Defence: Treaties with France

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, a big effort will be made to get a lot more of our troops to learn French, which will be a good start. I meet a lot of French officers, sailors and air men and women in a lot of different ways, and they tend to speak brilliant English. I welcome anything that gets France back closer into NATO. As the noble Lord said, President Sarkozy has been very brave in bringing France back to the centre of NATO and I will encourage anything to see that that continues.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I asked a question earlier and I ask it again. My concern is on the military chain of command. For example, every officer in command and all troops in the British Army give an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen. Given these new circumstances, can the Minister put information in the Library as to how this will work? There could be commanding officers who have not made that allegiance to Her Majesty. In this day and age, we have to protect our soldiers to ensure that they never face a court martial because they understood that they were entitled to reject an order from someone from another country.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am quite happy to put that in the Library. This concern can be exaggerated. France and the United Kingdom have been in NATO together for many years, we have served happily together, and I remind the noble Lord that the French and the British fought successfully together in World War 1 and World War 2. In World War 1, we served under General Foch. My grandfather was a British commander-in-chief and he was very happy to take his orders from him.