France: Security
Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his question; he clearly has huge experience in this area. The Lancaster House agreement that I signed with President Sarkozy in 2010 expressly sets out areas where Britain and France will collaborate, including the most sensitive areas of nuclear weapon research and nuclear weapons. If what he is saying is that we need to enter into deeper dialogue to think about these things in the future, I agree. Britain’s nuclear deterrent is declared to NATO, and I am in favour of us having deeper conversations with the French about that.
I still maintain that one of the aims of NATO is, as Pug Ismay put it,
“to keep the Americans in … and the Russians out”.
That is still absolutely key to NATO’s future. I missed out a bit of that quotation, the noble Lord will be pleased to note. One of the things we must do is to make sure that we are talking to all parts of the American system, to make sure that NATO is in the strongest possible shape in its 75th year, with more members and more members reaching 2%, so that whoever becomes President at the end of this year can see that NATO is an institution worth investing in.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
In an earlier incarnation, I had the opportunity to introduce the French Minister of Defence to our nuclear facilities and visited Saint-Nazaire, where the French showed me their facilities. It is on the importance of that background of our nuclear collaboration that the noble Lord, Lord Owen, is absolutely right. It is a background against which the United States is perhaps showing less interest in NATO, and its future involvement may not be so obvious and immediate. That makes it clear that the nuclear arrangements and nuclear understanding between this country and France are of manifest importance. The Heads of Governments and the Foreign Secretaries of both countries need to be very closely involved against the dangerous situation that we face in Europe at the present time.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
Again, the noble Lord has huge experience of this. This is a great year for Britain and France to be talking about these things. It is the 120th anniversary of the entente cordiale, we will be commemorating D-Day again in June and there are the French Olympics, which I am sure will be a great success—we are helping France with security and other issues. So of course that dialogue, in line with the Lancaster House agreement and its renewal, will be part of it.
However, it is important that we try to encourage America to see NATO as a huge positive. One must not overinterpret this, but it was good news when yesterday the US Speaker of the House of Representatives made this remark about the Ukraine funding:
“We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the world like Putin … and they are watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our own interests around the globe, and we will”.
When asked about the Ukraine funding, he said that he expected to bring it forward this week. So there is positive news. Therefore, as well as all the things we should be doing with European partners to strengthen NATO, we should do everything we can to encourage America to see it as part of its defence as well as ours.
Queen’s Speech
Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who drew on his 44 years of experience in NATO for the benefit of the House. I have great sympathy with the comment by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about trying to open for an opposition party on the Queen’s Speech at this time with the unbelievable range of subjects that might be covered. In my brief five minutes I shall talk about just one. I do so against as grave a situation globally at the present time as I can remember.
It is incredible that, with the new events that have taken place, we have almost forgotten the global pandemic that threatens everybody. With global warming, the explosion of methane in the Arctic is accelerating the rate of climate change—another great drama that is coming for us. I agreed with the Governor of the Bank of England when he used the word “apocalyptic”. He used it about the scale of inflation; I shall use it about the question of food supply. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about global malnutrition. There is no question that, however many people Vladimir Putin kills in his efforts in Ukraine, it is nothing compared to the millions he may kill because of the blockage of Odessa and the prevention of proper circulation of food around the world. The number of countries now desperately worried is enormous. I understand that at the moment 25 million tonnes of grain is sitting blocked in Odessa and neighbouring areas.
Previously, grain was being shipped out at the rate of 5 million tonnes per month, so think of those countries and regions expecting to get it. I have a list: Egypt—which will now be hard-hit—Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Sahel, sub-Saharan Africa, Somalia and Syrian refugees in Iraq. There are riots in Iran, where food prices have gone up by 300%. You can now list the number of places that face the most serious problems. We had been worried about the threat but thought we could get supplies to them. It is now not a question of money but of whether the supplies even exist.
Against that background, who can help? One of the countries people turn to, the second-largest exporter of corn, is India. India has had very bad weather for its harvest and is now blocking all exports. Indonesia, a great source of palm oil, is now worried about supplies. Now it is blocking any exports as well. It is against that background that one sees the really serious situation. The question then is: how can we sort it out? This is where I had hoped the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, would give us an immediate answer with all his experience.
At the moment, we have to stick to the road we are on and try every way we can to get the message through to all the decent people in Russia—of whom there are millions, as I know from my experience and pleasure in visiting there in my official capacity—who are absolutely horrified. If I take one bit of recent encouragement, it is from the comments on Russian official television by Colonel Khodarenok, in which he spelled out exactly why one can admire Ukraine. The story we hear is that Putin thinks Ukraine is a fake country with no right to exist. Colonel Khodarenok said that it showed very clearly that the people of Ukraine see themselves as defending their motherland. Their commitment to that shows why they are doing so much better against many Russians who do not have the slightest idea why they are there and meant to be fighting.
The other serious consequence is that with starvation comes migration. Many countries have been worried about the amount of migration—and mass migration—in the world. That may be as nothing compared to what is about to happen, because there are simply not the supplies. Food supplies are blocked and countries that were already on the edge will go over it; if you do not get out of those countries, you have not got a hope for your lives and futures.
I am sorry to give rather a sombre speech, but I believe that the lead the United Kingdom Government have given with other allies shows that we have to face Ukraine; we have to give it all the support we can. We have to reopen Odessa and make Russia sufficiently ashamed of what it is doing—murdering millions of people in the rest of the world. We must get some real impact out of that as well.
Ukraine and Russia: Military Developments
Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, there is little I can disagree with from the noble and gallant Lord, who speaks with great insight. I assure him that I agree with him totally—we need to take the temperature down. We have seen the situation with the likes of Mr Navalny, and where we have been most effective is when we have acted and acted together.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
Is my noble friend aware that, when the Soviet Union collapsed, great attention was not necessarily paid to some of the territories—but in Russia the loss of Ukraine was much the most sensitive? I entirely agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord West. In this difficult situation, in which Russia has now seen the steady advance of NATO right up to its very borders, the sensitivity of this situation—not to allow any action against Ukraine but to recognise the genuine Russian concern—needs to be properly addressed.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I agree with my noble friend, which is exactly why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary have engaged directly with President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov. Again, we continue to engage with Russia through other channels, including at the OSCE and the UN Security Council.
Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy
Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]
My Lords, I welcome my local noble friend Lord Godson and thank him for showing so quickly the excellent contribution that he is going to make to our discussions.
I welcome the integrated review. It is a very brave undertaking by the Government. It is a remarkable document with a very bullish foreword by our Prime Minister. Of course, it is not just a defence review; it carries a host of intentions and undertakings in security, defence, development and foreign policy. It is going to be pretty fertile ground for regular reviews by Parliament of the various aims and ambitions that it expresses.
It has been accompanied by a pretty extensive defence Command Paper. Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State, says in that paper that his core mission is
“to seek out and to understand future threats”.
In the brief time available, I will raise one threat that is referred to only briefly in the review, in connection with the nuclear deterrent, and pick up a theme mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Reid. The integrated review restates the commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, but recognises that there is no early prospect of that, so instead announces the ordering of four new Dreadnought submarines to replace the Vanguards. So, far from the planned reduction of warheads, it announces an increase. That surprised me, and I understand the comments that others have made about that decision—and of course it includes the design of a new warhead. The review states:
“We will champion strategic risk reduction and seek to create dialogue among states possessing nuclear weapons, and between states possessing nuclear weapons and non-nuclear weapon states, to increase understanding and reduce the risk of misinterpretation and miscalculation.”
It is precisely that risk that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Reid, wish to highlight. The continuous at-sea deterrent operates in a totally different communications environment now from the safe, secure systems when it originally operated. We are living now in a world with ever-new developments, with cyberwarfare, ever-greater organised hacking systems, artificial intelligence, audio and videos called deep fakes and, on the side, an increasing interest by other countries in some of our undersea cables, which are important to some of our communication connections. The risk of misinterpretation and miscalculation is all the greater, and there is a vital need for effective hotlines at a top level between nuclear weapons states.
I have just learnt that France, as the new chair of the P5 process, has embraced the concept of strategic risk reduction and will make improving crisis communication technologies, such as hotlines, a key priority for discussion among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council ahead of and beyond the planned review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty this August. I hope the Government will give this French initiative the greatest possible support and assistance. There is no question but that we live a more dangerous world at present, with the increasingly assertive role of Russia and China’s activities. It is a dangerous situation and nuclear miscalculation could be catastrophic. No time must be lost in addressing that.
EU Ambassador to the UK: Diplomatic Status
Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I agree with the premise and context of the noble Earl’s question, but I assure him that we are currently in discussions for the very reasons he has articulated. The EU is an important partner to the United Kingdom. At the end of the transition period, our intention is to be the best ally and friend to the EU. We will work in that respect, whether on its status here in the UK or on other key issues. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, it will remain an important partner in all respects.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]
My noble friend has said that he does not wish to pre-empt the negotiations, but I think it will be clear to him from the exchanges so far that not one Member of your Lordships’ House who has spoken so far is not very surprised to find that the status of an ambassador is part of the negotiations. I appreciate the difficult position that my noble friend is in, but may I suggest that this be sorted out as quickly as possible, so that we can live up to the intention of being the best friend and ally?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
As ever, I have listened to my noble friend very carefully and I take note of what he said.