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Debate on the Address

My Lords, this has indeed been a very rich debate. I had been warned that responding for the first time to the gracious Speech was an experience, the like of which one would not see again. I expected to have to answer questions on many subjects; I must say that I had not expected motor racing to feature as prominently in this debate as it has. I will return to the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, about China later. As he said that he had first been to that country in 1978, let me remind him of how Chinese banquets were in those days. There were endless courses one after the other—each exquisite, many rather hot and spicy—which reminds me of the debate this evening; when you aggregate all the courses, it is rather long. With that in mind, I will try not to detain your Lordships for too long. I begin by joining those of you who have welcomed my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton back to the Front Benches, but now in this House. On her behalf, I thank all noble Lords who said such kind things about her this evening, and I assure you that we will pass on to my noble friend Lord Drayson the many kind remarks that were made about him. I reassure noble Lords that, as is clear from the exchange of letters between my noble friend and the Prime Minister, there is every hope that he will return at a later date to the Front Benches; perhaps as Minister for Sport given his new skills. I assure those who see a conspiracy in the timing of his departure that only at the end of October did it become clear that this gentle Peer during the week was such a ruthless driver at the weekends that he succeeded in the UK GT series and therefore qualified for the Le Mans series in America starting next year. I now turn to pick up the theme begun by the noble Lord, Lord Howell—that foreign policy is in many ways now global policy. In addition to our old bilateral agenda we now have to deal with so many issues to which old solutions are not easily applied—problems such as climate change or migration. Equally, there is a sense in which not only must we find new alliances and new ways of doing business abroad in the area of foreign policy, but even here at home the old distinctions between defence policy, foreign policy and development policy have broken down. We are now very much joined up. Issues such as terrorism and failed states, migration and many others are no longer amenable to old single-department solutions. Both abroad and at home, we work within a much more complex web of relations. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, defied anyone in the Chamber tonight to think of an international issue on which we would benefit from acting alone. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, talked about how foreign policy had metamorphosed into a network of states rather than the old bilateral approaches. We all recognise that we are dealing with a more complex world. One point made in that context was not to overlook one of the easiest and already formed of networks—the Commonwealth. I completely endorse that point of view. It was pointed out that Prince Charles would join his parents in Uganda for the CHOGM meeting. I assure noble Lords that there will also be a strong delegation of Ministers. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and other members of the Government will be attending—in fact there will be quite a crowd. That recognises what a powerful network the Commonwealth is, although, as others have said, we must recognise that it does not agree on all issues. We will see its ability to apply the principles of good governance under test as we deal with issues such as Pakistan, to which I will return later. We all note the irony that the good governance principles of the Commonwealth are named after the city in which they were adopted and are known as the Harare principles. Europe has formed a large part of today’s discussion. At times, I have felt some sympathy for the noble Lord, Lord Howell. His situation has been more akin to that of a Minister in that his Back Benchers and those formidable former mandarins of the Foreign Office have attacked his position. I am almost willing to cede my right of reply to the man who has most to reply to tonight, if he would like to avail himself of that. Because we will have much time to discuss this European treaty in the coming weeks and months in this Chamber, I shall deal with certain issues that were raised, but I ask noble Lords to forgive me if I leave time for the rest of the important matters raised. I should very much like to pick up on a phrase used by one of the noble Lord’s prominent critics who described this as an entirely sensible treaty. I shall respond also to those who said that perhaps the Government side are guilty of always being defensive and stressing the red lines. Perhaps I will be the first Minister to speak in some time on this treaty who feels that because of the way the debate went today I do not need to repeat the red lines. I am challenged instead to say something more unqualifiedly positive about the European Union. As we move on to look at other issues, such as Myanmar, Kosovo, Iran or Africa, let me respond to that challenge by saying that in none of them does British strategy not rest heavily on our European partnership. It is through our alliances with our fellow European Union members that we can put together the muscle and put a big enough chip on the table to be able to play in the front row and secure change, whether it is the adoption of sanctions against Burma, a combined approach on Kosovo or pressing Europe to support us in strong sanctions against Iran. In each case it is not Britain alone which punches sufficiently heavily on these issues: it is Britain with its European partners, through the mechanism of the European Union, that allows us to be a strong and effective voice on so many foreign policy issues. On several more detailed and very specific foreign policy points relating to the treaty, I offer a couple of observations. I confirm again that there is no possibility under this treaty of Britain’s Security Council seat becoming a European Union seat. The UK welcomes the external service of the European Union—those working in this new service will work in close partnership with Britain and the other national diplomatic services of the member states, and it is an important supplement—as we do the regularisation of the position of the High Representative and the presidency to create a greater consistency of leadership in these top positions. I was asked specifically by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, about the passerelle votes. I quote from the Statement made by the Prime Minister in another place: "““Members of Parliament would have a vote directly on the issue of whether or not to implement any of the passerelles””.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/10/07; col. 25.]" The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, raised the relationship between the European Union and NATO. We hope, through practical co-operation on the ground in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo where we have adopted the comprehensive approach, to secure the kind of operational co-ordination which has been famously impossible across Brussels but hopefully in the field can lead to improvement. We should also be looking to see what President Sarkozy said today in Washington as an important contribution to improving those inter-Brussels relations. Moving out from the core institutional issues of the European Union, I turn to the next circle of problems, within which my noble friend Lord Anderson raised the issue of Kosovo. I want to confirm his concern that while it is possible in conceptual diplomatic terms to see how we can bridge the differences between the two sides, it is the case that we are approaching a very important deadline on 10 December, and while Ambassador Ischinger has been extraordinarily creative in trying to find ways to reconcile the differences, there is still a lot of hard diplomatic work to be done. I echo the warning of the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, about Iran. I do not want to comment on what the position is in Washington, but instead to say that the best protection against the situation in Iran and that between Iran and the United States spiralling out of control is an effective sanctions regime which satisfies the United States and others that diplomacy and sanctions comprise a viable way forward. Therefore it is enormously important that the agreement reached on 28 September in New York by the EU-3 plus Three is followed up in the event that both Mr El Baradei of the IAEA and Javier Solana are unable to report back positive outcomes from their discussions this month. If, as is likely, that proves to be the case, it is important that we return to the negotiation of a sanctions resolution in New York with not only the support of all of Europe, but also that of Russia and China. Without that, obviously the diplomatic effort risks becoming stranded, which could have dangerous consequences. But let me again confirm, as I have already said in this House, that for the British Government, credible sanctions is our way forward and our efforts are 100 per cent behind finding a diplomatic rather than a military solution to this issue. I turn now to the Middle East. All of us wish to see the Annapolis meeting succeed. We recognise that it will be the beginning and not the completion of a process, but the fact that there is again a possibility of serious negotiations is one that the House would welcome. I share all the concerns that have been expressed about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. This is something of huge concern to us. I was asked about the DfID commitment. DfID has made an extra £1 million available to the ICRC for Gaza, and contributed £15.6 million to UNRWA. Also, through the temporary international mechanism, it has contributed to the running costs and the provision of services through the Palestinian Authority. Over the period since 2002, some £310 million has been put through that mechanism by Europe as a whole, of which more than £15 million has come from DfID. So we stand second to no one in our concern to address the horrific humanitarian consequences of what is happening. I was asked whether we have protested about the threat to energy supplies to Gaza. A joint statement was made on 30 October by the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development making just that protest. It was combined with a diplomatic démarche in Tel Aviv the previous day. We have also made clear our concern about the closings of the crossings and other actions which have had the effect of throttling the economy of Gaza. We continue to believe that Hamas must accept the quartet principles if it is to return as a political partner to the negotiations. We encourage it to do so because we recognise that, ultimately, there must be a political solution that includes everyone going forward. Hamas has ruled itself out of the political discussion at this time by its refusal to accept those quartet principles. Turning to Iraq, my noble friend Lady Symons asked how we were going to cover the gap when, as she put it, $3 billion a month of American security is replaced by a much less expensive Iraqi security. There is only a two-word answer to that—““political reconciliation”” inside Iraq. It is critical that the strategy going forward is not just a substitution of Iraqi security forces for coalition forces, important as that is. One should note the success of that strategy in Basra, but it has to be combined with a political process that settles the underlying roots of the conflict; we need to continue to press on both fronts. Turning now to the men and women of our Armed Forces, I suspect that I shall not be able to answer all the issues that have been raised today. I know that my noble friend will wish to come back on a number of questions in writing after the debate. Let me say immediately that there is no one on our Front Benches in either House who would not both resist and be dismayed by the idea that the covenant between government and soldiers, between this country and those who serve us in our Armed Forces, is broken. We would resist that claim and would do everything that we could to make sure that it never happened. In that sense, we recognise that there are issues of troop protection that we must continue to address. The tragic death of Fusilier Gentle is a notable example of a case in which both the coroner and the MoD’s own inquiry have confirmed that there were indeed mistakes in the logistical chain that meant that the vehicle was not equipped with the kind of devices that might have saved the fusilier’s life. We have expressed our deep regret to his widow. There were 12 recommendations; all have been accepted by the MoD and will therefore be implemented. On a recent trip to Afghanistan and Helmand I was able to visit Camp Bastion and I saw the Mastiffs. These are new armoured vehicles that are being manufactured very rapidly and deployed as quickly as possible. At the time I visited some weeks ago, they formed a new part of the camp called the ““Mastiff Camp””. Not being familiar with the term, I was not quite sure what I was going to see, and I was a little surprised when it was armoured vehicles and not Rottweilers. The soldiers were extremely proud of the new vehicles and pleased to have them there. They were very much a talking point in the discussions, and we obviously have to get more into theatre as quickly as possible. I also visited the hospital, where a team of Territorial Army doctors who routinely worked in the NHS in York had just arrived. They demonstrated to me the extraordinary progress in battlefield medicine that has occurred. Of course, as a consequence, this has created a whole new category of patients—the severely wounded who nevertheless live. There are major issues of long-term care for these patients that we have to address because the system—I saw the same in the United States—has not yet fully come to terms with them. One element of that is the issue of insurance, which has been raised. There is, as noble Lords will know, a basic insurance plan with basic coverage provided for injured soldiers, but soldiers and officers can take out supplementary insurance and it is correct that many of them do. It is also correct, because of the rising cost of injuries, that the firm that underwrites the scheme, AIG, has requested a premium increase, which is currently under negotiation. However, there has been some misrepresentation of the level of benefit from the private insurance and how it relates to the guaranteed arrangements provided by the ministry, which consist not just of a lump sum but of a payment—a pension—for life. While soldiers understandably wish to supplement that, one should look at the total compensation available to someone who is long-term injured but lives for the full course of their life. They will receive amounts of money that could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, as they properly deserve to if they have lost their means of livelihood. I have already breached my own intention, which was to ensure that Africa, which, as many noted, did not get its own independent reference in the Queen’s—