Cyberattacks: EU Committee Report

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness in contributing to this debate. I will not follow the threads that she pulled from it because this is my maiden speech and I am constrained to be, what some might say, uncharacteristically brief. I commend her on her contribution to the debate and the issues that she picked from this helpful report—and more broadly. I, too, await the responses of the Minister to the points that she raises.

As I rise to make my maiden speech, one view is that it is a contribution to the House of Lords that I have waited 14 years to make. In 1996, I was part of the legal team that injuncted—or interdicted, as we say in Scotland—the BBC from broadcasting an interview with the then Prime Minister John Major in the context of the local government elections in Scotland. We were told after the appeal in Scotland that the BBC would take us all the way, and it was granted permission to appeal to the House of Lords. I had my foot almost on the first step of the stairs to the London shuttle when the BBC abandoned its appeal. So while it is characteristic for many maiden speakers in this House to say that they never expected to speak in the House of Lords, I suppose that in my case it could be said that my expectations have waited 14 years to be fulfilled properly.

In those 14 years, I found myself another job as I waited. It was a significant honour and a pleasure for 13 of those years to serve my constituents of Kilmarnock and Loudon in the other place. They are now represented by Cathy Jamieson, who is already an experienced Member of the Scottish Parliament, and indeed was a Minister in the Scottish Executive. She is an excellent Member of Parliament, and that is not just my view but is the view of her constituents who have granted her an even more impressive majority than the healthy majority that I enjoyed during the time that I was there.

It is a particular pleasure to speak in the debate following my noble friend Lord Reid—a habit that I have developed over the years. I shall come to that in a moment. We both learnt our politics in the robust environment of the Labour Party in the west of Scotland, and I can tell noble Lords that we have had a lot of similar experiences, but I know that his collection of anecdotes—or at least the way he tells them—are much more entertaining and certainly more exciting than mine ever were.

After re-election in 2001, my ministerial career was largely spent following my noble friend. I will always be grateful to him for the experience of working with him in the Northern Ireland Office. In many ways, that was the happiest time of my varied ministerial career and I am proud to say that I still have many friends there. That is perhaps not surprising, as my mother—an inspirational 95 year-old—hails from Warrenpoint in the stunningly beautiful County Down. My time in Northern Ireland encouraged my interest in conflict resolution; and that was reinforced by later experiences of conflicts. It is my intention to use the opportunities that my membership of your Lordships’ House generates to work in that area, among others.

My services as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office, the Treasury and the Scotland Office have all individually left their marks on me, but it was my time as the Secretary of State for Defence for two years, between 2006 and 2008, that left the greatest impression. Over my ministerial career, I have developed a significant admiration for the public service of our Civil Service. It has become fashionable to talk of “bloated public service” and of waste, but that is not my experience. In my view, we have the best civil service in the world, which is part of the construct of this land that makes us all proud to be British.

However, if my admiration for the Civil Service is substantial—and it is—my admiration for our military knows no bounds, after my experiences. The courageous selflessness of those who put their lives and health at risk in order that we can sleep safe in our beds at night deserves a form of thanks for which the English language has recently proved to be woefully inadequate. The sadness and grief that I felt when hearing the news that my friend Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, the commanding officer of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, had been killed in action in Afghanistan, was but a fraction of that suffered by his wife Sally, his precious daughters and his parents and family. The sacrifices that the families of our service men and women make in supporting them are equally worthy of our boundless gratitude.

My time as Secretary of State for Defence has left me with the conviction that disarmament is as important to our security as investment in the capability of arms. Many senior political leaders across the whole world are currently coming to the conclusion that the existence of nuclear weapons, the security challenges that they pose and the risk of their proliferation are among the greatest threats that this world faces. I agree with them. With the support of a significant number of senior Members of your Lordships' House and of the other place, I intend to devote myself to the advancement of multilateral nuclear disarmament, improvement of the non-proliferation regime and improved nuclear security.

That brings me nicely, through security, to the topic of today's debate. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and his committee for their deliberations and for the important and extremely valuable report that they have presented to us. As we have already heard, in recent days we have seen both an attack—we know not from where—on the computer systems running the Iranian nuclear programme and a warning from the director of GCHQ on the need to enhance the UK’s cyberwarfare capability, both offensive and defensive. The publication of the Government's strategic defence and security review is imminent. As a review, it promises to go much wider than a traditional defence review in assessing the full range of security challenges facing our country and in providing a joined-up response to those challenges. I hope that it achieves what it sets out to achieve, but the public debate currently surrounding it is has not been encouraging. Almost all of the attention, inside and outside government, appears to have focused on the overall size of the defence budget and on which big-ticket defence equipment may have to be scrapped to satisfy the Treasury. This is understandable, given the current economic and financial picture, but it does not amount to strategic thinking. I hope, and wait to be reassured, that the review is conducting that strategic thinking and that the leaks we have witnessed over months have not included it.

As I know the Minister also appreciates, a review of this kind, carried out at this point in our history, needs to focus on more than conventional defence equipment. The nature and character of conflict, and the nature and character of weaponry, is changing. This is not just about unconventional enemies using low technology weapons like those we face on occasion in Afghanistan, but also about high technology weapons being used by potential adversaries to disrupt our society in future. We may be members of NATO, the most powerful conventional military alliance on earth, but we are on occasion in danger of allowing this to generate a comforting misapprehension; namely, that our adversaries will in future engage us in conflicts that play to our strengths, not in unconventional conflicts that play to theirs. This is dangerous thinking.

When the headlines on the SDSR have faded, and the short-term budget battles are over, sober judges will ask not only what we cut but what we invested in. The real test will be whether we have invested to meet the challenges of tomorrow rather than those of yesterday.

As imminent as the publication of the defence review is that of NATO's strategic concept. That presents an opportunity to address the issue of NATO-EU co-operation. I look forward to the contribution from the Minister in the hope that she will give us some indication that the Government will regard as a priority the issue of our contribution not just to the conclusion of the review of NATO's strategic concept, but to the important communiqué that will follow it and to the summit meeting that will take place in Lisbon.

My final point may arise from my professional prejudice, but is none the less valid. One major issue that needs to be addressed in the cyberdomain is the role of the law, both domestic and international. Domestically, RIPA was drafted before the internet developed into what it is today. Our law needs regular review to ensure that it keeps up with the rapid rate of change that we are witnessing. In particular, we must find ways of making detection and prosecution easier. Internationally, in the absence of sufficient treaty law or UN statutes dealing explicitly with cyber actions, urgently we need to define the role that international law should play in covering either offensive or defensive cyber actions. I should be grateful if the Minister, who speaks for the Government and who we all know has expertise in this field, will reassure your Lordships' House that action in these fields is contemplated and will give some indication of the steps that we can expect to see in this regard.

In closing, I express my gratitude for the warmth of the welcome that I have received in your Lordships' House. In particular, I thank the staff of the House who, with unfailing courtesy and genuine kindness, have eased my transition in a way that has made me feel as welcome here as anywhere I have ever been in my life. On the day of my introduction, the courtesy and kindness that were shown to my family and guests left them with the most positive impression that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. I trust that, with these words, I have observed the conventions of the House. I respect them immensely and I look forward to engaging in debate across a wide range of subjects, almost certainly learning more than I will ever be able to contribute.