Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate ended on a challenging question, which relates to the success in recruitment that may be essential to underpin the programme that the Government have before them. I start by echoing the tribute that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, paid to my noble friend Lord Howe for the way in which he conducts defence matters. I shall also, if I may, pay tribute to the noble Lord himself, for the very constructive and serious way in which he speaks from the Opposition Front Bench on defence matters, which I think the whole House appreciates.

Noble Lords, including my noble friend in his introduction, have already said—and I agree with them—that this is the most unstable world that we have seen since the Second World War. The threats are greater. I notice the changes since my time in office and in defence. We never had global Islamic extremism, which is a completely new variety of terrorism of a particularly nasty and dangerous kind. Now we never know where the next terrorist outrage in support of Islamic extremism will be—whether in Australia, Brussels or New York. The range of this is challenging and extremely difficult.

The range of problems is much greater than I remember in my time. The population explosion in the world undoubtedly underpins some of the mass migration of people; I have referred to this in an earlier speech. I remember my noble friend Lord Hague saying that although we may look at what is happening at the moment and think that this may be near the end, it may be just the beginning of the problems of migration—underpinned in part by climate change, which does not make things easier.

We can add to that the extraordinary complications of the internet and cyber, and the whole new dimension that they have introduced, including social media, which underpin much of the communication of terrorist activities in a way that we still have not suitably mastered. These are all new. Then there is the total chaos of Syria, the situations in Iraq, in Libya, in Yemen—and in Afghanistan, I believe, at the moment—and in North Korea, including its possibly aggressive activities. To pick up a phrase from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, I must not get too depressed about this—but it seems to me that it is all leading to a lack of confidence in the West. That has undoubtedly been made worse by Brexit, which, whatever its outcome may be, introduces instant uncertainty into the world at present.

There are also uncertain signals coming out of Washington, which I hope, with the help of General Mattis, may become more reassuring shortly, to the effect that America is soundly in support of NATO, notwithstanding the absolutely justifiable request by President Trump that the other members of NATO, including the European members, make their proper contribution.

The other danger that I see is the re-emergence of Russia as it tries to reassert itself after the humiliation of the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was briefly Secretary of State for Defence, yet in my time I moved from recognising a President of the Soviet Union—President Gorbachev—and a Berlin Wall, to, before the end of my time in office, welcoming President Yeltsin of Russia, the whole Russian Soviet empire having collapsed. We all know that part of President Putin’s appeal to his own people is the fact that he is creating a sense that Russia matters again in the world. Russia was once a superpower, and he is determined to have it recognised as such again. We have to learn how to deal with that. It poses major challenges to the West. We are moving into Estonia. We are waving a big flag called Article 5, as our 800 troops and those from the other contributing countries make the front line of NATO.

We are just in the process of commemorating the First World War and the various years of it. Any of us who have been involved in studying it, and the Second World War, will realise how tragedies and terrible wars occurred because people did not believe treaty obligations and had not properly understood the responsibility they had. That was certainly true in the First World War for undertakings of that kind to Belgium under treaty, and in the Second World War for undertakings to Poland, both of which were dismissed by potential adversaries because we perhaps would not really be prepared to stand over them.

I do not want to depress the House too much, but we have a very similar situation now in which the humiliation and collapse of the Soviet Union has left pockets of Russian citizens in various territories. We saw what their activities were in Ukraine, when they were positively begging President Putin to get involved, and you can see their presence in the Baltic states, where they represent about 25% of the population. They were abandoned in the collapse of the Soviet Union and have been left there. If they seek to stir up grievances in those areas, handling that could pose a major challenge. That is part of the dangerous situation that we have.

The Prime Minister, in her speech to the Republican gathering in Philadelphia, referred to the phrase that President Reagan coined to describe his approach to President Gorbachev: “trust but verify”. Prime Minister May said that her approach to President Putin is “engage but beware”. I am not sure whether she said “beware”, or whether that was a misprint and she said “be wary”, but that is how it came out.

We have to look at the situations that we face. Others have referred to China. How ready are we to cope with this situation? I worry that we are not very well prepared or ready. I am not going to say a word about the naval programme, because the noble Lord, Lord West, is about to follow me and he will cover that in some detail. However, I will be very interested to see what an old friend of mine from Northern Ireland, Sir John Parker, and his national shipbuilding strategy will produce. I understand that that is coming out in spring 2017. Today is the second day of spring, but I do not know whether we can expect an early delivery of the strategy. Looking at the naval programme and whether we will be ready for anybody by 2025—although according to the latest report from the Defence Committee, that might even be a bit late—I worry about the very lumpy programme we have got involved in and whether it has the flexibility that we need.

When I was Defence Secretary, I was privileged to have responsibility for considerably larger Army numbers than we have now. I see the challenge that numbers represent at a time of austerity and difficulties in recruitment. However, I think that we need everyone we have got, and we probably need more. It underlines the importance of working with allies if we do not have the resources that we might like for everything. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I do not regard Brexit as a reason to stop work on the common security and defence policy. I see every reason why we should continue in the work we are doing against piracy and on helping refugees in the Mediterranean. There is no reason why we should not also lead some projects, which is a role we could well play.

The other critical issue is the difficulties we face in looking after NATO. We have to make sure that the US stays firmly committed and that our European allies keep their contributions up.

There are other issues that I think are even more essential because of the present difficulties. One of the things that has kept us ahead so many times in the difficult and dangerous world we are in is our skill in intelligence. Intelligence co-operation with the United States is vital. Everybody is familiar with the “Five Eyes” partnership. We have a very high standard on that and we must ensure that it is not undermined any more than it has been—partly by Mr Snowden, and with the situation not helped by the recent row in the United States. Other issues are cyber defence and the Prevent programme at home against terrorism. Lastly, and most importantly to avoid military activity, is soft power. I worry whether the Foreign Office is sufficiently resourced in the light of the difficult problems it faces and now has to take on, as its role in Brexit and thereafter is crucial. It is important not only for our relations with other countries but for the defence of our own country.