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Armed Forces: US Missile Defence

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire for bringing this excellent debate before us today, for his introduction of it and for keeping this matter, through his questions, constantly before Parliament. He is one of very few people to have done so. Should we have our own missile defence capability? Should that be within NATO or Europe, or should we simply be an outstation for the US missile defence system? I am simply not qualified to comment on the military aspects of this question. For me, yet again, the loss of Lord Garden, who died last year, is deeply felt in this debate. He not only contributed to debates on this matter, but was very active in getting speakers to inform parliamentarians, of whom I was lucky enough to be one, and encouraged a proper and informed debate among those of us who are interested in these matters. His own view, on record in many places, among them BBC Radio’s ““File on Four”” was: "““Taking part in US missile defence plans would put the UK at greater risk of attack … Enemies intent on using weapons of mass destruction would see the need to take on our infrastructure, of which the ballistic missile warning radars would be a very important and perhaps the most vulnerable part””." The noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, said that it was a free lunch, but there is an expression: ““There is no such thing as a free lunch””. I would bear that in mind when comparing his comments with the quote I have just given. Issues of whether the programme makes us more vulnerable or safer, although critical considerations, are not what have brought me to speak today. I have been encouraged to speak by the abuse of Parliament—the lack of parliamentary involvement in these important decisions. A theme runs through the Government’s approach to this. It is a litany of after-the-event announcements, as enunciated by other noble Lords today. The Government say that they cannot talk about it while negotiations are going on, then that they cannot reveal exactly what is being negotiated as it is of course still confidential. Then, when negotiations are finished, they just issue a Written Statement saying what is going to happen. My first experience of this was in 2003 when I tabled a Written Question. The reply of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to Question HL3913 was: "““Details of the separate bilateral agreement regarding the roles and responsibilities of each government in respect of the upgrade remain confidential while negotiations are in progress””.—[Official Report, 16/7/03; col. WA 126.]" On 15 January 2003, Mr Hoon outlined the Government’s initial reactions to the US request. In 2003, the MoD relented a bit and published a missile defence discussion paper which asked some important questions. Of course, the Government then answered the questions themselves because, in October 2004, they signed an agreement with the US Administration, and merely informed the House through a Written Statement. This prompted the first outrage of the Defence Select Committee: "““Despite the Secretary of State's unequivocal statement that he wanted the decision to be informed by public and parliamentary discussion, he has acted in a way that has effectively curtailed such discussions””." History then repeated itself last year when the Government again made a decision, to give permission to the US Administration to use Menwith Hill. My honourable friend Norman Baker asked what formal agreement and Memorandum of Understanding was produced. The answer was most unsatisfactory because the agreement was simply given in an exchange of classified letters, and no comment at all was made on the Memorandum of Understanding. I could go on, but other noble Lords have spelt it out. A theme of absolute failure to involve Parliament runs through this. Again, the Select Committee voiced its concern in absolutely unequivocal terms: "““We regret the manner and timing of the announcement. And there's a resulting lack of parliamentary debate on the issue””." The Select Committee went on to recommend that there should be full parliamentary debate on these proposals, but it has been left to the Liberal Democrats to bring any debate at all, which we are pleased to do. But the Government really must give the other place the chance to debate this in full. At none of these stages before the fait accompli, therefore, has Parliament been give the chance to debate and, I suggest, vote on so critical and important a principle. My noble friend Lord Wallace suggested that this was an extremely important part of international agreements. I thoroughly agree. Perhaps I am more of what the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, described as a fundamentalist. Probably the only place where I would part company with my noble friend Lord Wallace is that I am unilateralist, and I do not believe in nuclear weapons under any circumstances. It would take something to persuade me about missile defence. However, these questions need to be debated extremely widely. Before I close, I also want to pay tribute to the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases. It operates in Yorkshire near Menwith Hill. It has been the eyes and ears of the public for what is happening there; it first revealed in 1997 that Menwith Hill was to be designated as the European ground relay station. It has continued to raise this issue ever since. Its members have suffered an awful lot of personal aggravation, and I ask the Minister to look into some of the history of this. They have been arrested but not charged, and charged but the charges have been dropped; they would have welcomed those charges being pursued so that they could have had their day in court. In one case, violence was used against a member, and no satisfactory explanation has ever been given for that. However, it has been incredibly important that people on the ground have been there to see what is happening with planning permissions and some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I wish them well in their campaign. They regularly campaign on Tuesdays outside Menwith Hill to draw attention to the unaccountability of this American base on British soil. Whether the Government ultimately come to the conclusion that we need the missile defence system or not, it must still be on British soil and accountable to the UK.