Direction of Government

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, what comes across is how important confidence was. That was voted for by the people of Northern Ireland with a sense of optimism. We have to redouble our efforts to recommit to all the values that were expressed in that, and the hope that was expressed in that. Northern Ireland only operates with cross-party consensus and agreement. When that is damaged, it is not just the institutions that are damaged but the future of Northern Ireland too. When there are protests et cetera on TV, it damages the economy of Northern Ireland as well. We may not agree on everything, but I share with the noble Baroness a commitment to ensure that the future of Northern Ireland should be as positive as possible. I hope we would both agree to work across parties and make all efforts to ensure that can happen. She is right that the Prime Minister is enjoying being Prime Minister, but he is only enjoying it because he wants to achieve something, and Northern Ireland will be part of that.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, back in 2010 I knew the Prime Minister slightly; he has probably forgotten me. He was a rather nice man, I thought, and I did offer to help him with his first election campaign for leader. He did not accept me, and the MPs who knew him did not vote for him. The question I have is this: in his Statement, the Prime Minister did not mention defence spending. This coming year, we are meant to be spending 2.75% on defence and, by 2030, we are meant to be spending 3%. Can my noble friend the Minister help with that?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am pleased to be called the noble Lord’s noble friend. He may not have stayed for the whole three and a half hours of the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday, but I certainly heard him talk about defence. He was very clear that one of the reasons that the Chancellor is the Chancellor is because he has been Defence Secretary and understands these issues. What he was clear about was that the Budget and the spending review will set out how we get to 3.5% by 2035, and also establish the path to 3%, and how that will be done. He was very clear on that.

I think that there are two sides to this. As a country, we have to step up on defence. I would say to the noble Lord that we promised in our manifesto, at the last election in 2024, to get to 2.5% spending on defence in this Parliament. We have already achieved that, and I have to say that the party opposite never got to 2.5%—but circumstances and times are changing. I can assure the noble Lord that the Prime Minister did talk about this in the Statement. I do not expect every Member of this House to listen to the full three and a half hours, but it might be worth the noble Lord reading Hansard, because the Prime Minister was quite clear about his commitment when he spoke yesterday in Parliament.

UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, first, I join everybody else in congratulating both the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, and her kinsman—or father, whichever term she would rather have—on their speeches, because I think it is a great occasion. We shall miss the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, for whom I have even spoken, and he still spoke to me after I had spoken for him at his constituency.

I should say that I find this issue very depressing. We are seeing our country and our country’s interests being undermined by human rights lawyers. Obviously, we have the Prime Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, and Philippe Sands. I think—somebody will correct me if I am wrong—they all served in the same Chambers at the Bar. I must say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for whom I have a very high regard—he was a very good chairman of the committee when I was on it—that to use Philippe Sands as an interviewee is slightly strange, since he was a paid counsel of the Mauritian Government. I think that is right—noble Lords can correct me if I am wrong—so it seems to me that he is slightly party pris.

We heard from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, about lawfare, and I think that this really is lawfare. I will quote Sir Christopher Greenwood, who I do not know at all. He said, according to the International Agreements Committee report, that the consequence of not ratifying the agreement is that

“it completely undermines our position that we are a state that wishes to promote the rule of law in international affairs”.

I am sure that Christopher Greenwood is a quite excellent lawyer, but he had, of course, been with the court for a dozen years or so, which does sometimes make you slightly think in a particular way. Any court—the International Court of Justice is one—is actually the servant of the members of the court. I think I am right in saying that, of the 15 members, one was Somali, one was Russian and one was Chinese. Somebody can correct me if that is wrong.

I shall also share a quote, because I think it is rather important, about the security of the UK, which we heard about from my noble friend Lord Howell at some stage. Last week, we had the delayed report of the national security strategy issued by this Government. I think it was the Foreign Secretary who said that we want to make the UK

“a harder target for our enemies.”

He also said that we have to have

“clear-eyed view of how we engage with major powers such as China in order to protect our national security and promote our economic interests”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/6/25; col. 975.]

If anybody is under any illusions about this, the report states:

“Instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy and the undermining of our economic security have increased in recent years. Our national security response will therefore continue to be threat-driven”.


I do not consider China an enemy, but it is certainly not an ally. We have to be open-eyed about this. For instance, we might consider the treaty that we had with China over Hong Kong and how well it has stuck to the details of that.

We heard the most extraordinary attack on the Conservative Government by the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats. I was sitting next to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, not a moment ago; I quoted to him what the spokesman said, and he said that that was absolutely not the case. Let us not just tick through the details; let us talk to people such as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who were there.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I refer the noble Lord back to Hansard for the Statement from James Cleverly, and I am afraid that he should withdraw his comment that I was incorrect. I quoted the Written Ministerial Statement from the Foreign Secretary.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I heard the noble Lord; earlier, we heard the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad and Lord Cameron, say entirely different things.

On the marine protected area, environmental matters are extremely important to the whole world. Can the Minister tell us in summing up how Mauritius will protect the reefs? We do not have enough boats to do it, and what boats does it have?

Finally, on the treaty, I have mentioned the treaty on Hong Kong. How about international law in the case of the Budapest memorandum, where Russia agreed to respect the treaties with Ukraine? Treaties are marvellous, but not always held to by the people who sign them.

Parliamentary Commercial Department

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I want to add just one thing about what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said. The dominance of the position of the House of Commons certainly resulted in the death of one Member of this House. Many years ago, when I came in, I fought for four years to get a defibrillator established in this place, because repeatedly a number of Members of the House collapsed after speaking. Most of the time this was innocent but, once or twice, we had cardiac arrests and people were taken to St Thomas’s Hospital.

When I finally tried to raise this with the officials of this House, I was given a meeting with officials in the other place and told very firmly that the House of Commons would not accept this. One of the things that was said to me was, “What would we do if a member of the public collapsed in the Gallery? Would it be our responsibility?” Interestingly, the medical advice in this House was not considered sufficient for the medical advice in the lower House.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Perhaps I might briefly add to what my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, focusing in particular on the door. There are many other points that could be made. I think it seems very sensible to do things jointly, although I am concerned this will lead to even less accountability. The important thing is to find out who is accountable. It is alleged that the door was going to cost £2 million and may have cost £11 million or £12 million. If this were in the private sector, I am afraid that people would be sacked. If it is true, we need answers and somebody, on every decision that is made, needs to be accountable.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Can I ask the Leader of the House to investigate the position of access to the Terrace? One of the greatest privileges of the House, apart from the Chamber and Library, is access to the Terrace. Our Terrace is infinitely smaller than the Terrace next door, which I enjoyed as a Member of the other place. It strikes me that many of the places are taken on the Terrace by Members of the other place and their guests, leaving not enough places for Members of this House. I think it should be reciprocal. I am quite happy to allow Members of the other place to use our Terrace on the basis that we are able to use theirs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

The Leader has done extremely well, if might say so, because she is not responsible for this; she is not to blame. Once upon a time I used to deal in assaulting buildings, and let me tell you that you would not assault a door where two police officers with submachine guns were standing. Now you can assault that door, because there are no policemen with machine guns—you would go round the back, if you wanted to assault it. I am afraid that the advice she was given on security is, frankly, nonsense.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I have to say to the noble Lord that it is not nonsense. There have been officers with machine guns on the door, but that does not take away the need to have a proper door that is secure for the House. I do not know whether the noble Lord has ever read the Murphy review, which covered both Houses—it may have been published when he was in the other place; I am not sure whether he was in this House then. We need to take these things seriously. All of us will have solutions and simple answers and will say, “If you do this, it will be fine”. But let us just look at getting the door up and running. The purpose today is to look to the future, and the issue before us is the joint department. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments; I hope that my next job will be at the UN.

Cuba: Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I hear what my noble friend says, but we cannot commit to a specific timeline for ratification, as this is a matter for Parliament. However, initial steps to undertake the cross-government consultation are under way. We do not currently have plans for provisional implementation, but I point out to my noble friend that positive collaboration with Cuba is possible without it, as evidenced by the recent visit to Havana by United Kingdom climate experts.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I went to Cuba a few years ago, and we got to know a taxi driver who drove us around—he was a charming man. When he relaxed, I said to him, “Would you like to go to America?” He said, “Are you mad? Everybody I know wants to go to America”. The reason is that they were being oppressed by the ghastly Government on that “peaceful island”.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Lord says. The embargo does negatively affect the living standards of the Cuban people but, more importantly, it impedes the economic and political development of the country. That is why this country, including the previous Government, supports this move.

Gaza

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

We made our position very clear to the Israeli authorities about their actions risking breaching their obligations under international humanitarian law. We have, however, gone further, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has said. We issued a statement this afternoon, together with France and Germany—again, our strong allies in this—making it clear that blocking aid is unacceptable and should be stopped. We are monitoring the situation; we know that a substantial amount of aid is trying to get in, and we will continue to pressure the Israelis to remove that block.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, would it be possible for the Minister to explain whether there is any inter-relationship between the American plan—with the rather unusual large, golden statue of Mr Trump—and the Egyptian and Arab plan, because those two might, funnily enough, work a little bit together?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Obviously, the situation is incredibly complex, but if there is one thing that I think will be key to finding a solution, it is the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That is key, and there must be a Palestinian component in that. We will press to achieve that, and we will work alongside US President Trump and his team in the coming weeks to bring it about. Our long-standing position has been that we will recognise a Palestinian state at the time that is most conducive to that peace process, but we are certain that if we can ensure that that normalisation between the Saudis and Israel takes place, we can progress rapidly.