Multilateral Disarmament

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that this resolution is not very helpful at all? As he says, there are other areas that we need to focus on such as: reactivating some of the existing agreements; trying to take weapons off immediate readiness for release, which our nation does not do but some countries still do; getting rid of short-range missiles; holding a debate about ballistic missile defence; and finding methods of talking immediately with the Russians and others about de-escalation where necessary.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes some very good points. Among the actions that the UK has recently been taking is work with Norway on disarmament verification, as my noble friend Lord Trefgarne referred to. We initiated the P5 process in 2009 to bring together nuclear weapons states to build the trust and confidence that I referred to. We proposed a programme of work at the conference on disarmament held in Geneva in February this year with the aim of reinvigorating the conference’s work—in fact, that was eventually blocked but we made a good attempt at it—and we continue to press for the entry into force of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. So there is work that we are trying to push along.

Royal Navy: Harpoon Anti-ship Missiles

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what intelligence assessment they conducted before making the decision to withdraw the Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Royal Navy service at the end of 2018 without replacement.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Royal Navy continuously reviews the capabilities it requires. Inevitably, this means choices must be made on where to invest. Work is ongoing across the MoD to consider options for Harpoon replacement. It has long been the established practice not to comment publicly on intelligence matters, as to do so would likely prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the Armed Forces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for his Answer but it fills me with despair. We are paying off HMS “Ocean” and HMS “Diligence” early. We are paying HMS “Bulwark” into reserve for five years. We have 19 escorts, which is a national disgrace, two of which are tied alongside because of lack of manpower due to cuts made by the coalition. Six destroyers of the 19 have major intercooler problems and there is no programme for exactly when they will be repaired. The House of Commons Defence Committee said it is appalling that we have no real replacements for the ageing Type 23s, and now we are removing Harpoon. This is not an abstract issue. For a number of years we will have ships deployed that might suddenly come across an opponent and have to fight—as happened to me and others. We will have ships sunk and people—boys and girls, as mine were—killed. That is not a good thing. Is it possible to look at having available, on standby, some Block II Harpoons, ready to be pulled out very quickly should we need them for our ships? If not, we are standing into danger.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord paints a false picture of the Royal Navy, which for the first time in a generation is growing. We need to be aware of that. He asked a specific question about Harpoon. The current batch of Harpoon missiles we carry has now reached its natural end of life. To replace it would require significant investment in a new missile stockpile. It was the Royal Navy’s judgment that that would be a less than optimal use of its budget for future investment.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

It is too early for me to answer the last part of the noble Baroness’s question, but I acknowledge that the last few percentage points in that 30% target are challenging—there is no doubt about that. At the same time, what we are impressing on our people is that to the extent that they are able to save money from a reduction in the Civil Service headcount, all that money is to be ploughed back into the defence budget under the efficiency agreement with the Treasury.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the comfortable words about our defence forces just will not wash. I am delighted that, in this Chamber and in the other place, there is a growing ground-swell of people who understand that we have not got sufficiently strong defence forces. That awareness is now growing in the public at large. This is a real concern, bearing in mind the risk. Is it possible to get the NSC to have a half-day’s discussion, or ideally a day’s discussion because it always meets for such short periods, to look at what capabilities we have—and my goodness me, they have been suffering death by a thousand cuts—and what that means for our position in the world and what we can do about the threats that are all around us?

[Earl Howe]

Again, my Lords, I am sure that that message can be conveyed very easily to the National Security Council. I recognise the concerns that the noble Lord has. It is no use denying that we live in a more dangerous and troublesome world. I come back to the Joint Force 2025 concept. It is a long-term programme, but it is designed to enable our Armed Forces to respond to a wider range of more sophisticated potential adversaries and complex real-world challenges. I believe that that is the right direction in which to go.

Defence Contracts: British Steel

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we have a policy to build our warships in British yards. Defence requirements for steel in that context are usually sourced by our prime contractors, taking into account—as the noble Baroness rightly said—value for money, quality and the time factor. We remain engaged with our prime contractors to ensure their support in implementing our policy guidance on steel procurement. That emphasises the importance of pre-market engagement activities to facilitate access to supply-chain opportunities for UK suppliers.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, at the risk of a cull on admirals, surely a good way forward would be to order more ships; you would then need more steel. Will the noble Earl confirm that the new solid support ships to be built will use British steel and not be built somewhere abroad? If they are built here with British steel, that helps British shipbuilding and our steel industry, which is a strategic necessity for a nation such as ours, the fifth richest in the world. We need that capability in our country.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the ambition of Sir John Parker in his national shipbuilding strategy is for UK shipyards to be in an excellent position to compete internationally for procurement opportunities such as the fleet solid support ships. The emerging principles of the strategy should be applicable to those ships without the need to restrict procurement to the UK.

HMS “Ocean”

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the amphibious helicopter lift capability provided by HMS Ocean will be provided after she is paid off.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, following the decommissioning of HMS “Ocean” and prior to the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers being brought into service, a combination of the existing amphibious ships of the Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary will provide the lift capability for our amphibious forces.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, which I find very disappointing. I have commanded task groups and amphibious assault groups, and it is clear and well known that the only way of providing simultaneous two-company lift is to have a large deck with at least six spots that can be operated simultaneously and a hangar that can carry up to 12 or 14 helicopters. Anything else will not achieve the amphibious capability that is laid out clearly in our doctrine. What worries me is that this is yet another cut to our Navy. There seems to be cut after cut. Some £65 million has just been spent on refitting this ship in order to run it until 2025, and it is suddenly being laid up in 2018. “Diligence” has just been laid up. Saying we are ordering eight frigates—which I am sure is the sort of response we will get—is great, but they are years late, and there are eight rather than 13. In this highly dangerous world, the most chaotic I have known in 50 years on the active list, can we not put “Ocean” into reserve status, as we will with HMS “Bulwark” next year, and keep her until 2025 when the carriers are online and she can be replaced, and therefore have that capability if it is needed?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the specified service life for HMS “Ocean” was 20 years as from 1998, and we announced in the SDSR 2015 that she would be taken out of service in 2018. The Royal Navy has been clear that, following the decommissioning of HMS “Ocean”, its priority was to maintain surface lift capability using “Albion” and “Bulwark” while preparing to bring the carriers into service with a smooth sequencing programme. I do not share the noble Lord’s perception of the Royal Navy as suffering cuts; if anything, it is very much on the up. We have the arrival of the two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers to look forward to, which will provide immensely greater capability than we have at the moment.

Defence Estate

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the place for the Royal Navy is at sea, and for that you need ships and submarines. I welcome this rationalisation, but can the Minister confirm that this new money, particularly the capital side of it, will be used to run on ships that have already been refitted, as we have discussed in this House, and maybe to buy new ships, and that it will not be used to disguise what is actually a systematic underfunding of defence for Joint Force 2025 because there is insufficient money there to achieve that?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I can confirm that. One of the plus points of the strategic defence and security review, if I can put it that way, was an agreement from Her Majesty’s Treasury that by creating these efficiencies—for that is what they are—we can plough the money back into defence. Some of the money will go back into the defence estate, but in the round it will enable our money to go further. Additionally, we have the promise that during this Parliament the defence budget as a whole will increase by 0.5% in real terms every year. So this is not a plan to somehow secrete money away into areas other than the front line; it will in fact boost the front line.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prescott]

I am here; I am in the other part of Parliament. They did not mention the victims, who were promised justice by every one of us. What do you think those victims feel, reading in the paper now that we are preparing to consult? They were involved in the consultation following incidents in which they suffered press intrusion. I do not believe the situation has changed, and we will have to have a debate about the independence of the complaints system. But I am quite shocked that we are now about to back out of what appeared to be an overwhelming commitment from Prime Ministers and party leaders.

Consultation? It is not consultation. It is leaving via the back door because we do not have the guts to implement a charter that was first agreed to some years ago, and which we all agreed to for good political reasons some months ago. Everybody felt under pressure. Now they feel free to get out of their obligations. That is terrible. It is the start of Parliament reducing its powers. This is a terrible step towards getting rid of the obligation to the individual in our society, who has the right to privacy.

There has been lots of talk about security and about terrorism, but the ordinary person, for whom we all have to be responsible and accountable to, should be protected from such abuse. Frankly, even this Bill is giving more powers to the police. We have seen with the police and the press that it did not stop with Leveson. It is still going on. We have seen what has happened with the police at Hillsborough and Orgreave. All this is a massive way of ignoring our responsibilities in this matter, which we are not carrying out. I agree that it is a diversion, but it is bigger than that: it is a move to get rid of any recommendation to ensure the rights of the individual against the press, in the name of the freedom of the press. I disagree with that, as we all should.

I will support the amendment. If your Lordships really want to settle it, tell the Minister to implement the law and Section 40. That was the will of this House. Let the Government now do what they were supposed to do in agreeing that legislation and carry it out in the name of the freedom of the individual.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, all my experience from three years as Chief of Defence Intelligence and three years as the Minister for Security and Counterterrorism makes me realise how crucial the Bill is for the security of our nation. The Bill has been worked through now over a long period. It has had amazing input, it has amazing cross-party consensus and it is really very important. We have just had 37 minutes of emotive discussion, most of which has nothing to do with the security of our nation. I am very concerned that this amendment might well have an impact against the Bill that none of us intends. I have heard people saying, “There won’t be any difficulty”, but I am worried. If it does, that will be a problem for us. The Bill is too important for it to be delayed to a state where it is not implemented in time. I hear people saying, “That’s not a problem”, but all my experience of government and of life is that things suddenly crop up. I will be much happier knowing that the Bill has been put to bed, because our nation will then be much safer.

Russia: Baltic States

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend has made some very important points and he is right. The UK is leading the way in defence expenditure. We have committed to the NATO 2% target and, during this Parliament, a 0.5% real-terms increase in the defence budget. However, he is right that spending across the alliance is still too low. Having said that, the alliance is making good progress. There are now five allies spending 2% of GDP on defence, an increase from three before the pledge. Twenty allies have increased defence spending in real terms and eight have put plans in place to work towards reaching the 2% guideline for defence spending, which demonstrates a clear political will. The issue now is to translate the political will into actions.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, Russia is actually running a wartime economy. It has the GDP of Italy. Putin is replacing all his strategic triad of nuclear weapons; he is spending an immense amount on arms. He is a revisionist; he believes in spheres of influence. He has espoused the unbelievable policy that he calls “de-escalation”—in other words, if fighting starts you use a tactical nuclear weapon to de-escalate—which I find quite extraordinary. Does the Minister not believe that in this very dangerous period, we must open every channel we can of dialogue with Russia? We must try to have means of access to Russia in order to talk about these issues and have some dialogue about reducing tension and the escalation that is happening right now.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes some very telling points. There is a balance here. He is right that it is important that we continue to engage with Russia, to avoid misunderstandings, to make clear where we disagree, to push for change where we disagree, but to co-operate where it is the UK’s national interest. We are committed to building stronger links—in particular, between the British and the Russian people. People-to-people exchanges will therefore remain important. Cultural and scientific exchanges are in our long- term interests, so we have to keep that balance as it should be.

British Servicemen: Vexatious Law Suits

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to my noble friend. The proposal he makes is being looked at. We have no current plan to amend the Human Rights Act. As and when a British Bill of Rights is presented to Parliament, this is no doubt a matter that can be debated in that context.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, can the noble Earl say why ex-military are treated in a different way in Northern Ireland when it comes to investigation of historic crimes? Surely there is a requirement to look on an equal basis at all these cases, be it a legacy case that includes the military or some other person within Northern Ireland. Why are they treated differently?

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, all I can say in response so far is thank heavens we do not have the coalition Government in power. I support entirely what we have just heard from the noble Lord, the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.

I will choose my words carefully. One of the things that is worth thinking about with legislation like this is that we have the Government today, but we are legislating; we are Parliament. How would the Opposition use this? When I look at my friends in opposition, frankly, I will support the Government to vote this down. I am not prepared to abstain on such a barmy and dangerous amendment, as the noble Lord just said.

I will not go through the amendment. In fact, the noble Lord who moved it did not go through it. He did not explain what it meant by “professional qualifications, achievements” and “public stature” for the appointments. It is preposterous and a nosy parker’s charter into investigatory powers because it does not talk about looking at things; it demands access to all material from an agency and requests information from any agency or government department. There is nothing about the staff of the body. Forget the fact it is envisaged that three out of five members of the board will be of the same political party—it is envisaged to be party political—there is nothing about the security aspects of the staff, let alone the vetting of the people.

It is not, as the amendment says, just about civil liberties. It is in many ways trying to second-guess the powers of the commissioners. It is trying to second-guess the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the parliamentary security committee. We should have nothing to do with it. I hope the noble Lord will think twice if he is thinking about calling a Division on this. They will be laughed out of court.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully support what the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Rooker, have said. The amendment would create a security nightmare and be a recipe for obfuscation, muddle and confusion. Indeed, it is a dangerous proposal and I am amazed that it has been put forward. If the House divided, I would vote against it. Accepting it would be a grave error, and I am surprised and shocked to see such an amendment.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I wonder whether I might be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in his quest in some way to emulate the American model. I was recently at a conference in Vienna as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, where we discussed the issue of financing global terrorism. I had the pleasure of meeting two distinguished members of the American civil liberties board. They spoke at great length; they were eloquent, distinguished and had great expertise. I asked them the question: do their Government have to listen to them? The answer was no—there was no point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I am not a journalism specialist like the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lord, Lord Black. Having listened to the debate, I have a couple of points which I hope the Minister will find supportive. The overall package of the Bill that has now been presented on Report is far more liberal than would ever have come forward from the Labour Government of which I was a member for 12 years. We would have been far less willing to give in the way this Government have. What they have brought forward is remarkable. I can almost prove that. I attended the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, where there were hundreds of fringe meetings every day. I scanned the book, dozens of pages of it, because I was there the previous year when the situation with this Bill was slightly different. Not one fringe meeting was advertised in relation to any part of this Bill. There was nothing about journalism, lawyers or investigatory powers; absolutely nothing compared to the previous two years. I find that quite practical and I hope the Government will find it reassuring.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, to add to that, I too am most impressed with the package the Government have come up with. It is really impressive. It shows a great willingness to compromise but does not compromise our security at all. I also pass my good wishes to the noble Earl on the 219th anniversary of his ancestor raising the siege of Gibraltar.

[Lord Paddick]

I also thank the Minister for this impressive package of amendments. It clearly has to be necessary and proportionate in some circumstances to investigate a journalist. However, I am a little concerned about a law enforcement chief being able to authorise such acquisition through equipment interference, although there is now the reassurance of a judicial commissioner, which did not exist before. I accept what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, said about the concern of the National Union of Journalists that there should be prior notification and the ability to make representations. However, I think it is reasonably clear how difficult it would be to differentiate between the cases to which the measure would and would not apply. In all the circumstances, I think that this is more than the best that we could have hoped for. We are very grateful.