Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information Agreement

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords, it seems a bit strange that we all recognise how important this agreement is—it is extremely important—but that this is the only opportunity, in this room today, to scrutinise it in detail. I support it, as indeed do all noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon, but there are parts of it that we really need to dig a little deeper into. I have some questions. I know the Minister is very helpful, but some of the issues raised by the International Agreements Committee are about the explanatory memoranda produced with these treaties, and we need to know the detail. We cannot have just a broad sweep, which is what has been happening. Some of the questions that I wish to ask look at the detail of the agreement.

I accept that we are all new to this process of examining trade deals but, if we look at the joint standing committee on trade in the Australian Parliament, there is a process that allows parliamentarians access to much greater detail than we have had—not just on this deal but on other deals. I would recommend to the Government that we work hard at this to get it right. We now have a process of 18 months as part of this agreement, and it is very important that we have a hard-headed look at some of the aspects in it.

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, spoke in some detail about the Five Eyes agreement. Were the Five Eyes nations informed in advance that this was going to happen? One reason why I ask that is the point that has already been made: that New Zealand has already stated that it will not allow nuclear-propelled vessels into its waters. If that has not been referred to them in advance, we have put them at a disadvantage, as we have Canada. Does this weaken the Five Eyes agreement? I hope that it does not because it is a very important agreement for our security.

One other area where I have not found any advice or information is about the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Where does that kick in? What about the whole area of making sure that we work with our allies across the board? Could we be enlightened on the wider context of policy—this has been said by others—towards the Indo-Pacific region and China? That is very much on our minds, given the advice that we were offered last week about the interest that China is taking in this Parliament.

I am sorry to pose such a long list of questions, but part of that is because of the paucity of advice in the Explanatory Memorandum. This is a large-scale defence deal put together in great secrecy and handled in a rather ham-fisted way—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, being a much more distinguished diplomat than me, calls it a travesty of diplomacy. The way in which it has been handled with France has been awful; France has been done out of a $90 billion contract for conventional submarines. No one seems to have taken into account that France has a considerable interest in the Pacific region. There are about 1.6 million French citizens in, for example, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and the French already have a defence strategy based on the region. It seems bizarre not to have taken them into account in the run-up to the treaty. The Times very funnily pointed out that the way in which the treaty had been handled was like something out of a John Le Carré novel, which is a bit unfortunate if we are trying to position ourselves as being ready for the kind of complex agreements that we are talking about.

Australia has its own shipbuilding industry with strong links with the UK. Given the lack of information on how disagreements will be handled, as my noble friend Lady Hayter pointed out, can we assume that intellectual property is part of the deal? Where are the constraints on intellectual property? That will become quite important. As I said in the debate last week, I live close to some of the big shipyards that are involved in defence. If we look in detail at this agreement, it could mean that a lot of the shipbuilding that we do in the United Kingdom goes elsewhere. If it helps security, fair enough, but there are still big questions that need to be answered, and the answers are not in either the agreement or the memorandum.

Can any one of the partners walk away? It would be very helpful if the Minister could enlighten us about how any disagreements can be settled because there does not seem to be any dispute settlement mechanism, as stated in Article X. Similarly, there seems to be no mechanism for amendments to the treaty. Of great significance to this House, I would like to know the arrangements for continuing parliamentary scrutiny of this treaty and other treaties associated with it because we are talking about a mechanism that facilitates any further transfer of information and expertise.

Moving to a nuclear-powered fleet, rather than a diesel-powered one, in Australia cannot be put down to a desire to reduce carbon emissions. As we saw at COP 26, the present Government of Australia is pretty much in the hands of climate sceptics, so we cannot use that kind of argument.

The noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Bilimoria, referred to the Quad and the role that India plays in it. Has it been informed of the thinking behind this treaty? Was it informed before the treaty was announced or is it trying to catch up, just like everybody else?

Some of these questions could have been answered in the Explanatory Memorandum but they are not. It is worrying that this debate is the only opportunity for scrutiny of the treaty. I encourage the Government to think again about how they handle it, look at the Australian example of the Joint Statutory Committee and see whether we can come to an arrangement that keeps us all on the one side when important treaties, such as this one, are going through.