Ukraine: Defence Relationships

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too would like to thank my noble friend for initiating this debate and for his excellent introduction. I too emphasise that we are all at one in our support for Ukraine; across the House, both Opposition and Government are absolutely at one. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, reminded us that there are some very good things in the integrated review. The fact that we had the integrated review is a positive thing too. Joined-up government is absolutely essential.

Let us remind ourselves what the integrated review was about. It highlighted the need for the United Kingdom to play an active role in ensuring that open societies and economies can flourish across the world by championing free trade and global co-operation, tackling conflict and instability and standing up for democracy and human rights. Just how will the Government address these issues? The recently published international development strategy, promised in the review, made no explicit prioritisation of this. Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has highlighted how misguided many of the Government’s strategic assumptions about foreign policy have been.

As we have heard in this debate, the integrated review wrongly de-emphasised the importance of European security. Boris Johnson described it as a British “tilt to the Indo-Pacific” and scarcely mentions Europe beyond NATO. Certainly, there is no mention of the Russian aggression against Ukraine that was started in 2014.

Let us also think: Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February but, four months later, there is no action to reboot our UK defence plans. As we have heard, threats to Britain are increasing. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Dannatt, said, along with my noble friend Lord West, the Government have cut the Army by 10,000 troops; they commit UK forces to be “persistently deployed worldwide”, yet cut the full fleet of Hercules transport planes.

All democracies must respond to the newly realised threats to national and European security. That is why we argue that Ministers must rectify the flaws in the integrated review; must review defence spending; must reform defence procurement and must rethink Army cuts. They must reinvigorate UK leadership in NATO—and we have heard about that leadership at its inception. Now it is time for us to return to that leadership.

Also on European security, the key recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on Russia remain unimplemented. Tackling and challenging Russia’s political, economic and military reach is imperative to European security, and the work must start at home. The United Kingdom must stop acting as a hiding place and service industry for criminals and their money. A key part of defending democracy and the international rules-based order is through international co-operation, whether it be NATO or other forums such as the G7, the United Nations or the Commonwealth. The Ukrainian conflict forcefully reminds us that almost no nation can do anything alone and that Britain is a bigger force for good in the world when we act with our allies.

Brexit is done, no doubt, but the EU is emerging as an organised force in geopolitical security, and President Biden has affirmed US support for

“strengthening the NATO-EU strategic partnership”

and for a

“US-EU dialogue on security and defence”.

It is in Britain’s national interests to forge post-Brexit arrangements to work with, not within, the EU. Britain is NATO’s leading European nation, and we should not allow this status to be damaged or deflected by Boris Johnson pursuing his “Indo-Pacific tilt”. The first priority for Britain’s Armed Forces must be where the threats are greatest, not where the business opportunities lie.

At the end of this month, NATO nations will set their strategy for the next decade, with all democracies now facing new threats to their security. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s recommendations for the new strategic concept stress the central importance of resilience in our democracies and societies. It is the way we can counter hybrid warfare and shore up support for our increased defence commitments. In the run-up to Madrid, democracies and their civil societies will rightly demand a say in the priorities set for NATO for the next decade. Yet this is a closed process, confined to Governments, which is why Labour is asking the Government to open up the UK process to create a common vision for NATO. I urge them to lay out to the public the UK’s view of NATO’s strategic goals. The UK needs to be the driving force, driving debates as NATO gives a greater focus to defence, alongside deterrence and diplomacy.

Although our current focus is rightly on Ukraine and Russia, this is far from the only global crisis. Many countries have experienced almost non-stop conflict over the past decade. Our support for Ukraine, including humanitarian assistance, should not come out of overseas development assistance. As my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, the poorest in the world should not have to pay the price for Russian aggression. There are currently multiple crises of nutrition that will only get worse with increasing conflict and the negative effects of climate change. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, reminded us, east African countries are dependent on Ukraine and Russia for 90% of their grain imports, and parts of the region are also experiencing severe drought.

Rather than restoring the United Kingdom’s development expertise, targeting aid on poverty reduction and prioritising climate, conflict and health funding, the Government instead prioritise a naive aid-for-trade approach that simply will not work. This is an approach that takes us back to the 1980s and the corruption scandals of the Pergau dam. I hope that the Government will reconsider a much swifter return to the 0.7% target and using the aid budget to help those most in need, not trade favours with big corporations.

Ukraine has survived because its people—of diverse faith, age, ethnicity and language—have a national story of hope to unify them. Their hopes are simple: prosperity, security and respect; to be a democratic country at peace with its neighbours, within a rules-based global order; and those are Labour’s hopes for the British people.