Strategic Defence Review

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on leading the SDR and its excellent team of experts and practitioners. I declare my interests as set out in the register.

I will dare to repeat a few assumptions that have been made because they are important in the context of what I will try to contribute to this debate. There are more simultaneous conflicts today than in any period since the Second World War. We see autocracies acting in a more power-hungry and aggressive way than at any time in recent history. We are witnessing widespread disregard for human rights and international law that, far from coincidentally, overlaps with a rise in mass killings, atrocities and disasters. We are seeing the accelerating development and deployment of new technology on the battlefield, including the reported use of autonomous weapons systems in the conflict in Gaza, in ways that are contributing to the perception of the unravelling of decades of norms and conventions regarding the protection of civilians. In this environment, a focus on new technology and armaments is necessary, but at the same time, we must not lose sight of certain essential principles that remain unchanged.

I welcome the Government’s stated “total commitment” to the UK’s nuclear deterrent and their reaffirming that NATO remains the cornerstone of our defence. I also welcome the Prime Minister’s “serious commitment” to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. I hope this remains the case, since the Defence Secretary recently said in an interview that the Government will make “tough choices”, including on defence. I hope the noble Lord does not feel that the freedom to make necessary recommendations will be curtailed by this uncertainty.

The SDR has many questions to address to ensure that Britain is secure at home and strong abroad, and I know that the noble Lord will be inundated with advice. I will focus my remarks on three areas which may not necessarily make it into the briefing folder, given the 14,500 submissions. First, in our unstable and highly contested global environment, it is essential that we uphold human rights standards and push against those who challenge the international order and disregard international law. The Government’s manifesto states clearly that international law is essential

“because of the security it brings”.

Yesterday, I was encouraged to hear four government Ministers and three officials say in no uncertain terms, “We are committed to international law”. While that is welcome, there is a perception that the United Kingdom practises this selectively and condemns human rights violations committed by adversaries but not those carried out by our friends. We need to answer the question of what we stand for. Such double standards will not bring us security; they will undermine it. An SDR built on such inconsistent foundations will struggle to deliver the strengthened defences that the UK needs and I know the noble Lord wishes to see.

Secondly, it is vastly preferable to deter wars than to have to fight them or rebuild after them. With that in mind, while our military power must be backed by a strong and capable Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, or vice versa, the FCDO is our lead department in engaging with the world. It must be properly funded and supported, as war begins where diplomacy fails. A robust and capable diplomatic presence is not a luxury but a necessity. The former Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Hague, made strengthening the Foreign Office as an institution a central priority during his tenure. I hope that the new SDR recommendations will build on this example and be prepared to go further still, since the threats to our security today are much tougher than at that time.

Closely related to this, I was dismayed to learn yesterday that, after the BBC World Service ceased to broadcast in Lebanon, the radio frequency was immediately replaced by a Russian state propaganda station. In a world where we rely on soft power to achieve and support our goals, we should be expanding the reach of the BBC World Service, not watching it wither and be replaced, as in the case of Lebanon, by Russian state propaganda.

Finally, we must back our statements of commitment to human rights with action. I urge the noble Lord not to overlook the persistence of sexual and gender-based violence as a feature of nearly all contemporary conflicts and its role as a tactic of warfare and cause of human displacement and suffering. I hope that the SDR will include recommendations on how to strengthen UK and international action to counter the use of rape as a weapon of war, including incorporating that action into all our relevant military training, particularly when we are training up allied armed forces. As is often pointed out, the United Kingdom Armed Forces are second to none and the power of this example cannot be overstated.

The SDR comes at a time when the challenges we face are immense, but not insurmountable. As well as ensuring that our Armed Forces have the tools that they need to do their work, we must uphold human rights and international law, oppose violations wherever they occur, avoid damaging double standards and invest in diplomacy and soft power. I believe that the noble Lord attaches importance to these principles, and I look forward to the 2025 review.