Queen’s Speech

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, the gracious Speech last week set out the Government’s intent to prevent conflict and reduce terrorism. These are ambitious aims to encapsulate in such a few words, especially given the kind of international turmoil that we currently see in so many parts of the world. So how are they to be achieved?

The conflict in Syria steals most of the headlines these days, and not without cause. The consequences for the Syrian people are tragic and the stresses on the wider region become ever more worrying, but what can external actors do to help address these issues? The first thing, perhaps, is to ensure that by their actions they do not make the situation even worse. We know little for sure about the Syrian opposition groups. We believe that some of them at least are pursuing an extremist agenda, and the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, has pointed out some of the other concerns about the nature of the conflict. The Assad regime is extremely unsavoury and we would certainly like to see something better in its place, but how content are we that this is actually achievable?

These are not new questions, but there is a natural concern that while we grapple with them, so far unsuccessfully, more people are dying and the humanitarian situation is growing steadily worse. I have sympathy with this concern, but it is important to remember that the issue in Syria is essentially political in nature and that any attempt to address it must itself be at root political. Employing military force in the region without a clear and achievable political objective would be a leap into the unknown and would certainly risk worsening the situation rather than improving it. We most certainly can and should be making every effort to contain the regional impact of the conflict. We see the consequences in Turkey, in Lebanon and, most worryingly of all, in Jordan. Sustaining and increasing our support for the latter country is perhaps one of the most useful things we can do in this crisis, at least in the immediate future.

Meanwhile, President Obama’s second term and a new Secretary of State present yet another window of opportunity for the Middle East peace process. The current regional turmoil makes progress on this issue more rather than less pressing. The experience of many weary years makes us naturally cautious about expecting too much, if anything at all, from the latest efforts in this regard. Nevertheless, unrelenting persistence is one of the most important prerequisites for dealing with the problem. As has been pointed out already, Israeli settlements are certainly a major obstacle, but treating them en masse is likely to make them a showstopper in any negotiations. Some of these settlements would almost certainly remain on the Israeli side of the line under any land swap deal, while others are much more controversial, and it is on these that negotiators should perhaps focus their efforts.

The Palestinians, for their part, will have to acknowledge that there can be no right of return. This presents all sorts of difficulties, but there are no easy parts to this puzzle. This is another issue on which negotiators should perhaps concentrate their efforts to find an acceptable formula. Most important of all, the peace process needs to focus on constituents within Israel and the West Bank. The leaders are important, but if they cannot deliver the key elements of their constituencies, they will be unable to make the concessions necessary for progress. It may be unrealistic to expect a resolution of the Palestinian issue in the near term, but just a degree of movement on these key points would go at least some way to relieving the air of stagnation and pessimism that seems so prevalent at the moment.

There are of course a great many other challenges for the UK on the international scene, and numerous potential threats to our interests. Other noble Lords have covered or will cover some of these, and time precludes me from touching on more of them today, but they exist and we must guard against them. If we are to do so, we shall need the appropriate resources, including adequately manned, equipped and trained Armed Forces. The Government’s plans for Future Force 2020 set out how that particular requirement is to be achieved. These plans, while constrained to a greater degree than I believe wise, are at least coherent, but when they were conceived during the strategic defence and security review in 2010, it was made clear that they depended on real-terms increases in the defence budget—and, I stress, in the entire budget, not just in the equipment programme—in each of the years after 2015: that is, beyond the period of the 2010 spending review from financial year 2015-16 onwards.

This is the basis on which the Ministry of Defence has conducted its planning over the past three years, but far from increasing the budget from 2015-16 the Government seem to be about to reduce it further, and the prospect for the succeeding years does not look bright. Some will say that the circumstances have changed and the economy is not where, in 2010, we all hoped it would be by now and therefore we have to tighten our belts further. They would say that defence cannot be protected from this further pressure. That may indeed be the Government’s judgment, but in announcing the outcome of the 2010 review in another place, the Prime Minister himself was clear that the plans for Future Force 2020 depend on the sort of budget increases that I have outlined.

One does not have to be a master logician to work out that the reverse must also be true: that without those rises, the Government’s plans for the Armed Forces will be unachievable. That appears to be the current situation. The Ministry of Defence is working to a plan that is not being funded appropriately and that will therefore fail. I should be grateful if the Minister could say in his winding up how his department intends to square this circle.

Finally, I feel that I, too, must say a word about the Afghan interpreters who contributed so much to our operations in their country and who now face such a fraught future. The Government have so far declined to put in place for them a scheme similar to the one that allowed endangered Iraqi interpreters to settle in the UK. I simply cannot understand this. I accept entirely the desirability of talented Afghans remaining in and contributing to the development of their country, and I welcome the introduction of incentives to persuade them to do so, but if they judge that the risk to themselves and their families outweighs the incentives to remain, surely we have a duty to provide them with a viable alternative. It is simply not good enough to say that they can apply for asylum like everybody else; they deserve far better from us than that.

The moral argument for treating these people as a special case is clear, but there is a practical one, too. As the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, noted, we shall certainly need high-quality interpreters in future crises. If we are to persuade people to work for us in such a capacity and in such circumstances, they will need to have some confidence in the long-term prospects for themselves and for their families. We need to be seen as a country that looks after those who serve it. That, I regret to say, is not how we are seen at the moment. The case for a change of course is overwhelming. The Government’s case for their current stance is, to my mind, wholly underwhelming.