Ukraine

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones. I agree with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that it is essential that we plan for the longer term. I believe that in Euro-Atlantic security—strategic stability in the space between Vancouver and Vladivostok—now is always the time to plan for the longer term. In the past I have been critical of people not thinking in those terms. To some degree that may have contributed to where we find ourselves today.

It was a privilege to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. I congratulate him on an excellent and characteristically robust speech. It was informed, wise and delivered exceptionally well. I think the best I can say for him is that in that speech, and otherwise, he has earned and deserves the ear of your Lordships’ House.

I find myself for the second time in a few weeks embarrassed and apologetic to be in a position where I know that, as I am contributing to a debate on a Thursday afternoon, it is improbable that I will be here for the winding up if I hope to get home today to Scotland. Today it is a function of the addition, at relatively short notice, of important business to the list. It is also a function of the increasing unpredictability and lack of capacity of the transport systems to Scotland. I know I am not the only Scot in your Lordships’ House today who is suffering to some degree because of this. In any event, I explained my problem to the Whips’ Office, my own Whips and both Front Benches. I am immensely grateful for the generous way in which they responded.

As the US State Department, among many others, predicted, winter has brought with it a relatively static front in eastern Ukraine along lines largely unchanged since that extraordinary Ukrainian counteroffensive in September. However, we must guard against complacency, and many speeches have echoed that. Troop movements over the last few days indicate that Putin is moving his planned spring offensives forward and we must expect an intensification of fighting in pretty short order. If the WhatsApp from the friend of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, proves to be correct, that order may be shorter than many of us expected. Although the front is relatively static for the moment, we must ensure that this does not result in any abatement of focus from the NATO powers.

This debate gives us a welcome opportunity to remind ourselves of the ongoing consequences of Russia’s unprovoked aggression. Russian forces continue to occupy more than 100,000 square kilometres of Ukraine, around 15% of its total territory. Fierce fighting continues in Bakhmut and elsewhere, and civilians continue to die on a daily basis. On 14 January a missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, killing at least 46 people. It was deliberately targeted there. On 29 January at least one civilian was killed in strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which has been under constant attack since the invasion began. On 1 February a Russian missile killed at least three people in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region.

Noble Lords will recall the profound trauma this nation experienced on 7/7, when 52 people lost their lives to co-ordinated and malign terrorist activity. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that more than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian activity since February last year, with many more thousands seriously wounded. That is equivalent to 134 7/7s, with no end in sight. It is a daily experience for the people of Ukraine.

Human Rights Watch reminded us:

“Russian war crimes began literally from day one”.


Russian cluster munitions hit a hospital and a preschool on 24 February last year, the first day of the invasion. The European media director of Human Rights Watch asserted last week:

“Russia has committed more atrocities than all the human rights groups in all the world could ever have the capacity to investigate.”


I make these points as a reminder that the front line becoming static does not in any way mean that the horrors of conflict have begun to dissipate. Civilian lives, and those of soldiers, are still being lost every day. That fact should act as a constant spur to action, ensuring that we continue to give Ukrainian forces what they need so that they, in turn, can continue their efforts to repel Russian aggression.

I will also mention the situation of Russian conscripts. In many cases, they are young men who have no desire to threaten Ukraine and are being compelled to enlist for service through a mixture of intimidation, avowedly prescriptive legal pressures and crude propaganda. They are Putin’s victims too, as are their families and loved ones.

What of the broader strategic picture? Last week Putin reached into his quiver of bizarrely inapt historical parallels and compared the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine with the Battle of Stalingrad. It is evident that his faltering offensives, undertaken without provocation, bear about as much similarity with the Soviet Union’s heroic rearguard action as they do with the battles of Jutland or Thermopylae. But his recourse to historical parallels, however tenuous, usually tells us something about his intentions, as it does in this case. Noble Lords will recall the essay he produced in 2021 entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. Academically, it was valueless and reminiscent of the work of David Irving in issuing a miasma of pseudo-scholarship to conceal its central immorality. But it made plain his ambitions, including his belief that Ukraine and Belarus have no right to exist and his desire to reshape Eurasia accordingly. What might his evocation of Stalingrad tell us? Coupled with his stated desire to broaden the parameters for the next wave of conscription, it may suggest that he is preparing the ground for an attritional conflict and that he is preparing the Russian nation’s psyche for the reality of a lengthy struggle, costing thousands of lives, to be pursued even where progress is minimal or non-existent.

In a previous debate in your Lordships’ House on this subject, I echoed all the wise senior military officers I have met in my engagement in these issues, two of whom have already spoken in the debate. I said:

“In modern warfare, there is no such thing as a conflict that can be won by purely military means. The best that combat can offer is to fashion a context within which an acceptable settlement can be reached.”—[Official Report, 1/12/22; col. 1956.]


When we are asked to justify our support for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine, I believe an answer is that we, together with NATO allies, are determined to allow him the scope to shape a context within which this conflict can be ended on terms that are equitable for Ukraine and on a scale commensurate with its sacrifice. We know that ultimately there will have to be a set of terms to which both Ukraine and Russia will be prepared to accede if this conflict is to end. The timetable and context of those negotiations is a matter for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. But our military and humanitarian support gives them the opportunity to resist the use of unprovoked brutality and to avoid the necessity of chafing under the terms of a Russian-dictated peace, with all the risks of revanchist violence that would engender.

Even as the military challenges continue, we must not fail to consider the different but enormous challenges we will face in assisting Ukraine to rebuild. Figures from Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index show that endemic problems with corruption remain, with Ukraine ranking 122nd out of 180 countries. President Zelensky’s recent dismissal of his deputy infrastructure Minister and a number of regional officials shows that he is aware of this problem and its implications for the efficacy of military and humanitarian support today and for the post-conflict reconstruction process.

In thinking about how our support can be directed where it will do the most good for the people of Ukraine and the most harm to Russian intentions, it would be useful to consider the example of the US, which last month sent its own auditors to Ukraine for just that purpose.

We all want this conflict to end as swiftly as possible, and in terms that reduce the risk of further aggression. I believe that continuing our military and humanitarian support and intensifying it where necessary is the course of action most likely to achieve those aims.

Afghanistan: Independent Inquiry

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, hold our Armed Forces in the highest esteem. and I welcome this wide-ranging inquiry. However, I am bound to say that I do not think anybody could read this Statement and the detail of the terms of reference without coming away with a very strong sense of disquiet about how these cases were investigated until now and how much other activity beyond these two cases the inquiry will have to investigate.

The Minister refers us to Saifullah and Noorzai, the two judicial review cases which are—or appear to be—key to this investigation happening at all. The second paragraph of the Statement opens:

“The decision has been informed by two ongoing judicial review cases known as Saifullah and Noorzai. The claimants in those cases assert that relevant allegations of unlawful activity were not properly investigated.”


The last sentence of the fourth paragraph reads:

“The Saifullah and Noorzai claimants have been consulted on the terms of reference but I will not comment further on ongoing court proceedings.”


I am bound to say that after a quarter of a century of practising in a court, in plain English that seems to me that we were compelled by the fact that we were going to lose these cases to have this investigation, and that is why the cases have been suspended while a proper investigation takes place.

There is another point I feel bound to ask the Minister about. On 14 July, James Heappey, the Minister for the Armed Forces, answered a UQ arising from a “Panorama” programme, which used language that my noble friend Lord Coaker repeated—and I encourage that sort of language in the House of Commons. He said among other things that the

“alleged criminal events referred to in the … programme have been fully investigated by the service police”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/7/22; col. 490.]

The circumstances of these two cases, Noorzai and Saifullah, were referred to in the programme. Why is there no mention of this “Panorama” programme in the Statement? A completely different impression was left in July in the House of Commons, and indeed in your Lordships’ House, about the reliability of that “Panorama” programme and the fact that it had happened at all, so why was there no mention of that? Did the Minister for the Armed Forces know about these two ongoing judicial reviews when responding to the UQ? Why did he not mention them to the other place, and why were they not mentioned in your Lordships’ House at that time? That suggests to me that not all the information that should have been given to Parliament was given at that time.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I will deal first with the matter of previous investigations. The noble Lord will be aware that significant investigations and reviews have already been undertaken by the MoD to investigate the allegations. That includes through service police investigations; reference was made to Operations Northmoor and Cestro. Steps have also been taken to improve the service justice system, and the inquiry will take all this into account.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I said that the Secretary of State proposed back in May that progress should be made on looking at an inquiry. I cannot specifically comment on what my right honourable friend Mr Heappey said in the other place on 14 July; I would need to look at Hansard. I think it would be for him to respond to the noble Lord’s challenge or charge that he did not fully disclose to Parliament what the current situation was. Obviously I am not privy to what he knew, and it will be for him to address these matters.

As I previously indicated, a process was already under way to look at the possibility of a statutory inquiry. On the “Panorama” programme itself, the Royal Military Police has independently requested material from several sources, and legal engagement continues to secure access to that material, but as yet no new evidence has been received. This matter will now pass to the inquiry and to Lord Justice Haddon-Cave to pursue whatever channels of evidence he wants to procure.

I do not think there is anything more I can offer the noble Lord. He will see from the terms of reference that this goes much wider than just the two events investigated under Northmoor and Cestro. There is a very wide remit for the inquiry and for Lord Justice Haddon-Cave to investigate a whole raft of things. To go back to the earlier point on which I think we are all agreed, if anything needs to be discovered and to come out, it is in the interests of all those who serve this country bravely and with the highest standards of professionalism that their reputations are kept intact. If there has been any wrongdoing, this inquiry will seek to uncover that.

Ukraine: Russian Drone Attacks

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As the right reverend Prelate will be aware, it is not so much the numbers of drones as the way in which they are used, which is required to comply with international law and the law of armed conflict. Drones have allowed Ukraine to stretch the limits of its armed forces, and certainly, having eyes in the sky to spot targets and then direct artillery fire means that it can make better use of what it has.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are to be commended for imposing sanctions on three individuals and one commercial entity here in the UK who have been responsible in part for the provision of kamikaze drones to Russia from Iran. What plans do the Government have to work with allies to ensure that sanctions are tethered to international criminal accountability, following the French example? Only two days ago, the French courts decided that two senior executives at Amesys should face prosecution for knowingly providing technology that facilitated the torture of Libyan citizens by the Gaddafi regime. Should we not be following that example?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

What is important is that, first, we have an effective sanctions regime. As the noble Lord indicated, the UK has sanctioned more than 1,100 individuals and 100 entities, and with our allies has frozen around £275 billion of assets. The noble Lord will be aware that certain actions constitute breach of law, and those will be acted upon. But perhaps pertinently, the Government are considering closely with international partners all options for seizing assets. They could be used, perhaps, to support the people of Ukraine and contribute towards the reconstruction of their country.

Fleet Solid Support Ships

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As far as I understand it, Harland & Wolff currently expects the contract to support 1,200 shipbuilding jobs across its yards in Belfast and Appledore. As everyone is aware, Harland & Wolff has a strong reputation. It has been having a challenging time. As I said earlier, the extensive £77 million infrastructure investment will make a big difference to it and put it in a position where it will be poised to bid for future contracts.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, before leaving the European Union and since, we have been told repeatedly that one of the advantages of coming out is that British ships will be built in British yards. The use of the active verb in these sentences is important. I looked closely at the Minister’s answer to this Question in the House of Commons. He said that the ships would be assembled at Harland & Wolff. Where are these ships to be built? They are built in modules. Is the work to be in Britain or elsewhere? Is the bulk of this contract going to be abroad? The £77 million is welcome, as are the jobs, but what proportion of the contract is coming to the United Kingdom and what proportion is going to Spain? What other G7 country does this? None.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I can only repeat what I said in response to earlier questions: that the majority of these ships will be built in the UK. As I understand the technical situation, the majority of the blocks and modules from which the ships will be assembled will be built at Harland & Wolff’s facilities in Belfast and Appledore. Again, I repeat that this is very good news for British shipbuilding, particular on the back of the recently announced Batch 2 of the five frigates at Govan. This is all indicative of the very good state of the British shipbuilding industry. I refer the noble Lord to what the chief executive of Harland & Wolff had to say:

“I am pleased to see the Government seize the last opportunity to capture the skills that remain in Belfast and Appledore before they are lost for good.”


That is testament to the strength of this decision.

Royal Navy: Conduct towards Women

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I very much hope that they will. I have described to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, where the teeth are in a lot of the changes that have now been made. There are real repercussions for miscreants now if they transgress and fail to observe the high standards of behaviour that we expect. But perhaps helpfully—to reassure my noble friend—we are in fact now publishing the annual reports on sexual complaints within the Armed Forces. We published in March of this year the single service sexual harassment surveys. We have also instigated a D&I programme to monitor and measure the efficacy of our initiatives, to make sure that they are delivering. In April of this year, we mandated climate assessments across Defence, and that is to try and ensure—as my noble friend rightly identifies—that the changes we are making are delivering the improvements we hope.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will recollect that, in the interim report into the behaviour of the Met police, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, revealed that hundreds of police were getting away with breaking the law and with misconduct. The reason for that was largely because, despite the importance of patterns of behaviour to the investigation of sexual predators and other alleged offenders, the misconduct procedures in the police force deliberately ignored patterns of behaviour and dealt with each allegation separately. They therefore could not corroborate each other. Can the Minister give us the assurance that the military misconduct and disciplinary procedures do not proceed on that basis—because it is a deliberate loophole to protect the institution?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, the dramatic change which has been taking place within the MoD, leading to changes of policy and legislative change, has been accompanied by leadership training and education. One reason why women are now prepared to come forward is because, in improving the complaints system, we have introduced an independent route separate from the chain of command. Women now feel a confidence not just in reporting but because the system is robust and will deliver them a result and something will be done. I very much hope that, with the climate assessments mandated across Defence, any pockets of behaviour that were emerging and looked unacceptable would be rooted out and we would become aware of them. The system certainly is there to improve that transparency.

Armed Forces: LGBT Veterans

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I can tell the noble Baroness that the call for evidence that commenced in August has been extended to 1 December to provide the fullest opportunity for people to contribute. The review team continues to meet stakeholders. The chair has been meeting senior veteran charity officials and senior military officers to gain their insight. The team has also been investigating historical records to develop an in-depth chronology of the ban. The efforts to obtain testimony and make sure that the review is fully informed are very extensive.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, my question is further to that asked by my noble friend Lord Cashman and the similar question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. Similar to the decision to pay interim compensation to the victims of the infected blood scandal while that inquiry continued because of the urgency of the case, is this not a case where a presumption in favour of generosity should be made so that compensation can be paid in some form to the victims of this dreadful decision now? The moral case is plain and Ministers, including our Minister, have repeated it. Surely the MoD’s own records would make such a restitution relatively easy to administer.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

In fact, we do not have the numbers. That is one of the difficulties. As the noble Lord is probably aware, in the early 2000s, the MoD settled a number of claims from former members of the Armed Forces who had been dismissed for being LGBT. The compensation awarded to claimants consisted of damages for loss of earnings, loss of pension and injury to feelings.

We must not pre-empt what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, is undertaking. We should leave him as an independent reviewer to carry out his full scope of inquiry, analyse the responses, come to conclusions and decide what recommendations are important for the Government to look at. There is a need for consistency in how we seek to redress these issues.

Defence: Type 45 Destroyers

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will be aware, the propulsion issue that arose with the Type 45s was a complex technical issue. Indeed, it has been a complex engineering project to rectify it, but, thanks to the evidence through “Dauntless”, we are now satisfied that very healthy progress has been made.

As I have said previously in the Chamber, the case of HMS “Prince of Wales” is unfortunate. I understand that she has now made it to Rosyth, which is good news, and will be going into dry dock. We will then be able to explore in more detail the exact nature of the fault. It is not thought to be a class fault. HMS “Queen Elizabeth” has been inspected and is continuing to discharge her duties in the US in support of the Atlantic Future Forum.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, in December, in a report entitled We’re Going to Need a Bigger Navy, the Defence Select Committee expressed concern that the Type 45 PIP programme was “slipping”. In February, in their response to conclusion 20 of that report, the Government admitted that barriers to speeding it up included

“constraints of industrial capacity”.

In a letter dated 21 June, they said that they were

“assessing options to accelerate the programme”.

Do those options include addressing the constraints of industrial capacity? If so, what are the constraints and what are the options for addressing them?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The response given at the time was a reflection of both industry and the department doing their best to advance the correction of the propulsion defects. As I have indicated to the Chamber, progress has certainly been made with “Dauntless” and is being made with “Daring” and “Dragon”. We are looking at the options as best we can to accelerate the programme and complete this as early as possible before 2028. However, as I said earlier, that must be balanced against the Royal Navy’s current and future operational commitments.

Ukraine Update

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

We understand that the sanctions imposed by the UK and our international partners are having deep and damaging consequences for Putin’s ability to wage war. We have sanctioned more than 1,100 individuals and 100 entities and, with our allies, have frozen around £275 billion-worth of assets. That includes oligarchs worth £117 billion. We have also announced new sanctions on Kremlin-imposed officials in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. Russia’s GDP is expected to contract by 3.5% to 8.5% in 2022, but that is compared to a pre-invasion forecast of 2.8% growth. By 2026, Russia’s economy is expected to be 16% smaller versus the pre-invasion trend estimated by the International Monetary Fund. There is evidence that it is hitting Putin hard. Much more problematic is to know whether the message is reaching ordinary Russian people. There is evidence to suggest that, sadly, they are now beginning to experience the hardship of the consequences of Putin’s illegal war. It may be that with that, coupled with the tragic deaths of and injuries to the loved ones and relatives of many people and families in Russia, they may now be beginning to pose the question: what is this about and why are we doing it?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, looking slightly beyond now and the immediate future, what assessment have the Government made of the fact that on 25 August, the day after Putin’s chief of defence acknowledged that the Russian military campaign had stalled, President Putin signed a decree, which will come into effect on 1 January 2023, increasing the size of his country’s combat forces by 137,000 people? That brings Russian combat personnel to 1.15 million people. If we take into account that Ukraine has set itself the target of a 1 million-strong military, what are the implications for the strategic stability of the part of the world that we are a key part of? What assessment have the Government made of this significant development?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

It may be that Putin passes a law or makes a decree, but we have seen that the mass and volume of his armed forces numbers have not delivered for him the military triumph that he clearly anticipated was within his grasp when he embarked upon this illegal war. As the noble Lord will be aware, various reasons are hypothesised for that: many of these troops were untrained, many were provided with equipment not fit for purpose, and there seems to have been an absence of overall strategic command. So there are inherent weaknesses within the fundamental operational capacity of the Russian military. That has become evident as Ukraine has embarked on its activity to defend the country and seek to call Putin to account.

The noble Lord is right that these levels of activity are alarming but we must not be distracted and we must never lose sight of the fact that something wrong, illegal and dangerous has happened; somehow, we and our like-minded friends and allies have to respond to that by helping Ukraine. The gift that Putin would wish for is to think that anyone is getting bored or fed up or is now taking this all for granted. We are not—this country is not doing that, and neither are our European and NATO partners. We are resolved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and do whatever it takes to assist in bringing this illegal invasion to an end.

Afghanistan: British Special Forces

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I am sure the House will have paid close attention to his authority in relation to these matters.

I reassure the House that the RMP is a professional, competent and well-trained investigative authority, and it has proven itself in that effectiveness on numerous occasions. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, it engages with the civilian police force to make sure that it is absolutely abreast of all the procedures and processes of modern technology.

My noble friend is quite right: if there is anything wrong, if anything criminal has happened and the evidence can be produced to substantiate that, of course it is in the interests of the MoD and the great majority of law-abiding, upstanding and honourable members of the military that these matters be investigated. I reassure him again that if we are made aware of any new evidence that supports the assertions made in the programme then, yes, they will be investigated.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the SAS has an international reputation as the bravest and best. All I can say from my time as Secretary of State for Defence is that that is a well-earned reputation. The allegations are very grave. I do not intend to draw the Minister into any comments about specific allegations, but at the heart of the response from the MoD is the information, which is impressive, that extensive independent investigations have taken place and no charges were brought because there was no evidence to justify that.

My problem is that at the heart of the programme is an allegation that investigators told the police—this is apparently supported by some video evidence—that they were obstructed by the British military in their efforts to gather evidence. That is a fundamental and important allegation, which, separately from anything else, needs to be investigated.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I say to the noble Lord that, as he will understand from his own background, we need evidence. That is why the RMP has asked the BBC for the evidence. Where is the substance of the information on which it based this programme? That is what we are waiting to see. As I remarked in the Statement, the BBC wants to seek the RMP’s legal authority for seeking this information, which seems to be the most perverse way of approaching everyone’s interests in trying to find the truth and establish justice. Still, there is engagement between the RMP and the BBC and the noble Lord is correct: if there is evidence to support these very serious allegations, and it is new evidence, it will be investigated.

Defence Spending Priorities: NATO Summit

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The Prime Minister has made it clear that the investments we propose to embark on, such as AUKUS and FCAS, will mean that defence spending will reach 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade. It is currently projected to reach 2.3% of GDP this year. We constantly assess the threat and our ability to respond to it, which is a responsible way to proceed.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, on Monday in the other place, while making a Statement, the Prime Minister was on more than one occasion asked a variant of the excellent question that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, asked. He never once answered the question but twice prayed in aid what he called the “gigantic” commitment we are making to the AUKUS agreement and how it will increase defence spending very considerably, taking it over the target of 2.5%—those are not the exact words but that is what he said. On 16 December when he made the initial Statement about AUKUS he said nothing about predicted costs. On the contrary, he said that AUKUS came with lucrative defence and security opportunities. There is no information in the public domain on the predicted cost of AUKUS so where can I find the evidence of the gigantic commitment we seem to have made, that only the Prime Minister seems to be aware of?