UK Exports

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mobarik]

I do not have the exact details, but we are looking at all the measures and all the issues moving forward.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Is the Minister aware that her first Answer was deeply encouraging? However, are there not areas where further work needs to be done, particularly, for instance, in revamping the Queen’s Award for Exports, which has not been looked at for decades, or in bringing together the chambers of commerce? Those chambers need to have some form of encouragement to go overseas, particularly in the two or three years ahead.

[Baroness Mobarik]

I assure my noble friend that the Department for International Trade has been engaging widely with individual businesses and trade associations since the referendum and will continue to do so. We are committed to fully understanding the views of stakeholders, limiting uncertainty and ensuring that we build a trading environment that works for everyone.

RAF Red Arrows

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will review the role of the RAF Red Arrows Aerobatic Team at future Farnborough airshows so that they continue to perform aerobatics rather than just a flypast.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, regrettably, in view of the densely populated area surrounding Farnborough Airport, the RAF decided that the Red Arrows highly complex displays can no longer be conducted there. It therefore has no plans to review the role of the Red Arrows at Farnborough International Airshow. The safety of the public has to be the priority.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister recollect other statistics such as that the number of people killed on the roads is 1,732, on the railways it is 39, and in air accidents it is 16? For well over 50 years at the Farnborough International Airshow, not a single civilian has been killed from any aerial activity. Is this not an overreaction, possibly to Shoreham? Surely it is possible for the authorities running this famous air show, alongside the RAF, to produce a dynamic aerobatic display? It could be modified in the light of the risk analysis, but to have no display diminishes what is at the moment the number one air show in the world, which is absolutely vital to Her Majesty’s aerobatic exports.

Iraq Inquiry

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the words of condolence from both Front Benches to the families who lost loved ones in the second Gulf War. I can say that because I held a letter from my son in the first Gulf War which, thankfully, did not have to be opened as he came home safely. Nevertheless, I am quite clear: I supported the action that was taken in going to war against Iraq. I did it because of the environment at the time. We forget too easily what the environment was: 9/11, other atrocities against the United States, considerable evidence of chemical warfare and of provisions for chemical warfare and the evidence that was given to Parliament.

There is no way that Tony Blair is a war criminal or that he is guilty of war crimes. The action he took as Prime Minister was taken in the interests of our country. He was the democratically elected leader of our country, not a dictator. This maxim about democratically elected leaders must apply all over the world as far as leadership is concerned.

Others have commented on military equipment. Whatever one says, it was an absolute shambles and a total disgrace. Post-war planning was poor. Post-Brexit planning is poor. That lies with the Prime Minister of the day and his Cabinet.

Have we learned the lessons, or have we had to wait for Chilcot to learn them? As far as I can see, we have not. Why did we go into Libya? It is not at all clear to me. Why did we try to force democracy on Egypt? We must have known that the Muslim Brotherhood had been trying since 1921 to get “democratically elected”. We supported elections there and what happened? It got elected, and then we discovered that it is almost as bad as Daesh, and the army in Egypt moved in again. Why did we not think twice about Syria? Why did those of us who know a little about that part of the world not realise that it is the fourth Sunni/Shia war? The only thing that is slightly different is that there are far more western-educated people on one side. That war had no real implications for the West. Why did we not check who the people supporting the new democracy in Syria were? Surely we should have been able to discover that the vast majority of them are jihadists.

I urge my noble friends on the Front Bench to get a proper communications strategy and action plan geared solely against Daesh and to work with Assad to implement it. If that does not happen, we shall once again be in terrible turmoil.

Action Aid and Christian Aid are right to raise the problem of the 3 million people—at least 3 million refugees, poor souls—with nowhere to live and no livelihood, wondering day after day what is going to happen to them. Have we in the West really got an action plan to deal with that? If we have, I hope that somebody is going to deploy it so that we can discuss it.

This may surprise most though not all of your Lordships but I need to relate Chilcot to the situation in Sri Lanka today. A press release on 7 June from our High Commission in Colombo after the visit of no less a person than the head of the British Diplomatic Service, Sir Simon McDonald, concludes:

“The UK will continue its programme of support for Sri Lanka to help the Government fulfil its goals on reconciliation, human rights and strengthening democracy”.

That is fine, but there is a parallel with Iraq where the UK was, in effect, tackling terrorism in the form of weapons of mass destruction. A battle is undertaken. Here I refer to page 181 of volume 12 of the report under the heading “Battle Damage Assessment”:

“Section 6.2 describes the main principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), also known as the Law of Armed Conflict … or the Law of War, how they were disseminated to those engaged in military action, and how they were reflected in the UK’s Targeting Directive and Rules of Engagement. The key elements of IHL which apply to targeting of military objectives during a conflict are set out in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions”,

and then it lists the four main principles.

The Chilcot inquiry’s assessment was undertaken by British judges and members of the Privy Council. No foreign judges were called in to do this assessment. We see how well it has been done. In Sri Lanka, there was a war against the terrorists, the Tamil Tigers. However, instead of its being assessed against the Geneva convention, to which I have just referred, the UK and US Governments have endorsed investigation by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with the addition of foreign judges. This is wrong and misconceived. After all, there is a reasonable number of fair-minded judges across the ethnic groups who could undertake the task of judging what happened against the principles of the Geneva convention.

If the UK Government really want to help, they should release the full text of the dispatches of our military attaché there during the war, Lieutenant-Colonel Gash, containing his independent observations. The Ministers here will know that for two years I have been trying to obtain these under the Freedom of Information Act. However, so far I have received some 30 pages of those dispatches, provided reluctantly, some very heavily redacted. As I go to the next stage of the tribunal, I find the Foreign Office hiding behind policy that releasing these dispatches might undermine relationships with other countries such as Saudi Arabia, which is hardly a democracy.

I ask the Foreign Office to reflect carefully on the full implications of Chilcot, namely that we should treat each situation separately and recognise that the truth will get out. It is better to publish evidence that is available than to hide it. If in future we as a country follow that in any engagements that we may have, we shall be a country that can be proud of what we achieve democratically.

Parliament owes a huge debt to Chilcot for what he has done. It must be for Parliament to decide how to take it forward.

Syria and Iraq: ISIS

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what military action the United Kingdom is undertaking against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, UK forces are striking Daesh targets in Iraq and Syria, including command and control facilities, lines of communication, military equipment and defensive positions. We are also providing intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance to support coalition operations in both Syria and Iraq. UK military personnel are providing specialist training for Iraqi security forces, including Kurdish Peshmerga.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, given that the war has already lasted five years, does my noble friend recognise that while bombing is important, it will never defeat ISIS unless there is a strong army on the ground? Will he therefore re-read the speeches made last Wednesday by the noble Lords, Lord Wright of Richmond, Lord Ashdown, Lord Owen and Lord Dannatt—and possibly my own—and recognise that the only hope of defeating ISIS is urgently to find a way to deploy the army of Assad and his allies? Otherwise, ISIS will survive and cause mayhem in the rest of the world.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I agree on the need for a wide coalition. As has been said, there are already 60 nations involved in the current coalition. I also agree that it is important that we bring along with us as many other nations as we can.

As regards the proposition that United Kingdom forces under a UK flag should conduct offensive operations in Syria, as I said, that would be subject to a separate vote in Parliament. But it is right for me to make it clear that the Government would not wish to come to Parliament with a half-baked proposal. We would want to garner as widespread support as possible across the political spectrum, including from the Opposition, and that entails demonstrating that the UK could make not only a positive contribution to the coalition effort but one that would in a real sense be unique or nearly unique.

I mentioned precision bombing as one of the capabilities that we have that other nations do not, apart from the United States. We are certainly in a prime position to offer state-of-the-art surveillance capabilities to any operation, and we are second to none in the quality of the training that we supply to foreign countries.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware—

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, there have been equal numbers on both sides so if we are very quick, we can have the Conservative and then the Cross Benches.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that I was an embedded RAF officer responsible to the Canadian Government in the 1950s and that there is nothing unusual about that? Will he please clarify the point about airspace raised by the noble Lord, Lord West? Is he saying that there is an air exclusion zone across the 30% of the ground area of Syria that is controlled by ISIL? Is he further saying that the surveillance drones are surveilling only that 30%?

[Earl Howe]

There is not an air exclusion zone because, as has been made clear, we are conducting surveillance operations on behalf of the coalition and we have always been open about that. What I hope I have been clear about is that we have not gone that stage further and commissioned or commanded British forces to engage in offensive operations over that territory.