Queen’s Speech

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, after those wise words, I begin by declaring my interests as listed in the register: as president of the Royal Commonwealth Society and as an adviser to major Japanese companies and to the Kuwait Investment Office.

There are some very good and not-so-good aspects of the gracious Speech to be noted this time—of course, it is the second in the past year. To start with the best bits, it is obviously good to see the end of the Brexit deadlock in clear sight. The previously paralysed Parliament, which some of us had been pointing out for a long time could be cured only by a fresh election, has now duly been replaced and is a thing of the past. I agree that there are problems with our immediate neighbours to be resolved and arrangements to be harmonised after 31 January, but we plainly do not want to be tied to, or held back by, any kind of so-called dynamic alignment with an EU, which is so obviously stuck in the past and going through its own severe contortions, and which everyone recognises is in serious need of reform.

There is, of course, the usual crowd saying that the time made available to settle relations with the rest of the EU is impossible—that is the latest moan—but in many cases they are the same people who said that it was impossible for Mr Johnson to strike another deal, that the Irish border problem could never be resolved and that there would be another hung Parliament and that an election would solve nothing. So is there any reason to give their opinions now much weight? The answer is no.

The other sort-of-good-news bit of the Speech is that there is to be an integrated—I like that word—review of Britain’s place in the world and foreign policy. Frankly, this is long overdue. It should have been held at least a decade or more ago, as the digital age and the new networked world took hold and changed the entire pattern of international relations and power. Had we done that, we would long ago, and much sooner, have discovered, first, that we need to engage far more purposefully in Asia, where power now lies and where vast new markets, in which we must succeed to survive and prosper, have already arisen.

Secondly, we would have discovered that the United States of America stays a good friend but that the relationship has changed from the old pattern of 70 years past, and that even before Trump appeared it was clear that our world views no longer coincided. A new relationship should have been built up long ago. Meanwhile, we are subjected to dim-witted columnists who write about an alleged choice between Europe and America that does not exist. Have these people forgotten about China’s growing role in the Middle East and world affairs and that we now live in a network world, or that in any case we already have reasonably good trade relations with America? I fully share the view that Iran is a great nation that has been dragged down by the mullahs, from whose narrow, bigoted rule Iranians must be freed, but I do not believe that assassinations of their blood-soaked generals is the right way to go about it. The nuclear agreement with Iran finally having been finished off certainly makes the whole world a very much more dangerous place.

Thirdly, we should have realised much sooner that relations with China were becoming crucial, although they needed to be carefully balanced with our relations with the third richest nation on earth—measured by GDP if that means anything—namely Japan, which always saw us as its best friend in the West but which we keep overlooking. We might also have managed the Hong Kong situation better had we had better dialogue with Beijing.

Fourthly, we should have seen earlier that defence and security have come to change their meaning in the age of cyber warfare, drones, street terrorism and nuclear weapons development. We might then have avoided the disastrous decisions which have been made by those in charge of our defence procurement in recent years, which must now be corrected. We might have perceived earlier that NATO’s purposes and structures needed radical overhaul in this utterly changed digital age.

We might have realised sooner that, while we must continue to contribute heavily to the welfare of humankind, the idea of our enormous DfID budget being completely separate from our overseas power deployment and foreign policy is absurd and wasteful. Finally, we might have grasped quicker that all kinds of new networks have grown up across the planet, not necessarily between Governments but between professions, interests, young people, business and trade in services and knowledge products in which Britain should be seeking the closest possible involvement, not least with the Commonwealth, the biggest network of all, in which we are fortunate, although barely deserve, to be members.

That brings me to my final comment. Although the Commonwealth was rightly mentioned by my noble friend Lord Gardiner, there was, alas, no mention of it at all in the gracious Speech—either this one or the last one. That, I think, was a discourtesy to Her Majesty who, after all, is head of the Commonwealth to which she has devoted most of her reign. It may sound a minor omission, but it tells us clearly one thing: that the strategists and mandarins deep in Whitehall have simply not yet grasped the nature of Britain’s modern exceptionalism, new world role or potentialities in a shifting international order.

Syria: British Armed Forces

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Lord for making a very important point. He is absolutely right: this is a situation of turbulence and uncertainty, and implicit in that is great potential risk and danger. The United Kingdom has always been clear in relation to Syria as a whole that we want a political solution. We are focusing our attention on trying to deal with Daesh. Turkey of course remains an important ally within NATO. It may be reassuring to know that the Secretary of State for Defence is meeting NATO allies today and tomorrow, and north-east Syria will be very much on the agenda.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, can we assume from my noble friend’s answers to the noble Lord, Lord West, that we continue to support our old friends and allies the Kurds in their efforts to fight ISIS, despite the fact that Turkey and Russia are now taking over control of the region?

[Baroness Goldie]

My noble friend raises an important point. We will be looking very closely at Monday’s agreement between Turkey and Russia, including any impact on the local population. I make clear to the Chamber that the United Kingdom will not recognise any demographic change in Syria brought about as a result of deliberate attempts to force population changes. We are very clear that parties need to act on a properly negotiated and sensible basis.

Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz: Merchant Shipping

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I entirely accept the noble Lord’s point about ensuring proper and adequate force protection for our people and assets in the region. As he knows, the UK has a permanent presence in the Gulf in support of international maritime security operations. We conduct routine deployments to the region. Royal Navy vessels, including the frigate HMS “Montrose”, four mine countermeasure vessels and the RFA “Cardigan Bay”, are currently deployed to the Gulf region to assist international efforts to protect trade and shipping. But we are in no doubt that in seeking to de-escalate the situation, as I described, those assets need to be properly defended.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that 95% of the oil going through the Strait of Hormuz goes to Asian markets and eastwards, rather than to the West? Should we not be consulting closely with the Chinese and Japanese, who are the big consumers most affected by problems in the strait, before planning any further action?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is entirely right. As he may know, the UK is a member of the Combined Maritime Forces, which was created back in 2001 to help counter the threat from international terrorism. It has 33 member states from across the globe, with active support from the Gulf Cooperation Council. We routinely contribute personnel and assets to the CMF to conduct maritime security operations throughout the region.

Royal Navy: Type 31e Frigates

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we see no reason at all to depart from the timescales that we set ourselves; they remain unchanged. We want the first ship in 2023 and all five by the end of 2028. I say to the noble Lord that we have streamlined the procurement procedure in a way that should be helpful, to enable us to award the contract by the end of this year.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that we are both designing and building frigates for other Commonwealth countries, notably Australia and Canada. Will he encourage his friends to consider the proposal that these frigates—I am not sure whether they are Type 26 or Type 31e—shall be crewed and operated jointly by Commonwealth navies?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend draws attention to something very encouraging. The UK shipbuilding sector has been able to compete in the world market for very high-end specification frigates—it is the Type 26 frigates which he was referring to. This aids the issue of interoperability between allies, which he also highlighted. We welcome the fact that Australia and Canada have entered the fold of nations which will operate this vessel.

RAF: Operational Conversion Unit

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I cannot be exact on that. We have either contracted for or have letters of intent for 48 aircraft, as I said earlier. Towards the end of that delivery schedule, clearly, we will need to look at the next tranche. That could be in four or five years’ time.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

While we are speaking of combined air and naval power, has my noble friend noticed the reports that British shipbuilding of warships may now be resuming a world role, after many years of most warships being built in Japan, Korea and other places? If that comes about, is it not to be greatly applauded?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and we are encouraged by the response we have had to the publication of the National Shipbuilding Strategy, which should ensure the re-energising of our shipbuilding capability in the UK when it comes to Royal Navy warships.

Royal Navy: Deployment

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Will we deploy ships east of Suez, or are they too vulnerable for that sort of work?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, in due course we certainly hope to do so, but it is too early for me to comment on their precise deployments at this stage.

Royal Navy: Warships

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for those suggestions, which I am sure will be noted by the department. But the modernising defence programme that is now in train is the body of work that will settle the specifics of what we require to meet our defence needs. As I have said, its aim is to ensure that we have defence that is sustainable, affordable and configured to address all the threats that we face.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister say what discussions his colleagues have had with Commonwealth navies about the building, deployment and operation of warships? Does he accept that, while frigates are very valuable to our powered defence strength, they are also a major transmission of our influence and soft power across the globe?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is entirely right. We have regular discussions with our Commonwealth partners in particular and also with our NATO allies, in the light of the national shipbuilding strategy which, as he knows, is designed to ensure that we once again a competitive and vibrant shipbuilding industry in this country.

Zimbabwe

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I very much agree with the noble Lord. We are putting together a potential package of measures to support a credible election process and encourage economic recovery, to be delivered alongside our international partners—but, I emphasise, in exchange for meaningful political and economic reforms.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may reinforce what the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said about Zimbabwe rejoining the Commonwealth—when, of course, democracy has developed and the economy is recovering. In addition to accepting that idea, will my noble friend encourage his fellow Ministers, when they speak about these issues, to recognise the enormous value that membership of the Commonwealth can bring to a recovered Zimbabwe in due course? We should say these things in our speeches and not forget the Commonwealth aspect, which is very important.

[Earl Howe]

I entirely agree with my noble friend.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is always an honour to speak after the most reverend Primate, whom we have really come to regard as almost invariably speaking silver-pure common sense. He has given us some vision in what are undoubtedly sombre times, and perhaps we could do with a few more quotes from the Bible to guide us through the difficulties we face.

I am a bit puzzled that we in this House are in effect debating the changing world order beyond Brexit, the consequences of Brexit and how we adjust to them, but will not be coming to the issue of Brexit itself until later next week. It should really be the other way around, since Brexit is of course part of the much wider global transformation taking place. How we handle Brexit will lead to how we meet and cope with the entirely new world ahead.

If I had been drafting the gracious Speech, which no one asked me to do, I would certainly have added at the end of paragraph 1, after the bit about,

“our future outside the European Union”,

the words, “and stepping into entirely new and volatile international conditions which present our nation with great opportunities as well as great dangers”. This is indeed a time of fast-rising world tensions, as the noble Earl set out very clearly in his opening speech. Russia and America seem to be drifting into an unnecessary war in the hell on earth that is Syria today; there are major tensions in the Far East and the Pacific Rim that could easily escalate into some kind of nuclear exchange; there is renewed instability in the Balkans; the Gulf states are splitting apart; the USA is turning inward to protection and proving an unreliable guide in Middle Eastern affairs; Ukraine is festering; and the rules-based international order, which since World War II has brought prosperity through trade to billions, is now under direct threat. These are all tinderbox material. Any one of them could get out of hand in ways that could do more damage to the lives, safety and welfare of the British people than any Brexit outcome, hard, soft or middling, any election or even Mr Corbyn and his plans for economic reform. If we want to stay secure and prosperous and to check the horrors of terrorism, which tragically we have experienced recently in London and Manchester, then we must contribute and deploy all our influence, our soft power and, where necessary and effective, an agile hard power, to the limits of our considerable skills, in all these smouldering situations.

As the most recent report from the International Relations Committee, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, tried to explain, we need a new strategy in the volatile Middle East. We can no longer always rely on American policy to underpin and maintain balance in the region.

There is indeed a new world order, or disorder. Technology and the digital age are unravelling the past global system and the old pillars of international stability: open markets, democracy and the rule of law are all under attack. Fake news and cyberattacks are proliferating, as the noble Earl mentioned, while yawning inequality, or at least the perception of it, is growing all round the world.

The Prime Minister has urged that in these new circumstances we must focus on finding, in her words,

“old friends and new partners”,

to adjust to the new conditions. It may be slightly conceited to see that as a gratifying echo of the book I wrote four years ago, Old Links & New Ties.

This is a time when whole industries are being destroyed by shifting world power and new technology, with jobs vanishing and incomes being squeezed or lost altogether. How we conduct ourselves with Europe and how we manage and adapt to the national repositioning demanded by these great outside forces is all of a piece. I greatly welcome the words of the new lead Brexit negotiator, Mr Crawford Falconer—no relation, I assume, to our dear friend in this House, the noble and learned former Lord Chancellor—who sees the Brexit step that we are now taking as opening up a “huge strategic opportunity” and a pathway to major reform of the near-moribund World Trade Organization to meet all the new threats and conditions. He is right.

The same applies, in fact, to most of the 20th century institutions, from the UN and Bretton Woods bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank down to and including NATO itself. They have all served us well—but all are now struggling to change. We have to build and join the new networks that are emerging in this age of total connectivity, with the centre of world power and the world economy having shifted. I refer to non-western entities such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is going ahead without America, the BRICs and IBSA working groups, and many more: it is a new pattern.

China is creating what looks like a new order of organisations and structures to parallel the western or Atlantic model. We have to work with this new partner. I am glad that we are taking a lead in working with China’s new international development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. But we shall have to be more energetic still in involving ourselves in China’s gigantic plans for new Silk Roads and trade routes right across Kazakhstan and other central Asian countries and into the heart of Europe—always taking care not to weaken our links with our other great ally in Asia, Japan, which is the third-largest industrial power in the world, with China being the second.

This is where the main growth, the main technological advance and the main markets are going to be. In nearly all these areas, one finds that the prospect of fresh and expanded direct bilateral links with Britain is regarded as most welcome—better in some cases than trying to deal with the cumbersome collective bureaucracy of the EU’s other 27 members, with their widely varied interests.

Of course, we now need as well to develop what has been described as the “deep and special relationship” with our European neighbours in innovative and constructive ways. I hope that we are getting on fast with that. I see major scope for far closer links, particularly with France, which is the one truly experienced world power in Europe and in the Middle East. It seems to me to be a no-brainer that we should do this step by step over the coming years.

Obviously, the first stage would be an EEA-type arrangement, to which we are already a contracting party, which allows wide national intervention in border controls. Free movement is being watered down throughout the EU anyway as millions more refugees threaten to come north into Europe from the Maghreb and the Middle East. The EEA allows us to open trade negotiations and deal with many other countries. It is not within the locus of the ECJ and does not cover agriculture and fisheries, which should please our Scottish friends, and is the perfect place to settle for a while before moving on to new relations—by which time the whole pattern of European and world trade will have gone through further revolutions.

In particular, we are going to see the domination of international trade by services of all kinds, in data of all kinds and in information flows—all areas where the single market has not been much good. As an 80%-services economy, this suits us mightily.

That will be especially so with the Commonwealth network of nations, big and small, which use English as the working language. That is certainly one of the old/new networks that we have to strengthen in every way. It is very good news that my noble friend Lord Ahmad is the new Commonwealth Minister, although my noble friend Lady Anelay was excellent, too—and even more that the whole Commonwealth cause is now at last a serious government strategic endeavour, being run from the Cabinet Office, with a team that was formerly a mere six to eight in the FCO and is now expanded to 60 to 80 personnel, at the highest government level. That is real post Brexit repositioning in action, in preparation for the Commonwealth summit and beyond. In all this, we need to prepare and streamline our government organisations, as well as our business sector, to pack far more punch in new trading conditions. DfID should certainly combine more closely with the Foreign Office—and I am extremely glad to see we now have a Minister, the excellent Alistair Burt, who covers both.

In addition, the business visa policy needs changing, and students should be taken out of the immigration figures. It is madness that we have halved our student intake from the dynamic India, to the benefit of America and Germany. Our universities are our spearhead of influence across the world; weaken them and we weaken our whole trading and commercial future.

We have talked of strong and stable government. That is not quite what we have at this precise moment—but we need to remember Charles Darwin. He was the one who said that we need not so much the strongest to survive as those who adapted successfully to changing conditions. So we need to be strong and stable and ready to adapt at every level of government and society to survive and prosper.

The Brexit process is a part of that adaptation but, frankly, only a small part. Our new priorities have to be much wider. As I have said and written, we need to rebuild old links, the Commonwealth network included, and establish new ties, here in Europe and right across the globe. How we set about this is something on which I hope your Lordships’ House, for all our faults and problems, can make a really useful contribution. We will try.

Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with whose analyses I almost invariably agree—although with his conclusions a little less than invariably. Like him, I shall concentrate on the rules-based order part of the Motion we are discussing. I do so not because I question for one moment the crucial role of a fairly funded NATO and a strong and agile military and maritime power on a far greater extent than we have today, but because our defence and physical safety now rely on so many other things, in a totally transformed and disrupted world security environment that is unlike anything that existed even five years ago, let alone a decade or so ago.

A year ago the then Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, observed that the distinctions between military capability, intelligence agency capability, diplomatic capability and capacity building through development programmes et cetera, are “becoming more blurred at the edges”—in other words, very interrelated. To his list I would add: the sheer pace of digital technology, which has empowered the streets and the masses and transformed the balance of power throughout the globe; the fragmentation of states, which we have seen in the Middle East particularly; the vast shift of power, production and capital construction to the east and south and away from the north and the west in the 21st century, away from the Atlantic powers and especially to Asia; and, above all, the vital need to win, and keep winning, the narrative through adroit projection of soft power and through maximum connectivity, all the time and everywhere. It is what the Chinese call winning the discourse war, or the information battle, and it is now central in a way that it was not even five years ago.

The signals for a change of gear have been there long enough. None of what has happened now is very new. Long before Brexit or Donald Trump, the need for a fundamental rethink in our position was there. First, for example, it has been obvious for three decades that power was shifting in the world, away from the Atlantic hegemony of the 20th century and from Governments and hierarchies of power generally. Major changes in the co-ordination and configuration of Britain’s international policies were bound to be necessary. In many ways, the whole pace of innovation and investment is being set at the other end of the planet.

Secondly, it has been equally obvious that conventional military size and big spend were going to be challenged everywhere by small and agile methods, and that the whole scale of power and influence deployment has changed. The microchip has, among many other things, miniaturised weapons force and power dramatically. The Davids have been vastly empowered against the Goliaths everywhere. Almost any small organisation, tribe or cell can operate a lethal drone. An inexpensive shoulder-launched missile can destroy a $100 million plane or disable a $1 billion warship.

Thirdly, it has long been clear that in the digital age military engagement has to accept entirely new rules. The battle may no longer be on the battlefield. The ubiquity of the web and total connectivity, on a scale never before known in human history, mean that infinitely greater audiences have to be persuaded and influenced. There are no clear decision points between victors and vanquished. Trust becomes the new and essential winning weapon. Subtle new mixtures of force and friendship have to be crafted and assembled if permanent instability is to be overcome in any theatre and any kind of settlement reached.

As I have already said, none of this is very new. Indeed, our own military thinkers and leaders have responded with growing vigour over the decades. I remember the days of Frank Kitson’s low-intensity warfare, the practice of which I was involved in in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Profound and innovative ideas have been continuously developed by military thinkers in response to these new conditions and new types of engagement. Yet there seems to me to be one colossal piece missing from this plethora of activity and all this dedication to new forms of power deployment in a radically transformed international milieu. The missing piece is clear: motivating purpose and cause. What exactly is it all aimed at? What is the central story, the truly coherent, graspable, definable strategic narrative that should be the common and impelling theme right across this landscape, and in the minds of every service man and woman at all levels all the time?

A central lesson from our House of Lords soft power report three years ago, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World, from the many experts who gave evidence to it, and from the current International Relations Committee inquiry into the UK Middle Eastern policy, is that for our power and influence to be effective, and our interests to be well protected and promoted, there have to be some defined policy priorities and goals. These can be derived only from a clear and overall articulation of our national purposes and direction, against a background of an increasingly confused and altered world. We need to be prepared for, believe in and be fighting for some definite goal.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said, we need a certain idea of the United Kingdom—to adapt, as he said, General de Gaulle’s phrase—in the new networked international landscape that has replaced the 20th-century order. One has to ask what this certain idea, now in its British clothing in this age of global turmoil, is to be. Does the prospect of Brexit—possibly positively—and the arrival of Donald Trump, in a more negative way, point to the answer? I believe that they do. We now have to build a partnership for European security, although not under but liberated from the old EU treaties. This is plainly a major opportunity for creative leadership in the digital age.

We can cast off the image of a Britain of limited, downsized ambitions, as some American commentators keep saying we are signalling. They are frankly reading the wrong signals. However, they can hardly be blamed, when they see that we are spending less on our diplomacy through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget—now about £800 million net—than we blow, for example, on cavalier aid dispersals to international agencies or on subsiding carbon reduction by the most expensive conceivable means. Billions have gone in that direction with little to show for it. The sooner that these international departments dovetail, and in some cases even reunite—in the words of my noble friend Lord Howe, to pack a more powerful punch—the better.

As for America, it is obvious that Pax Americana is finished, even if some Americans still believe otherwise. America, spending more than the next eight major countries combined on defence, no longer wins wars. Anyway, I doubt whether President Trump is quite the power everyone seems to think, as power slips away from all Governments into the hyper-connected worldwide network. His attempts to impose trade protection on the fluid and revolutionised international trade scene are bound to fail in an age of internationalised production.

Should not our strategic and unifying vision be something quite different from either of these 20th-century tableaux? Should not our story be of a more confident Britain, superbly placed to operate with agility in today’s networked and heavily interdependent world, making full use of its huge experience and extensive global friendships, and an amazing latticework of relationships, trust, common understanding and brilliant connections all across the globe? Is not the inspiration a resourceful Britain, wonderfully woven into the Commonwealth network of 2.3 billion people using the same working language, language being, of course, the ultimate conveyor of complex ideas, common understanding and trust—the default protocol of the planet? For deploying Britain’s undeniably immense but still underused soft-power assets, the Commonwealth —with its ready-made trust network—is the ideal forum and platform, although there are some backsliders.

To see things through this lens demands a changed mindset among policymakers and those in all branches of government, civil and military, who are charged with safeguarding Britain’s security, and its global business, brand and reputation. We are talking about nothing less than a grand repositioning of the United Kingdom in a world utterly transformed by the digital age. For this we need a new strategic synthesis, ready to work bilaterally, with America as a partner, to a degree with China and closely with our European neighbours, but not permanently tied or overcommitted to any of them.

The Army speaks rightly of its core purpose, but whatever form power, deployment and projection take nowadays, soft, hard or smart, one purpose above all others needs to be clear, inspirational and a source of commitment at every level. This is to uphold the nation’s changing role and interests in an age of global turmoil, and to provide its security with a rock-solid basis. That is the unambiguous message that our society and its leading voices need to send to all three branches of our armed services, so that they can perform at their best, with a clear sense of direction. We owe them nothing less.