International Headquarters and Defence Organisations (Designation and Privileges) Order 2017

Earl Howe Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Earl Howe]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 21 June be approved.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the statutory instrument tabled for the House’s approval relates to NATO headquarters and units located in the UK. The matters it covers are administrative and legal in nature and best understood in the context of the UK’s support for NATO and the collective defence that benefits us.

NATO has been the cornerstone of UK defence since its foundation in 1949. Lord Ismay, the first NATO Secretary-General, famously said that the purpose of NATO was,

“to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.

Well, America remains committed to NATO, and we are no longer trying to keep the Germans down.

When NATO was founded, it was understood that defence and security had a price. It still does. The UK remains committed to spending at least 2% of GDP on defence. We encourage those NATO countries that are below the 2% target to increase their defence budgets and aim to meet it.

On 21 March this year, when this House debated the Armed Forces, I said:

“We are doing more to lead and reform NATO; we are intensifying our collaboration with allies and partners in pursuit of our shared objectives”.—[Official Report, 21/3/17; col. 229.]


When that debate was taking place, 5th Battalion The Rifles had started moving to Estonia as part of the NATO enhanced forward presence. The Rifles have just handed over to the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh. The UK framework battalion demonstrates one of the many ways in which this country contributes to NATO. The UK soldiers in Estonia benefit from fitting into a long-established NATO legal framework.

These legal frameworks underpin—or perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, could say, are the “hidden wiring” of—NATO. We have the NATO status of forces agreement that was signed in 1951. Related to that is the Partnership for Peace status of forces agreement, signed in 1995. That agreement allows non-NATO countries to participate in selected NATO activities, providing a legal basis for military personnel from one country to be in the territory of another country. Finally, there is the European Union status of forces agreement, which is complementary to the NATO one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel I must apologise to the House because, amazingly enough, I did not come equipped today to discuss Brexit, European armies, NATO in general, the 2% target, Russia, Putin or anybody else. But since we are making general points, I would point out that the Labour Party does support NATO—indeed, we are proud to have actually created it.

I have taken rather the opposite point of view. Given the constitutional niceties of this House, even to suggest that one is going to oppose an affirmative resolution produces a constitutional crisis that rocks the whole building. Whenever I stand up at the Dispatch Box, it is because I have drawn the short straw because I have the SI to do. I spend some time working out what to do to make it interesting. Sometimes you expose the Government’s poor performance, as we did last night, or point out that the order is not going to work, take a swipe at the primary legislation, ask some clarifying questions or ask that clever question that rocks the Minister back on his heels and sends him scrambling for the Box. On this occasion, however, despite the considerable efforts of my researcher and myself, I have to report that we have no questions and the Opposition are content that the order should be approved.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in particular for not asking me any questions. He need make no apology at all for that. I am pleased that he is content with the order, which, as I said in my opening remarks, is essentially legal and administrative in nature.

I was grateful for the comments and questions from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. He expressed his view that collating the legal arrangements that are in place could be to everyone’s benefit. I well understand why he should make that point, but the advice I have had is that consolidation would be quite difficult because there are complex interactions between our international and our domestic law. For that reason, I suspect it would be unlikely to attract parliamentary time. Still, I am sure his point has been registered in the right quarter.

The noble Lord asked how often the exemption mentioned in paragraph 5 had been relied upon. The advice I have had is that criminal problems with NATO personnel are extremely rare, and therefore the seizure of articles would be similarly rare. It is always beneficial for this House to return to the subject of NATO, which, as we always say, remains the bedrock of our defence in this country. I am sure that if we did set aside time to debate NATO and matters relating to it, though the noble Lord will understand that that is not in my gift, it would attract considerable support from around the House. As he intimated, it is particularly relevant at the moment in the light of our impending departure from the EU.

The proposal, if that is what it is, for a European army is not one that I or my colleagues sense has generated a great deal of support among European nations generally, particularly not in Germany. However, the subject keeps bubbling up. Our position, in talking to our European colleagues about this country’s future relationship with the common security and defence policy, is to make clear that anything that makes it more difficult for us as a country to continue engaging with the EU after we come out would be retrograde. Our red line here is that there should be no infringement of the Albright principle of duplication; if the EU were in some way to duplicate what we already have in NATO, that would be both unnecessary and damaging. We think that message has hit home, but of course after we leave we will have no direct influence on what the remaining member states decide to do in this area.

I hope I have covered most of the noble Lord’s points, although one could elaborate at length on many of them. If there is any doubt on the subject, the relationship that the UK continues to have with the United States remains broad, deep and very advanced at every level. The collaboration we have with the US extends across the full spectrum of defence, including intelligence, nuclear co-operation, scientific research and flagship capability programmes. That has continued under President Trump’s Administration. From our many conversations with our American colleagues, we know our shared priorities include the fight against Daesh and the importance of NATO as the bedrock of our collective defence. President Trump, Vice-President Pence and Secretary Mattis have all confirmed the US commitment to NATO.

If I have omitted to come back on any of the noble Lord’s points, I will of course write to him.

Motion agreed.