House of Lords: Future Location

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree that those are two important issues. The Government have an aspiration that all parts of the United Kingdom should feel connected to politics and indeed to politicians, including unelected politicians. On his first point about whether the idea of relocating of the House of Lords should be taken forward, I am sure that all logistical aspects would be examined.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, the matter of what the House of Lords is going to do should be decided first. I believe that one candidate for the party opposite is in favour of abolishing it altogether. It seems to me that the idea of movement before the future shape, structure and role of the House of Lords are decided makes this a completely irrelevant Question.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend puts it very well. That is exactly why my party’s manifesto committed to looking first at the role of the House of Lords and taking matters further in the light of conclusions.

Torture Overseas: Ministry of Defence Policy

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 20th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am not aware that there is solid evidence that this Government, the previous Government or the previous Labour Government engaged in the kinds of activity that the noble Baroness refers to. There was a single instance in 2004 that was admitted to, where compensation was paid. Upon investigation it was found that the security services and the department had released information that led to the detention and torture of an individual. That is the single instance that I am aware of, but I think that the noble Baroness conflates two issues in this context. The issue that she refers to relates to the Government being complicit and directly involved in the administration of torture, whereas here we are talking about the release of intelligence to third parties and agencies that might or might not engage in torture in certain circumstances. We need to make that distinction.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

I strongly welcome the Statement that my noble friend has made on this matter. When I saw that the Question had been tabled, I thought that there was some evidence of a serious incident involving torture but, as I understand it, the Minister says that there is a possible misunderstanding about the rules that apply and he has indicated that this has been looked at very carefully. There can be no place for torture—it is counterproductive. In a very dangerous and difficult world, there are all sorts of temptations to go down that route but we must never do it.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right: torture is never justified, and the Government will not countenance a situation where they are complicit in it. The internal MoD guidance was intended to have exactly the same meaning as the consolidated guidance. We now realise that there is scope for ambiguity. That ambiguity will be removed when the guidance is revised, and we will do that upon receipt of the Information Commissioner’s comprehensive advice on how the government-wide guidance should be amended.

Royal Navy: Warships

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I understand the point that the noble Lord is making, but he will recognise that putting any equipment, whether ships or not, into mothballs carries a cost with it. If he is referring to HMS “Ocean”, I am afraid that the decision not to extend her life has been taken and she will decommission this year as planned. But the noble Lord is right in substance: the aim of the modernising defence programme is to make sure that defence across the piece is sustainable, affordable and configured to address the threats that we face—and I am sure that he shares those aims.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that in the modernisation programme it is extremely important that close attention is paid to recruitment? Will he confirm that that is being given high priority in the work that is being attended to at the moment?

[Earl Howe]

Yes, my Lords. As my noble friend is well aware, there are concerns about recruitment in all three armed services. There is no single reason for that. Some of it is attributable to the buoyant employment climate in the economy as a whole, but that is not the whole reason. This is a matter of constant attention by the service chiefs.

Trident Missile Test

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I apologise to my noble friend. I understood from the clerk that in an Urgent Question we go backwards and forwards across the House.

I do not think I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who was extremely disappointed by the line taken by the noble Lord, whom I thought normally rather a responsible spokesman on defence for the other side. I think it was a disappointment to many of us.

I think the Prime Minister was rather overzealous in her interview to preserve in this case the long-standing principle of not commenting in detail on our nuclear activities. As the Secretary of State for Defence in another place has made clear, he and the Prime Minister are kept regularly informed, as I was in my time, about the progress and activities of our critical nuclear deterrent.

The current situation is why we have tests. There have been problems before. As was made clear in the Statement, problems arise and are dealt with. The important thing is to maintain at all times the credibility of our deterrent, and anyone who seeks to undermine it or suggest that it is not working does great damage to our country. No one would be more interested in a running commentary on the activity of our deterrent tests at present than the Kremlin, Pyongyang and maybe Daesh. We need to maintain our last line of defence and its credibility. I strongly support the Statement that my noble friend has repeated here today.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend, who has immense experience of these matters. I say again that this was a successful operation. There are very few matters that cannot be discussed openly in Parliament or outside it, but this is one of them. Noble Lords will, I hope, appreciate that it is appropriate and right for government to maintain secrecy on detailed matters relating to our nuclear deterrent.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Obviously, this is a very important area, which has given rise to a lot of public concern about how widely this would go in terms of all the authorities that might have access to information in this way. But it must be right that, if there is to be a list and it is to bear the power to remove names—which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is not suggesting should be deleted—there must be a power to add to the list as well where appropriate. Knowing the way that Governments, bodies and names change, I can see without altering the impact at all that it would be necessary to exercise this power. Could the Minister say a little more about the committee that he was talking about? Is it a standing committee, special committee or advisory committee? When he mentioned the proposal to add somebody to the list, he said that that would be scrutinised by a committee. What sort of committee would that be?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I was referring to the procedure relating to the enhanced affirmative process. That procedure is set out in Clause 239 of the Bill. Importantly, it provides for a relevant parliamentary committee to report on the regulations. I do not think that I can be more specific at this stage. The enhanced affirmative procedure has been used in the past, albeit not very frequently, and is there as an additional safeguard. I endorse everything that my noble friend said in support of my remarks. He is absolutely right that we cannot foresee at this stage the need to add to the list, but we must and should provide for the circumstances where that becomes necessary.

Yemen

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as I said, we do monitor reports of humanitarian violations, but it is important for Saudi Arabia, in the first instance, to conduct thorough and conclusive investigations into incidents. It will have the best insight into its own military procedures and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations. That will also allow the country to really understand what went wrong in a particular case and to apply the lessons learnt in the best possible way. That is the standard we set ourselves, and we set it for our allies. We would not expect Saudi Arabia to be treated any differently.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that there is absolute urgency about the peace talks taking place in Kuwait and that the risk of starvation among many of the Yemeni population is very real in spite of the massive United Nations efforts to alleviate the situation, particularly as there are disturbing signs that al-Qaeda may be entering into the issue and that there is a real risk of its resurgence in the Arabian peninsula, which is the last thing we want to see?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Yemen’s is now one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world. Of the world’s population in need of humanitarian aid, one-fifth lives in Yemen, totalling 21 million people. Aid is being co-ordinated through the United Nations, as my noble friend is aware, and is being delivered through UN agencies and NGOs. The UK is the fourth-largest donor, I am pleased to say, and we have more than doubled our commitment to Yemen over the past financial year to £85 million. But there is much more to be done, including ensuring the flow of commercial goods into Yemen and access for humanitarian agencies.

National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend Earl Howe on his presentation of a very substantial report, which the House will want to study. One thing that concerns me in it are the completely new elements that have come into our defence strategy. Drones, cyber and the interception of communications will play a much bigger part in the defence of this country than might previously have been the case. I am concerned about where we will be by 2025 or maybe—it may be better to look this far—by 2030. That is quite a long way away. My noble friend has already partly answered this but my concern is on how soon some of these capabilities, which in the present frightening state of the world are very desirable, will be ready and how the manpower challenge will actually be met.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend puts his finger on a central issue that we have been wrestling with over these past months. It is impossible to predict the threats that we will face in 10 or 15 years. We know that there are many uncertainties. The national security strategy sets out a quite different threat picture from that of 2010. In particular, the threat from terrorism has increased substantially and aggressive Russian behaviour means that state-based threats are more prominent. As the Statement said, we cannot choose between conventional defences against state-based threats and the need to counter threats that do not recognise national borders. We have to tackle both. We have attempted in this document, I hope successfully, not just to address the threats in order of priority but to plan for an array of capabilities that will make us much nimbler on our feet, more flexible and able to respond globally to any threat that materialises. My noble friend is right to put his finger on cyber and drones as new elements of this strategy. We must invest in these things but we must also ensure that the skilled manpower is there so that the equipment can be utilised to its best effect.

Syria: Military Involvement by Canada

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am not aware of any casualties among those of our personnel who are engaged in the training of moderate Syrian forces. Both we and the United States agree that we need to continue to support the moderate opposition in Syria. We acknowledge that the training programme has faced some challenges. The noble Baroness may be aware that only the training element of the programme is currently paused. We will continue to enable the efforts of the moderate opposition in its fight against ISIL and focus on equipping. That will allow us to reinforce the progress already made in countering ISIL.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Was my noble friend not struck by the fact that the appallingly difficult problem we face, raised by the noble Baroness, makes it extremely difficult to see at present how anything except a political solution can possibly resolve what is becoming a galloping crisis of refugees as the situation goes from bad to worse? As winter is now coming on, we can only pray that at last we can get some central resolution. We welcome the fact that Iran as well as Russia will now come to the discussions to be held shortly, together with the United States and other parties that are concerned.

[Earl Howe]

There is no doubt that any eventual political solution will require the major powers and those countries in the region to agree on that solution and, of course, if Iran can be involved in that as well as the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia, all the better. The effect of the Russian action to date in targeting the moderate opposition groups is to take the pressure off ISIL, allow it scope to make territorial gains, which in recent days is exactly what it has done, and in so doing put back the date of that eventual settlement.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord King of Bridgwater

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Does my noble friend recognise that the House thinks the Government are quite right to bring forward, before the House rises, this Statement on their strategy to counter ISIL? It is against a situation that every single Member of this House recognises is extraordinarily grave, in terms of both security and the possible humanitarian catastrophe that might affect some of the countries we are dealing with. Against that background, I find it absolutely mind-blowing that the sole contribution from the Opposition Front Bench was to argue against the system of embedding, which anybody involved in defence knows has been long-established for many years by different countries. We take in officers and other ranks from other countries; we likewise enjoy the benefit of them. They are under other people’s command. It is run as effectively as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made a much more measured contribution on the question of the objectives. In addition to the military objectives and the diplomatic objectives—Russia, Iran and others have a contribution to make in this area—is resources and funding. Anyone who has had to deal with terrorism knows that very often, at the back of it, money has a lot to do with it. The greatest effort that can be made, in addition to the military and security effort, is to try to switch off the resources that are undoubtedly available to ISIL in its various activities.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I can say only that the House would be wise to listen to my noble friend. He has immense experience in this area. I fully agree with his comments.