maintain that in our Brexit negotiations? Any security threat to Europe has to be a security threat to the UK. We are not in isolation; we are part of Europe, whether we like it or not and whether we are politically linked or not. At the moment, we are in a very insecure world. Britain holds the leadership of the battle group concept, which was set up at the same time, until the end of December this year.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister: just what are the plans? I know he will not give them line by line, but what is the general approach? In view of the fact that there were some answers in the other place yesterday, perhaps we can get one or two today. Will the Ministry of Defence be reviewing the strategic defence and security review, given that its requirements have changed considerably in view of the changed circumstances we face as a nation?