Queen's Speech

Lord Owen Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Owen]

My Lords, it may surprise the previous speaker that, although I have vigorously opposed Britain’s membership of the eurozone—and I thank our lucky stars that we are not members of it—I agree with almost everything that he has said. It is a great folly for those of us who oppose the eurozone to take any delight in the circumstances that it faces. If the eurozone continues with its present difficulty, it is bound to impact on the UK economy.

However, I do not think that it is quite so fair to single out the fact that we have a veto. There will, in my view, have to be treaty amendment. I think that Angela Merkel is right. Apart from anything else, there is the German constitutional court, which, although it has never done it yet, will, I believe, this time rule that it is not compatible with Article 125, which is against a bail-out, to take the measures that are being taken. Britain must not therefore stand against reform of the eurozone. However, this time we have a Government who will be fairly robust on some of those aspects of the Lisbon treaty on which this country was not consulted, and the Europeans will have to listen. I think it is perfectly legitimate to point that out. For that reason and some others, I think that we are now likely to see a rebalancing of our foreign policy, which I welcome.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has been paid many tributes, has been a long-standing and consistent advocate of a greater emphasis on the Commonwealth. That is not some romantic view. It is wise for Britain to work with our European partners, who are closest to us; it is also wise that we work with and can influence that substantial body of Commonwealth countries and bring the two influences together in our permanent membership of the Security Council. I hope that there will be no more closures of British missions abroad. I am scandalised by the number of missions we drop. If you wish to be a permanent member of the Security Council you must be represented, and I hope that we will go back to what I advocated a long time ago. One-member missions in a country is far better than no missions at all.

I also hope that there will be a real balancing of our relationship between the Foreign Office and DfID. It is sensible for DfID to operate as a separate ministry, but the degree of separation is almost to deny the existence of a foreign policy. Our development aid policy must reinforce, marry up with and work with our defence policy.

The Foreign Secretary in another place, in a Statement today, which is extremely important and which we should take account of, said that he hoped that there would be a greater degree of co-ordination of our foreign, defence and security policies than ever before. I come to the real nub of the matter. Much of this debate has been about spending money. Everybody has advocated their own foreign policy that they wish to protect. We have to face it. There will be a tough call on every aspect of expenditure, not least on defence. For that reason I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Astor, whose commitment to the Armed Forces has been very strong in opposition and I know that it will be in government. It will be very useful in this Chamber.

The Strategic Defence Review is like none we have seen in our lifetimes. There have to be cuts in the defence budget and I say that as someone who has advocated a 3 per cent increase in defence expenditure in the recent past. I know that projects that I strongly wish for will have to be cut. It was good to hear a robust speech from the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. Those who may think of the Liberal Democrats as the weaker partner can turn to his speech. There was not a single expense that he did not seem to advocate.

However, if we are to have that SDR, let me make a few suggestions. First, I hope that the Chief of the Defence Staff, seeing a new Government in place, will do the honourable thing and step down fairly soon. We need a new Chief of the Defence Staff who owns this review and will carry it through for the next three, four or five years. That is extremely important. The Ministry of Defence, to be frank, has not had a good reputation over the past four or five years. There have been far too many people advocating exactly what they desire and not what they can achieve. We have stacked up some contractual obligations that we can barely fulfil. The next people who I hope will own the SDR are, first and foremost the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as the Defence Secretary. This is not a review that can be pushed, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, as a purely internal review. It has to be a strategic review and I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, that it must take a longer view. If some policies have to be postponed, let us try to postpone those that do not impact on our longer-term future. On the question of blue water diplomacy, are we narrowed down to a purely European view of foreign and strategic policy? If we decide that we do not want that we have to back it with some resources. It would be a tragedy to go back on the aircraft carrier decision, although for the life of me I cannot see why it was necessary to replace our existing aircraft carriers with ever larger and even more sophisticated aircraft carriers.

I have spoken on the nuclear question before and I do not want to delay the House. I have published a book called Nuclear Papers, which examines the nuclear issues in 1977 and 1978. We needed an in-depth survey. The idea that you can leave aside that question and simply replace it with a ballistic missile system, with all the other cuts that will have to be made, is absurd. We have to look at all the options; we have to look at the review objectively and take as long term a view as possible. The review must consider that our strategic interests are not locked purely into Europe but are global and worldwide. As a trading nation we must marry up all the difficult decisions that relate to the defence budget, the Air Force and the Army. That will not be easy and the House will have to consider the review very carefully. It is also an urgent review but it must be owned by the whole Government not just the Ministry of Defence.