Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak about the challenges facing UK diplomacy and defence resulting from economic, natural and technological factors.

The UK Government deal with changes, risks as well as opportunities, through diplomatic collaboration with other countries and with companies, especially and to a growing extent with those in the EU and the rest of Europe—as we saw last week with the common European patent policy being introduced even into the UK.

I have experienced governmental collaboration through my work at the Met Office, where I was chief executive. We were involved in many meetings with UK diplomats as well as with other civil servants. I have also worked with the NGOs and companies listed in my declared interests.

Dealing with climate change and the global environment is now regarded as a primary overall role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it is for almost all national Governments, even in the United States, where it is a major concern for the Department of Defense—if not for the future occupant of the White House. The Foreign Secretary has a special climate adviser and a scientific adviser, who recently addressed the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. The FCO has an overall role in co-ordinating and stimulating the international roles of UK government departments and agencies, especially in the United Nations agencies and in the European Commission. It would help if the FCO were to report more regularly to Parliament on this aspect of its work. In the 16 years that I have been here, there have been two debates, which I organised.

Currently, the environmental and scientific European intergovernmental organisations play a key role in space, weather forecasting, fusion energy and biology. They are important for their function and for building up the international capacity of UK industries. As chief executive of a major UK government agency, where I experienced its interaction with several other government departments, including the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office, I was the permanent representative at the World Meteorological Organization. This agency of the United Nations is based in Geneva, where the FCO has an office to assist the work of the UK delegations to all UN agencies. These agencies play an essential role in the modern world, from science, trade, health and labour relations to intellectual property. Increasingly—this is an important point—the European Commission sends delegations to those agencies, and these EC bodies are very effective in connecting their rather well-funded programmes to the less well-funded programmes of the UN agencies, notably in health, development and technology. In future, when the UK is no longer part of the European Union, a primary role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should be to maintain special links with the European Union, which doubtless will appreciate UK input.

I want to mention some aspects of defence, because the current defence strategy depends on our allies in NATO countries and significantly benefits from EU science, technology and intergovernmental organisations. Perhaps I may depart slightly from the story told by the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. At about the same time, in 1910, the Admiralty made full use of the Italian Mr Marconi’s radio. However, as we commented in our report, the Germans were also using this and always put out their weather forecasts one hour earlier than the Brits. In terms of a new threat now, we will use all the technologies that we have on computing, satellites, weather forecasts and climate monitoring to consider the tracking of diseases associated with global warming—this is of great concern to the US Department of Defense.

Leaving the EU makes it quite likely that the UK will no longer be at the centre of European decision-making, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, emphasised. I understand that European air traffic control, which is currently an EC organisation, may operate with less UK influence after Brexit.

Another strategic challenge for the FCO and MoD is the changing environment of the Arctic regions, where the MoD is operational and the FCO is concerned with treaties and agencies affecting environmental activities and future commercial developments. These issues were discussed in the House of Lords report on the Arctic. By leaving the EU, the UK will no longer be part of the EU’s combined activities in the Arctic, but the FCO should still work with the EU on the strategic objective of Europe joining the Arctic Council. Hopefully, special arrangements will enable UK researchers to be part of the EC co-ordination network for polar research, which the EC has said it would welcome. The FCO polar office will continue to represent the UK as an observer in the Arctic network, which is to be welcomed.

I hope that the UK’s diplomacy and the Royal Navy’s hydrographic service will be of use to the noble Lord, Lord Sterling. They may be able to contribute their expertise to the sustainable development of the Arctic. Perhaps the noble Lord’s shipping companies will make use of the developing Arctic shipping routes and of the hydrographic survey—which reports at the moment that it is not quite sure what the depth of the bottom is.