UK-EU Security Partnership

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they informed Parliament about the proposals for a future framework for a United Kingdom-European Union Security Partnership, including foreign policy and defence, that were published online on 9 May.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government published slides on the Framework for the UK-EU Security Partnership on 9 May and these have now been laid in the Libraries of both Houses. The contents of the slides build on the Government’s position, which was set out in the Prime Minister’s Munich speech as well as in the future partnership papers published last year. On behalf of the Government, I apologise that Parliament was not informed ahead of publication.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the Conservative MP I heard say yesterday morning that the key to a Brexit process which carries the entire country with it is transparency, and that requires the Government to tell their public and their Parliament about what they intend? Does the Minister recall, for example, active participation in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who a few months ago denied that the EU had anything to do with defence? However, here we have a document that states:

“The UK therefore proposes a security partnership of unprecedented breadth and depth”,


running across the whole field of internal security, foreign policy and defence, and going beyond defence to include,

“development, capability collaboration, defence research and industrial development and space security”—

almost everything except continuing membership. If that is what the Government are proposing, should they not make sure that they carry Parliament and the right-wing media with them?

[Lord Callanan]

Yes, I agree that we need to be transparent on these matters. As I said, procedures have now been put in place to avoid such a situation happening again. The paper should have been laid before Parliament, but it was not and I have apologised for that. It is important that we have a full debate about these matters. There have been extensive discussions in Parliament and I am sure there will be more in the future. Of course, these are proposals which we have laid out. I know that many noble Lords have called for us to be more up front and transparent about our negotiating positions and we are endeavouring to do that as far as possible. The noble Lord will have noticed that the Prime Minister has announced the forthcoming publication of a White Paper on the subject and I am sure we will have further discussions in Parliament on that. However, on the noble Lord’s central point, I agree that we should have been more transparent on this occasion.