King’s Speech

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, it is often suggested that a week is a long time in politics. It is just eight days since His Majesty the King came and gave the gracious Speech. Since then, two of the great offices of state have changed hands, perhaps presaging some significant change to policy—it is a little difficult at this stage to know. Obviously, the King’s Speech very rarely refers in any detail to foreign or defence policy, because so little of that is subject to legislation. Occasionally—once every five years—we have an Armed Forces renewal Bill, which has some significant discussion around it, and every year we are required to renew Parliament’s commitment to the Armed Forces, which we always do. This means that there is relatively little on the legislative agenda on defence. However, in his opening words last week, His Majesty the King pointed out the context of a war in Ukraine, and there was testament to “our gallant Armed Forces”.

Across the Chamber, we hear similar words. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I very often agree on questions of defence, and, over the last few years, we have spent much time agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. In thinking about my remarks for today’s speech, although we now have a new Foreign Secretary, who is not yet able to be in his seat, I was looking forward to saying what a pleasure it was that we were still looking across the Chamber to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon. Both of them have been fantastic Ministers, who take their duties as parliamentarians and as members of His Majesty’s Government very seriously. We have much appreciated the commitment and the diligence that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, has given to this House but also to the Armed Forces. She has been second to none in making the Government’s commitment to the Armed Forces very clear. From these Benches, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, did, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and hope that she will bring her expertise to the Government Back Benches in the future.

I welcome the noble Earl, Lord Minto, to his place and look forward to the opportunity of raising questions about His Majesty’s Armed Forces and defence accommodation. I was very pleased to hear in his speech that now, apparently, the telephone is answered by Pinnacle in 29 seconds. What I would really like to know is this. If the telephone is answered in 29 seconds, how long does it take the hard-pressed service man or woman, or more likely their spouse, to actually get an answer to their problem? Has black mould been abolished from forces accommodation? Have we really seen a change in practice or simply a few tick-box KPIs? These are the sorts of questions that the noble Earl is probably going to be hearing over the next few months, between now and the general election.

I agree with the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that it is clearly important at the start of a parliamentary Session to make our commitment to His Majesty’s Armed Forces very clear; I reiterate from these Benches as well the importance of defence. Defence is one of those issues that is probably not top of ordinary citizens’ agenda. If a survey was done asking what the three most important issues are, people might talk about a cost of living crisis, energy bills or education for their children. In the United Kingdom they are probably not going to say defence of the realm, yet defence is the first duty of the state, and for good reason.

But it has been very clear in the last two to three years that people in this country are beginning to think more about defence, as questions of conflict are becoming much more relevant within the United Kingdom. It is no longer sufficient to assume that conflicts will be in far-away places of which we know little. In recent years—I start in 2011 because I shall come back to some thoughts about what happened in the coalition—there was the Libya action in 2011, which effectively left a failed state from which small boats might be setting off, with people who are desperate to come to Europe, maybe for a better life or to seek refuge. That crisis has left a situation that is being used and abused by people traffickers.

There is also the situation in Syria, which remains a problem and in which Russia played a part. We have heard about Russia in other parts of the world, but in the Middle East it has also played a role. The Russian annexation of Crimea started a series of actions that perhaps the United Kingdom and other European countries did not take sufficiently seriously in 2014. We did from 2022. It has been part of a major commitment and I pay tribute to His Majesty’s Government for their support for Ukraine, which has been absolutely right.

Here I have a set of defence questions. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for the purposes of the King’s Speech debate, because I realise that his portfolio is officially foreign affairs. We are making commitments to Ukraine; that is absolutely right. Can the Minister confirm that His Majesty’s Government have the resources necessary to keep their commitments going to training Ukrainian forces, supplying ammunition, and providing the resources that the Ukrainian President has repeatedly told us are needed? Ben Wallace, when he was Secretary of State for Defence—another great office of state that changed so very recently—made those commitments. Is the United Kingdom able to meet them at a time of rapid change in global security questions?

I said I was going to come back to the coalition, partly because, during that time, the then Prime Minister had a tendency to visit other countries. If there was an issue of conflict—an issue that required defence support —he was prone to saying, “We can help you. We can send some soldiers, sailors or aviators, or maybe some military intelligence”. The danger of doing that is overreach. It is a good thing to do, but do we have the resources to do it?

Why does that matter? Because the then Prime Minister who was so keen to support other countries is about to join your Lordships’ House as Foreign Secretary. Can the Minister reassure the House that, in their commitment to foreign policy, His Majesty’s Government will also take into consideration the needs of the Armed Forces, to ensure that we are not putting undue pressure on all our service personnel? We have already heard about the issues of support for the Armed Forces. Accommodation is part of that, but so is adequate opportunity to spend time with families, to ensure that people stay in the Armed Forces. The more operations we undertake, the more support we need to give the Armed Forces.

In his opening remarks, the Minister mentioned the Korean War. At the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance on Saturday evening, I think I heard a statement that 80,000 British service personnel served in Korea. That was at a time of conscription; now, we are looking at 73,000 British soldiers. Is that really enough? Are the Government being complacent with the number of Armed Forces personnel? Are we looking at increasing the number of reservists?

Finally, one crisis that is still unresolved is our duty to those people who served with His Majesty’s Armed Forces and taught the English language in Afghanistan—those people to whom we made commitments under the ARAP and the ACRS. There are still thousands of people in Pakistan, many of whom think they will not make it before their visas run out, as well as people who have not yet got out of Afghanistan. As a country, we still owe a duty to those people. What will His Majesty’s Government do to make sure that the vulnerable are able to come to the United Kingdom, as promised by His Majesty’s Government?

As we see our international obligations more as supporting other Governments, so we also have obligations to people who work with and for us, particularly for the British Council. If we do not provide the support that we have offered, in future people will be very reluctant to work with us. There are many things that His Majesty’s Government are getting right, but there are many questions still to be resolved.