Common Foreign and Security Policy

Pat Glass Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 General Committees

[The Chair]

We now have until 5.34 pm for questions to the Minister. May I remind members of the Committee that questions should be brief? It is open to a member, subject to my discretion, to ask related supplementary questions.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson, as we are neighbours in the north-east.

I welcome the detailed report. I understand it runs to 301 pages and I have genuinely tried to read and digest them all, but the important outcomes detailed there highlight how the CSFP contributes to global peace and security. I have been involved with this matter for a relatively short time—just longer than three weeks—and the Minister has been involved for an awful lot longer, so perhaps he can help me here. There has been reference to NATO and to how it remains the main defence capability, but my understanding is that NATO is a relatively reactive organisation and that the report is about partnership, building capacity and using democracy building to keep us safe and proactive, rather than reactive. It would be interesting if the Minister could let me know if that is a correct understanding.

We live in an increasingly unsafe world. Some of the threats we face today, for example the re-emergence of Russian expansionism, are old threats, but there are also threats that we were not facing 20 or 30 years ago.

[The Chair]

Is this a question?

[Pat Glass]

You want me to ask questions.

[The Chair]

Would you ask a question, please?

[Pat Glass]

I will get to my question, quickly.

[The Chair]

I would appreciate that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

The question is: is it right that the document is about being proactive, about building capacity across the member states? The European Scrutiny Committee believes that the Government do not have sufficient scrutiny arrangements in place, and the Minister has said that the arrangements have been less than perfect, so it would be helpful if he could set out what the future scrutiny arrangements would be.

[Mr Lidington]

I will try to reply to those points. The purpose of the common foreign and security policy is set out primarily in article 21 of the treaty on the European Union. I will not recite it in full—it is lengthy—but it is basically about developing external action in a way that promotes European values and the fundamental interests of security, independence and integrity, and consolidates and supports democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law in external action. The article goes on to list other criteria too.

NATO is to some extent reactive, in that it is the ultimate guarantor of collective security for allies. I do not want to get drawn too far into this question, but I think it is fair to say that at the Wales summit and again at the Warsaw summit later this year, we are trying to ensure that NATO is less reactive and is, for example, focusing very much on questions of resilience and how to have effective deterrents and response plans in place against hybrid attack, not just conventional military attack.

EU external action has particular value added in two ways. First, of course, not every EU member state is a member of NATO, so countries such as Sweden and Finland are able to contribute to EU missions, including military missions, when they would not be able to do so as part of a NATO mission. For example, the Austrians have deployed forces as part of an EU mission in the western Balkans, whereas they could not participate in a NATO mission. Secondly, EU work can provide civilian expertise in things such as training of military personnel; training of police and security forces; border work, including the training of border forces; and missions to try to improve the governance of neighbouring or more distant countries.

The roles should be complementary. One could argue, for example, that the cyber threat to military communications and military capability should be dealt with at NATO level, but we know there is a cyber threat to key IT systems for energy distribution and even for retail distribution in a modern economy. It is much more difficult to say that those fall naturally into NATO’s remit, but effective co-operation and complementarity between NATO and the EU, if done well, can add up to a very effective security response.

On the question of scrutiny, with every CFSP document we check whether the document in question falls within the terms of the scrutiny reserve resolution. If it does, it goes to the Committee anyway for scrutiny. The challenge from the Committee—it is one I understand—is that some quite significant policy documents on EU foreign policy, including some described as action plans in the past, do not fall within the current terms of reference of the scrutiny reserve resolution. The volume of such documents is so large that I would be reluctant to agree to submit all of them for scrutiny, so it comes down to a matter of my judgment as to which I send to the Committee.

I remain open to trying to agree with the Committee a set of criteria that would enable it to have oversight of the documents that it particularly wishes to see and that are genuinely important. I would, in return, want to have a serious discussion about the fact that some documents—not necessarily CFSP documents—go to the Committee at the moment that frankly need not go through the formal scrutiny process and could be dealt with in a more streamlined fashion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

It is becoming increasingly clear that these European Committees are less about the documents themselves and more about giving a stage to the Eurosceptics in the Tory party so that they can have a go at those on their own Front Bench.

My understanding is that the document is a report on what has happened in the past; there is no new policy in it. If we look at the detail of the document, it is reassuring to see the way in which the CFSP has responded to threats as they emerge across Europe, such as the sanctions against Russia following the illegal annexation of Crimea and the Iran nuclear talks. I am a sceptic and a cynic about Iran, but I am the first to admit that we have had some notable successes there. There is also the investment in Ukraine in the face of Russian expansionism, and the way in which the EU has spearheaded the international strategy in dealing with ISIL/Daesh.

I recall applying to go on a security and defence visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories a couple of years ago. I received a very detailed security and counter-intelligence briefing on all the groups then operating in the middle east, in which ISIL/Daesh was not mentioned at all. That was just two years ago. This illustrates how quickly changes happen in the most dangerous and volatile parts of the world, and how quickly and significantly these changes impact on us here in Britain. It is clear from the report that the CFSP can act mid-strategy to shift emphasis and resources quickly to emerging threats.

We live in an increasingly unsafe world. Threats including global terrorism, international criminality, people trafficking, international slavery and interreligious wars on a scale that we have not seen since the 16th century in Europe all can and will impact harder on the everyday lives of our citizens if we try to tackle them in isolation. They are global, complex and deeply dangerous, and need co-ordinated responses. To suggest otherwise is naive in the extreme, and risks the security of our citizens here and abroad.

I welcome this report. It is a comprehensive approach to promoting democracy and a long-term strategy for making the world safer. It is full of what I think the Minister called diplo-babble, but in many other ways it is pragmatic. It focuses not only on military capacity, but on civilian capacity and training, and on reacting quickly as new threats emerge in the world.