Brexit: Peace and Stability

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, in instituting this debate and introducing it, spoke about the three elements: defence, international development and foreign policy. Many noble Lords painted rich landscapes of the whole issue of peace and stability. I will paint a miniature of how this looks in a certain area of defence that I believe was touched on by only one noble Lord.

I do not think that defence or peace and stability were issues that were raised during the referendum campaign or in its immediate aftermath. But within a very short period, think tanks were all trying to look at the impact of the referendum result from a defence perspective—and it did not make happy reading. Issues such as our economy, our role within NATO and the issue of an EU army quickly climbed the agenda.

Of course, we remain a steadfast member of NATO, and many of the key players in NATO are also members of the EU. We went to the Warsaw NATO conference just after the referendum, and people who were there said that the feel was different. No one really know what our view was and where we stood; there was total confusion. Other noble Lords have indicated that nobody had actually thought about this beforehand. So it was no surprise that in such a short period of time we were not able to put together an argument.

This confusion was exacerbated last week by the Foreign Secretary giving evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and stating that, rather than trying to block attempts to develop a common EU defence policy, the UK should instead be looking at ways to offer support. Part of me understands that and thinks that it is a good idea because that was where we were a few months ago—but we know that Secretary of State Michael Fallon, a long-standing opponent of an EU army, has said he would oppose such a proposal.

Would the Minister tell the House whether defence is on the Prime Minister’s list of issues to have on the negotiating table, and whether she would take the view of either her Foreign Secretary or her Defence Secretary? If defence is not on her list, it should be. We have been working on many joint ventures of common interest, including cyber, hybrid warfare—and, of course, the refugee situation in the Mediterranean.

We are now all concerned about the economy: the pound against the dollar and the euro. This will impact on defence spending. Since 2010 we have had two defence and security reviews. Philip Hammond has concentrated on reducing personnel and committing to building up reserve forces. The first was easy; persuading people to sign up as reserves less so. But it has left us with a force where we do not have the skills we require and yet we have expensive infrastructure to service. The second review was last year, under Secretary of State Michael Fallon. It put in place, across the three forces, the necessary hardware and other infrastructure to support our defence strategy and work effectively in the world into the future.

Our fear is that we have a long shopping list in US dollars: F35s for our carriers; Boeing P8s to carry out airborne reconnaissance; and Apache helicopters made in the States rather than Leonardo ones made in Yeovil—not to mention much of the interior bits and pieces of the newly approved deterrent or Vanguard replacement, and some of the technical wizardry in the carriers, too. These contracts were signed before the referendum and, as we buy from the US in dollars, given the tumbling exchange rate, how much more will it cost us?

Staying with this theme, our next anxiety about Brexit is our declining GDP; 2% of less means that we will be spending less on our conventional defence. If these two financial worries really add up and collide, could we find ourselves with a new SDSR based on austerity and not on relative prosperity, as the last one was? Is the Minister in a position to indicate whether this might be the case?

I turn to the common defence and security policy. Until we leave the EU, we remain a member—but how much we are allowed to engage in that time will depend on the other member states. However, we would expect to remain involved in Bosnia, in the Mediterranean—dealing with migrant smuggling from Libya—and around the Horn of Africa on counterpiracy and arms and drugs smuggling. It may be that, without Britain, some skills and capacity will be lost. Prime Minister Theresa May and Secretary of State Fallon may be persuaded to let us participate, but the PM would be reluctant to be involved in anything resembling an EU army—to which she is opposed and which, had we remained a member of the EU, she would veto.

We must be clear that leaving the EU will leave us without much influence in the EU defence agenda going forward. We would hope to keep up bilateral alliances with individual states, and we are unambiguous in our commitment to NATO. As well as trade, the environment, science, research and immigration, we need to make sure that peace and defence do not get lost in the wash.