Defence Policy (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Friday 30th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be able to speak in the gap on this incredibly important, comprehensive and wide-ranging report. I shall not detain the House very long but will just make a few brief points which I hope will contribute to other distinguished noble Lords’ thoughts today.

First, I start by joining other noble Lords in raising the issue of insufficient foreign affairs and security debates taking place in this House. I note a new tendency here in recent months, even when we have Statements to the House on matters of the utmost urgency, such as the events in Russia over the past week. The Statement we got on Monday evening was held in the dinner hour, when the House is necessarily thin on the ground, usually because you do not even know that a Statement will be made that day. I had applied by chance for an urgent Private Notice Question, but I was told that it would not be taken because there would be a debate. I then had to readjust my diary entirely to be able to come here for the Statement in the dinner hour. I address that criticism to the Opposition as well, because there is consensus between the two sides as to when Statements are taken, and it would be better for the whole House if we could take them as we used to, after Questions but before the dinner hour, so that more people can participate.

My second point is about the report itself. I want to pick up on just one issue in it. I agree with almost everything that was said, but I want to talk about the shift of emphasis: the tilt from the Middle East to Indochina. In 2020, I had the privilege to be part of the working group for the think tank Policy Exchange on the precursor to the 2021 integrated review. All of us in that expert working group felt that we should concentrate on tilting to Indochina, because that was clearly where our future security threats would come from. As a veteran of the period 2010 to 2015, I recall that in this House we debated five almost simultaneous wars: Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the intervention in Libya and, occasionally, the Russian invasion of Crimea. Which one has come back to bite us and will sustain our concerted efforts over the next decade at least? It is the Russian invasion of Crimea.

I am sorry to say that the report, even in its comprehensiveness, refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as having happened in February 2022. Most Ukrainians would profoundly disagree with that. It did not happen in 2022; it happened in February 2014 and had we been more vigilant about the impact of that, we would perhaps have found ourselves better prepared to deal with it.

That brings me, in the few seconds I have left, to my third point on the relationship between Russia and China. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who has briefly left his place, rightly said that the new world order will be written in China and supported by Russia. In March, Xi Jinping made a state visit to Russia, where he said to Putin, “Right now, there are changes the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years, and we should drive these changes together”. The current and persistent strategic challenge that we will face as a country is that of Russia and China acting in concert, and we need to be extremely vigilant about that.

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[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Strictly, this is not a matter for the MoD, as the noble Lord will be aware; it is, essentially, a matter for the Cabinet Office. These matters are not discussed; that is for another forum of discussion. I had a look at some organisations that have been proscribed, and I was not entirely clear what the benefit was. Yes, you nail them as people to have nothing to do with, but, actually, the more effective undermining of their position is to try to get at their financial wallets with sanctions. But I cannot give any advance on the Government’s positions already articulated.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I do not want to detain the House, but this is a profoundly important point. For nearly a year now, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has been asking this question from the Lib Dem Benches of any Minister who will listen. All I say, respectfully, to the Minister is that she speaks for the whole of the Government, not just the Ministry of Defence, of course.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Yes, and I cannot add to the position I articulated. I have no further position to share with the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, raised some interesting points about shipbuilding. I remind him that, for the first time in 30 years, two UK shipyards are building two types of frigate—that is something to fly the flag about. In the refreshed national shipbuilding strategy, we set out the shipbuilding pipeline.

The noble Lord made an important point about our people, and he is absolutely correct: they are our most vital asset. We support them, and we shall respond to the Haythornthwaite review and, imminently, to the independent pay review board’s recommendations. I undertake to make further inquiries about his comment on the “zig-zag” career process and see whether I can obtain further information for him.

I am conscious of time, but I realise that what noble Lords want is to talk about this, to hold the Government to account and to hear from them, so, with noble Lords’ indulgence, I will keep going until I reach the end of my notes. My noble friend Lord Howell made a number of important and perceptive points, but I slightly disagree with him in one area. He said that the IR and the Defence Command Paper were in silos, but I do not see that; in this hybrid world of global threat, I see a very fast-changing and fluid set of imperatives, and it is about how we try to harness these in some strategic sense and then bring some intelligent specifics about how we will deal with them.

I agreed with my noble friend’s point about the Commonwealth, for which there is an important role. That is always worth exploring, and I would not disagree with that at all. I dealt with the position on China, but I was struck by my noble friend’s phrase about putting “autocracies on the defensive”. I have a lot of sympathy with doing that, and I share his analysis of these concerns. But I hope that the imminent Defence Command Paper refresh will reassure my noble friend that this is an active matter under current consideration.

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, raised Russia, China and the new world order, which are important points. That is why the integrated review refresh is shaped as it is and why the Defence Command Paper refresh will be shaped as I have indicated in general terms.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury—informally, he is my noble friend—raised important issues about the Army and, in particular, our NATO obligations. We will have a combined Army strength, regular and reserve, of over 100,000. It is important to put that in the context of what we are now dealing with. If we have learned anything from Ukraine, we have learned that, although land conflict might look unchanged in some respects, it is absolutely transformed in other respects because of how warfare is now conducted, with the deployment of various aspects of information technology and artificial intelligence.

I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that the UK contributes to every NATO mission. We did so in Iraq, in Kosovo and in the Med with Operation Sea Guardian, and the UK is making a very ambitious offer of forces to NATO’s force model. Our approach to the NATO force model has been “NATO by default and national by exception”, which means that almost all our forces across all domains will be made available to support NATO tasking and the deterrence and defence of the Euro-Atlantic. For 2024-25, we will transition from the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force to the inaugural allied land reaction force. We already contribute heavily to NATO deterrence activity.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, also raised climate change, which is very dear to my heart. It might interest your Lordships—it may sound improbable, but it is absolutely the case—that within the MoD we have a director for climate change and sustainability. There is a Minister responsible for pursuing our policy in that sphere—me. I take a keen interest in what is going on and have been utterly bowled over by the innovation within our single services in devising how they adapt to climate change and, with their own ingenuity, make their contribution to reducing our emissions. We have had some extraordinary innovatory activity by the RAF, which leads the field in sustainable aviation fuel. It is incredible. I have been speaking to some think tanks in the RAF—geniuses at work in basements—and even if only one of their plans comes to fruition, it will be a major contribution.

I commend to your Lordships a wonderful magazine called Sanctuary. It is an MoD product, produced once a year; it looks great and it reads like a treat. I am sure the House of Lords Library will give your Lordships a copy to look at and I guarantee that it will cheer you up.

I apologise for running over time, but I detect that noble Lords genuinely want to hear about this. Work to resolve the issues that have been identified is either happening or currently under way. A number of noble Lords mentioned defence spending. The Defence Equipment Plan is public and lays out an exciting combination of spend and equipment, whether that is UK shipyards, Lossiemouth as a showcase for RAF potent power or an Army equipment plan of £41 billion over the next 10 years. I go back to something that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton of Richmond, said in the Chamber just last week. He very astutely pointed out that we need to get away from becoming fixating on a single force or a particular part of a capability. The trick now is to know how we amalgamate this holistically, to deliver the capability effect that we need to address threat.

Noble Lords are aware of the financial settlements that have been available in the last few years for defence. The Prime Minister has pledged, when economic circumstances improve, to raise our defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. I reassure the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, that this is a welcome boost in very difficult economic circumstances. Times are challenging but I think noble Lords can expect to see us accelerating our modernisation and mobilisation plans, investing in critical partnerships such as AUKUS and GCAP, the global combat air programme, restocking our munitions and upgrading our digital infrastructure.

The Command Paper is currently at write-round for clearance with other National Security Council members and will be published in the coming weeks. I think its recognition and release will bring with it a new reality. When Putin’s troops crossed the Dnieper at the start of 2022, they also crossed the Rubicon, because we now live in a completely transformed world. We cannot go back. We have to adapt rapidly and enhance our readiness. We must strengthen our resilience and reinforce our relationships to secure the peace and prosperity that our country and our allies deserve.

I say to those who might have been tempted to adopt a slightly depressive note that I regard it as a privilege to be a Minister in defence. I see at first hand uniformed and civilian staff of stellar calibre delivering every day on our UK strategic objectives, focused and with an effectiveness and professionalism that is second to none. It is a department that is dynamic in character, pulsating with energy and proud, with state-of-the-art equipment and underpinned by funding, to do the vital job we ask of it.

I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, for specifically seeking that out, commenting on it and paying their tribute to our Armed Forces, because I am very proud of all the people who contribute to our defence capability. I pay tribute to them and, on behalf of us all, I say to them: thank you.