Syria and Iraq: Airspace

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with Russia about co-ordinating the use of airspace over Syria and Iraq.

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

My Lords, before I respond to the noble Lord, I am sure that the whole House would wish to join me in paying tribute to Flight Lieutenant Alan Scott of 33 Squadron and Flight Lieutenant Geraint Roberts of 230 Squadron, of RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, whose Puma helicopter crashed on approach to land at NATO’s Resolute Support mission headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 11 October. Our thoughts are with their families and friends at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are also with the families of the two US service personnel and one French civilian who lost their lives, and with the five other NATO personnel who were injured.

The UK has had no conversations with Russia about this issue. The United States, on behalf of the global coalition to counter ISIL, of which the UK is a member, has had discussions with Russia on the safe separation of aircraft and air safety, resulting in a memorandum of understanding on the prevention of flight safety incidents.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and I am delighted to see that he is wearing a red poppy. I am slightly disappointed by his Answer, because I would have liked to have thought that the UK was involved in these discussions. It goes more broadly: I think that there is a lack of willingness to understand the truth of what is happening on the ground, and that is a recipe for losing wars. Unless we start to discuss and talk with Russia, Iran and—I am afraid—the butcher Assad, and all the coalition, we are not going to be able to put together a package that will enable us to destroy ISIL, which is the group that we have to destroy because it is the greatest threat. I urge the noble Earl to encourage the Foreign Office and our Government to get involved in these discussions and perhaps to get some form of contact group going so that we can move forward and destroy this very real threat.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes a series of important points. There are two issues here: one is air safety over Syria and the other is the end to the conflict. On air safety, the memorandum of understanding provides a considerable degree of assurance on the matter of Syrian airspace. He is quite right, however, that ultimately, the only way that we can end the conflict satisfactorily is to have a political solution, which will demand the buy-in of the major powers and regional states.

Syria

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the remarks by General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, on 13 September that the conflict in Syria must be solved at a political level in order to ease the humanitarian crisis, whether the Chiefs of Staff have formally discussed comprehensive strategy options for the defeat of ISIL, and peace and reconstruction in Syria.

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

My Lords, in Syria, we are tackling immediate threats to UK national security, while also seeking a political settlement to the conflict. The ultimate solution, both to the migration crisis and to threats emanating from Syria, must be political transition. The National Security Council is the forum for comprehensive cross-government discussion of strategy and has recently discussed Syria. The Chiefs of Staff also address Syria regularly at their monthly Chiefs of Staff Committee.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for his Answer. However, I am disappointed, because I know that the Chiefs of Staff have not discussed this formally. Does the Minister agree that there is now great urgency to agree a comprehensive strategic plan to destroy ISIL and restore peace? It clearly needs to involve Assad, Russia and Iran, all levers of diplomacy, pressure on money flow, propaganda and military force, and being part of a huge coalition makes it much more complex. Will the Minister assure us that strategic options have been looked at for us to present to the coalition, because we are experts in this, as are the Americans? They have not been so far, but will the Chiefs of Staff be fully involved in this in a formal way?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the analysis that the noble Lord has put forward. We have in place a cross-government, counter-ISIL task force. We are also supporting our friends and allies in the Middle East to broker a solution in Syria. We welcome the international effort, particularly that being conducted by the United States, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which are clearly key players in the area. We encourage Russia and Iran, in particular, to use their influence with the regime to achieve a lasting political transition. There is a blend of tough military action and self-defence at home, but we are also using our good offices, diplomatically, to broker that political solution.

Syria: UK Military Involvement

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I certainly agree, as do Her Majesty’s Government, that ISIL is a serious threat to us as well as many other western countries. That is why we are engaged as fully as we can be in the fight against ISIL over Iraq, and we are conducting surveillance operations with our coalition partners over Syria. As well as that, we are training moderate Syrian opposition forces and forces in Iraq, as the noble Lord will be aware. His analysis of the position relating to the Damascus regime is, I am sure, one that the House will note, but we are clear that we should do nothing to prolong unduly that regime which, as noble Lords will be aware, has conducted appalling atrocities on its own people.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, in September this year I will have been on the active list in the Navy for 50 years. All my experience seems to indicate that the handling of this situation of the embeds has been a total cock-up. When one makes a cock-up one should just admit it, learn and move on. My question relates to a clarification. Are we now saying that UK personnel embedded in other nations will be allowed to be engaged on the ground and in the air over Syria? How many naval pilots are in the air wing of the next carrier which is moving out to replace the carrier in the Gulf, and will be flying operations in Syria?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it will not surprise the noble Lord to know that I do not share his analysis of the handling of this matter. I can tell him that UK pilots embedded with the Royal Canadian Air Force and USAF have permission to strike ISIL targets in Syria should their mission require them to do so. The US unit that UK pilots are currently embedded with has conducted strikes in Syria, but it is important to emphasise that neither the US nor Canada is authorised to attack Syrian regime military forces.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I can say only that the House would be wise to listen to my noble friend. He has immense experience in this area. I fully agree with his comments.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted that we now have a well-planned and integrated strategy, because until now we did not seem to have one at all. I thought the Prime Minister’s speech today about the UK aspect of that was very good. We are beginning to tackle this, but my goodness me, we need to get our act together on all the strands that the noble Earl talked about.

My question relates specifically to Syria. Clearly, the Americans are running the air tasking order for that region, which is highly complex. As the noble Earl said, we are using a lot of ISTAR assets over Syria, so the Americans must at the very least be dealing with Assad and his integrated air defence system, talking to him prior to these operations going on. I would be interested to know how much we have been involved in talking to Assad and his people about this. Clearly he has given permission for this to happen, aside from saying that the Iraqis have. Looking ahead, it makes no military sense only to attack targets in Iraq and not in Syria, as has been said. What sorts of deals will we be doing with Assad? In the final analysis, even if we clear Iraq of ISIL fighters—which we will—we will not have beaten ISIL because it has a haven and base in Syria. We will end up having to do something in Syria that is unbelievably complex and difficult. I am not at all clear how we can move forward in that arena.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, again, I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord West, said. I am not aware of any discussions that have been going on with the Assad regime on the part of UK Ministers. If there is anything I can tell him on that front in writing I will, although he will understand that much of this territory has to remain confidential. Indeed, we do not comment on the detail of specific operations, as he knows. Nevertheless, the overarching point that he makes is fair. We certainly do not want anything we do to assist the Assad regime. I do not believe that we have been guilty of that. However, it is important to counter ISIL wherever it appears and to push it back from the territory that it has gained. After that, we need to address the Assad regime and how, on an international basis, we set about displacing it.

Defence: Budget

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the first thing to say is that our nation is still a world power. This is not popular with many parts of the media and the chattering classes, but it is a statement of fact. It is important for our people’s well-being that our nation should continue to play a leading role in world affairs, and a surprisingly large number of nations in the world want us to remain fully engaged. We cannot be sure how much longer the US will be willing or able to bear the burdens of being the protector of last resort for the “free world”, and we know that as a result of our defence cuts, the US doubts our ability to be a true and worthwhile global ally as the world becomes more dangerous. To put it simply, in this unpredictable and potentially extremely chaotic and dangerous world, we must keep our armour bright and not elect to forgo our independent nuclear deterrent or cut the defence forces any further.

However, what has happened over the last five years? Far from keeping our armour bright, we have cut defence spending by 9.5% and reduced our military capability by 30%. There is insufficient funding to meet the requirements for Force 2020, which was the stated vision of SDSR 2010. Would the Minister tell us what happened to the Prime Minister’s 1% increase in the defence budget that, in 2010, he promised the chiefs would happen by 2015 when the economy improved? This is not the 1% purely to the equipment programme. We seem to be witnessing an unedifying scramble by the Secretary of State for Defence to find expenditure that can be slid into calculations of defence spending so that he can make the NATO target of 2% of GDP being spent on defence. We told other European nations to meet that target but seem unwilling to commit to it ourselves. On that point can I ask for assurance from the Minister that war pensions will not be included in our defence spending submissions to NATO for 2015-16 or that DfID or the intelligence vote expenditure will not be taken into account?

The reality is that we should spend more than 2%. Britain’s GDP is 46% higher today than it was in 1990, when we had three aircraft carriers, 50 escorts and 33 submarines. Today we have 19 escorts and 12 submarines. Decline is a choice. Why have this Government made that choice? The world is less safe as a result and it is not a choice we should make. If Ministers get defence wrong, the nation will never forgive them and the costs in blood and treasure are enormous. Our leaders seem to have lost their backbone. The world is a safer and better place when the UK is involved. The impressive array of soft power tools possessed by the UK needs to be complemented by a comprehensive hard power capability. Sadly, the current spending on defence does not allow for this and is insufficient to allow the Armed Forces to meet the needs of the United Kingdom’s long-term foreign policy. To put it simply, defence is in a crisis and needs an increase in funding.

Armed Forces: Airborne Maritime Patrol

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I hope I can reassure the noble Lord. We will be looking for opportunities to consult a wide range of stakeholders, including industry, naturally, academics and parliamentarians. The Opposition will be welcome to feed in their ideas in the course of that process.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the surveillance of our offshore economic zone and our waters is much broader than just the submarine issue. There is a real resource and money issue. We have already sent two Border Force cutters to the Mediterranean, one of our offshore patrol vessels for fishery protection has gone to the West Indies, and there is insufficient money in the defence budget. If we are going to provide this capability, what capabilities are going to be removed because there is just not enough money to do the things we need to do without going up to at least the 2% of GDP and, ideally, more?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is important to emphasise that the SDSR will be underpinned by a very robust assessment of the threats that face us and the needs that we have to meet those threats. On the noble Lord’s wider point, the Ministry of Defence is just one organisation with a role in the security of the UK’s territorial waters. Under the UK national strategy for maritime security we have a ministerial working group chaired by the FCO. That has been established to focus on maritime security in its entirety.