Queen’s Speech

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, this is my first Queen’s Speech debate. The whole House was sorry, as was the Monarch herself, that she was not able to deliver it in person, so I attended a state occasion made possible for the first time by the Regency Act 1937—and I do not suppose it will be the last. I pay tribute to my predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Fall. She is a person of great experience at the highest levels of government and there were many interesting points in her speech.

However, before I begin properly, I want to declare an interest in the 22nd century. I hope the House will forgive me for saying this, but yesterday I became a grandfather for the first time.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

And, like any grandparent, I find myself immediately looking ahead at the lifetime of someone born yesterday—literally—who will expect to live into the 22nd century, and I hope very much that he will grow up to live in a stable and secure world, although that is far from certain.

We all know that there is one essential difference between the debate today and the debate that was held last year, and that is the invasion by Russia of Ukraine, which is the President of Russia’s biggest strategic mistake. The war that has followed decisively changes the nature of today’s debate and the way in which we need to rethink our foreign, defence and national security policy to ensure this country’s safety as well as that of western Europe.

In the few minutes at my disposal, I want to emphasise one key consequence of this shift in the kaleidoscope. We must examine as a priority the nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom’s science and technology needs on the one hand, and foreign and national security policy on the other. We are entering an era where the needs of science and technology and of our economy are increasingly going to determine the strategic outlines of our foreign policy. I am not talking about one obvious facet of the current war, which is that it is being fought with increasingly sophisticated weapons made possible by science and technology. Nor am I talking about the equally obvious use and counteruse of cyberwarfare, which is clearly vital to success on today’s battlefield. I want to draw the House’s attention to a different way of looking at our strategic national security.

We need to have regard to how we secure and safeguard the strategically important resources we need, without which we cannot function as an economy or as a society. This key consideration needs to lie at the heart of our international aims. When I say “strategically important resources”, I am thinking of things such as the strategic metals, including the so-called rare earth metals, on which we now rely for so much. The climate change debate reminds us that we all live on a finite planet, but the resources at our disposal are also finite. One real problem is that some of the resources we need for our security and economy are not by any means under our control. Access to strategic materials must be a major consideration in our foreign and security strategy and policy. Our international relationships and alliances need to have regard to that fact.

More than a decade ago, the Science and Technology Committee in another place produced a well-researched report which highlighted strategically important metals to the UK. It also emphasised the need for a stable supply of these metals, as well as nonmetals such as helium, as we move to a low-carbon economy. I believe that the Government would do well to revisit that report, because it has a lot in it that we still need to learn. The increasing global demand for strategic metals from the West, from China and from emerging economies will not just be a factor in their price; it will be a crucial factor in their availability. Future Governments will need to be alive to the need for sufficient supplies and stockpiling is an expensive option.

We must also consider the effects of conflict and war on access to these materials. After all, we are living through a war which has had a profound effect on access to grain. In the United States, the Dodd-Frank Act requires companies to produce a detailed report on conflict materials that they use; perhaps the Government should introduce similar legislation here.

As part of our national security strategy, we are also going to have to pay more attention to the recycling of strategic materials. Everyone in this Chamber has got a phone—heaven knows, we hear them go off often enough—and in these phones, as your Lordships may know, rare earth metals are used to produce the colours on our screens. Indium tin oxide is used in the transparent film to enable us to use them as touchscreens —and these are things that we are going to need in the future.

Last year, the House voted to set up ARIA, which is a symbol of our science ambition, and we are strengthening the UK Space Agency. But, like it or not, we need to hugely expand our R&D capacity and the current target of 2.4% is not enough. Our science budget will prove as important a basis of our future national security as money spent on military hardware. Arguments that people might have thought were overtaken by a globalised world in the last 30 years or more now need to be completely rethought and reframed. Understanding and adapting to the new landscape must be a critical role for the Executive and the legislature in this new Session, bearing in mind that the balance is, I hope, tilted towards the legislature.