Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I hesitate to follow such eloquent speeches on so much detail, but I want to make one or two general points about a more specific area. I do so from an interest that began when I was a Soviet specialist at GCHQ in a previous incarnation, although I realise that that is probably not the right religious phrase to use.

It still seems to me that an SDSR should enable us to be flexible enough to cope with whatever changes are likely to come. My fear, which I have expressed in the House before, remains that in 15 to 20 years’ time we may end up with a force that meets the demands of now but perhaps not the demands of the situation 15 or 20 years down the line because the world changes so much. When I left GCHQ, the Soviet Union was intact, and we see what has changed since then. Therefore, I want to focus on Russia in particular.

It seems pretty obvious that one of Russia’s tactics at the moment, either deliberate or incidental, is to divide the allies one from another—and it seems to be quite effective in that at the moment—enabling the threat against Russia to be diminished, at least in its mind. When we talk about,

“challenges to the international rules-based order”—

the words of the Motion—this begs the question of whose rules. There always are rules, but the question is whose rules they are, on what basis and criteria they are agreed and who adheres to them. What happens if countries decide to change the rules and operate in a different way, which is clearly what is going on at the moment?

Two things that characterise Russia are not only pride and the nature of glory—and there is much more that could be said about that—but the fact that Russians identify themselves through their suffering, which is why I am still a little suspicious of the assumption that the application of greater and greater sanctions will have a big impact. That might be the case in the material West but I think that in Russia a different narrative is running.

How do we look through the eyes of Russia, for example, in determining our response to how we shape our forces for the future? I draw your Lordships’ attention to an article by Richard Sokolsky from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, entitled The New NATO-Russia Military Balance: Implications for European Security. I found this one of the most easily understood and probably most helpful and accurate surveys of the situation at the moment, drawing attention to the political and military challenges or perspectives that we face. One point that he makes is that it is incumbent on NATO to draw clear lines if we are to maintain an international rules-based order. For example, when the INF treaty is violated by Russia, even if we think it will not go back on it, we should at least make it clear that that is a violation of rules—a transgression over lines that have previously been drawn in the sand—and perhaps attention should be drawn to that a little more loudly.

The other point that he goes on to make is the importance of keeping dialogue with Russia open, including through back-door diplomacy, and this could be extrapolated to other contexts. When the divisions are increasing in the foreground, how do we maintain those perhaps unofficial back-door routes where the conversation can keep going? If we are to maintain a situation where the same rules can be adhered to whatever the change in circumstances, that conversation will be essential.

I end, noble Lords will be glad to hear, largely where I began. How do we enable our forces to have the confidence that they are being set up to exercise power in a changing environment that has already changed from the assumptions that were set out when the SDSR of 2015 was established? That is where the challenge lies as we pay attention to some of the dynamics of relations with countries such as Russia.

Immigration Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I was recently in northern Iraq, visiting internally displaced people and Syrian refugees. In a meeting with the United Nations office for the co-ordination of humanitarian aid, we were told that despite the generosity promised by many international donors, only 9% of the money had actually got through. That was not specifically applied to the UK. I do not know how much of the UK’s promised aid has gone but it was 9% overall. So when we hear about the amount of money that has been promised, it does not tell us how much has been delivered.

The second background point I would make is that in meeting refugees and internally displaced people, it became clear that there is a divide by generation. The older people still dream of going back home; the younger people and their children do not believe that they have a home to go back to. In the areas where ISIS has been, in many cases it has simply destroyed everything. There is no infrastructure. There are no homes or schools. What has been left has often been booby-trapped. So what does it mean to say that we want to help all these people go home, when home may no longer exist? The communities where for generations they lived together have now been destroyed because of the violence and what has gone on.

My fear in this is that we are going to have tens of thousands of children whose experience of not being welcomed when they are genuine refugees, who have shown extraordinary resilience to leave and get to where they have, will not forget how they were treated. If we want to see resentment or violence among the next two generations in that part of the world, the seeds are being sown now. I feel that the humanitarian demand outweighs some of the more technical stuff that we have heard. I applaud the Government for what they are doing, particularly in relation to the camps out in the Middle East, but they are not addressing the question on our doorstep. I support the amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, like others I recognise the contribution that the Government are making in money and personnel, so far as those are being sent. But I regard the dangers of which we have heard—the situation in which unimaginable numbers of children have been caught up—and our moral responsibility as outweighing everything. The dangers include the risks of trafficking and exploitation. Was that not precisely what the previous Government set out to counter in their flagship legislation? Prevention is the best response so relocating, supporting and welcoming children would contribute to that objective. The Minister says that this amendment is not the best or the most effective way but it is not an either/or. Whatever other countries do or do not do, the UK must not do just what is better than others but what it knows is right. This amendment is in the best interests of the children who are the subject of it.

National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the prosperity fund will be focused mainly on emerging and developing economies. They are becoming increasingly important for global growth. As the ODA document sets out, we will give greater priority to promoting sustainable economic reforms that are needed to continue that. The prosperity fund, which will be worth £1.3 billion over the next five years, will be aimed at things like the competitiveness of an operation of markets, energy, financial sector reform, encouraging Governments to look at ways of bearing down on corruption and, in so doing, to address the need to reduce poverty.

The fund is designed to give an additional boost to the opportunities for international business, especially, but not totally, for UK companies. We are planning a lot of other work on promoting prosperity, which is set out in the document. I am sure that the noble Baroness will find that of interest. I cannot be specific about the countries that we will target at this juncture, but I hope that that general description will be helpful. Africa is going to be a major focus for this, not least sub-Saharan Africa, maybe looking at ways that the energy market, for example, can be encouraged in that area.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, would the Minister agree with me that some of the language we are using in this debate reflects an assumption that the world is binary and divided into allies and enemies? The reality is that allies become enemies, and enemies become allies. In any strategic approach to the future, could we be assured that that possibility will be taken into account? I worked on elements to do with Iraq in the 1980s, and we can see what happened in the 2000s. Arms and resources that we sell to people who are rebels in Syria can then be used against us. Is that sort of strategic thinking about a non-binary, more eclectic world being taken into consideration?

[Earl Howe]

The right reverend Prelate reminds us of a very important point of principle. As I hope he will find when he reads this document, running through it is a thread or theme that makes clear that government has to be joined up in all of this—much more joined up than it ever has been in the past. The way in which countries abroad are assessed as friendly, non-friendly or something in between is absolutely essential in our long-term planning. Having said that, we are very clear that we have our prime allies with whom we wish to collaborate, specifically when it comes to defence—not least the United States, France and, increasingly, Germany. However, it is possible for countries around the world to unite around a common objective, as we saw recently with the United Nations Security Council resolution, where all the members of the Security Council voted in one direction. That was a remarkable event in itself, and we should take our cue from that in deciding how to proceed further in the context of the Middle East conflict.