Ukraine Update

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As my noble friend will be aware, and as I said earlier, the United Kingdom, both bilaterally with Ukraine and in concert with our NATO allies, has been concentrating on responding to the situation in Ukraine. That response has called for a specific commitment from the United Kingdom in relation to defence resource and defence equipment, and that is the focus of our thoughts at the moment.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have given notice of my question to the noble Baroness. On the question of Chernobyl, what is the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency at present? I take it that the whole world system has not somehow broken down, but Moscow and Kyiv are covered by the arrangements for Chernobyl and similar RBMK reactors and so on. I helped organise it 30 years ago. Can we say that there is some role for the International Atomic Energy Agency rather than having a squabble, with Russian people appearing in a highly radioactive room and saying that they are now running it?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I probably have limited information to give the noble Lord, but as I said earlier, we have what we think is a reasonably reliable report on the current state of the site. The Government are in contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and we continue to support its impartial efforts—that is important; the agency is impartial—to ensure the safety and security of Ukrainian nuclear facilities. Of course, Chernobyl is one of them, but there are others. There is no more specific information I can give to the noble Lord at the moment, but I reassure your Lordships that we continue to monitor the situation closely.

Ukraine

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I think very few people would disagree with the noble Lord’s sentiments and I thank him for his reference to the comments by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I think an earlier contributor mentioned his article in the Times yesterday. I thought it was an extremely helpful analysis and a very clear illustration that in the West we totally understand what is happening and see through it. I think there is a need for that candour and that rigour.

I feel that in the current situation there is a need to be absolutely focused on where the immediate threat lies. As we speak, something like 100,000 Russian military are amassed on the borders of Ukraine. That is the actual threat and that is why we have to address our thoughts to how best we support Ukraine with a variety of measures, whether that is what we were doing in supplying from the UK these weapons that can be used in a defensive capacity, whether it is that we propose to apply sanctions if anything unacceptable happens, or whether it is that NATO and the EU are united as to a response against anything that President Putin may be minded to do which, quite simply, is unacceptable, contravenes international law and is an affront to the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, just over 100 years ago, Europe descended into war when no one wanted that sort of escalation. On that or any similar analogy, how can you ever get into a mode of de-escalation, which the Minister referred to? I do not disagree with anything that has been said this evening, but I press her on the point that I am raising, which has not been addressed: how do the Government think that de-escalation can come about in any way, given the pride all around? In 1,000 years of Russian history, Ukraine was always part of the Kievan Rus, and Kiev is in Ukraine. There was also the Battle of Balaclava and War and Peace, which every Russian child has read. In this country, where I live, all the roads are named after Balaclava or somewhere else in the Crimean War.

Consistent with not playing chicken or being the one that looks scared, how can we get to practical de-escalation? That is a simple question, and I would like to hear a little more from the Minister on how we get to a scenario with a degree of de-escalation—or is that just a pipe dream?

Armed Forces Act 2006 (Amendment of Schedule 2) Order 2017

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I pick up a point arising from the two speeches from these Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches respectively. It is a long time since I did my two years’ national service, but I was for 35 years after that a trade union official. I pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe—namely, the services should reflect that in some respects service life is becoming more like civilian life, and is not just in a separate silo. For example, a lot of people deal with technical work, sitting in front of computers like everybody else. The long-standing civilian arrangements, which include a mandatory grievance procedure on the one side and a disciplinary procedure on the other, may be applicable to service personnel on a charge. Having been on a charge, I add that little twist to the matter. It is interesting to note the cultural changes that have occurred in the services. Women now hold senior ranks. I do not know what the most senior rank is that is held by a woman. For example, I do not know whether there is a female general, but women hold very senior ranks, including that of commanding officer. It would be interesting to get some feedback on how much the culture in the services has changed. Formerly, in any consultation where a parliamentarian was present, a senior officer would say, “Private, you agree with that, don’t you?”, and the reply was, “Yes, sir”. The point made by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, and that made in a wider context from the Lib Dem Benches, are pertinent to the change in that culture.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the continued interest noble Lords have expressed in these matters. Lest there be any doubt, the Government have always made it clear—as have the services themselves—that there is no place for sexual offending in the Armed Forces. We have listened to the concerns raised in this House. I hope noble Lords are reassured by the steps we are taking today; it is indeed true that the Armed Forces take any allegation of any type of sexual offence very seriously. I noted with interest the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, on this subject. He is right: there is no doubt that since he undertook national service there has been a dramatic change of culture in all sorts of ways. One change is that there is now zero tolerance of this type of unacceptable behaviour. As to whether the increasing presence of women and women officers has made a difference in that regard, I would not hazard a guess, but it can only have been a beneficial influence, if there was any such influence from that quarter.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked me a number of questions, the first of which was whether we have consulted the service chiefs in drawing up this order. Our proposals to amend Schedule 2 to the 2006 Act have been agreed by the Service Justice Board, which includes the Second Sea Lord, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff and the Air Member for Personnel. The service chiefs collectively are of course absolutely clear that there is no place for sexual offending in the Armed Forces.

As to whether we have consulted the rank and file personnel of the Armed Forces, the answer is: not specifically at ground level. Each of the services is involved in the policy-making process and guidance will be issued by the chain of command to let people know of the changes being made. However, it is important to remind ourselves that the changes that we are making today already happen as a matter of policy—policy which the services themselves introduced.

I think the noble Lord’s concern on that aspect of the issue can be addressed in part by the measures that the Armed Forces are taking to prevent sexual allegations and offences arising in the first place—the subject of his third question. I assure him that the Armed Forces are committed to addressing sexual harassment and sexual assault through a range of actions, including awareness campaigns and training presentations around sexual consent. The Chief of the General Staff has made permanent cultural and behavioural change one of his priorities. To that end, there have been poster campaigns and training packages to better educate personnel on social norms, as well as on what is expected of them arising from Armed Forces rules and regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, cited the experience of the United States armed forces in this context.

As regards the potential bias or perception of bias that can arise in cases of this kind, we recognise the great courage that it often takes to come forward and report a sexual offence. To ameliorate the tendency that some would have to refrain from coming forward, we strive to ensure, through training and awareness campaigns, that personnel know how to report any inappropriate behaviour and what will happen should they do so. It is to be hoped that these measures are gaining traction.

As the noble Lord is aware, we publish annual statistics on sexual offences in the service justice system on the GOV.UK website. Statistics are currently available for 2015 and 2016 for cases where the service police have been the lead investigating agency and where the service justice system has retained jurisdiction of a case throughout. Information for 2017 will be published in the spring. I remind noble Lords that data are drawn from the three main components of the service justice system: the service police dealing with the investigation of a crime; the service prosecution authority dealing with cases referred; and the Military Court Service, which lists the cases and reports on outcomes. Our annual statistics are in accordance with the requirements of the Office for National Statistics.

I hope that covers the questions that noble Lords have put to me.

RAF Red Arrows

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I share my noble friend’s disappointment at the decision but there is no doubt that, following the accident at Shoreham, the safety of the public at and near air shows has come into sharper focus. Following Civil Aviation Authority and Military Aviation Authority changes and amplifications to air display regulations, the Chief of the Air Staff made the judgment that the potential risks to air crew, spectators and other members of the public in the surrounding area were no longer acceptable. As the legally accountable person, the Chief of the Air Staff has to be respected in his decision.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a resident of Crondall, which is on the flight path into Farnborough and where the Chinooks line up for RAF Odiham. Great concern has arisen after Shoreham about the difficult manoeuvres of the Red Arrows. By the way, it is not true that there has never been an accident at Farnborough, although not in the past 50 years. I was at the air show in 1952 when around 30 people were killed when John Derry’s aeroplane crashed and the engine fell into the crowd. Is it not the case that we need to bear in mind that while the flypast by the Red Arrows is highly appreciated, the decision on this is quite logical?

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. If one looks at the map of Farnborough and the surrounding area, it is easy to see how densely populated it now is. It simply is not possible to conduct a Red Arrows display without significant overflight of Farnborough, Camberley and Fleet. As I have explained, the decision has been taken by the Chief of the Air Staff that the potential risk to life from display flying over those areas, which I am afraid is inevitable given the extreme air manoeuvres that the Red Arrows undertake, could not be tolerated.

Iraq Inquiry

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall concentrate on what one might call the fiasco of the intelligence being over-egged. The Chilcot report is very thorough. In a sense, the Government come out with a clean sheet for honest dealing. With regard to my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, there is no finding that the legal controversy was hidden from Cabinet. Indeed paragraph 953 of vol. 5 of the report clearly states that:

“Cabinet was not misled on 17 March and the exchange of letters between the Attorney General’s office and No. 10 on 14 and 15 March did not constitute, as suggested to the Inquiry by Ms Short, a ‘side deal’”.

However, in the whole network, something did go badly wrong somewhere in the area of MI6 or GCHQ.

I have noticed today an interesting theme. Many questions that are answerable have been answered but I do not think that anyone has answered a couple of questions that, at the moment, are unanswerable.

One of the problems concerns the relationship between what we as parliamentarians know and parliamentary scrutiny of the intelligence services, in which the noble Lord, Lord King, has been heavily involved. This led to something that was unsatisfactory. Dr Hans Blix, the distinguished former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, has on several occasions said that he was not satisfied with the quality of the information given to him by the British Government. Is that partly because the British Government were not satisfied with the sort of intelligence that they were getting?

Pages 64 and 65 of vol. 3 of the report record:

“Sir Jeremy Greenstock also reported that Dr ElBaradei had appealed to Member States to offer whatever information they had to assist UNMOVIC and the IAEA in reaching credible conclusions on Iraq’s weapons programmes …

Mr Campbell recorded that Mr Blair was ‘worried about Blix’s comments that we had not been helping enough with the intelligence’. Mr William Ehrman, FCO Director General of Defence and Intelligence, advised Mr Straw’s Private Secretary on 19 December”—

I think that that is 2002—

“that the UK was passing intelligence to UNMOVIC but ‘We had not found a silver bullet yet’”.

Will the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, when he replies, address the transparency of the work of parliamentary scrutiny committees on the relations between the Cabinet and the intelligence services?

I think that we are saying that what went wrong was not really the way in which people dealt with the intelligence. What went wrong was that the intelligence was faulty. Intelligence cannot always be right, but the fact is that no one seems to have drilled down satisfactorily into what seems to be the highly critical question of the quality of the intelligence. I thought that last week’s government Statement could have said more about that.

The concern about the intelligence services is not only that ordinary mortals cannot be given all the state secrets but that you do not need to be a fan of all the novels by John Le Carré, such as The Night Manager, to know that there are interests within the security services in terms of their own turf. We saw, as we have seen in other fields as well, reluctance to let someone as distinguished as the United Nations weapons inspector have all the information that we had. Why not give him the opportunity to cross-question the suppliers of the information if in his judgment he thought the information did not prove that there were weapons of mass destruction? If the intelligence services are saying, “Yes, it did prove that”, we need a much clearer process regarding why they were not confronted very explicitly in the course of the end of 2002 and the first part of 2003.

That means that people like the Attorney-General are in a very difficult position because they have to go on the conclusion of a Government on the basis of information that is given to them by the security services. This is a point that I have not heard elaborated on sufficiently in the debate so far. Right from the start, there was dubiety about this whole question. This is not hindsight. I asked a question on 8 January 2003:

“My Lords, given press reports that some circles in Washington are sedulously denigrating the work of Hans Blix, can my noble friend the Minister assure us that there is no question of a casus belli being constructed from information that has not been corroborated by Hans Blix, simply on the grounds that it has not been passed to him?”—

let alone him being able to scrutinise it. The Minister of State said:

“My Lords, there have been voices in the background criticising Dr Blix since before he got to Iraq in the first place. I repeat to your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government has the utmost confidence in Dr Blix and in Dr El Baradei. There will be a discussion on the Iraqi declaration made on 8th September … at the UNSC tomorrow, 9th January. That will be an opportunity for Dr Blix and Dr El Baradei to give an update on their work, and I suggest that that will be an opportunity for any of the worries that the noble Lord mentioned to be aired in the most suitable place—the Security Council”.—[Official Report, 8/1/03; cols. 1015-16.]

Well, not quite.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, following on in a sense from the line of thought of the noble Lord, Lord Low, I say that there are a number of headings under which one has to make judgments. In addition to the four pillars of policy, as magisterially set out by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, I shall pose some issues of significance where the Brexiteers seem to be in denial.

The first is that there is a likelihood of an economic setback. It is highly likely to be a trigger for a significant devaluation. Incidentally, a forced devaluation is quite different from an active policy, as was true twice for Labour Governments—although that point may be argued. Still, an active policy to devalue the pound is one thing; to find the pound collapsing is another. If it was a fall of around 20%, as some forecasters have said to me over the past few years, then we would be rapidly approaching parity with the euro. It would be an irony, would it not, if in trying to avoid the national humiliation of falling below the euro, we ended up, as it were, shadowing it. At that point we might as well join it, so thank you to the Brexiteers for that.

Then there is the red herring, if you follow the arithmetic, that we will destroy the health service if we remain because we pay the EU a gross figure of £350 million that could otherwise be spent on it. That has to be put alongside what I just said about a fall in the national income. We have found since 2008 a fall of several points from the national potential, and that soon adds up to between £30 billion and £50 billion. Each 1% loss of national income amounts to £13 billion, since the national income is £1.3 trillion. The Brexiteers are trying to get it into people’s heads that it is a disaster that we pay this sum of £350 million, which is beyond comprehension. However, that is a small fraction—one-20th or one-40th—of the loss of one year’s growth of national income, which would certainly be a minimum forecast for that loss. My question is: what is so cool about viewing with equanimity the prospect of a major devaluation of the pound as a result of a crisis?

Next, who can deny that those who argue that standards at work are being undermined through migration are in many cases the very same people who have always disparaged and misrepresented any and every move to advance and protect workers? I know this from personal experience, having advocated various aspects of the progress of these policies in the TUC for many years. The very same sorts of people who are now saying, “You are no longer protecting the workers”—and thank you very much for that compliment—claim that they are the ones who have protected workers. Each speech every day by Iain Duncan Smith or Michael Gove shows the schizophrenia of the people who are making such claims. The reason why we had to make all these advances at European level was that, if we had tried to make them at national level, each national employer would have said, “No, you can’t do that. We will be undercut”. So the argument is totally the other way around. Parental leave, transfers of undertakings, you name it—they have to be implemented, as we succeeded in doing at European level.

Next, the Brexiteers are in denial of the inevitability—the indispensability—of any free trade area having a number of standards built into it. It happens that I chaired the last EFTA consultative committee that took place, with Britain in it, in 1972 in Vienna, and I assure Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Gove and the rest that the Stockholm treaty of 1959 had a lot of standards built into it, not least on state aids and the rest of it. I have a whole note on that which I do not have time to read out. Therefore we shared sovereignty then, and the whole Conservative Party and, I think, the whole Labour Party thought that EFTA was the bee’s knees, but it had all these requirements for a level playing field built into it.

I wish the best of luck to Mr Gove if he tries to cobble together his free trade area with Albania, Bosnia, Serbia and Ukraine. I will repeat that, because you could not make it up: Albania, Bosnia, Serbia and Ukraine. We ought to set it to music—I will have a go now. Surely no self-respecting experienced politician can go on repeating such fantasies when the facts of the matter are drawn to their attention. By the way, EFTA is now in effect subsumed into the single market called the European Economic Area, and all the EFTA countries, including Switzerland, are part of Schengen.

Therefore, on all these three points the credibility of the Brexiteers is zero.

Defence: Trident Replacement Programme

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the consequences for nuclear non-proliferation of proceeding with a Trident replacement programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)]

My Lords, first, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of Captain Stephen Healey of the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh; Corporal Michael Thacker of the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh; Private Gregg Stone of the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment; Lance Corporal James Ashworth of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards; and Corporal Alex Guy of the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, who were killed on operations in Afghanistan recently. My thoughts are also with the wounded and I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude with which they face their rehabilitation.

I turn to the Question. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the NPT, does not require unilateral disarmament. Maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the current system is fully consistent with our obligations. There is also no evidence or likelihood that others would follow the UK down a unilateralist disarmament route. We will achieve sustainable global nuclear disarmament only through a multilateral process, and the NPT represents the best means currently available for pursuing this.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, on the very sad news from Afghanistan, I am sure that everyone on this side of the House will wish to endorse the sentiments expressed by the Minister and his condolences to the five families concerned. The premise of my Question is multilateral, not unilateral. It is the Government who are, in practice, trying to ride both horses. Recent researches for the Trident Commission show that the nuclear powers will be spending $1 trillion—$1,000 billion —over the next 10 years. How does the Minister expect the non-nuclear states who have signed the non-proliferation treaty to stick to their side of the deal—the grand bargain—unless the likes of us stick to it too? Secondly, the very well-informed defence correspondent of the Evening Standard reported yesterday a “decision by stealth” to go for full Trident replacement. Why are the people of this country not entitled to a national conversation about the pros and cons of where we should be heading as we approach the so-called “main gate” decision in 2016?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we are committed to retaining the minimum credible nuclear deterrent capability necessary to provide effective deterrents, and we keep that under constant review. At the same time, we are working multilaterally for nuclear disarmament and to counter nuclear proliferation. We believe that this is the right balance between our commitment to long-term disarmament and our responsibilities to ensure our national security. I do not accept the noble Lord’s point about stealth. So far as concerns a public debate, a main gate is not expected until about 2016. A decision about how best to consult will be made nearer that time.

Libya

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, as I keep on saying, we have not made any decision on Apaches; however, if we were to authorise use of Apaches in Libya, it would have no effect on our operation in Afghanistan. I can reassure my noble friend on that point. As for his question on the French, I make no apology for working very closely with the French. They are our closest allies in Europe and they bring a lot to bear. Having said that, we also—for the benefit of noble Lords sitting opposite—work very closely with our American allies.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, is it not the case that, as the Minister has just said—and here is a point of emphasis with my noble friend Lord Gilbert—ever since Somalia we have been going down the line of closer and closer co-operation with the French at every level? As for the idea that there is a proposal that it must be one of ours and one of theirs, I would like to hear whether that was conceived or not. However, we must not get paranoid about operations of a slightly asymmetrical nature one way or another with the French. It is to be welcomed.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, once again, I say that no decision has been made on the use of Apaches—I cannot go on repeating that. That, I think, answers the question on “one of ours and one of theirs”. We are working very closely with the French and will continue to do so.

EU: European Defence Agency

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I do not have a great deal of briefing on that issue and I shall write to the noble Lord. On the second part of his question, my understanding is that they have produced a great deal.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords—

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

My Lords—