G7 and NATO Summits

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said, it was a very successful summit. I said in response to an earlier question that non-US allies within NATO are increasing their defence spending. The decisions and agreements made at NATO aligned very much with the integrated review, so we will certainly play a leading role, as we always do, in helping to move this forward.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I give a warm welcome to the aim to expand the G7 into a D11—a new grouping of democracies. Will that consist purely of heads of nation states or will it continue to include the two chief EU figures, as hitherto? I particularly welcome the Prime Minister’s aim to move on from the outdated “special relationship” phrase, which was used so much with the USA. Does my noble friend recall the observation of our noble friend Lord Hague a decade ago that our links with America should be “solid but not slavish”? Does she agree that a revised US connection should be based more on partnership than on simple followership? Should we not have our noble friend Lord Hague’s wise adage very much in mind?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The Government’s aim in inviting Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa to the G7 summit was to increase co-operation among democratic like-minded partners on global issues, reflecting our shared value of openness. We do not see this grouping of 11 democracies as fixed, limited or replacing the G7, but it was a symbol of our desire with others to strengthen like-minded international co-operation. We look forward to the US-hosted Summit for Democracy, which will take place later this year.

On my noble friend’s point about America, he is absolutely right. The original Atlantic Charter demonstrates that the UK-US relationship has been one of partnership rather than followership for decades. We look forward to that continuing.