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A new generation of Europhobe parliamentary candidates, hoping to join us at Westminster, has been brought up to believe the Euromyths they read in the Daily Telegraph-a newspaper whose passionate patriotism stops short only of its owners paying tax within the United Kingdom. Cameron as Prime Minister would thus find himself a latter-day Harold Wilson, trapped by his party into pretending to renegotiate our relationship with the European Union, knowing that this will be a charade: a wasted year of irritating our neighbours to win some symbolic concessions to satisfy the Benches behind him. I heard him on the "Today" programme this morning, resurrecting the issue of opt-out from the Social Chapter-I assume because that was the symbolic issue that the Europhobes used against Mr Major in the Maastricht negotiations 20 years ago. He hinted that he wants to take us out of the European arrest warrant and other agreements on the pursuit of criminals across national borders, defending our sovereignty at the cost of our security. I am very sorry that we do not have the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, here today to tell us what she thinks of that.
Will we really have to cope with a sovereignty Bill in a world where multinational banks and companies have locked the UK into tight interdependence? The only really sovereign states in the world today are Burma and North Korea. The Republican right in the United States rejects the application of all international treaties and conventions as binding on American law, as right-wingers like Justice Scalia have argued in the US Supreme Court. Are the Conservatives really going to slip down the same anti-international law, nationalist road?
Meanwhile, Mr Cameron has left the formulation of Conservative foreign policy largely to William Hague. In the days of William Pitt, the shadow Foreign Secretary's
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The other William declared, in 1795, that Britain,
This William appears to prefer to seek the damnation of Europe, with the No Turning Back group of Conservative MPs strongly represented in the shadow Cabinet, cheering him on. President Roosevelt, in his first inaugural speech, promised that he would pursue a "good neighbour" policy. The Conservatives wish to pursue a "bad neighbour" policy. Hague speaks with real enthusiasm about closer relations with China, and about a "special relationship" with India; but there is a hole at the heart of his speeches in his silence about the countries closer to home. He waxes lyrical about working more actively through the Commonwealth-as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has done today-urging in a speech last February that we should encourage Rwanda, Japan, Algeria and Yemen to join. I do not think that he is following developments in Yemen very closely.
The great attraction of the Commonwealth to the Conservatives is that it is not the EU. We all understand that the Conservative Party's foreign policy, like Tony Blair's, was to follow the Bush Administration wherever it took us. Well, now the Bush Administration has gone and President Obama has made it clear that he is interested in partnership with a collective Europe, not in competitive efforts at special relations by allies with pretensions to wisdom and glorious memories of their past. I understand that this message has been made uncomfortably clear to recent Conservative visitors to Washington.
Liberal Democrats accept the logic of the IPPR report on UK security strategy, jointly chaired by my noble friend Lord Ashdown and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. They argued that the United Kingdom must work to build closer European co-operation within NATO as the only way to maintain American commitment to NATO, which, the new Administration have again made clear, the US sees as a regional alliance of limited relevance to other global priorities. Last week's Spectator assured us, in contrast, that Liam Fox will take Britain out of the European Defence Agency, a body set up under a British initiative after St Malo and led by a British official for its first five years, but still too contaminated by continental co-operation to overcome Conservative suspicion.
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The security and defence review which the Labour Government have put off until after the election will have to take some hard decisions about what defence and diplomatic efforts we need and can afford. The Gray report has made severe criticisms of the current Government's drift into an unsustainable overhang in their future defence procurement budget, now estimated at a massive £35 billion. In a speech at the end of July, William Hague referred to earlier,
only then to deny that we are now in a similar situation and, specifically, to reject any strategic shrinkage in Britain's role. He did not go on to explain how a Conservative Government would pay for the sharp increase in defence spending that this would require, nor for the expansion in FCO staffing and diplomatic effort, for which he also called. I hope that these will all be costed in the Conservative manifesto. Our post-imperial Conservatives, with their nostalgic vision of Britain as a world power in its own right, would do well to remember what Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations in 1776 of an earlier Tory Government who fostered illusions about the strength of their position in North America:
"It is surely time that Great Britain should ... endeavour to accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances".
Liberal Democrats reject the nostalgia and Europhobia which infects the national debate on Britain's international role. Sixty years after the Second World War we have to move on from Churchillian rhetoric and images of Britain embattled against the occupied continent. It is absurd and contrary to Britain's national interest that it is acceptable in the British media and at Conservative gatherings to crack jokes about the French and Germans that would be considered racist if they were cracked about Jamaicans or Somalis.
The weekend before last we marked again our national Remembrance Day, with Britain standing alone. There were no contingents from countries that fought with us in either world war or since. The Conservative commitment to the Commonwealth might encourage them, for example, to support the inclusion of Indian contingents. India was the second largest contributor to British imperial forces then and the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping forces now. I have met many British Indians whose parents fought in those forces in the Second World War. We could invite Dutch and Danish contingents, since they are fighting and dying with us in Helmand. The French welcomed British units to their 14 July parade five years ago, but I regret that our Labour Government have not yet reciprocated. President Sarkozy welcomed Chancellor Merkel to the French commemoration 10 days ago-an act of statesmanlike reconciliation, of which British politicians of both other parties still seem incapable.
My party stands for closer international co-operation, not the embittered defence of national sovereignty. We stand for shared action on climate change, on the threat of overpopulation and on the shift to a more sustainable world economy; and in meeting the complex issues of population displacement, food shortages, cross-border criminal networks and international terrorist groups. That commitment to global co-operation in
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12.08 pm
Lord Bramall: My Lords, it is gratifying to have the opportunity to speak about strategy and defence in the mainstream of the gracious Speech, rather than-as usual-it being shunted off into a short-notice Friday morning. The subject is of the utmost urgency. Our defence affairs are in a highly sensitive state and merit wide debate. On the one hand, we have a shooting war in Afghanistan which has not really been getting anywhere, despite the commitment, devotion to duty and, indeed, heroism of our Armed Forces. I had a chance to see the commitment and spirit for myself when I took the medal parade of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles on its return from Afghanistan, after suffering 14 soldiers killed and 60 wounded, 14 of them very seriously. However, they were in magnificent heart at every level and there was not a discordant note. Certainly, although improvements have been made, we are not, so far, making sufficient and significant gains in the areas in which we have set our aims.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Defence has an immense funding problem, brought about largely by continuing underfunding of the defence programme over the past 10 to 15 years or more, which has taken elements of equipment, materiel and logistic support out of the programme so that, when faced with an intense operational situation, when these very things have become urgently needed, they have had to be bought off the peg-helicopters and spare parts are a case in point-with money over and above the defence budget provided by the Treasury, which now, of course, wants its money back. Yet the repercussions of now adjusting the budget to meet Treasury rules will themselves be very serious. Not least it means that while part of the Ministry of Defence is doing its best from precious resources to provide our front-line forces with what they need to fight the war successfully, another part of the same department, at Treasury insistence, is having to cut those same resources substantially in order to reduce defence spending and squeeze a quart of current established requirements into a pint pot of authorised resources. This absurd, schizophrenic approach leads to confusion, inevitable cheese paring, with significant damage to the defence programme as a whole, and is exactly the sort of thing that gives the impression, as my noble and gallant friend Lord Guthrie pointed out recently, that the Government and the ministry's heart is not really in the operations in Afghanistan.
As has already been said, what is now required, as admitted by the Government and promised by Her Majesty's Opposition, should they be elected, is a comprehensive Strategic Defence Review, although for obvious reasons this is not possible before the general election. This would initially identify as far as possible Britain's key international interests: home and European security; UN Security Council; NATO and natural resources; and identify potential threats, not forgetting, I hope, the inherent volatility of the international scene which has so invariably in the past produced responsibilities and challenges utterly
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What must be avoided at all costs is the insidious underfunding by the Treasury of whatever has been decided at the highest political level. This has invariably degraded expectations, minimised political and parliamentary intentions, stored up immense problems for the future and rebounded disastrously not only on operational performance but very much on the lives, support and welfare of all members of the Armed Forces. Indeed, an established figure of, say, 3 per cent of GDP might be the only sure way of curbing Treasury enthusiasm, rather as in the late 1970s and early 1980s we had an agreed NATO target of 3 per cent growth in real terms out of which the Treasury could not wriggle.
Should this review involve, as it should, a truly joined-up foreign and defence policy, or if you like, security policy-with advantage taken of co-operation with allies and alliances; due regard given to intelligence operations after identifying threats; selective containment; and helping others with common cause to help themselves, rather than, as has been prevalent recently, charging in to prolonged interventions with formed bodies of troops to rearrange the pieces to some alien pattern-it may be possible to cut, in particular, the size of the equipment coat for our Armed Forces to be more in keeping with what Parliament might judge to be our political, social and economic cloth, while protecting the country's proper interests and responsibilities. However, maintenance of peace over a prolonged period is bound to require numbers, flexibility and strategic mobility in those Armed Forces.
Even prior to a full review, it is it is essential to have a rigorous and intellectual analysis of why, when, if and in what number we want some of the higher-spend items of equipment in the present programme-including any precise successor to Trident-to smooth out the budget later on. However, if in the immediate future there is to be substantial squeezing of the current budget, which is overspent only because of operational emergencies, so that the Ministry of Defence can be seen as of now to be living within its means, one of two things is bound to happen. Either operations could not be enhanced and may suffer, with disastrous consequences, or the services will be forced-as the Secretary of State admitted in the debate on the Territorial Army in the other place-to reach for the only uncommitted areas of the budget which,
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Cuts of the magnitude being put forward for the Ministry of Defence are also bound to have a debilitating effect on such things as the Defence Medical Services, which are already grossly under strength, suffering cuts in vital clinical training and professional development, and excessively reliant on the Reserve Forces and the National Health Service for the handling of battle casualties. Extra, not reduced, financial resources are required to rebuild them. Inevitably, because of accessibility, there will be cuts in accommodation, some of which is in a shocking state, and welfare in general. All of these directly impinge on the covenant, which is so sacrosanct in political eyes and in the eyes of the British people. If any such unpopular cuts are then cancelled for political reasons, you can be quite sure that the Treasury will recoup from somewhere else, and damage the programme.
The political machinery must be found-perhaps in a much-needed war Cabinet while the crisis in Afghanistan lasts and before a review takes place-to curb the Treasury in its insistence on its pound of flesh as regards defence overspend. Only once have I heard a Prime Minister tell the Treasury to back off; on that occasion, the Secretary of State for Defence said that he would resign at once if that did not happen. Let us hope that similar robustness and commitment can be found in that department.
Finally, I shall refer to operations in Afghanistan. Now that we are there, with a better balanced force than when we first rushed into Helmand province in pursuit of changing and largely unrealistic aims, we cannot, for a variety of compelling reasons, just walk away. Indeed, soldiers back from Afghanistan with whom I have talked recently would be horrified at the prospect; they feel that they have done a really good job and have improved things. Our best hope is to support the United Nations, wholly and to the limit of our resources, in a more enlightened approach, with less waffle about democracy and more practical emphasis on stability, proper protection of people in vulnerable areas, better direction and quicker delivery of aid, perhaps to regional governments, and above all dynamic diplomacy with meaningful negotiations with the aim of doing deals to separate hard-core extremists from moderates. We should also back the central Government in any deals that they will surely want to make.
Although many in Pakistan may feel that Western intervention has been part of their problem, the new strategy that will be required must be, as the Americans appreciate, within an Af-Pak framework, because the mainstream of international terrorism now lies there and the maintenance of a secular state is vital to contain it.
All this will require a temporary surge in troop numbers, as military advisers on both sides of the Atlantic have advocated, and will certainly require in the immediate future our very best shots in terms of effort, commitment, resources and the absence of that financial schizophrenia in the Ministry of Defence that I highlighted earlier. There must be a better stick
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12.22 pm
The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells: My Lords, I welcome the Government's intention to draft legislation to make binding the spending of 0.7 per cent of national income on international development from 2013. I further welcome the commitment of other parties to the proposal, particularly with the national debt at its current level. It reveals the extent to which the matter of development and aid is a moral issue. The achievement of the target has been a long-held aspiration, but it is good to note that it follows the timetable agreed at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, which increased overseas aid funding in 2008 to 0.43 per cent. The aim of the Bill is to put beyond doubt the objective of meeting the United Kingdom's target in respect of the millennium development goals.
The publication earlier this year of the White Paper, Eliminating World Poverty: Building Our Common Future, has been welcomed by faith communities; as has the recognition by the Government of the role of faith communities in the delivery of development aid in some of the most challenging situations around the world. A recent World Health Organisation study estimated that 30 to 70 per cent of healthcare services in sub-Saharan Africa are provided by faith communities, with an average commitment of more than 50 per cent.
Considerable challenges still face us. Regrettably, even with the delivery of the United Kingdom's target, the total eradication of poverty cannot be achieved without concerted international effort, not least from the United States and members of the European Union. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, that we cannot go it alone. Recently, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, expressed frustration at the relative paucity of funding set aside by the United States for development and reconstruction. Few can doubt that the mosquitoes of terrorism, genocide and violence against women have been bred in the swamps of poverty, neglect and exploitation.
It has been said that when all you have is a hammer, everything seems like a nail. The past century has witnessed an unprecedented investment of capital in arms, which has been seen in many Western democracies as a guarantee of peace. However, while such messages seek to guarantee safety, it needs to be recognised that safety is not peace and peace is not safety. Peacemaking is a great venture and, in one sense, it can never be safe. The elimination of poverty and building a common future go hand in hand with the challenge of peacemaking, which cannot and should not be confused with strategies to guarantee safety. Incidentally, I, too, welcome the Bill to support the United Nations Convention on Cluster Munitions.
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Much has been said in this debate and elsewhere at the moment about the military options in relation to the situation in Afghanistan. There is talk, in some quarters at least, of the possibility of withdrawal. Afghanistan is the poorest country in the world outside Africa. Decades of political instability have contributed to acutely negative poverty indicators across the country. More than half the country lives below the poverty line, and DfID has calculated that 40 per cent of Afghans cannot meet their basic food needs. The UNDP reports that about 70 per cent of the population lacks sustainable access to clean water, and several NGOs have argued recently that there needs to be international support for the people of Afghanistan to assist in the reduction and elimination of poverty in a country that has endured external intervention, which has all too often been characterised by primarily military objectives.
Prior to the visit by President Obama to Japan recently, the Japanese Government articulated a strategy on the primary need for humanitarian aid and development assistance. Acknowledging the need for security forces, the report spoke at the same time of some moderate groups that are willing to put down their arms in exchange for security assurance and economic independence. Tangible outcomes recognised by the people will be critical in areas of agriculture and rural development, infrastructure development, and education, health and other basic human needs.
Such an outlook reflects the view of the agencies on the ground, not least Christian Aid, which has today observed that a comprehensive strategy through a more substantial and sustainable allocation of resources into the development and reconstruction sectors oriented to reinforce Afghan institutions must be implemented. It said:
"The political settlement needs to involve a wide range of stakeholders from inside and outside Afghanistan, with only one precondition: that they uphold the security, dignity and rights of all Afghans".
Christian Aid believes that it is not possible to have security without development.
Faith-based agencies and NGOs have highlighted the weakness of quick impact strategies focused on Kabul, while investment at the local level in a substantially rural environment receives a low priority. Put more simply, when people are wondering where the next meal is coming from, when they ate only bread yesterday and may not eat today, animal husbandry and income generation are critical activities.
What is needed now is a humanitarian and development surge-something supported by yesterday's editorial in the Guardian. I do not think that we can simply pack up and come home. Unless we have been misled, there is a legitimate need to seek to protect from further acts of terrorism, but there is also a need to ensure that the welfare and safety of Afghan women and girls are protected from the Taliban, the necessity of basic health and welfare services, and the education of some 6 million children. DfID is of course contributing to this programme but the needs are much greater than the most generous individual programme can provide for.
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I urge the Government, in the light of their commitment to the millennium development goals, to work ceaselessly with the international community, the World Bank and the IMF-which incidentally I am pleased to observe are less likely to impose economic changes on countries than used to be the case-and to resist any attempt at "aid by results", which always impacts on the most vulnerable. I am encouraged by this intent and I hope that it goes to fulfilment under whichever Government are in power.
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