National Security Situation

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, this has been yet another impressive debate that demonstrates the huge and diverse expertise among your Lordships. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for his masterly review of the challenges that the UK faces and his assessment of our strengths and weaknesses. I appreciate that he set aside his engagement with our Commonwealth colleagues so that he could open the debate. As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem pointed out, the potential scope of this debate could not be wider. We have ranged across our Armed Forces, our intelligence forces, our ability to counter cyber intrusion, Syria, China, North Korea, Iran, Ukraine, the Crimea, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism and much else besides.

I want to step back and look at the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, a report with which the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, is no doubt familiar. The report said to “expect the unexpected”, but what a different country 2015 seems to be, pre-referendum and pre-Trump. A theme running strongly through the report is that:

“Economic security goes hand-in-hand with national security”.


It is worth going through the report given that here we are, knowingly heading towards a less economically advantageous position as we apparently seek to leave our largest trading partner. Anyone who has read the assessments in that DExEU room will see that there is no scenario where our economy would be as strong as if we stayed in the EU.

The risks go beyond that as well. My noble friends Lord Campbell and Lord Wallace have flagged the risks of pulling back from the EU over defence and security. Then there is our Diplomatic Service. In that 2015 document, then Prime Minister Cameron said that,

“we will use our outstanding Diplomatic Service to promote our interests and project our influence overseas”.

We do indeed do that, and I pay tribute to those in that service and to their outstanding quality. However, we now see that we are reducing our Diplomatic Service in some parts of the world because we have to strengthen our service in Europe.

Mr Cameron also said:

“Britain’s safety and security depends not just on our own efforts, but on working hand in glove with our allies to deal with the common threats that face us all”.


He went on to say:

“When confronted by danger, we are stronger together. So we will play our full part in the alliances which underpin our security and amplify our national power”.


He then elaborated:

“We will work with our allies in Europe”.


We have now apparently set ourselves in another direction. Even if the noble Earl the Minister assures us that we will indeed work closely with our European allies—and I am sure he will—we know that this cannot be as closely as we can do now.

The report speaks of the strengths of each part of the United Kingdom, yet now we threaten Northern Ireland’s peace and prosperity. It also notes that:

“The UK is a global leader in science, technology, medicine, energy, and the creative industries. We are home to 18 of the world’s top 100 universities”—


all challenged, of course, by Brexit. Blithely unaware, it seems, of what was coming down the track, the 2015 report states:

“We will use our long-term relationships to develop and maintain the alliances and partnerships that we rely on every day for our security and prosperity”.


It goes on to state:

“Our special relationship with the US remains essential to our national security. It is founded on shared values, and our exceptionally close defence, diplomatic, security and intelligence cooperation”.


Clearly, we were not able to predict Trump. But this is where our belonging to the EU should help to bolster that alliance in such circumstances. I note, like my noble friend Lord Wallace, that Merkel and Macron will visit the US together next week, and we are not included. The report continues:

“We are extending and expanding our defence and security relationships with our European partners, notably France … and Germany. We have close relationships with all EU member states”.


So thought the Government in 2015.

Then there is the reference to the International Court of Justice. Unsupported by our erstwhile EU partners, we lost the UK judge on the ICJ for the first time in its existence. The 2015 report notes the scale of our trade with the EU, and that the US and Europe remain the largest investors in the UK. Moreover, it states:

“Through the EU, we have free trade agreements covering more than 50 of our trading partners, which remove barriers to business and open up markets”.


It sounds like a sensible national strategy to support such an approach, one would have thought.

The 2015 report concluded by considering a series of tier 1 risks, including cybersecurity, chemical and biological attacks and proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons—issues that we have considered today. One of those tier 1 risks was identified as,

“undermining of our military and economic alliances and institutions”.

The fundamental assumptions of that 2015 national security review are notable for the emphasis on the importance of the economic strength of the UK and on its fundamental alliances with a stable, globally facing United States and with our European neighbours and allies. It was, however, spot-on that we needed to “expect the unexpected”—a phrase that my father often used to use when he taught me to drive. We face such global challenges, where working together is vital. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, mentioned, a key area is climate change, where working with our European allies helped to secure the Paris climate change treaty. Then there is the rise of China, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Jones and Lady Helic, so powerfully referred.

Then I come to Syria, which was indeed the reason why this debate was scheduled. My noble friend Lord Campbell laid out what he identified as the legal case for making the targeted attack as a result of the regime’s use of chemical weapons, and almost all noble Lords have addressed the situation in Syria. I picked up no disagreement in regard to the recent intervention over chemical weapons, although there were some challenges over whether Parliament should have been consulted before, or whether being held to account afterwards was more appropriate.

Here I am going to reiterate the interesting phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord West, about a certain “nasty bastard”, as then Hansard cannot clean up his language. I discovered that a number of years ago when a noble Lord used a much ruder phrase and my query as to how Hansard would render that meant that Hansard had to record it exactly as it was expressed. My kids then challenged me to get included in Hansard similar rude words, which I have failed thus far to do. But on Syria, rightly, noble Lords have emphasised how important it is to identify the dangers of the conflict there—the huge and potentially catastrophic risks of an Israeli/Iranian conflict, of the TurkishKurdish clashes to which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred, and the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Russia and others.

Right now, the best prospect for a resolution seems to be in the Russian-supported talks, where a constitutional convention is being discussed. We need to look long term at accountability and justice, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, rightly emphasised. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and others, are right that we must engage with Russia, whether we regard it, as he does, as a gangster state, or as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said, as now engaged in a second Cold War. The Russians or Putin easily portray themselves as walled-up and under attack from the West. That may help to shore up Putin, but it does not help to solve these international problems.

This has indeed been a wide-ranging debate and I know that we will have a suitably wide-ranging and very thoughtful response from the noble Earl the Minister. Noble Lords have conveyed with great insight the seriousness of the range of challenges facing the world and, therefore, us in the UK. What strikes me is how the assessments of 2015, only three years ago, rightly identified areas that we must address for our security, and that a fundamental assumption was that we would be promoting Britain’s prosperity and security through the European Union. Comparing the 2015 national security strategy with the one just issued shows how vital it is that we urgently address every aspect of the potential loss of our position within the EU, as we seek to defend ourselves and play our part in addressing the huge range of challenges that we face in the world today.