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Debate on the Address

My Lords, my noble friend Lord King started his excellent speech by drawing attention to the sombre atmosphere in which this debate has taken place. I am still reeling from listening to some of the most powerful speeches that I have heard since I entered the House. This has been an historic debate, and I do not say that idly. It will make uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister tomorrow, particularly as few, if any, speakers were prepared to come to the defence of the Government. My noble friends Lord Howell and Lady Rawlings in characteristically well thought-out speeches have covered important aspects of foreign and European affairs and international development. I shall focus my remarks primarily on defence. It is, after all, the quality and dedication of our Armed Forces in action that give the hard edge of realism to the policies that, so the gracious Speech tells us, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to pursue. I pay tribute also to the professionalism and bravery of the men and women in our Armed Forces. We on these Benches remember those troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is one notable omission from the gracious Speech—namely, a measure to register and set a framework for regulating private military companies. The groundwork for such a measure has been undertaken. There is wide agreement on the value of a statutory framework; indeed, some of the leading UK security companies have been calling for this. There may be difficulties in precise and effective drafting, but that does not excuse the Government from failing to set about the task, at least in the form of a draft Bill. The future of our nuclear deterrent was also omitted from the gracious Speech but will undoubtedly come up in our proceedings in the new year. It is not surprising that the recent change in the political balance of the United States and the possibilities of new and, I hope, more successful policy directions there have attracted considerable comment by speakers today—not least because the implications of a policy adjustment by the US will relate directly to the continuing deployment of our Armed Forces in Iraq. We all understand something of the key part that the committees of both houses of the US Congress, particularly their chairmen, play in developing and applying policies. Noble Lords may well feel that time and effort on the part of Members of this House in establishing cordial personal relationships with incoming chairmen, particularly of the Senate committees, will be of real assistance in refurbishing Anglo-American understanding. The future of the British participation in the Joint Strike Fighter project may well rest in the hands of incoming chairmen. I wonder whether the Minister could touch briefly on the JSF. I understand that the first flight will take place some time before the end of the year. Like other noble Lords, I congratulate the maiden speakers on four really excellent speeches. I refer to the noble Lords, Lord Patel of Bradford, Lord Browne of Belmont and Lord Jay of Ewelme, and to my noble friend Lord Leach of Fairford. I very much look forward to hearing them again on numerous occasions in the House. Mention of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, leads me to foreign affairs. Time does not allow me to refer to all speakers, but a quick global tour d’horizon reveals issues requiring attention including the Middle East and the Gulf, which were addressed by many noble Lords who have a great deal of concern about our strategy in that region. My noble friend Lord Jopling and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, talked about Syria. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, stressed the importance of serious diplomatic engagement with Syria, Iran and Lebanon and the hope that the Prime Minister will drop his personalised diplomacy and leave it to the professional diplomats. I shall read the noble Lord’s speech tomorrow with very great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, spoke of Argentina and offered the Government some consolation: warm praise for their Gibraltar policy. My noble friend Lord Patten asked which Minister is responsible for policy on cruise liners. I await that answer with great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, spoke eloquently of Darfur and North Korea. I commend him for his very hard work to help the downtrodden in that totalitarian state. Our relations with the EU were covered by many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Leach, who made an eloquent maiden speech. NATO, the Riga summit and the United Nations—the last covered in detail—were discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. We on these Benches welcome the new Secretary-General of the UN and wish him every success in office. He has a demanding agenda, not least in the preparations for reconstructing the organisation’s headquarters and strengthening its ability to intervene quickly and effectively wherever its supranational authority is properly required. The Commonwealth was mentioned—I share the support of my noble friend Lord Howell—as were the FCO and Britain’s place in the world. I listened very carefully and with great interest to the point that my noble and learned friend Lord Howe made about the perception of the FCO. My noble friends Lady Hooper and Lord Patten mentioned the downgrading of many of our embassies abroad. My noble friend Lady Rawlings pointed out how much larger the DfID budget is than that of the FCO. Iraq was covered by the noble Lords, Lord Jay and Lord Ashdown, and, in a very powerful speech, by my noble friend Lord Hurd. That speech encapsulated what many other noble Lords said today, and it should be required reading. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, spoke optimistically of the Kurdistan region of Iraq and the lack of a British presence there. My noble friend Lord Selsdon spoke of the terrible loss of life in Iraq. The DRC was covered by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and Rwanda by the noble Lord, Lord Cotter. Turkey was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Maginnis and Lord Gilbert, and Iran was discussed by my noble friend Lord Lamont. Interestingly, Burma and Zimbabwe were not mentioned. I particularly missed hearing another powerful speech by my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth, who was unable to be here tonight. All assumptions made a year or so ago by the Government on Afghanistan were at the optimistic end of the spectrum. The warnings, which I remind the House were uttered from these Benches and by my colleagues in another place, were brushed aside. The conflict has been out of all proportion to that promised by Ministers when they announced the deployment. In Afghanistan, troops have been engaged in the hardest sustained fighting since the Korean War, with a steady stream of casualties and many instances of real heroism. We must not fail in Afghanistan. The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said that we have failed in Iraq. To lose Afghanistan, too, would look like carelessness. The consequences of any failure will be felt on our own doorstep in the equally lethal forms of increased heroin supply and increased domestic terrorism. Can the Minister assure the House that commanders in Afghanistan will get what they have requested, including more men and armour, and heavy armour if that is what they require? Visible, practical reconstruction on the ground is essential if we are ever going to convince people that the UK’s intervention was beneficial. We were told that this was a reconstruction force—serious warfare was not anticipated. Are the local population any better off than they were? They have seen troops in place for five years, but they have seen little or no improvement in even the most basic facilities. Returning members of the Armed Forces are very critical of DfID, which they say is only interested in reconstruction in a zero-risk environment. Let me turn back to the what-do-we-do-next questions of Afghanistan and Iraq. At the heart of our difficulties lies the fact that the Government have committed the nation’s Armed Forces to a two-front war without adequate forethought and without allocating—or possessing—the resources needed to sustain them. The House has heard about this from my noble friend Lord King and from the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Bramall, Lord Inge and Lord Guthrie. When we send our brave men and women to fight on our behalf we owe them a fair, transparent mission objective, the best kit, the right budget and complete support before, during and after combat. But British troops are having their lives put at risk by ageing or inadequate equipment. Drastic further cost-cutting measures are now being forced on them by the Government amid fears that defence spending is running out of control. That has resulted in the cancellation of critical military exercises in Kenya and Canada. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, was right to point out the importance of training to our Armed Forces. My noble friends Lord King and Lord Lyell drew attention to the importance of family life and up-to-date barracks. Over the past year, I have had the privilege of meeting many soldiers who were returning from Iraq. One issue that always comes up is the shocking delays and unreliability of the air bridge to Iraq. As the House of Commons Defence Committee said, it is unacceptable that service men and women—many of whom are serving greatly in excess of harmony guidelines—should have their leave disrupted by the MoD’s inability to provide a reliable air bridge. I have raised this issue before. I am aware that it is not always the fault of the RAF, which has to operate some really antiquated aircraft—there are younger aircraft in the RAF and Imperial War Museums. Once again, I ask the Minister to look into this issue, which is important to thousands of service men and women, and to write to me, placing a copy in the Library. We have followed with profound interest and a certain amount of approval all that the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, has said about a defence industrial strategy. This has implications of the most profound importance for the longer term, but it does not take sufficiently into account the immediate problems. Turning to the Royal Navy, my noble friend, Lord Luke, mentioned the delay in the commencement of the carriers, and I look forward to some assurance on this point from the Minister. Maybe he can say something about the Type 45 destroyers. Does the commitment for eight still stand? The Royal Navy will become ever more important for energy security. We receive most of our crude oil by sea, and we will become increasingly dependent on open sea lines for imports of LNG. Can the Minister tell the House something of the progress with the future strategic tanker aircraft, which is so important for the Royal Air Force? I share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, on the C17. With the exception of the last century’s two world wars, our Armed Forces have never in modern times been so stretched and so hard worked as under this Labour Government. We cannot continue indefinitely with the level of overstretch and the inadequacy of equipment. We cannot go on attempting to fight extended conflicts in distant theatres by relying on reservists to plug gaps in the Regular Forces. I join the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, in paying tribute to our Reserve Forces. The Government must decide whether to increase the resources to match our commitments or to reduce our commitments to match those resources. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, said, we cannot carry on muddling through. The manner in which this Government seek to meet the challenges, which they properly recognise, places at risk the quality and morale of their essential agents—our Armed Forces.