Ukraine: Support
Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Lord Howell of Guildford(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. One of the strengths of Britain’s position in this regard is the huge cross-party support for our backing for Ukraine. One can argue that multi-year packages would be even better than individual-year packages, but I think that Ukraine is and should be confident that we will go on providing the right level of support in this country in the years ahead. Of course, we do not know what that right level will be.
As for talking about keeping that support in the UK, as the noble Baroness rightly does, I think that there is an innate understanding in this country about the danger of giving into bullies in Europe. We learned that lesson in the 1930s, when appeasing Hitler did not bring peace—it ultimately led to war. The way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them and be strong, which is what this Government are doing.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, in addition to the obvious need of Ukrainians for combat aircraft and munitions, in the present situation can we at least make sure, with our allies, that they obtain the kind of super-efficient anti-projectile and anti-missile system as seems to be available to the Israelis? Can we ensure that the same standards are provided to the Ukrainians? Their system is good, but clearly it could be better still, and should we not work on that?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
At the NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting last week, there was a very clear request from the Ukrainian Foreign Minister for two things: first, the artillery shells to make sure that Ukraine stays in the fight against Russia in the days ahead but, secondly and crucially, air defences, particularly Patriot missile systems, which have been so effective. I know that action is being taken by us and others on both those subjects to make sure that we do everything that we can. My noble friend is absolutely right to point out how effective the Israeli anti-missile system was, and it shows what can be done if you have the right resources in place.
AUKUS Security Partnership
Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Lord Howell of Guildford(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
On how the Government co-ordinate this at a time where there are many distractions, I can say that the National Security Council is playing a role at bringing together all the ways that we can support Team Barrow to make sure that there is support for education, skills, housing, transport and all that will be needed to scale up this production effort as we go from 11,000 people employed building submarines to 17,000. On ITAR, which has been a troubling issue that British Governments have had to deal with for decades with American Governments, it is essential that AUKUS partners can trade freely between each other in defence equipment. I am pleased to say that we have made some real progress: I met Secretary Blinken in early December and on 22 December President Biden signed the US National Defense Authorization Act, which enables licence-free trade between the AUKUS countries, and we are working with the State Department on the technical details to make sure that really happens.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, are any other countries applying to join the AUKUS partnership? Are we thinking of applying to join the Quad—that is Australia, Japan, India and the United States? Will the UK attend the Perth conference on Indian Ocean security and defence, where all these issues tend to come together and will be discussed this summer?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
On the last point, I think I am right in saying that one of my ministerial colleagues will attend the Perth conference because it is very important. As my noble friend will know, AUKUS has two pillars. Pillar 1 is about the nuclear-powered submarines of Britain, Australia and America, and I do not think there will be additional partners in that. However, pillar 2 looks at advanced military technology for the future, and there we are open to the idea of other countries—possibly Canada, as people have mentioned, or Japan—which might want to join it because it is about defence equipment for the future. The point he makes about the Quad is very important. We would say that this is complementary to that activity.
Rules-based International Order
Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Lord Howell of Guildford(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
We do not believe that the Rwanda scheme is contrary to international law. I would characterise it by saying that things like the refugee convention were written for another age, when there was not mass international travel or the ubiquity of mobile phones. We are saying that, yes, this is out-of-the-box thinking and it is quite unorthodox, but you have a choice, frankly: when you have people arriving from a perfectly safe country into another safe country, you have to deal with that trade. That requires some fresh thinking. It is not possible to put people straight back in a boat and take them back to France, which is why the Rwanda scheme is being introduced. It is within the law and it is novel, but I believe it can work.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, as many feel that the whole international rule of law is collapsing before our eyes and as my noble friend has rightly remarked that this is a very dangerous and fragile international situation, does he agree that it will be coped with only by new international organisations and institutions or by brushing up the present set of them? Can he share his thoughts on where the priorities in that process should be? Should we concentrate on repairing the United Nations, which is in a mess, or invent new structures in that respect, as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, just suggested? Might the Commonwealth, by far the largest network of voluntary, like-minded nations in the world, have an important role in building up a future structure to deal with all these crises?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
My Lords, that is an excellent question but difficult to answer. Fundamentally, we are in almost all these networks—we are in the G7, the G20 and the OECD, we are the fifth-biggest contributor to the UN and a permanent member of the Security Council—so we should be quite thoughtful and selective about where we think institutions can be strengthened. A good example of that is NATO; it is undoubtedly stronger than it was two, four, six, eight or 10 years ago, which is a very good thing. Some organisations you could spend the rest of your political life trying to reform but struggle to make progress—I might put the United Nations in that category. We should use what we have and make it work as well as we can, but we should also look at new institutions when there is a specific problem, such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which does amazing work that we should get behind. I am a practical conservative; I do not have an all-encompassing, global set of rules that we must abide by. Let us take what we have and, where we can, improve it.