Defence Review

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord in a number of ways. It is important not to rush too far and too fast into this. The question of what forces we want for what ends remains relatively open. The noble Lord’s Question referred to the situation in Europe as the reason why we had to rush. The last time we were in a direct conflict with Russia we bombarded Helsinki and laid siege to Sevastopol. I do not think that is what we want to do this time.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that RUSI has calculated that next year, 2015-16, we will spend 1.88% of our GDP on defence. I also have from the House of Commons Library its post-Budget calculations, which show that we will be spending 1.5% of our GDP on defence by 2019. Does the Minister not think it a disgrace that, having lectured the whole of Europe about coming up to 2%, we are planning and working on a basis of not hitting 2% in future?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will hit 2% this year. My understanding is that, on current trends, we will hit 2% next year. What happens after that is a question for the SDSR and for the next comprehensive spending review, which the new Government will take through. I am sure that the question of the need for more frigates will be high on the agenda for any SDSR.

General Elections: Peers’ Exclusion from Voting

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have spent considerable time over recent weekends and when visiting universities and colleges doing exactly that, and I hope all other Members of this House do the same.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a very strong case for substantial constitutional reform. I fear—as I hope others may fear—that there may be a low turnout and an indecisive result at the election. That may at last push us towards a larger scheme of constitutional reform.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that sometimes it is better not to change things? One hundred and five years ago today, their Lordships of the Admiralty decided to issue a second typewriter to each battleship. Then we had 38 battleships; today we have hardly any ships and thousands of word processors.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the first reference I have to Peers not voting comes from an Act of the reign of King Henry VI, but I regret to say that I have not been up the Tower to check that it is there.

Defence: Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the 2010 SDSR was undertaken at speed, in the context of a very wide gap between defence spending commitments and the Treasury’s ability to fund them. We may hope that after the next election we shall have a little more time—perhaps a matter of six to nine months—before the conclusion of the SDSR. I remind noble Lords that in 1997-98 Labour’s defence review took well over a year. That will allow more time for the sort of debate about our role in the world, the threats we face and how much we devote to meeting these different threats than we had in 2010.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is deluding himself there, because the driver will be the CSR, which will have to gallop down the track very fast. I was disappointed with the Minister’s response to my noble friend on the Front Bench, in terms of the ability to go out and talk to various other people. Does he not believe that we need something like the National Security Forum, and an ability to talk to academe and experts on military affairs, so as to get an input from all parties, moving very fast? The CSR will hit us and we will have to make decisions about spending that will have a huge impact on the military.

Boko Haram

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, in support of my noble friend Lady Kinnock, is it not clear that the Government in Nigeria have focused much more on the coming election and the wealth down in southern Nigeria and have ignored northern Nigeria; and, further, that local government and the police are corrupt and on occasions, as we know, have been helping Boko Haram? Are we putting pressure on the Nigerian Government to correct those faults? Without doing that we cannot really gain any momentum in the other areas the Minister has talked about.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, of course we are working closely with the Nigerian Government on a whole range of issues such as this. The north-east of Nigeria has been neglected compared to the north-west—not only to the south—and the noble Lord knows well the extent to which the oil wealth is now in the south but the northern elite that used to think it ran Nigeria feels excluded. There are many levels of different tensions that are reflected in this.

Iran: Ghoncheh Ghavami

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, talking of returning home, 92 years ago yesterday, the cruiser “Calypso” steamed into Phaleron Bay and picked up a family going into exile. The youngest child was 18 months old and was in an orange box for his cot. He became an Admiral of the Fleet 30 years later. Would the Minister like to thank the Duke of Edinburgh for the huge amount he has done for our nation over that period?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

When the noble Lord mentioned an orange box, I thought we were getting into Mosaic dimensions. Of course, we thank him for his contribution.

Chilcot Inquiry

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think one of the lessons we will have learnt from this inquiry is that time limits are highly desirable. I stress again that the review of thousands of documents, which were at high levels of classification, was unprecedented and did unavoidably take a great deal of time.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, how much has the Chilcot inquiry cost so far? Is it rather like building work in one’s own house that “as soon as possible” ends up costing an awful lot more?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the inquiry has cost £9 million so far. We estimate that by the time it is completed it will have cost £10 million. By comparison, the Savile inquiry cost £100 million.

Defence: Trident Review

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have no doubt that when the Trident alternatives review is published, it will stimulate a good deal of, I hope, informed and rational debate about the future of our nuclear weapons programme and of nuclear weapons as a whole. That was part of the intention of commissioning this review.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, unsurprisingly, the alternatives review that the Minister refers to seems to show that are no real alternatives to replacing the Vanguard class submarines if we wish to maintain our best-value and most capable deterrent. The only thing that will be looked at further is continuous sea deterrent and, even in that, the worst probability is that we will have to order two Vanguard replacements. With that in mind, will the Minister not agree that we should order those two replacements now, to remove the uncertainty hanging over many hundreds—indeed, over 1,000—skilled workers and their families about their future, and to save £300 million?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure that major defence decisions should be driven either by the need to employ a large number of people to build aircraft carriers in Scotland or by the need to maintain employment in Barrow-in-Furness. There are larger issues at stake.

Government Communications Headquarters

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I can confirm most of the questions asked by the noble Lord, but I had better not go into too much detail. An enormous amount of information is flowing into the United Kingdom on any day of the week from a range of other intelligence services. Naturally, we trust the Americans far more than we trust some other countries. But one has to listen to countries that may in many ways be hostile to the United Kingdom but with which we may share some real security interests. That is all part of the very delicate world in which we live and have to operate. None of this is easy, but maintaining British security and, at the same time, maintaining an open society is our underlying intention.

[Lord West of Spithead]

Would the Minister agree that it is somewhat ironic that the so-called whistleblower chose Hong Kong, which is close to and alongside China, as the place to make this statement, bearing in mind its systematic control of the internet within its own country, the way in which it looks intrusively at its own population, and the fact that it has probably been in among the computers of a large number of us here, let alone organisations in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I confirm that, and congratulate the noble Lord on asking a question that did not mention the Royal Navy for the first time in some considerable period.

Order of the Companions of Honour

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Order of the Companions of Honour is only one of the orders of honour in the British honours system. Service to the state is, after all, one of the central principles under which the various orders have been created. Politicians who belong to the Order of the Companions of Honour have all provided considerable service to the state. Indeed, 16 of them are Members of this House. However, as the noble Lord has also noted, there are a number of people who have made considerable contributions in the fields of music, theatre, fiction writing, history, science and elsewhere. I am happy to say that David Hockney, with his very close connection with Saltaire, is also a member.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, talking of honour and recognition, I am sure the Minister is aware that, 69 years ago today, some 6,800 warships, auxiliaries and merchant ships landed British, American and Canadian forces in Normandy, and that 5,500 of those ships were British. I have to say we are not quite in that position today. Four years before—some 73 years ago this week—Operation Dynamo finished, in which we had expected to manage to withdraw some 80,000 troops of the beaten British Army from Europe, but ended up taking out more than a third of a million. In the context of honour and recognition, I am sure that the noble Lord would like to give the thanks of the House for all those people who were involved in those two operations.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a little wide of the mark. It is appropriate to pull the subject back towards the Question by saying that the Order of the Bath has a particularly strong military connection, as the noble Lord well knows. Every time I give a tour of the Abbey, which I do from time to time as a former chorister, I remark that one sees the military banners up in Henry VII’s chapel.

Drones

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are some benefits from unmanned drones, particularly in terms of reconnaissance—maritime reconnaissance off Somalia and so on—because these aircraft have much longer endurance than manned aircraft. I would add that the question of whether distantly controlled aircraft encourage people to be less careful in their use of military weapons is one which I have spent some time studying. I am rather reassured that, because of the ability of unmanned aircraft to loiter over the site, not only is target acquisition more carefully attended to than if you are in a fast aircraft but you are asked to look at what happened afterwards. I am told that this means that those who are controlling these aircraft have a thorough sense of responsibility for what has been done.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, following on from the Minister’s previous answer, whenever one makes war less horrible—war is horrible, death is horrible and being involved in the risk is horrible—and kills people remotely from some leafy suburb in the middle of one’s own country, it makes it remote, which has huge implications and is very worrying. It needs a lot of control. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Armed Forces are well aware of that and that matter is under active discussion at the present moment.

Electoral Register: Young People

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 17th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify whether young Scottish men and women in the Armed Forces will be disfranchised in the context of the vote for the separation of Scotland from the United Kingdom?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I understand that that question is under active consideration.

Spencer Perceval

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have to admit that that was not in my brief. Perhaps I might add that Spencer Perceval was, like Wilberforce, an evangelical, and having read a little about him, I have to say that he was something of a prig. Included within his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography is the fact that in 1800 he wrote a pamphlet on Biblical prophecy in which he referred to the French Revolution as,

“a divine instrument destined to destroy popish superstitions”,

and identified Napoleon Bonaparte as the woman in Revelation, chapter 17,

“who [sits] upon a … beast … the mother of harlots … drunken with the blood of the saints”.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a suitable memorial to the 23,000 Royal Navy sailors who died stopping the slave trade might be more warships for the Royal Navy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I note that the noble Lord makes a very strong point, which I have no doubt he will make again on a number of occasions.

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think noble Lords will understand why continuing recruitment at a lower level needs to continue in order to maintain the correct balance of age groups and skills in the Armed Forces, even as they are reduced. There are opportunities for those selected for redundancy to apply for other skill training within the armed services, so it is not simply one out and another person in.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the current machinations about aircraft for aircraft carriers bring to mind the maxim, “Order, counter-order, disorder” and, rather more coarsely, the ouslam bird? Does he not agree that getting rid of the seed corn now will mean that the generation of the carriers will be rather more expensive and far more difficult than it need be?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all recognise that we are not in an entirely happy situation as far as the carriers are concerned. That is part of the problems which this Government inherited with very large carriers already under way. The question of how far we maintain and renew the skills involved is under active consideration. Our American and French partners will, no doubt, be willing to assist in this. Indeed, discussions are already under way.

Armed Forces: Housing

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, in furtherance of what the Minister said about people owning their own accommodation, it became very clear to us at the MoD that the benefits of people having their own homes were huge. Are the Government now ensuring that there are mechanisms in place to make it easier for our people to own their own homes if they need to, rather than investing in married quarters, which can be awfully expensive in comparison?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I visited Sandhurst the other week, and noted that one of the first things that they had done there was to build houses for some of the staff, which they could buy. It is very much part of what is intended under the new employment model that this will make it easier for service staff to buy their own houses.

Telephone Hacking

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this morning I read the report issued in February of last year by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of another place on exactly this point, in which it makes a number of criticisms of the current situation. However, as I understood the report, it did not go so far as to propose a statutory replacement.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, have the Government got any further with the investigation of deep packet inspection of all our nation’s e-mails by private firms, which read those e-mails and pull out key words for advertising? The previous Government were investigating this. Have the present Government got any further with that because it is very worrying that all these e-mails are being exposed to that sort of scrutiny?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have not been briefed on that matter, which takes us into some very large issues about the whole question of privacy of e-mails. However, I asked a number of questions about privacy settings on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The technology is taking us further forward in a whole range of areas where questions of privacy and unauthorised access to information continue to move forward. In time we may well need to adjust the law to cope with what technology is providing.