That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
My Lords, it is a great honour to open this debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech on the important issues of foreign affairs and defence. I am delighted to be joined by my noble friend Lord Ahmad, who I know will employ his trademark expertise and erudition to good effect in what I have no doubt will be a well-informed, wide-ranging and robust debate. As indeed it should be, because, looking around the Chamber and on the screens, I see a number of distinguished former Foreign and Defence Ministers, not to mention an illustrious miscellany of noble Lords with acknowledged expertise in these areas. Together we will consider in detail the Government’s proposed approach to foreign affairs and defence, in which several themes will continually bubble to the surface: the need for resilience, the restlessness of our ambition, the conviction of our democratic values and the immense opportunities for the United Kingdom as we look to the future.
I want to begin by reminding noble Lords of the changing geopolitical context which forms the backdrop to this debate. We are living in a new era of systemic competition. The dangers are growing. We have seen Russia increasingly assertive, as its recent actions in Ukraine and the Black Sea remind us. We are witnessing a rising China, modernising its forces and assembling the largest naval fleet in the world. States such as North Korea and Iran are posing a growing threat and continuing to destabilise their regions, while the precarious situation in the Middle East, so distressingly visible right now, is giving many of us cause for concern. Meanwhile, the exponential advance of new technology is reshaping the nature of conflict and challenging us to establish new norms that accord with our values. All the while, the threat of global terror has not receded, and the danger of climate change grows.
Our response to this multiplicity, diversity and complexity of growing dangers was the integrated review of security, defence, foreign policy and development—the most comprehensive survey of our defence since the end of the Cold War. It sets out a clear plan for a stronger, more secure, prosperous and resilient United Kingdom, as we build back better from the Covid pandemic. It is a plan to sustain and deepen our strategic advantage through science and technology and to shape the open international order to create a world that leans more to democracies and the defence of our values, all the while building our security and resilience at home and abroad.
The Prime Minister has been clear that defence is at the heart of this programme. To be open and prosperous, we must be secure at home and active in the world. Defence is always the first duty of government. It is our nation’s insurance policy and our ultimate resilience. The Covid crisis renewed our appreciation of and admiration for what the brave and talented men and women of our Armed Forces do daily on our behalf. But our adversaries did not go to sleep through the pandemic—if anything, they redoubled their nefarious efforts. The challenge for us in the years ahead is to make sure we are fit to detect, deter and defeat threats to our people, our allies and our values at home and abroad.
My Lords, as we begin a new parliamentary Session, I carry over from the last my greatest respect for our service personnel, veterans and their families. I thank them for all their hard work, especially during the pandemic.
The Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act, which concluded in this House just before Prorogation, clearly demonstrated that, first, this House has always worked together for the benefit of our personnel and veterans. We are lucky to have colleagues who have served so gallantly in the Armed Forces and bring a level of knowledge, experience and duty which makes our debates richer and legislation better.
Secondly, our commitment to our Armed Forces should align with our commitment to international law and human rights. Their work and reputation are only enhanced by the UK fulfilling its obligations and, by amending that Act to exclude genocide, torture, crimes against humanity and war crimes, Ministers recognised this. I thank the Ministers concerned for their engagement in achieving that.
Thirdly, there is much more to do to ensure that our personnel and their families are fully supported, especially in relation to repeat and shoddy investigations. Therefore, while some commitments in the Queen’s Speech are welcome, especially on relief for employers of veterans, the Government must ensure that their rhetoric matches reality. When it comes to defence, too often there is a wide gap between what Ministers say and what Ministers do.
The Queen’s Speech might have said the Government will
“provide our gallant Armed Services with the biggest spending increase in thirty years”,
but we know that the new defence budget is not all it seems. Ministers talk about the rise in capital funding, but not the real cut in defence revenue funding over the next four years, which means less money for forces’ recruitment, training, pay and families. It means a possible cut of 40% to the budget of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. Worse still, over half of this year’s £16.4 billion defence equipment budget is revenue-based for equipment support and maintenance.
My Lords, as the Minister reminded us, defence is the first duty of government, and no one on these Benches will object to that argument. Defence is clearly crucial. Defence and foreign policy deserve a whole day of debate on the Queen’s Speech, which they have got. However, this set of policies is in some ways less controversial than some of the domestic legislation.
As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, pointed out, on defence matters the Government, the Opposition and the Cross Benches act in a very collaborative way across the Chamber. We all benefit from the insights of the noble and gallant Lords and others who have been involved in the military. Like other noble Lords, I pay tribute to our Armed Forces; their role is crucial to the country, and we owe them all a huge debt of gratitude.
The world is in a very complex place, and, after a year of the pandemic, the global threats have not shrunk but merely changed and increased. The Minister talked about Russia, China, North Korea and Iran—and about Russia being in certain places, like Ukraine. There are also issues related to the Arctic. There is a whole set of global threats that we need to think about.
The gracious Speech raised very few issues in relation to defence itself. Listening to it, which I had the great privilege of doing from in the Chamber last week, I thought that there were very few words devoted to defence and a few more to the integrated review. However, clearly the Government have significant pieces of legislation that they wish to bring forward, some of which we have rehearsed already and some of which depend on the defence expenditure, which has already been mentioned.
There is a question about how many times the same increase in defence expenditure can be announced and rehearsed. We heard already, in late 2020, about the additional £24 billion. I do not think that anything new is contained in the gracious Speech and I am not expecting the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring forward any further funding. Although that increase was welcome, we need to bear in mind that it is a one- off additional expenditure or commitment. It might allow us to have new frigates, and there were certainly words in the briefing that will bring joy to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, suggesting that ship infrastructure spending—or investment—will double by the end of the Parliament. That is surely welcome.
Clearly, personnel are vital. Commitments to modernisation are welcome. The question then is, what are we doing with those commitments? HMS “Queen Elizabeth” is a vital asset. Sending it to the Gulf or to the Mediterranean is welcome. Sending it to the South China Sea might raise more questions. What assessment have the Government made of the benefits of sending the “Queen Elizabeth” carrier to the South China Sea? Is it going to assist with trade or a softer-power activity, or is this sabre-rattling? The former is desirable; the latter might raise some questions. It would be worth considering the Government’s intention behind these activities.
The same is true of the increase in defence expenditure. It is not clear from the briefings associated with the gracious Speech whether the Government intend to spend more on the nuclear deterrent, but clearly there is a commitment to increasing the number of warheads. How much of the increase in defence expenditure will go on new facilities and equipment? What percentage is likely to go on the deterrent? We do not suggest that the deterrent should be cut; whether it should be increased is another question.
I have focused predominantly on defence because the 10 or so of my noble friends participating today will talk about wider matters of foreign policy. I have a couple of brief questions about aid and support. It is good to hear that girls are being encouraged into education. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, has put a lot of effort into supporting this. The commitment to bringing back aid to 0.7% is welcome. Can the Minister tell us when the fiscal situation might allow this to happen? Predicting the economy is always very difficult but, at the time of the Brexit referendum, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think that he could make predictions almost to the pounds, shillings and pence—I deliberately use old money because I think it would be what the Brexiteers would want to hear.
My Lords, the Government have rightly considered the preservation and strengthening of the rules-based international order to be in the vital national interest of the UK. This is the thrust of the recent integrated review. Britain outside the EU needs these rules even more than before, when we could rely on the solidarity of our European neighbours as of right.
This rules-based order has just had a pretty narrow squeak. Another four years of President Trump’s disruptive policies towards it could have inflicted irreparable damage. Although it is welcome that the US is back, the Biden Administration have no magic wand. Britain, too, and other like-minded states around the world will need to play their role in repairing the damage, filling the gaps and reforming international institutions. This is not so much about drawing up some new overall grand design as about acting collectively where the needs are greatest—on health, trade, climate change, and on reducing the risks of nuclear war and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
On health, as the world gradually emerges from the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be important to put the Clark-Johnson Sirleaf review of the World Health Organization to good use to ensure that the WHO and its members get more prompt and guaranteed access to new outbreaks of disease. The WHO must be provided with a higher proportion of the resources it needs by assured, assessed—not just voluntary—contributions to bring about a much closer working relationship between the global organisations which deal respectively with human and animal diseases. Global schemes such as Gavi and COVAX must be in better working order and better resourced for when the next pandemic comes along, as it surely will. The provision of vaccines to poorer countries must be achieved more effectively when the need arises.
The World Trade Organization, under its new, impressive director-general, is also in need of urgent repair. Its dispute settlement procedures should be brought back into full working order. A waiver on the system of trade-related patents for Covid vaccines should be agreed promptly. Its decision-making processes need to be less ponderous and less easy to block—perhaps by making more use of plurilateral agreements in areas such as digital trade and trade in services. The balance between bilateral and multilateral trade agreements needs careful watching, avoiding too much emphasis on the former at the expense of the latter.
2:29 pm
The Archbishop of Canterbury [V]
My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate on the gracious Speech after the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with his vast experience and knowledge. I have learned much from his speech and agree with what he said.
The integrated review, Global Britain in a Competitive Age, has much to welcome, including especially its thoughtfulness about the security implications of climate change, the strong commitment to freedom of religion and belief, and the commitment to restoring the 0.7%. However, to speak of security, defence, development and foreign policy without a developed section on peacebuilding and peacemaking, especially with competitors, is like speaking of the pandemic without mentioning vaccination.
The integrated review mentions security through improving conflict management in 10 or so places, but the Stabilisation Unit is not mentioned at all. How much of a priority is it, with its new name of the office for conflict stabilisation and mediation? Put another way, the integrated review presents a world in which we control events, as though that is normally the case in foreign policy. Last Thursday, Ascension Day, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark represented me at the installation of the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, whose cathedral is in Sheikh Jarrah. He writes: “There is a growing recognition that lasting peace with justice can only be achieved if the rights of all the peoples of these lands are upheld and underlying grievances are addressed”—in other words, reconciliation. The situation in the Holy Lands illustrates perfectly how little we can anticipate events.
Now, more than ever, we need investment in new and visionary reconciliation capabilities and capacities which enable us to reduce the threat, and the human and financial costs, of war. Much has been said, rightly, by all speakers, about the extraordinary quality of our Armed Forces, but their best protection is peace. Noble and gallant Lords, and those serving today, know this especially well. In the beatitudes, Jesus says that peacemakers are blessed and will be called the children of God. The repeated biblical visions of swords into ploughshares are not only the call of God but a blessing to those who fight—and, I might comment, a blessing to the Treasury. To misquote a former Liverpool manager who taught his lads to get their retaliation in first, the best and by far the cheapest form of improved security comes from pre-emptive reconciliation—getting our reconciliation in first. Reconciliation usually does not mean agreement, but it does mean transforming violent conflict, or its possibility, into peaceful co-existence and competition.
My Lords, I speak for the first time and with humility. I start by thanking my two sponsors, the noble Lords, Lord Marland and Lord Kakkar, who kindly introduced me to the House, and all the staff who have been so helpful in explaining things. I also thank all the Members of the House who have made me feel so welcome. I really appreciate the level of expertise in this House.
To introduce myself, I was a councillor and, subsequently, council leader in Wandsworth, for 18 years. In 2011, I became the chief of staff and deputy mayor for planning and policy for the Mayor of London. In 2019, I became the Prime Minister’s chief strategic adviser, a post which I held until February of this year. I was privileged to be part of his team as first Brexit and then Covid became the dominating national and political issues. Outside politics, I am a businessman who has worked both in the UK and abroad for various engineering and property companies. I hope that my experience and accrued knowledge can be brought to the benefit of this House. I appreciate what a privilege it is to sit here.
I was working in government as an adviser when we began the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, back in 2020. We could not foresee then the coronavirus pandemic and what became perhaps the greatest international crisis since the Second World War. On a personal level it has been a tragedy for so many people, and on a national level it has shown us that threats and tests can take many forms. As a nation, we have come through it and are now emerging with resilience and hope for better times ahead. That is a testament to the spirit of the British people and the heroic services of NHS staff.
Brexit means that we have now begun a new chapter. The United Kingdom now has the capacity to control and take our own decisions and to be open to the world, and the opportunity to forge new relationships. A trade and co-operation agreement with the EU allows us both to maintain close relationships with our European partners and to set our own global path economically and politically. I believe that, by 2030, the UK should be deeply engaged in the Indo-Pacific, active in Africa and nurturing thriving relationships in the Middle East, based on trade, green innovation and science and technology collaboration.
I refer the House to my registered interest as president of Conservative Friends of Israel. I congratulate my noble friend on his thoughtful maiden speech. He has given his life to public service. As he said, he was first elected councillor of Wandsworth in 1976 and was a most effective and widely admired leader from 1992 to 2011, whereupon he became chief of staff and deputy mayor for policy. I recall that my noble friend and I worked together on a visit to Israel with the former Mayor of London—now doing a different job—and I saw at first-hand his eye for detail. I assisted him in the quite difficult task of trying to ensure that the mayor arrived and left each of the programmes on time—and of trying to keep him on message. We will all benefit in future from the expertise and wisdom of my noble friend, and I look forward to his many future contributions in this House.
I welcome the Government’s commitment in the gracious Speech to stopping public bodies imposing their own approach or views about international relations by preventing boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against foreign countries. The Government made it clear that legislation is required to address concerns that such boycotts may legitimise anti-Semitism. I ask my noble friend the Minister, in this context, to go one step further. I am sure it has not gone unnoticed by my noble friend that in recent days, our close friends the United States, Canada and Australia have all pulled out of Durban IV. On 6 May, the Canadian Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather said that Ottawa has confirmed that it will avoid the gathering in South Africa known as Durban IV, which, he says,
“continues to be used to push anti-Israel sentiment and as a forum for anti-Semitism.”
I raised this issue in this Chamber on 22 April and asked if the Minister would confirm that the UK would not attend Durban IV. I did not receive an answer, so, in posing this question again, I will add only this: what is it that the FCDO knows better than its counterparts in the United States, Canada and Australia? Perhaps, I could put it a different way: what is it that those three countries understand that the FCDO does not?
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That is why defence has received the most generous settlement in decades: a commitment to spend £188 billion on defence over the coming four years, an increase of £24 billion. Our Command Paper has taken that investment and used it to deliver what amounts to the biggest shift in defence for a generation. It will give us the technologically advanced, integrated and agile force that will underpin our nation’s hard and soft power in this new age of systemic competition. That new-age force is the necessary response to this new-age threat. To those familiar with the old ways, it may be disquieting, but our diplomacy is underwritten by the credibility of our forces—keen to avoid conflict through our global engagement, but always ready to fight to defend our people and our allies. The gracious Speech commits to pushing ahead with this modernisation. Inevitably, this has meant making some hard choices, but those decisions will give us formidable capabilities across sea, land, air, space and cyber.
At sea, our Royal Navy’s fleet is growing for the first time since the Cold War. We will have world-class general purpose frigates, air defence destroyers, hunter-killer submarines and a new multi-role ocean surveillance capability to safeguard our underwater cables in the North Atlantic. In the air, we will have updated Typhoons, brand new F35 Lightning stealth fighters, new unmanned systems capable of striking remotely, and massive investment in the next generation of fighter jets and swarming drones. On the ground, while our Army will be leaner, it will also be more integrated, more active, more lethal and more effective. It will be able to make the most of new Ajax vehicles, revamped attack helicopters, brand new Boxer armoured fighting vehicles, state-of-the-art air defence, long-range precision artillery and new electronic warfare capabilities.
However, none of these conventional capabilities can succeed in the modern battle without new investment in cyber, space and information manoeuvre. We are spending heavily in the National Cyber Force and establishing a new space command that will enhance our military surveillance and communication capabilities from space. We are not alone in seeking to modernise. Our adversaries, as well as our allies, are making rapid headway, so we are putting aside at least £6.6 billion for research and development to supercharge the development of next-generation disruptive capabilities, from directed energy weapons to swarming drones.
Having great capability is not enough. We are also changing our posture, combining permanent presence with high readiness to deliver a decisive impact. Two littoral response groups in the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific will, alongside our future commando force, allow us to respond to emerging crises in a matter of hours, not weeks. We will also have a very high readiness global response force, ready to dispatch our newly formed Army Ranger regiments into complex, high-threat environments.
Our people—our defence family—are going to be busier than ever, but we will make sure that they are properly looked after. No one in this place will disagree that they are our finest asset. That is why measures within the gracious Speech enshrine our Armed Forces covenant in law. The covenant has already made a huge difference to the lives of Armed Forces families: 79,000 service children in the United Kingdom now benefit from £24.5 million of additional pupil funding, and 22,200 service personnel have been helped on to the housing ladder by the Forces Help to Buy scheme.
However, we cannot rest on our laurels. Some members of our Armed Forces community are still suffering disadvantage in accessing public services. The gracious Speech will give our covenant legal force, placing a duty on public bodies responsible for the delivery of key functions in the areas of housing, education and healthcare to have due regard to the covenant principles. Separately, we want to make sure our fantastic veterans are given greater opportunities. We will introduce new measures to support veterans and reward employers of former service personnel by providing national insurance contribution relief for the employment of veterans.
Switch from home to away, we will continue to strengthen the international system as it feels the strain of deepening competition and revisionist pressures. We remain committed to European security and NATO remains a cornerstone of our defence. That is why we have ensured that we are the second biggest spender in NATO and a major contributor across all five domains, including the nuclear deterrent. As a leading light in the alliance, we also have a responsibility to support its reform. Measures in this gracious Speech will see us reinforcing our commitment to NATO transformation.
Meanwhile, we will continue pursuing constructive relationships and trade agreements with our neighbours in Europe based on mutual respect for sovereignty. We are realistic about the challenges we face, but optimistic about our future as an active European country with a global perspective—bringing countries together to solve the issues that matter most to our citizens to improve their lives.
As ever, no partnership is more valuable to us than our special relationship with the United States, as highlighted by the high-level calls made by our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to their American counterparts in recent weeks and the Defence Secretary’s meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. We are both committed to standing up for open democratic societies, we see eye to eye on climate change and we share many of the same security threats. It is only by working together overseas that we can keep our citizens safe at home.
Our Armed Forces are a global advertisement for British values, capabilities and leadership. They work alongside our gold standard, world-leading diplomatic and development network to shape the international order, build global resilience, sustain open societies and economies, and overcome global challenges. Whether in the many UN peacekeeping missions we are currently supporting or our application to become a formal dialogue partner with ASEAN, the best of UK defence is in tandem with the best of UK diplomacy—working hand in hand to protect global Britain on the world stage.
Last year the UK played a leading global role in the fightback against the pandemic. This year we will provide global leadership to international efforts to overcome the greatest challenges of our time. Next month we will host the G7 summit in Cornwall, in July we will co-host the global education summit with Kenya, and in November we will chair the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, COP 26, in partnership with Italy. All the while, we will maintain and strengthen our networks and instruments of influence overseas.
Using our global diplomatic network and the British Council to forge alliances and uphold human rights and democracy across the world, we will take forward global efforts to get an additional 40 million girls into school, provide aid where it has greatest impact on reducing poverty and alleviating human suffering, and—importantly—return to our commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on development when the fiscal situation allows. All of this, combined with our ongoing training and development programmes around the world, maintains our position as a global soft power superpower.
Next week our magnificent HMS “Queen Elizabeth” carrier embarks on her maiden mission. As one of the two largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy, she will lead a British and allied task group on the UK’s most ambitious global deployment for two decades, visiting the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. This deployment has attracted significant interest from other states and has a tangible convening power. I can think of no greater illustration of our global ambition; an ambition that runs like a golden thread through the gracious Speech; an ambition to strengthen our resilience, seize our opportunities and cement our role as a force for good in the world.
The Queen’s Speech briefing document might refer to a
“more agile, more lethal and more integrated”
Armed Forces, but it fails to mention that the Government’s plan involves fewer troops, fewer ships and fewer planes. The Army will be cut by 10,000 by 2025, at least two Type 23 frigates are gone, and we say goodbye to the Typhoon Tranche 1 aircraft and Hawk T1 training aircraft.
The Queen’s Speech briefing document also says that shipbuilding investment will be doubled but fails to demonstrate how the Government will prioritise British businesses. This is not only an investment in jobs, but in our communities and a more secure economy. Some 30,000 defence industry jobs have been lost since 2010, so we need greater protection of jobs in the defence sector, with a “British-built by default” approach to boost manufacturing in the UK supply chain. The new single framework created by the procurement Bill will include defence procurement, but can the Minister confirm whether this will improve procurement rules to promote prosperity in defence supply chain businesses throughout the UK’s towns, regions, and industries?
As for other legislation, the Armed Forces Bill, which has just finished Committee stage in the other place, is the main piece of defence-related legislation promised. The Bill presents a real opportunity to make meaningful improvements to the day-to-day lives of our Armed Forces personnel, veterans and families. We will work constructively and cross-party to get the best for our forces from this legislation.
The Government like to talk up their commitment to our service communities, but the Bill currently misses a crucial opportunity to deliver on the laudable promises made in the Armed Forces covenant. Service charities have pointed out that the narrow focus of the Bill on healthcare, housing and education could create a two-tier covenant that reduces provision in those areas outside the scope of the Bill. Does the Minister agree? The Bill also does little to tackle the issues of substandard housing head-on, with the Bill’s Select Committee chair stating that
“better accommodation is an area that still needs prioritisation within the Ministry of Defence.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/4/21; col. 1178.]
We welcome efforts to implement key recommendations of the Lyons review, particularly the creation of an independent service police complaints commissioner, but why have Ministers has not adopted the recommendation that civilian courts should have jurisdiction in matters of murder, rape and serious sexual offences committed in the UK?
I also remind the Minister about the outstanding issues concerning repeat and shoddy investigations. Only last week, it was announced that Major Robert Campbell is leading action against the MoD for around 30 ex-service personnel who argue that their lives have been ruined by vexatious claims and that the Government breached their duty of care to service personnel and veterans who faced investigation.
The Minister said that she looks forward to
“continuing these constructive discussions about the … duty of care”—[Official Report, 28/4/21; col. 2347.]
under the “more appropriate mechanism” of the Armed Forces Bill. We will hold her to that, as I am sure, will the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt.
We welcome the separate announcements in the Queen’s Speech briefing document to publish a defence accommodation strategy and a refreshed Armed Forces families strategy. However, we have been waiting for a new forces families strategy for months now, since the last one expired at the end of 2020. Will the Minister confirm when this will be published, along with a clear action plan, so that we can monitor progress? With its one-year anniversary in a few weeks, can the Minister also update the House on the implementation of the recommendations of the Selous review?
The Queen’s Speech reaffirms that the Government are pushing ahead with the integrated review and the defence Command Paper, but it does nothing to fill in the outstanding gaps. We are still waiting for an assessment of current or future capability, clarity on the strategic principles behind Britain’s defence policy and more information about how the Ministry of Defence should be structured to best provide national security.
The Queen’s Speech briefing document also said the Government will
“take risks to further strengthen the UK’s strategic technological advantage”.
Will the Minister explain what type of risks these include? Could they result in large amounts of taxpayers’ money being spent for no strategic gain—or collaboration with potentially dangerous third parties?
The need for the Government’s rhetoric to match reality is simple: our brave service men and women, their families and the security of the nation depend on it. Ministers must remember that in the months to come.
It is also welcome that our troops will be agile and well supported by tanks, ships and aircraft—but it is also clear that, instead of a headline figure of 80,000 personnel, we are looking at 70,000. Is that something that the Government should countenance and that we should accept? Are our gallant Armed Forces really so resilient that a further cut of 12% is appropriate? If the world is such a dangerous place and if the Government continue to make commitments to deploy right across the globe, as “global Britain” suggests, we need to ensure that everyone is trained and fit to serve—and able to do what we require them to do. That is not simply about each individual; it is about teamwork and ensuring that people can be recruited, trained, deployed and can then have time to decompress. If we are cutting troop numbers, will that be feasible? What work have the Government put in to assessing the impact of the cuts to troop numbers on our service men and women?
A commitment to the Armed Forces covenant and enshrining it in law are welcome but not sufficient: we need to understand that the Government really will deliver on their duty of care to our service men and women and their families. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, pointed out, the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, put a lot of effort into the overseas operations Bill, in relation to an amendment on the duty of care. Arguably, that Bill was too narrow, but the Government should absolutely have a duty of care to our service men and women. What will they bring forward in the context of the Armed Forces Bill? Of course, although it is flagged in the Queen’s Speech debate, it is not a new piece of legislation—it is already in the House of Commons.
What will the Government do that is concrete? What will they deliver for our veterans? What plans do they have to look after service personnel and veterans who have PTSD? There are issues that, perhaps, were inadequately explored and talked about in the past. We need to deal with veterans’ mental health and ensure that no lives are lost through the suicide of people who have had PTSD.
These are crucial issues, and some clear answers, either now or in the context of the Armed Forces Bill, would be most welcome.
I can see people looking in my direction. I understand that I am speaking from the Front Bench and that I have 10 minutes.
Finally, I turn to human rights. Her Majesty the Queen said that her Government
“will uphold human rights and democracy across the world”.
What efforts will they make to ensure that human rights are upheld in Hong Kong and in Xinjiang? We need this to happen. I hope that the sanctions and boycotting legislation will not prevent businesses putting forward a view that there are going to be places in which they do not wish to trade.
Climate change is a short, medium and long-term challenge which requires both national and collective responses, as the two are closely linked. Paris was an achievement, but it has not stopped the world slipping in the wrong direction. Glasgow will need to do better. It will need to reverse the rise in the use of fossil fuels —coal in particular. If we are to persuade big coal users, such as China and India, to do this, we cannot do the opposite ourselves. Many developing countries will need help to fulfil the commitments they enter into. This will require substantial amounts of public and private finance.
The postponed nuclear non-proliferation review conference is now scheduled for later this year. It comes after a period of steady erosion of arms control measures between the nuclear weapon states. If that erosion is to be reversed and dialogue about strategic stability between the five recognised weapon states is to get under way—as it needs to do—we cannot simply set off in the opposite direction, increasing our stockpile of warheads and refusing even to discuss concepts such as sole purpose and no first use. We cannot do that without it having negative consequences and inhibiting our ability to reduce the risks of nuclear war.
The Government’s decision to reduce our aid spending from 0.7% of our GNI, as laid down in law, to 0.5% is inconsistent with our taking effective action to address any of the four sectors of the rules-based international order to which I have referred. I urge the Minister in replying to this debate to give a clear commitment that the Government will return to full compliance with 0.7% in the fiscal year following the resumption of growth in our economy. This would do something to repair the damage already done and to restore our ability to play a positive role in strengthening the rules- based international order.
Secondly, it is very welcome that the 0.7% target is reaffirmed. However, the reaffirmation—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, commented on this—feels a bit like Augustine’s desire for chastity: welcome, but not yet. People who are poorest must be dealt with generously—first, for reasons of humanity from one of the richest and most powerful nations on earth; secondly, for our own long-term security; and, thirdly, so that the world can be a place of flourishing for our trade and development, here at home and for the poorest.
Thirdly, there has been much talk about the increase in the number of nuclear warheads. That is a very serious and concerning step, but not nearly as serious as the commitment, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, also referred, to increase deliberate ambiguity in the condition of the use of nuclear weapons and the absence of a stated commitment not to use them first. It is widely accepted that, even for those who argue the moral case for having these weapons—a very contested point indeed—clarity of purpose is essential to deterrence. Ambiguity increases the risk of disastrous miscalculation.
Finally, with all its many strengths, this review needs to integrate a vision of peace as an alternative to destructive conflict, which can only ever be a tragic last resort. The warnings in the review are not accompanied by an integrated moral basis for actions that, where at all possible, will reduce violent conflict and control it. Values are twinned in the text with words such as “democratic”, “rule of law”, “open societies”, “prosperity”, “soft power” and “culture”. There is even an aspiration to universal values, combined with a realistic appreciation of the conflict of values—values that are not anchored in any way in our history in the document and that are stated as manifest truth, without any moral foundations. It is in this moral argument of the document that peacemaking and peacebuilding are an afterthought. That seems a profound weakness of moral imagination, when we as a nation are able to do so much, in a document that argues so persuasively for our soft power and our values-based interest.
The Government must, of course, protect our people, our nation and our democracy. It is important that they have begun the biggest programme of investment in defence since the end of the Cold War. Defence policy needs to be modernised to utilise the new domains of cyber and space, and to equip our Armed Forces with cutting-edge technology. The UK needs capabilities such as the counterterrorism operations centre and the National Cyber Force. State threats are emerging, in the form of illicit finance, coercive economic measures, disinformation, cyberattacks, electoral interference and the use of weapons of mass destruction. Terrorist attacks remain real, whether Islamist inspired, Northern Ireland-related or driven by other motivations. Learning from the pandemic, the Government must keep their promise to bolster our national resilience with a new situation centre at the heart of Government. It is vital to improve our use of data and our ability to anticipate and respond to future crises.
I intend to hold this Government to account in meeting their pledge to establish the UK as a global services, digital and data hub. The Government have made tackling climate change and biodiversity loss their number one international priority. The UK was the first advanced economy to set a net-zero target of 2050. This target needs to be closely monitored by this House and others, to make sure that it is achieved. The ingenuity of the British people and the strength of our union, combined with our international partnerships, modernised Armed Forces and a new green agenda, should enable the UK to look forward with confidence as we shape the world of the future.
I celebrated Shavuot on Monday and Tuesday of this week. For those two days, my family was peacefully unaware of the updated news, but let me tell noble Lords what I saw. I saw ramped-up security at the synagogue, with excellent co-operation between the Met Police and the community security trust. Many members of the Jewish community are rightly terrified. I thank the Home Secretary and the Communities Secretary for their comforting open letter to the Jewish community, published just today.
My noble friend Lord Udny-Lister rightly stated that the Government must protect our people, our nation and our democracy. Not only is my noble friend correct but, by inference, we are obligated to support our democratic allies in exactly the same way, and they must protect their people, their nation and their democracy.
The shocking and disturbing scenes on the streets of north-west London this weekend absolutely do not represent the views of the vast majority of Muslims living in the UK; and I would argue that the murderous acts of Hamas, indiscriminately firing deadly rockets at civilian areas in Israel, do not represent the views—and certainly not the interests—of the majority of the Palestinian people. My noble friend Lord Shinkwin put it succinctly this morning in a letter to the Telegraph— I quote him because I could not possibly put it any better:
“The repercussions for civilians caught up in the current conflict on both sides are tragic, but we should never lose sight of what is at stake. Israel’s right to exist is under sustained and insidious attack from the terrorist Hamas regime and its puppetmaster, Iran. Hamas’s cynicism knows no bounds. It thinks nothing of diverting international aid from hospitals to bunkers, building rocket factories in civilian areas, and using children as human shields, all in pursuit of its overriding goal: the destruction of the Jewish state.”
I pay tribute to my noble friend for his analysis and for sharing it in public.
In conclusion, does the Minister agree that we should increase pressure on Iran to stop supplying rockets and know-how to Hamas? Does he also agree with my friend Dore Gold, who said:
“The mistake of the 2015 nuclear deal must not be repeated, with billions of dollars going to Iran, fuelling the next wave of terrorism—including the terror of Hamas. Not only is the security of Israel at stake but the security of the wider Western alliance”?