Queen’s Speech

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, it is quite clear and quite right that the Government’s main effort over the coming Session will be on the economy, in particular the search for growth. I intend to speak today about the wider security concerns that were touched on last week in the gracious Speech, but I am in no doubt that in the long run our ability to respond to those concerns depends very much on our economic strength, and that is likely to be slow in building, given the continuing levels of public and private indebtedness. Nevertheless, there are some difficult near-term challenges that loom large on the international scene and, despite our straitened circumstances, we must be prepared for them.

In many cases, the press of events is likely to deny us the luxury of delaying our response until more prosperous times. First, there is the unfinished business of Afghanistan. The next two years will see a decline in our contribution to combat operations, with the Afghans assuming the lead across the country by 2014. This is in my view still the best option for achieving long-term stability. It was never possible for us to solve Afghanistan’s problems. The only people who can do that, if anyone can, are the Afghans themselves, and the sooner they take on the responsibility, the better.

However, I am concerned at the growing sense, not just here but more widely in the international community, that after 2014 we will pretty much be able to wash our hands of Afghanistan. This, I think, is wrong on two counts. First, the Afghans will continue to need expert support in many areas, not least militarily. We may end our direct combat role in 2014 but that does not mean that the Afghan national security forces will be able to operate entirely unaided. The number of people we have deployed will of course reduce dramatically, but we must be prepared for a long-term engagement with the Afghans. We will have brought them to the start line, but they have a long race yet ahead of them, and they will need our help in running it.

Secondly, and even more importantly, we have to resolve the issue of long-term funding for Afghanistan. People often talk of the collapse of Afghan governance following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, but what they sometimes miss is that the Najibullah Government managed reasonably well after the withdrawal of the troops. It was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent end of foreign aid that brought about the regime’s downfall. If the international community fails to put Afghan funding on to a sustainable basis post-2014, I suspect that a similar collapse will be inevitable.

It will of course be difficult to persuade many nations that they should go on footing the bill for Afghanistan when their own financial position is so uncertain. That will no doubt be true here in the UK too. However, having expended the lives of so many of our own people and so much of our national treasure in Afghanistan, it behoves us to sustain the necessary financial commitment to turn that sacrifice into lasting benefit. I would not say that if I thought that progress in Afghanistan was a lost cause; I do not. Indeed, I think that progress will become slightly less difficult once we disengage from combat operations and the Afghans become ever more responsible for their own destiny. It will not be pretty, and it may follow political paths that we did not foresee or would not have chosen, but continuing economic development and increasing levels of education will, in the long run, be good for Afghanistan and good for the region.

That means that they will also be good for us because although we might just feasibly be able to ignore Afghanistan, we cannot ignore Pakistan. The ties that bind us—and there are nearly a million of those ties in the form of UK citizens with family links to Pakistan—are simply too strong. Pakistan’s future is connected, inter alia, with that of Afghanistan. The challenges in Pakistan are to my mind even greater than those in Afghanistan, but neither can be viewed in isolation from the other. So Afghanistan will remain a long-term security interest for the UK, and we must treat it accordingly. With that in mind, I hope that over the coming months the Government will bend every effort to get international agreement on adequate long-term financing for Afghanistan.

The other issue that I want to address is Iran. I do not know whether the ongoing diplomatic efforts to persuade the Iranians to forgo highly enriched—that is, weapons-grade—uranium will be successful. What I am sure of is that a military attack on Iran’s facilities is unlikely to delay the programme for very long and that the consequences of such an attack are unpredictable but likely to be extremely unpleasant for everyone. I know that the Israelis see the issue through a rather different prism, and I have some sympathy with their concerns, but many Israelis would agree with the assessment that I have just put forward. I am also clear that sanctions against Iran are having a real and serious effect, and that this stick, if combined with suitable carrots, may just be enough to cause the Iranian regime to change course. Therefore, I hope very much that we see some substantial progress coming from the imminent talks in Baghdad.

However, in the line of business that I have followed for most of my life, we always reminded ourselves that hope is not a plan of action. No matter how much we might be against an attack on Iran, such a decision is not in our hands, so we need to be prepared for all eventualities. We need to remember that Iran views us with considerable suspicion, which is not entirely unreasonable given our previous form in that country, and that, if attacked, it could retaliate against us and our interests, no matter how loudly we protest our innocence. We must be able to respond if challenged in this way, and the more obvious it is that we are able and willing to respond, the less the chance that we will actually have to do so.

There are of course many other serious challenges to international order and stability, such as in the Yemen and the Horn of Africa, that could affect us here in the UK. Our first response in each case should be through diplomacy and aid. Indeed, I would resist strongly any suggestions that we should increase our military involvement unless such an option were inescapable. We should always be cautious about committing forces, bearing in mind that the outcome of such commitment is always unpredictable.

Nevertheless, the use of military force is sometimes necessary. Our military capabilities have been stretched very thin in recent years, and continue to be so. Of course, at present the Armed Forces are putting a lot of effort into containing costs and managing redundancy programmes. I do not deny the need for this. Balancing the MoD’s books was a necessary task, but defence does not exist merely to keep the books balanced. It exists to serve the nation in times of need, and this requires not just the right equipment and numbers of people but commensurate levels of training for the wide range of contingencies that those people may be called upon to face, none of which can be secured quickly or at no cost.

So, even at a time of such financial stringency, it is crucial that the Government keep their eye very firmly on the international scene and the risks that we face, on the responses that we may have to make to those risks and on the capabilities that we will require to underpin those responses.