Queen’s Speech

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I have decided to concentrate on things that I have said in the past, not because there is anything new that I wish to say but purely to add strength to the things we have considered in previous debates.

First, perhaps I may bring up a point that I raised months ago. The very first sentence of the gracious Speech contains the words,

“my Government’s priority is to secure the best possible deal”.

I think that in all respects that last word is a shocking one to use. Anybody who does a business deal knows that that is not the right word. If you really want to continue in friendship and in partnership, as we emphasise that we do all the time, you come to an “agreement”. You do not want to leave the table feeling that—I could use stronger words—“Somehow or other, I’ve got my leg over. I’ve got the best out of it”, and so on. You carry on on the basis of, “I want to do it again—I want us to be together”, and I implore the Government and the media to stop using that term. When I heard it on Her Majesty’s lips yesterday, I was sure that others in this House must have felt the same way.

We are very fortunate in having my noble friend Lord Howe leading this debate. His experience and knowledge of defence and foreign affairs—and if I may say so, just his sheer common sense—are known by us all. We are also fortunate in having the Chancellor because, as far as I am concerned, without a strong economy nothing happens—a strong economy dictates everything. Of course, the Chancellor has the advantage of having a background in defence, having been the Defence Secretary. Therefore, I hope that our all-party approach, particularly in this House and certainly in the other place, will lend weight to what we are talking about.

The National Security Council—I had the honour of being one of the founding members of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy—is certainly a worthy enterprise, but does it work properly? In my view—a view shared by others—it does not. It is not set up properly, and a key factor that I would like the Government to consider is that the chiefs should be invited to form a very important subordinate committee of the National Security Council in the years to come.

Points about foreign policy have been raised today. We need vision and clarity. Several noble Lords have talked about our values and what they stand for. Many small countries look to us for the sorts of values that they too treasure.

As many of your Lordships are aware, I am a strong supporter of achieving our aims in the Brexit negotiations. However, as time goes on, I am troubled by one aspect of them. They cannot dominate everything. As has already been mentioned, it is events that dominate, and the Brexit negotiations cannot be the key factor for the next two, three, four or five years. In my view, the defence of the realm and security on all fronts—cyber or whatever—are more important, because events could push Brexit completely to one side if things get out of control. Therefore, I feel, and have requested, that we should have a debate on defence—in particular, to ask whether the Government will have a full defence review, although I know that some will ask whether it would serve much purpose. However, we need more money, and if our armed services are to do the job that is expected of them in this new, global world, a full defence review in the round will demonstrate their needs very clearly. I suggest that a big factor in the negotiations in Europe—certainly with the eastern European countries—will be that enhancing our hard power will play an important part, to say the least, in our role in NATO and, unquestionably, with the Americans in Washington.

I do not have much more to say other than to ask the Ministers to seriously consider not allowing events to dictate our future, although unfortunately we will have no control over that. Perhaps I may leave it to my noble friend Lord Howe—and of course I very much welcome my noble friend Lord Ahmad to his new role—to look at the depth of our foreign policy and to bear in mind that defence is still a key factor for any Government.