Falkland Islands Defence Review

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his very kind words. As regards Russia, the Ministry of Defence undertakes regular assessments of potential military threats to the Falkland Islands to ensure that we retain an appropriate level of defensive capability to address any such threats. We remain vigilant and are committed to the protection of the Falkland Islanders.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I lost 22 of my boys when my ship was sunk in the retaking of the Falklands, so the islands are particularly close to my heart. I am very glad that we are showing a commitment to keep defending them. The Argentinians’ behaviour is consistently extremely bad; for example, they are calling the new class of frigates they are buying from China “Malvinas class”, which is a clear statement of intent, even if currently they do not have the capability to do much about it.

I am concerned that our strategy for the whole South Atlantic has not been cleverly put together as regards things such as the British Antarctic Survey, how we look upon Antarctica, the other islands we are responsible for, the mail steamer that goes from Tristan da Cunha, as well as the defence aspects of the Falklands, all of which should be looked at together. Every time I go to the Falklands I am delighted to see that society there is now wealthy and vibrant, getting wealthier—and, my goodness me, if they get oil, they will be like Kuwait. Are they going to pay a large chunk of that £185 million? We seem to have almost no money, looking forward to our large defence budget, which will plunge to below 2% of GDP.