King’s Speech

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to raise three issues: Israel, Ukraine and defence expenditure.

Since 2022, I have been challenging in this House the billions being spent on the war with Russia, which I have repeatedly opposed in over 30 interventions in debate. Contributing to this crisis are our failures to hold in check American policy on NATO expansion, thereby breaching the neutrality of east European barrier states’ status, which is so important to Russia; our support for Ukraine membership of NATO, only later qualified; our failure to press for early withdrawal of the other battalions following the Maidan revolution; and, in my view, a complete misreading of events in Donetsk and Luhansk. The consequences of these policies have been not only economic but have enabled a powerful UK defence lobby to mobilise and use the crisis to demand increases in defence expenditure. I view Russia’s brutal, aggressive, war-mongering response and regrettable turn to the East and China to be a direct consequence of western miscalculation—all avoidable. Unfortunately, my Government have found themselves locked into this strategy.

I move on to Israel, the war and the Palestinian question. The debate has, unfortunately, become submerged in discussion over antisemitism, thereby diverting us from the real debate. It is hard to know where to draw the line, thus the dispute over the London marches. As a great admirer of Israel, which I first visited as a schoolboy in 1959, like many of my friends I am torn. Trump’s position, as set out in Jared Kushner’s paper on the vision for peace, is at the heart of the problem. The plan proposes a Palestine without borders, landlocked inside a greater Israel, with Palestinian enclaves under Israeli control. The plan, which is opposed throughout the Middle East, is further deepening and aggravating the existing conflict. In my view, the Government are right to keep out, and the Prime Minister has stood firm.

I move on to defence expenditure. I understand that my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen has proposed a 5% target. My 10 years on the Public Accounts Committee in the Commons, followed by my reading of the brilliant exposé on waste in defence procurement by Lord Levene of Portsoken, leave me wary of any demands for substantially increased resources. Yes, some increase is needed, and we are delivering, but I say that we should cut the overcharging, waste, gold-plating and contract revisions, and find another Peter Levene—and then we can talk.

Before we accept the notion of an increased worldwide threat, which I reject, we need to reflect on whether we would be credibly arguing for substantial increases if we were to settle the conflict in Ukraine as per Trump and then sought to influence Trump over Israel, seeking a more considered approach without our being accused of undermining Israel’s need for security. I strongly believe that, with careful diplomacy, we can reduce world tension. The question is whether the brilliance in diplomacy that characterised Foreign Office thinking over generations is still there. In my view, our mistake has been to fail to support Trump over Ukraine. That failure by the western democracies, in particular in Europe, has cost us dearly.

Trump is now questioning and challenging not only our wider European policy agendas but the relationship between America and Europe. The little Englanders who keep us outside of Europe should keep that in mind. Their case is dying on the cross of American isolationism. We should have supported Trump’s Ukraine initiative. If we had done so, we could have influenced the events in his war with Iran and probably the future of trading relations with the United States. Furthermore, perhaps as a consequence, we could have curtailed the opportunist relationship Russia is now developing with China, for which we bear some responsibility. When Russia finally implodes, the truth will no doubt come out. I know my views are minority views, but I thank the House for its tolerance.

Ukraine: UK Policy

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, Labour, in opposition and now in government, has understandably and loyally supported the Government of the day in this time of war. That is what it is: we are engaged in a war. While I have expressed opposition in nearly 30 contributions since 2014, I am grateful to my party for its tolerance. I have repeatedly questioned the rejection of the Russian 2021 proposed talks on a draft treaty covering security guarantees, arms control, self-governance for Donetsk and Luhansk, and confirmation of non-nuclear barrier status from Finland to Georgia.

Our response to Russia’s demands for non-nuclear security guarantees over Ukraine has been a resounding “No”, with much of the press constantly questioning Trump’s attempts to bring a settlement. But there has been a heavy price to pay. The price of years of intransigence has been worldwide inflation, increased third-world poverty, a crisis in energy supply, the rewrite of American foreign policy on the back of a trade war, and vast population movements. We need a strategy that responds positively to Russia’s calls for non-nuclear barrier status and no combat troop deployments. Our contribution should be blue-helmet personnel stationed on demilitarised territory separating potential combatants. I worry over remnants of the Azov brigades challenging any peace process or settlement.

We need a sensitive negotiation with Russia over sanctions. It is out of dialogue that future problems can be avoided. Our policy should be to promote free debate in Russia in post-Putin conditions while ultimately welcoming it into the fold of western democracies. Russia will change. Autocracies inevitably die, and we have to help that process.

Undersea Internet Cables

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will participate remotely.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, with undersea internet cable interference presenting only the latest challenge to security, along with threats to energy supply, banking, telecommunications, shipping and other potential use of viruses, should traditional defence chief responses, based on naval and military interventions, remain the main strategies in response? Should we not be reprofiling our expenditure towards nuclear deployments, defence satellite communications, selective sanctions enforcement, political exchange through dialogue and old-fashioned negotiations in conflict zones? The military option, costing billions in Ukraine, has hardly been a success.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

To deal with the last part of the question first, I am pleased to see the Prime Minister in Kyiv pursuing what has been a cross-government—and across all parties in majority—defence of freedom and democracy in Ukraine and what that means for the rest of Europe and beyond. With respect to the other points that my noble friend made, he is right to draw attention to the increasing threats to critical underwater infrastructure. The military option is one option that we need to use. I say that because, as I have said at this Dispatch Box before in answer to, I believe, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and others, we must deter people from doing things in the first place. The use of maritime assets and underwater drones, the actions of the Joint Expeditionary Force and those of NATO are key to protecting these vital cable links on which much of our livelihoods, data, telecommunications, energy and so on depend. Military resource is one way in which we have to deal with that.

Ukraine

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I greatly welcome my noble friend Lord Spellar, with his huge reputation. He and I agree on almost everything—apart from on this war.

I am not a pacifist; I have supported wars in the Falklands, eastern Europe and intervention in Iraq, but not the war in Ukraine. This is my 23rd contribution in opposition. Too many lives have been lost and too much property has been destroyed. The war has destabilised the world economy and redirected aid from the poorest to fund arms and reconstruction in the developed world. It has moved Russia from west to east, and it has hugely reinforced the position of those in Russia whose corrupt practices were being progressively exposed by courageous dissidents. It has provoked a population movement of 8 million at the heart of Europe as people seek sanctuary in neighbouring states, interrupting the education of millions. It has provoked a debate over NATO’s future, while destroying Ukraine’s GDP, with prospective reconstruction bills topping £400 billion.

We are witnessing a failure of foreign policy perhaps unmatched in history. I think back to a period of hope: the fruitful period of early discussions between Putin, Blair and my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen in the early 2000s. It was a period of opportunity, only to be undermined as militaristic opinion in America hijacked the debate in favour of NATO expansion. It is that threat of expansion that stands at the heart of this conflict. With Yeltsin’s death, the die was cast. With the removal of Yanukovych, Putin’s paranoid obsession with NATO expansion, built on Russia’s understandable obsession with Second World War losses, turned ugly and defensive.

Events further deteriorated after the Maidan with Zelensky’s election. His demands at the 2019 Paris conference and the rejection of Putin’s counterproposals opened the door to war. I believe Russia’s obsession with NATO expansion could have been defused if the nuclear-free barrier status of a string of states stretching from Estonia in the north to Georgia in the south had been maintained, pending progressive liberalisation of all things in Russia. Yes, it is a slow process, but this process would have accelerated in a post-Putin era of increased international travel and commercial, cultural and student exchange. It was only a matter of time. Russia was on a trajectory now reversed at huge cost to the international community. The question is: how can we revitalise the whole process? My personal view is that we need a new initiative. A war dependent on the endless demands of Zelensky is not one to be won. Trump could do a deal, but he comes with baggage.

So what can we do? We need a new forum for talks, convened by a non-combatant or munitions-contributory power. I would not rule out a representative of the BRICS—perhaps China. Its relationship with Russia is no more than commercially opportunist. We ignore its potential role in world affairs at our peril. The attendees should include Germany and the UK, the drivers behind the 2020 talks, and of course the United States and Russia.

Russia has repeatedly called for talks, admittedly on an escalating agenda of military and territorial demands, but Russia is equally exhausted by the war. It wants security for its people in hostile territory. A talks agenda should concede on the issue of non-NATO membership for Ukraine and no nuclear deployments in the barrier states, all against a background of a review agreeable to all sides, perhaps within a 20-year negotiable timeframe. Donetsk and Luhansk should be subject to a form of international protectorate status, delivered under the international guarantee, which would include Russia. The protectorate would decide on official languages and all forces would withdraw in conditions of a ceasefire.

We need to defuse the conflict. It cannot be left to Zelensky; he is locked into conflict. We, the West, cannot influence events unless we advocate at least some basis for a realistic negotiating position. We need to promote in Russia at least some basis for a debate on war aims. We learn from history that Russia will fight to the last. Ukraine needs to rebuild influence on the public debates in the UK. It has to move from the military to the political. I believe there is a solution; we just need to start talking.

I leave the House with a thought: Russia lost 20 million —some say 25 million—people in the Second World War. We must never underestimate its fear of what it mistakenly believes to be external threat. It drives Russia’s fear of the West.