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Britain cannot stand alone on the challenges of global warming, which is now the greatest threat to Britain’s long-term security, as it is to others. It cannot stand alone on the non-state threats of transnational terrorist movements and cross-border crime, and on our fragile world economy—although, as a semi-detached member of European financial and economic co-operation, Britain will often find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer sits outside meetings of EU Ministers discussing financial questions, or as the euro, the dollar and the renminbi are negotiated. Again, Britain cannot stand alone on population growth and on the pressures for migration. Any coherent British foreign policy must start with co-operation with our neighbours.
Of course, the European Union is not ideally designed for all Britain’s specific interests. Other members have
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However, the British press and British politicians—including far too often Labour Ministers, as well as our previous and current Prime Ministers—portray European diplomacy as a battle between Britain and the rest, in which we stand alone embattled against the Continent, brave and honest Englishmen in danger of being outwitted by the devious French and the wicked Germans.
That is a powerful myth, which feeds into the Churchillian image of the Anglo-Saxons, as in 1940-41, alone but resolute in the face of the threat from across the Channel. Next Sunday, on Remembrance Day, we shall celebrate and symbolise that powerful British recollection, which we have not yet managed to move beyond. But it is now a myth. France and Germany have long ceased to be the motor of European integration in close partnership. Both Governments would prefer very clearly a closer partnership with a constructive British Government, if our Government were capable of responding. The German Government cast a dissenting vote in the Council of Ministers far more often than the British Government. Those who campaigned against the constitutional treaty in France argued that the Anglo-Saxons had taken over the European Union. Indeed, with four Nordic members, economic liberals in government in Portugal and the Netherlands, and eight new members from central and eastern Europe, the balance of approaches in the European Union is now far closer to our own than to the protectionism of the old French left.
The underlying reality is that Britain shares interests and assumptions across most international issues more closely with our partners within the EU than with the current Administration in Washington, than with the Commonwealth, which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, prefers to cultivate while his party protests actively about Zimbabwe, or than with other groupings across the world. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that as African members of the Commonwealth resist our good governance agenda, with real problems about corruption in the use of aid, I would hesitate strongly in transferring more of our aid budget to the Commonwealth multilateral framework rather than working with our partners in the European Union.
On energy and climate change, on the Middle East, on Israel/Palestine and Iran, on Russia and on world poverty and development, our interests go most closely with our European neighbours. For example, the European Union collectively provides more than half of world development assistance. But there is a wide gap between the realities of British co-operation and the nationalist rhetoric that Ministers prefer to adopt. On border control, for example, the long-term
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On foreign policy and defence, who would remember now that the European security and defence policy was launched by Tony Blair at the Pörtschach informal summit in 1998 and jointly provided by Tony Blair and President Chirac at St Malo? Once the Daily Mail dubbed it the “European army”, Ministers took fright. The Daily Mail of course thinks that this is yet another Franco-German plot to force British soldiers into what it calls a “militaristic” Europe—wearing jackboots, of course, as part of their uniform. Since then, Ministers have done their best to pretend that this has little to do with us.
Yet, underneath it all, we are deep in the middle of it still. The head of Mr Solana’s foreign policy secretariat is a British official on secondment from the Foreign Office. The head of the European Defence Agency is a British official on secondment from the Ministry of Defence. Throughout last year, the head of the EU military staff was a lieutenant-general seconded from the British Army. You do not read that in the Daily Mail and Ministers do not tell us about it either.
The other week, in Brussels, negotiations on the European External Action Service began. Clear British interests are at stake. The Foreign Office budget is being cut and the number of missions that we have in overseas countries is going down. We have just discovered that Burkino Faso has been elected to the UN Security Council and we do not have a mission in Burkino Faso to look after our interests as a permanent member of world status of the UN. In reality, we share posts abroad with a number of other European countries—more than most others. We share most often with the Germans and even occasionally with the European Commission, but you do not read that unless you get to page 200 of the FCO annual report, in the appendices. As discussions start in Brussels on the future shape and structure of the European External Action Service, I am told that the British are sitting silent on the edge of the debate for fear of word seeping out to our Eurosceptic press. That goes against Britain’s national interests, for fear of upsetting the illusions of the domestic conventional wisdom.
Ministerial rhetoric is all about red lines and resistance, even when some red lines cut across Britain’s long-term interests. In contrast, there is no whisper of a red line in our relations with Washington, under either Democrat or Republican Administrations. On the Middle East peace process, neglected for the past six years, Tony Blair hoped that acquiescence in Iraq would win American
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Iraq has, of course, been the greatest disaster not only for British foreign policy over the past 10 years, but also for the stability of the Middle East. But American policies in Lebanon, towards Syria and above all towards Iran have not been entirely rational. America’s refusal to negotiate with Iran in 2003-04 and the clamour in Washington for enforced regime change do not inspire confidence. Are there any red lines for Her Majesty’s Government in this? Have we warned about bombing Iran? Have we condemned what appears to have been American connivance in the unexplained Israeli air raid on Syria this summer? On climate change, what have we said? When was the last major speech by a British Prime Minister in Washington, laying down the line to an American audience on the urgency of that global issue?
On missile defence, on which our Government have accepted all American requests and on which the US Administration are now negotiating over our heads with the Russians about the terms and conditions of future deployment, what are the Government telling Parliament? A Written Statement slipped out on 25 July, just as we rose for the summer. It referred to the need to protect the West against “rogue states”, accepting American concepts and American language to justify British acquiescence in an American project. Some months ago, the Financial Times said of Conservative foreign policy that it was odd to find a British political party dedicated to following the national interests of another country. I sometimes think that that could also be said of new Labour’s foreign policy. It is, after all, what Rupert Murdoch would wish.
A progressive foreign policy must start with greater honesty in explaining to the British people Britain’s underlying international interests and capabilities and how best to pursue those interests in co-operation with like-minded partners within the capabilities, capacities and finance that we are prepared to devote. Later in the debate, my noble friend Lord Lee of Trafford will talk in more detail about the capabilities of the Armed Forces and how better to match commitments to the limitations of what any British Government are prepared to spend.
I want to end with a question for the new Labour Government as they attempt to straddle the divide of nationalism and internationalism between the illusions of the Anglo-Saxon special relationship and the necessities of European co-operation. It is now 15 months to the arrival of a new American president in Washington, with a new team that will set out to launch its own vision of foreign policy and call on its European allies and partners to fall in line behind it. We now know that this will be before the next general election, so it will be on this Government’s watch. What will new Labour’s response be and how will it
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4.15 pm
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, to her new responsibilities. I look forward to getting to know her and to working with her. I hope that she will not take it amiss though if I say how sad and distressed I am that the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, has left us. He was an outstanding Minister and acknowledged as such on all sides of the House. I found him extraordinarily helpful to work with and his reputation is wide and respected in all parts of the defence community outside. It is a surprise that he has gone. One so often hears of Ministers who have been very hard pressed—in his case as a part-time Minister in defence, not as a full-time Minister—who go to have more time with their families. For a Minister to say that he wishes to have more time with his racing cars is a novel approach. But I hope that he gets many chequered flags. He certainly deserves them for all the work that he did in his job in the Ministry of Defence.
A couple of weeks ago, in a “Sky News” interview, the Chief of the Defence Staff said that while the military is an essential element in bringing Afghanistan to its rightful place in the 21st century, it was an enormous project that will take decades and ultimately can only solved politically. In June, our new ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, said,
So we have two highly respected and well informed senior officials outlining a long-term overseas commitment for the Armed Forces. Their views no doubt reflect the private position of the Government though, perhaps understandably, I have not heard a Minister put it in quite such stark terms. We are long past Dr Reid’s statement in early 2006 when, as Defence Secretary, he said that he would be,
To be fair and accurate, Dr Reid also said at the time that the deployment of UK forces would be a complex and dangerous mission. Events have proved him right on that. Our force levels in Afghanistan are approaching double those originally committed in 2006.
So we must plan to be heavily involved, on the ground and in the air, in expeditionary warfare, a long way from home and for years. At current levels of expenditure our forces have been sorely stretched. The drawdown in Iraq is most welcome but it will not do
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We have now learnt the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Ministers have made much of the further 1.5 per cent real increase in the defence budget over the coming three years. It is welcome, certainly, but is it enough to meet expeditionary commitments stretching into the distant future?
And is that the whole story? In his Statement about retaining a nuclear deterrent capability, the Prime Minister said:
“As before, we will ensure that the investment required will not be at the expense of the conventional capabilities that our armed forces need”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/12/06; col. 23.]
Indeed, in answer to my question to the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, on the same Statement, she replied:
“What I said in the Statement and in response to questions was that this would have no impact on our conventional capability. That is the commitment which has been made”.—[Official Report, 4/12/06; Col. 987.]
In spite of that, it was expecting too much that deterrent expenditure would be ring-fenced. It has now been subsumed in the CSR defence allocation. Moreover, there seems to be a tendency for the Treasury to expect some urgent operational requirements to be met from within the defence budget allocation, not as a charge on the contingency fund that meets the operation costs of our forces in theatre. The £2.2 billion that we learnt today has been spent on urgent operational requirements in order to support our troops on operations is another example of defence underfunding in the past. Far from there being no impact on our conventional capability, it seems that for such requirements the Armed Forces are to get, relatively, no more, and in real terms probably less, as expenditure on the deterrent grows. By all accounts the budget is well short of planned requirements. Something must give.
The increasing use of PFI to meet defence requirements, the constraint of contracts already entered into with industry that cannot be broken without much nugatory expense and other fixed costs such as pay-in pensions mean that there is considerably less scope to trim expenditure to fit a budget than was true in the past; so much so that, unless further funds are made available, some major project in the future equipment programme will have to be seriously delayed or even abandoned. Salami-slicing—the default tactic in “budget lite” situations—is unlikely to yield enough.
If the axe is to fall on a major programme and the deterrent is to continue, as I believe it should, what should it be? I fear the future carrier programme must be most at risk. If we are to be largely committed in Afghanistan for decades, and so unlikely—indeed, unable—to be much deeper embroiled elsewhere, there are no tasks for a strike carrier force that cannot be better mounted from bases in or around Afghanistan. We needed our carriers when Argentina invaded the Falklands, but now there is a main base airfield at Mount Pleasant. Even if the Argentinians,
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On a more detailed level, I fear that the gap of eight to 10 years between the withdrawal of the Sea Harriers in 2006 and getting the carriers and Joint Strike Fighter into service will face the Fleet Air Arm with an almost impossible problem of recruiting, training and retaining enough fast-jet pilots and engineers and developing their essential leadership and other expertise on time. Already at RAF Cottesmore, where the remaining Sea Harrier naval pilots and ratings are based, there are shortfalls in skills, which are being met by Royal Air Force personnel. The impact on the defence industry, particularly shipbuilding, cannot be overlooked, but one does not need four acres of open deck to operate UAVs, which might provide a more realistic and affordable long-term capability for maritime aviation.
The pressures on recruiting and retention across the three services, particularly in certain key activities, mean that the first call on additional funds should be people-related, including steps to improve harmony, accommodation, pay and compensation. Much has been said recently about the military covenant, a vital element in sustaining the loyalty and commitment of our fighting forces. Time does not allow me to develop my misgivings about the way the Government are failing to honour that covenant. Indeed, defence did not figure in the gracious Speech. However, the covenant should be with not only the Government but the nation as a whole. I have been struck by how much support the United States armed forces and veterans enjoy from their public and private business. It is almost certain that a US service man or woman, on producing their service identity card, will be given a discount on their purchase by the retailer. Is that too much to hope for or expect in this country? Giving discounts to 200,000 service personnel would make little difference to bottom lines and have a minimum impact on shareholder dividends or value, yet I can think of no more practical and welcome way to show national appreciation for all that our forces are doing. Every little helps, it is said. Will any retailer agree to offer discounts, or even extra points on loyalty cards, to our serving personnel to show that they are appreciated? I commend this idea to your Lordships.
4.26 pm
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, of the Government’s many policy commitments in the gracious Speech, I welcomed particularly the final one: that the Government,
- “will maintain Britain’s strong commitment to reaching a lasting peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians”.
I was in the Middle East some six weeks ago on an official visit, during which I met Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem and Ramallah. I saw
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I spoke with mothers in Sderot who were protesting against their Government because of a lack of adequate shelters for schools. They consider that the best shelters are built around and over the existing school buildings to provide a protective shell. They want more shelters, but they also want the IDF to take Gaza again, which I hope will not happen. However, if there is no lessening in the number of rocket attacks, one wonders how long any democratically elected Government can resist the pressure to take some military action. One can only too well understand what Israeli deputy foreign Minister Majalli Whbee, a Druze Member of the Knesset, said to some of us on his recent visit to London; that is, that he can no longer look those people in the eyes, since he had argued with them that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and removal of the settlements was a price worth paying for the peace that it would bring.
I first visited Gaza in August 1967. Israelis had been there only a matter of weeks. It was a hell hole, a vast prison. It had been under Egyptian control, and Egypt would not allow Palestinians into Egypt proper without a special permit, so the Palestinians had been in Gaza since 1948. The Palestinian refugee camps of Gaza, Jordan—now the West Bank—and Lebanon are stains on the world’s conscience; but they are a stain above all on the conscience of those Arab Governments whose purposes it has suited to use the Palestinians for their own political purposes. That started in 1947, when the Arab League rejected UN Resolution 181, which would have made two states, Jewish and Palestinian, out of mandate Palestine and assured the Palestinians that, although the Jewish Agency had accepted Resolution 181, the Arab League would prevent its implementation. With the British mandate ending on 15 May 1948, Israel declared independence on 14 May, which was incidentally immediately recognised by both the United States and the USSR. On 15 May, the forces of five Arab armies, from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Transjordan, which provided the British-trained Arab legion, entered what had been mandate Palestine and fought the 1948-49 war, with the results we all know.
We can only hope now that interests related to Iran and Islamist fundamentalism will at least make some Arab Governments do the right thing by Palestinians. I sensed from talks in Ramallah with the experienced
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First, the Palestinian Authority/Fatah is desperate to achieve an agreement that would produce improvements in the lives of Palestinians to vindicate itself in the face of Hamas. Secondly, a coalition in Israel of Kadima and the Labour party is also desperate to produce improvements for their people to vindicate their position vis-Ã -vis the hardliners of Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, whose electoral victory would almost certainly mean the end of the peace process.
Thirdly, Arab Governments are very worried by the threat posed by Iran and the dreaded possible Shia crescent and by the threat of Islamist fundamentalists to the stability of their own regimes, so at long last they are moved to take action to help to resolve the problems for the Palestinians, by directly contributing materially and politically to the Palestinian Authority. Abu Mazen needs their moral as well as material support.
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