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National Security Strategy

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord King, for introducing this debate and for the way in which he did it because I wish to have two contexts in my mind when I discuss this. One is the defence Statement made in both Houses yesterday, which will continue to influence this debate. The other is the important contribution from the Front Bench yesterday, which is that we need some degree of all-party involvement in these emerging policies. It does not mean that we have to exclude party politics entirely; indeed, you will never be able to do that. However, our security services—I use that phrase in the widest sense—will expect no less of us than that we give very careful thought to the nature of these threats. The noble Lord, Lord King, said in his opening remarks that we live in a profoundly dangerous world. I am not sure that the world is more dangerous than it was at the time of the stand-off between what was then the Soviet Union and the United States. You think of the Cuban missile crisis. However, what is fundamentally different is the pace of change, the incredible instability around the world, and therefore the increased unpredictability of what is going to happen. At least you knew what the stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States was about. You could see the structures of them. Now you cannot see those structures any more. The quotation about the number of predictable wars makes that point rather well. Therefore, we have a duty to give very careful thought to this and to look at it in depth. As regards the national security strategy, I can do no better than echo the words of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, which called it one of the most important innovations that this Government have introduced. I say that particularly of the 2009 updated policy statement, which was an improvement. The noble Lord, Lord King, said, expanding on Conservative policy, that if the Conservatives won the election, they would set up a national security council. I understand that and the arguments he made underlying that. However, I am not sure that what he described is essentially different from what is involved in the 2009 update paper. If I remember rightly, paragraph 8.4 of the conclusions of that paper talks about the Prime Minister chairing the committee which brings all of these together and involves other organisations, individuals and the private sector. There is not a great deal between the parties on this. There might be a slight difference of emphasis, but I do not think that there is an enormous difference. There are two areas on which I want to spend a bit of time, although there is an enormous area you can cover. In a way, the biggest danger we face—we all know this—is the increasing fragility of so many states and the expansion of non-state actors, the so-called terrorist groups or whatever, who are sometimes linked to ideologies, religion, protest movements or nationalism. There is a whole range of them. Combined with that we face the profound dangers of increasing scientific knowledge easily available on the production and use of weapons of mass destruction, however you define them, and it covers a wide range of issues. When I chaired the House of Lords Select Committee on Intergovernmental Organisations—an ad-hoc committee—we looked at pandemics and whether we wanted a different process for dealing with a pandemic that came about as a result of a natural cause as opposed to one that came from terrorist causes. The net conclusion was that you needed the same response for dealing with the pandemic, regardless of where it came from. You might have a different strategy for the organisation that spread the pandemic—if that is what has happened—but you needed a similar strategy. I wish to make two other points in the final minutes allocated to me. First, if I am right about this increasing instability and fragility, we might need to revisit the debate which has exercised me for many years; namely, that concerned with spreading democracy. I am very strongly in favour of that and I think that we all are. However—I say this in the context of the present troubles around the world—in a way the rule of law is now infinitely more important as a first step in order to provide the stability that we need in so many nations. At Question Time the other day I mentioned the arc of states that runs from the Horn of Africa through the Middle East and Afghanistan and up into central Asia. There are many others as well, but that is a profoundly dangerous area. Given Britain’s reputation on the rule of law and the English common law pattern that is so widely spread around the world, we have a real opportunity to improve what we do in helping countries to develop a legal structure. That need not necessarily involve—I emphasise this—imposing our legal standards on a country which has a different culture and a different background. Rather, it could involve helping them to develop structures that have coherence, predictability and apply, as far as possible, to the whole society. That would begin to challenge the concept of corruption, which is a major cause of instability. One of the issues here is that most of these countries recognise that they need the rule of law, mainly because they want the advantages brought by business. Therefore, they want the rule of law, but they are not always willing or able to deliver it. We need to think about that. The Minister will remember that last year I tabled a Question on cyber warfare. I remain acutely concerned about that, and I know that he is also acutely concerned about it. It was discussed at the G8, and I think that those involved in the Meridian process—I believe that is what it is called—are looking at it. I emphasise that we all appreciate the profound dangers of cyber attacks. Whether states are doing this themselves or are doing it through other organisations is up for discussion. However, it is certainly coming from some states and many other organisations. Although I do not regard this as an answer, I like some of the things that are laid out in the 2009 document. However, I am still not convinced that we would not benefit if we looked for some sort of international agreement such as we have on chemical and biological weapons or nuclear weapons in order to set a standard for ruling out this type of warfare on the part of nation states. You will not stop it altogether, but such a measure might provide the standard we need in order to deal with this.