NATO

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley]

I am glad that my hon. Friend will be on that visit, discussing the matter with colleagues from other NATO countries. I look forward to hearing from him when he reports back.

During the cold war, it was fairly easy to explain why we had NATO and why we needed to work jointly with allies to defend ourselves. Europe was divided by an iron curtain. We in democratic states to the west wanted to preserve our freedom, our human rights, trade union rights, property rights, freedom of speech and freedom to protest while the states in the east—the USSR and its fellow travellers in satellite states—did not share those values. The Soviet Union was well armed with conventional and nuclear weapons and demonstrated that it was prepared to use those military assets to crush the Hungarian uprising in 1956, to blockade Berlin, to invade Czecho- slovakia in 1968 and to try to destroy the Solidarity movement in Poland. It was quite clear to most of the public why we needed military assets to protect ourselves and why we needed to co-operate with other countries to do so.

That was long ago. We still have foreign policy differences with Russia—for instance, over Syria.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and putting NATO in its historical context. Does he not think that with some hindsight, the 1990s, when the Warsaw pact collapsed, was a time when we should have promoted European security and co-operation rather than developing NATO as a stronger, bigger military force, and that that could have brought about a level of disarmament rather than rearmament?

[Hugh Bayley]

There has been considerable disarmament and a big peace dividend on both sides of the former iron curtain since the collapse of the Berlin wall. An attempt was made to rebuild a different relationship in Europe in which the Assembly played a large part, working with the emerging democratic movements in central Europe and in the eastern European countries to help them establish the institutions that enabled them in the fullness of time to join both NATO and the European Union. The door remains open—to countries such as Georgia, for instance. Indeed, I have had heard Russian delegates—they attend the Assembly as a confidence-building measure and because we have a joint NATO-Russia parliamentary committee—ask whether if, at some future date, Russia were to want to form an association with or to join the alliance, it would be possible for it to do so. It is important not to build new barriers between parties in Europe or between Europe and other parts of the world but to seek to build co-operation where we can.

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[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), some of whose relatives died in unique and novel ways. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), who has brought to the United Kingdom the great honour of his election as president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. It is one thing to garner the votes of one’s constituents, but quite another to garner the votes of 28 NATO member countries for the presidency of their body.

Unlike the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire, I value being a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I think it provides an opportunity to look at defence from the wider European point of view and to discuss and reflect on issues in the wider world in a way that the at times UK-centric Westminster bubble does not allow us to do.

I am pleased to take part in this debate on a subject that, as the previous two speakers have said, requires greater attention. Public awareness of NATO is low and I would suggest that that is influenced by the fact that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not maintain a specific budget for NATO-related diplomacy campaigns. I am aware that an FCO meeting will be held in about two weeks and I look forward to seeing whether that will represent the beginning of a new way of highlighting the importance of NATO.

I think that NATO helps us consider the challenges we face today and how to address them. Like the other speakers, I start by pointing out the need for a dose of reality. The UK has rarely, if ever, gone to war on its own. In all the major conflicts of the past, we have nearly always acted in concert with others—including our Commonwealth partners—and we have drawn on support, equipment and people from other nations. It is a fantasy to think that the UK will ever again act unilaterally in deploying its armed forces. All future military operations will be conducted as part of a coalition. We no longer have the range of platforms, personnel or financial resources to go it alone. We also face an increasingly complex set of challenges, many of which do not respect international borders or the traditional rules of engagement. We need the greater thinking power of those 28 countries in NATO.

NATO is under pressure from a number of different sources, all of which make its long-term survival very important. Getting every member of NATO to make an equal contribution will never be easy—it will probably never even be possible—and debates on burden-sharing are not new, but cuts made to defence budgets across the European partnership, coupled with the budgetary pressures in the United States, pose a real threat. The dose of reality that everyone in NATO needs to take is that we can no longer rely on a 70% contribution from the US to our defence.

Leon Panetta pointed out that the example of burden-sharing in Libya made it clear that the current level of US commitment to NATO would not continue. Robert Gates was more forthright:

“If current trends in the decline of European defence capabilities are not halted and reversed, future US political leaders—those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me—may not consider the return on America’s investment in Nato worth the cost.”

Those words should hang above the desk of every Secretary of State for Defence in NATO.

Most recently, General Odierno, a senior American commander, said:

“As the British Army continues to reduce in size we’ve had several conversations about keeping them integrated in what we’re trying to do…In a lot of ways they’re depending on us, especially in our ground capabilities into the future.”

Finally, at NATO’s 2012 Chicago summit, Dr Andrew Dorman said:

“There is a very real danger that as individual nations make cuts to their armed forces they will increasingly assume that some capabilities will be provided by others without necessarily communicating this assumption. Such a policy of risk-sharing can only really work if there is some degree of central management of the attendant risks to ensure that capability gaps do not appear across the alliance.”

He noted in the same breath that the UK Government’s decision to cut maritime control capability would be reasonable if other NATO members were able to cover the gap.

A quick survey, however, shows that we failed to take that into consideration. Norway has one maritime patrol aircraft, while Belgium and Holland have none. During a recent NATO Parliamentary Assembly visit to the Netherlands, I asked its chief of defence whether he regretted cutting their maritime patrol capability and selling it off, and he replied that he regretted it deeply. Ireland has two long-range MPAs, primarily to protect fishing. We are all, therefore, reliant on the French fleet of about 24 aircraft. We have little or nothing to protect our vital sea lanes. Pooling and sharing works only if there actually is something to pool and share.

On defence, it is constantly said that strategic thinking is not being done, that it has been left wanting in the race to cut budgets and that there is a real danger that the one forum we have to facilitate joint operations is being undermined by our failure to realise its worth. I do not think that we can rely on the much-anticipated peace dividend after our withdrawal from Afghanistan. It will cost significant sums to get troops and equipment home.

As European members of NATO wake up to the budgetary pressures in the US, we also have to face the fact that the US is pivoting towards Asia. Ministers have made it clear that they see that as presenting no threat to the US’s commitment to NATO, but it does pose such a threat. Hillary Clinton noted in the Foreign Policy journal:

“The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.”

President Obama, in a speech to the Australian Parliament, provided reassurance that the US defence cuts would not impact negatively on its commitment to the Asia-Pacific region:

“As we end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia-Pacific a top priority. As a result, reductions in US defence spending will not—I repeat, will not—come at the expense of the Asia-Pacific.”

They will, however, come at the expense of Europe. By 2020, 60% of US naval assets will be in the Asia-Pacific region.

The US is responding to reality and we must do the same. The recent “Balance of Trade” study concluded that defence budgets in Asia will have increased by 35% to £325 billion by 2021, eventually overtaking the US. China has increased its defence spending by 7.8%. Russia has increased its defence spending by 16%. The UK will not launch a military operation alone again. The change of focus in the US puts pressure on NATO, making it essential that we take a central role in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and in the forum of NATO.

New threats emerge all the time and it seems that old threats are reappearing. Russia is reasserting itself. China is developing its armed forces and its capability at great speed. The collapse of Syria has implications for the wider region. There are threats to our cyber-security. The growing militarisation of south-east Asia, with the potential for disputes in the South China sea, is underlined by the clamour to augment submarine fleets across the region. Most countries, including China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, have submarines and are looking to expand their numbers. Thailand is seeking to procure its first submarines.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific highway to Europe is opening up. The high north will make it possible for Russia, China, Japan and the south Pacific nations to reach our back door much faster, and we will not have the ability to monitor it and see that they are coming. The high north has 22% of the world’s undiscovered oil. With the opening up of those sea routes, we will have a growing area of vulnerability. That is heightened—I am sorry to keep going on about it—by our lack of maritime patrol capability. Those issues can be dealt with only if we work together as NATO.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am interested in what my hon. Friend is saying about the high north and the Arctic. Does she not think that it would be better if there were serious negotiations about a nuclear weapons-free Arctic, which would have to include Russia, Canada, the USA and all the European countries, as a way of bringing about some peace, rather than accelerating our expenditure?

[Mrs Moon]

My hon. Friend hopes against reality. Norway has taken 40 years patiently and persistently to negotiate a treaty with Russia on joint responsibilities in the Arctic circle. I think that it would take slightly longer than 40 years to get all countries across the globe to agree to nuclear non-proliferation.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) for introducing the debate and describing the work of the Assembly, and for dipping into the history of NATO. That is a good starting point.

At the end of the second world war there was a triumph and a tragedy. The triumph was the end of the war, the defeat of Nazism, the foundation of the United Nations and the universal declaration of human rights and the UN charter. The tragedy was the descent into the cold war, the foundation of the Warsaw pact and NATO, and the decades-long nuclear arms race with costs borne by both sides and the economic problems that ensued as a result. Then there was the election of Gorbachev as President of the USSR, and his proposals for disarmament. The Reykjavik summit was unfortunately neutralised by Reagan’s proposals, and Gorbachev’s proposals for a common European home and promotion of European security and co-operation were not responded to effectively by the USA or NATO. Gorbachev eventually went and the Warsaw pact collapsed. Surely the 1990s were a time for reassessment and looking at an alternative. Why did NATO continue at that point when its cold war raison d’être had gone?

The Library briefing contains a helpful statement by J. L. Granatstein, a distinguished research fellow from the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. In the National Post on 5 March 2013 he wrote:

“Perhaps it might have been better if NATO had wound itself up at the end of the Cold War. The alliance instead sought for a new role, a new strategic purpose, and it found it outside the boundaries of the alliance.”

He goes on to mention Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and later the Libyan adventures of NATO.

I think we should seriously consider the whole purpose of NATO. It was founded as part of the cold war and had a specific area of responsibility—the north Atlantic. It successively increased its operations out of area, and with the Lisbon treaty it does two things. First, it vastly expands its area of operation to include Afghanistan, which by no stretch of the imagination can be anything to do with the north Atlantic, any more than can the seas off Somalia or North Korea, South Korea and south Asia.

[Mr Spellar]

Does my hon. Friend accept that in a more communicated and linked-up world, threats to our security from other parts of the world can have a significant impact on our security at home? Piracy off the coast of Somalia is a real threat to trade lanes between western Europe and east Asia. Those are massive trade lanes for the continuing prosperity of the world. Is that a threat to our security, and should we respond to it?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Of course piracy off the coast of Somalia is not a good thing. Instability in Somalia is very bad, but surely one solves that problem by political support for changes in Somalia—to some extent that is happening and considerable changes are taking place. I sometimes get the feeling that NATO spent the 1990s and early 2000s looking for something to do, and that it was more than pleased to get involved in Afghanistan and present itself as the armed wing of the United Nations. It may be that the UN should have its own force, and that is a matter for consideration and debate. However, when NATO calls itself the arm of the UN, what does that say to countries that are not in or aligned to NATO, or indeed are deeply suspicious of NATO and its activities? Members who talk about NATO as being the effective arm of the UN should think carefully about the implications of what they are saying.

The costs of NATO membership are considerable—probably far greater than those of membership of the European Union, which seems to excite massive debate on the Government Benches. NATO requires 2% of our gross national product to be spent on defence, and Members complain that other countries do not meet those demands. Presumably, NATO membership requires a level of expenditure that many countries simply cannot afford, yet they are required to make that expenditure and, for the most part, to buy those arms from the United States or approved suppliers that produce NATO-issue equipment. We must think far more seriously about why we are in NATO and what it is achieving.

Let us consider Afghanistan from 2001 onwards. Yes, 9/11 was a dreadful event and an act of murder against civilians, but was it an appropriate response to invade Afghanistan? Twelve years later, 400 British soldiers, a larger number of American soldiers, and a very much larger number of Afghan civilians, and others, are dead. Drone aircraft are operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and there is a real threat to the civil liberties of everyone in the world from Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition and anti-terror legislation. That has not made the world a safer or more secure place.

[Mike Gapes]

Does my hon. Friend accept that in 2001, an estimated 10,000 terrorists came out of training camps in Afghanistan from areas that the state had effectively handed over for al-Qaeda to operate in? Was there not a need to protect communities around the world by removing those terrorist bases from Afghanistan?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I question the figure of 10,000 and I would take my Friend back a little further. In 1979, Soviet support for the then Afghan Government provoked a massive US response and arming of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. Massive amounts of US money went into Afghanistan from 1979 onwards and—hey presto!—the Taliban were formed with US weapons. Al-Qaeda was founded by US trainers. What goes around comes around and we should think more carefully about instant information and instant sending of vast amounts of weapons to opposition groups. The same may happen if we decide to send arms to one group in Syria. Where will those arms end up? A little bit of historical analysis might be helpful.

[Mrs Moon]

My hon. Friend is right to say that what comes around could go around. Does he also accept that some of the conflict in Afghanistan perhaps also led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, bringing freedom and democracy to swathes of people across Europe? Some of those countries are now members of NATO, having recognised the importance of joint defence in securing independence and democracy.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Of course the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was a mistake; it was just as disastrous as previous British interventions and the current NATO intervention in Afghanistan have been. It did irreparable damage to the leadership of the Soviet Union through its cost and loss of life. It was a disaster and a contributory factor—not the only one—to the break-up of the Soviet Union. Is NATO the answer to the problem? Should we not have a more assertive policy of peace and disarmament around the world, rather than the NATO policy of rearmament above what any country can realistically afford, which in turn encourages more rearmament?

I was alarmed by the whole discussion about the Arctic and the so-called threat from the north. A whole new scenario seems to be being built up, namely that China will somehow occupy the Arctic and invade us from the Arctic ocean, and therefore we must develop a new missile shield—as we already have aimed against Russia—to protect ourselves. The USA is moving more into the Asia-Pacific region. Should we be thinking more about regional peace and security measures? That has been achieved to a large extent in Africa, Latin America, and parts of central Asia. Should that not be our direction of travel, rather than one that involves large levels of armaments?

The other point I want to raise—this will not be popular with many, if any, Members in the Chamber today—concerns NATO’s preference for being the nuclear umbrella, and the holding and potential use of nuclear weapons. These are the ultimate weapons of mass destruction. There is no “limited use” of nuclear weapons. There is no limited availability of them. You either use them or you do not. If you do, it brings about the death of very large numbers of people, a nuclear winter and the destruction of the lives of millions of people. Those who argue that NATO should hold nuclear weapons must in reality be saying that they would be prepared to use them, with all the consequences that that would bring about.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a lot of time. On this issue, however, I disagree. Does he agree that nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented and that it is in the interests of global security that the democracies of the world join together in a common nuclear defence rather than unilateral nuclear disarmament, which would only hand greater power to countries and forces in the world that do not wish to see democracy prosper?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Of course the technology of nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented; indeed, Einstein in his later years said that if he had his time again, he would have been a clockmaker rather than making the discovery he did. He did not make it with the intention of starting nuclear war, but that was a danger that came from it. Obviously nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented, but it is possible to give them up. South Africa did so, as did Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. There are nuclear weapons-free zones around the world. The prize surely would be a nuclear weapons-free middle east, which would require the nuclear non-proliferation treaty conference that was envisaged to include Iran and Israel to actually be held rather than endlessly procrastinated on. It will not be easy; of course not. But if we do not start somewhere, more people will get off the nuclear non-proliferation treaty trail and go elsewhere. Egypt has already left the NPT because of inaction by the nuclear powers over the middle east nuclear-free zone. Should not we be doing the same in terms of an Arctic nuclear weapons-free zone as a step towards a nuclear-free world? Everybody says they want a nuclear-free world, but at the same time are rearming, rather than going forward on it.

We are spending £34 billion a year of our money on defence and we are bound to spend at least 2 per cent. of GDP as long as we remain members of NATO, as all other countries must do. Those countries that are in the EU and NATO obviously accept both treaties. Those that are in the EU but not in NATO have a problem because of the close relationship between the EU and NATO. One can hardly say that the traditional neutral foreign policies of, for example, Sweden and Ireland can be maintained while the EU maintains this close relationship.

My plea is simply this. We live in a world where a quarter of the world’s population are hungry, if not starving. We live in a world where the environmental consequences of what we are doing are catastrophic for future generations. Yet we are spending a vast amount of money on armaments, which, in turn, encourages others to spend vast amounts of money on armaments. We have a growing arms race between NATO and Russia, despite the apparently cosy chats between members of the Russian Communist party and delegates to the NATO Assembly. I absolutely welcome those and wish they could be videoed and portrayed to the whole world. The same applies to China.

If we are to live in a world of peace in the future, it will not be achieved by spending more and more on weapons. It will be achieved by spending less on weapons and more on dealing with the problems of human misery and human insecurity. I hope that instead of developing a nuclear shield or the missile shield along the eastern flank of NATO, we will instead move towards much better relations with all the power blocs as a way of bringing about a more peaceful world.

I do not believe in the continuation of defence alliances that have within them a built-in accelerator of cost and of danger, as well as massive pressures from the arms and other industries to sell more of their goods, when the needs of the world are health, education, food and housing. Those are the issues that we should prioritise, not weapons of mass destruction. I realise that this is a minority position in the Chamber today but I am not actually alone among the wider public in holding those views.

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[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful for that intervention.

Let me turn to some of the other issues that have been raised. An important point was made about the internet and cyber-warfare. NATO has a facility in Estonia—I have visited it with the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and I know that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has also visited it—to bring together best practice for dealing with cyber-warfare. As we have seen from the media headlines in the last few days, we will face significant challenges, not just from states but, I suspect, over the coming decades from private interests and private companies spying and stealing data and commercially sensitive material. We also know of reports—I am not in a position to say whether they are true—that the Iranian nuclear weapons programme was seriously set back because of the activities of some countries and the so-called Stuxnet, and there are other areas where these matters are also of great importance.

International security is enhanced by co-operation, not just in hardware and personnel but in intelligence and security sharing. We need to be honest: these are not issues that can be dealt with by simplistic headlines in The Guardian or any other newspaper. They have to be looked at seriously. There needs to be international co-operation to deal with threats to our security, which might come not from terrorist bombs but from somebody sabotaging a banking system or undermining the supply of electricity or water to our major cities by making a minor change to a software programme, albeit one with potentially disastrous consequences. We need to look at those issues. I believe that NATO has a role in that respect.

My final point relates to the United States, which has already been referred to several times. We have heard about the so-called pivot towards Asia, President Obama’s strategy of leading from behind and all the other concerns that we have as Europeans. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly provides one of the few forums for members of the US House of Representatives and the Canadian Parliament to come to meetings at which we can have regular discussions with them. Sadly, given the nature of the insane political system in the United States and two-year elections to the House of Representatives, it is difficult for its members to get abroad very often, because they have to spend all their time raising election campaign money or fighting re-elections, normally in their primaries.

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is important, because it means that there is a group of Americans from the Republicans and the Democrats who have had contact with and learnt about European politics. In the same way, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly provides a way for people from European countries to understand the politics of other countries better. The current President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, was a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly for many years. I am sure that that was important, given that he comes from the AK party, which comes out of an Islamist tradition. He has clearly learnt a great deal and built confidence and understanding with other European parliamentarians and those from across the Atlantic.

The forum that is provided, the specialist committees and the reports that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly publishes provide members of Parliaments in different countries with vital information that they would not always get from their own Ministries of Defence—I am glad that the Minister is in his place to hear this. In the more than 10 years that I have been attending meetings of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have found that the access we get to high-level meetings and the information we get in those meetings is often far superior to the level of information I used to get as a member of the Select Committee on Defence or the Foreign Affairs Committee. That is not something to be proud of.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Can my hon. Friend say—I am genuinely interested in this—what degree of influence over NATO policy and strategy the Parliamentary Assembly has?

[Mike Gapes]

Without straying too far from what I was going to say, I can say that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly produces reports which are published online and are published in draft form before final versions are produced. Every year the NATO Secretary-General produces a response to the points made. It is a bit like the relationship between Select Committees and the Government. Recommendations are made, reports are published and then the NATO bureaucracy—the Secretary-General, on behalf of NATO as an institution—responds to the assembly’s recommendations. The Secretary-General and other senior NATO figures come before our meetings. We hold them to account, whether at the February session in Brussels or the autumn meeting, which rotates among different countries.

There is therefore a level of connection and accountability, although NATO is not a democratic parliamentary structure. It works through a consensus arrangement between the different member Governments. In a sense, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is far less democratic than other bodies—there is no qualifying majority voting, like in the European Union—while the European Parliament has a lot more powers. Nevertheless, the work we do as parliamentarians, representing our national Parliaments but also understanding and working in co-operation with others, is vital. Under my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), the president of the assembly, I believe we will have a much higher profile in future.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I compliment the right hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech. Does he agree that, once those weapons have leeched out of Libya, there is no way of retrieving or controlling them, and no way of knowing where they will end up? This happened in Afghanistan in the past, and it could well happen in Syria.

[Sir John Stanley]

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that he has anticipated a point I am about to raise.

I raised the future of the Libya-Gaddafi arms stockpile with the director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, Professor Michael Clarke, when he gave oral evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last week. His answers were extremely illuminating. In reply to my first question to him, he said:

“The arsenals that existed in Libya, as we all know, were extensive, and there has been almost no control over those weapons stocks. The new Government has proved virtually incapable of preventing those weapons stocks draining away.”

He went on to make this key point:

“Weapons never go out of commission; they just go somewhere else. Almost all weapons find a new home once a war is over.”

On Syria, he said:

“There is a lot of evidence that Libyan weapons are now circulating pretty freely in the Levant, and that seems to be where they will have the most destabilising effect.”

The huge geographical dispersal of the Libyan stockpile is happening not only because of the breakdown of security in Libya following the end of the Gaddafi regime but because, in the middle east and in north Africa, all through Saharan Africa and down to west Africa, arms are seen in a different way from in NATO countries. In NATO countries, the value of weapons relates to their military capabilities. We ask how capable a weapon is, how much firepower it has, how accurate it is, and so on. In that part of the world, however, there is a different approach to weapons. It is not merely a matter of their military utility. They are tradeable items.

I put that point to Professor Clarke:

“Would you conclude from that, as some people have, that the very act of supplying weapons in those circumstances means that you are basically supplying weapons into a commercial market? The moment the weapons leave your possession—whether it is weapons or ammunition—they become commodities to be sold at the highest price.”

He replied:

“I would agree with that. There is no such thing as an end-user guarantee on anything other than the most sophisticated of weaponry. Everything below the level of major aerial, maritime and ground-based combat systems—the really high-tech stuff that we produce—that is classed as small arms, light weaponry or even medium-range weaponry, is on the market once it is sold to anybody.”

A key question for NATO is whether our decision takers will take account of the very different way in which arms are seen in that part of the world. Arms are seen not merely as weapons but as money-making opportunities. Arms are bazaar items; they are there to be bought and sold at a profit if at all possible.

In conclusion, I say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and, most particularly, to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister: before deciding whether to supply particular lethal weapons and equipment to Syria, take note of what happened to the Libyan stockpile. They should ask themselves the questions, “Where are the British weapons that went into that stockpile; which countries are they now in; and in whose hands are they now in?” Most of all, they should ask themselves, “If Britain is going to supply military equipment to Syria, what is the risk of putting petrol on the fire?”

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[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I thank the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) for requesting this debate, which has highlighted NATO’s continued importance to the UK’s interests. I pay tribute to their work and that of other right hon. and hon. Members who serve in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—an institution that, as we have heard today, provides an important link between NATO and the public in its member countries.

I join all those who have congratulated the hon. Member for York Central on being elected president of the Parliamentary Assembly by parliamentarians from NATO parliamentary delegations in November. He has visited Afghanistan more than half a dozen times, so I also pay tribute to his unwavering support for our armed forces.

Since it was established in 1949, NATO has been fundamental to transformations in regional security: consolidating the post-war transatlantic link; preventing the re-emergence of conflicts that had dogged Europe for the preceding 50 years; contributing to the fall of communism and the gradual democratisation of the former Soviet bloc; and leading operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya. Purely through its existence, NATO serves as a potent deterrent to those who would wish us harm. It remains the best tool we have for tackling certain threats to our national security further afield.

NATO is at a crucial juncture. The end of combat operations in Afghanistan will change the nature of daily life for the alliance. The continued pressure on defence budgets and the US rebalance towards Asia further change the strategic context in which NATO operates. Yet the threats and challenges that face us in the 21st century make NATO more, not less, important: continued instability in the middle east, north Africa and the Sahel; the growing risk of nuclear proliferation; and increased threats from failed and failing states, from both state and non-state actors. Against this complex backdrop, it is all the more important that NATO is fit for purpose in political and military terms.

Despite concern over the US’s rebalance towards Asia, the United States has been clear that it remains committed to transatlantic defence, but we need to ensure that Europe is seen to be carrying its fair share of the burden of that defence. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) and others raised the issue of the Government pressing our European allies to meet the target of 2% of GDP defence spending. As my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary said at his most recent meeting with NATO colleagues, we will continue to press them to do that, while doing what we can to protect defence investment and maximise its impact in the shorter term. I agree with the hon. Member for York Central that we need to explain to allies and our own public why this spending is important.

We will also continue to press to make the NATO defence planning process as robust, transparent and rigorous as possible, and for all Europeans to organise our collective capabilities in a more cohesive, coherent and prioritised way. Small multinational frameworks such as that which we have achieved with France through the Lancaster House treaties may be the best way of doing this.

The United Kingdom remains committed to filling 100% of our allocated slots in the NATO command structure. At the organisational level, we need to ensure that NATO remains open to change and able to build on its experience, that it is reform-minded and continuously reforming, that it is fully accountable and that its activities and procedures are transparent and fully in line with best practice, which will underpin its future credibility. The UK has been leading efforts to ensure that NATO remains lean and effective, evolving as the security environment changes so that it stays relevant and responsive, and we will continue to do so with energy.

Afghanistan will remain an important focus for the alliance after the end of combat operations. ISAF’s transfer of security responsibility to the Afghans is on track for completion by the end of 2014. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, we can be proud of what we have done in Afghanistan, but along with other members of the international community, our work is far from over. Post-2014, the UK will take the coalition lead at the new Afghan national army officer academy and look to operate in NATO’s train, advise and assist mission, Resolute Support. This is in addition to the £70 million that the UK has committed to funding the Afghan national security forces.

It will be crucial to the alliance’s future credibility that it is able to maintain an open door to those European democracies which meet the standard and wish to join. The United Kingdom remains firmly committed to the prospective membership of Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro, once they are ready to join. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) asked about Kosovo. KFOR continues to maintain freedom of movement and a safe and secure environment in Kosovo, in line with United Nations Security Council resolution 1244. As he will know, the UK fully supports the continued NATO presence in Kosovo as long as conditions require. Supreme Allied Commander Europe has advised that strategic patience is the order of the day and we share that view.

NATO’s ability to work with partners will be crucial. A number of right hon. and hon. Members touched on this during the debate. Partners considerably augment NATO’s capabilities—for example, providing 10% of the air campaign in Operation Unified Protector in Libya in 2011. Partnerships also boost NATO’s political weight: partners see mutual benefit in working with the alliance and it is an incentive to do defence better. The UK will continue to lead the way in giving focus and momentum to NATO’s partnerships.

Considerable attention has been drawn to NATO’s relationship with one partner in particular—Russia. I fully agree with those who have highlighted concern over Russia’s political direction in recent months and years, but it is vital that we continue to engage with Russia. It is already a key security partner in areas such as counter-terrorism and maritime security. We should continue to look for common ground where it exists in order that we can more constructively discuss the issues on which we do not agree. That is the approach we will continue to take, both bilaterally and within NATO.

The middle east is a region of obvious strategic importance, as demonstrated by current developments in Egypt. It is absolutely right that NATO continues to monitor and discuss developments in the region, including considering their impact on the alliance and whether it can contribute to security there. That is why we support the current careful deliberations in NATO on whether it might provide some assistance to the Libyan Government. It is also why we believe it is right for the North Atlantic Council to discuss the situation in Syria, including with NATO’s partners in the region, such as Jordan and Morocco.

Various Members, including the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who is no longer in his place, the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who serves on the Defence Committee, and the hon. Member for Ilford South, who serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee, asked a number of questions about the high north. The Arctic is not currently a region of high tension and the Arctic Council has proved to be successful at maintaining inclusivity in the region. Although some regional actors may look to NATO to deter selected activities and act as a guarantor of security, the Secretary-General recently stated that NATO currently has no intention of raising its presence and activities in the high north.

Members will have noted with interest the strong support given by the hon. Member for Bridgend and my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) for maintaining a continuous at-sea deterrent. Deliberations are underway and we will just have to wait and see the results of the review. I was interested by the statistic that 57% of those consulted in a recent poll would rather order four more Trident submarines.

The high north is not neglected by the Government. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), visited the headquarters in Bodo in May, where he met senior military personnel and discussed threats and challenges in the high north, not least those resulting from climate change.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Swire]

I was just about to address the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. He mentioned the peace dividend following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. As he knows, NATO is a collective security alliance and deterrence remains one the alliance’s fundamental security tasks. The fundamental purpose of the nuclear forces of the allies is political—to preserve peace and prevent coercion and any kind of war. He will know that NATO has reduced the types and numbers of its sub-strategic nuclear forces by more than 85%. Moreover, the alliance has declared its reduced reliance on nuclear weapons and has ruled out their use except in the most extreme cases of self-defence. The circumstances in which any use of nuclear weapons might have to be contemplated by allies are extremely remote.

The hon. Member for York Central asked about the state of NATO-Russia relations. NATO and Russia have been co-operating through the NATO-Russia Council for 10 years. The alliance, including the UK, remains committed to the NATO-Russia relationship. We have seen much in the way of good, practical co-operation on a number of mutual security challenges, including Afghanistan, counter-narcotics, transit routes and helicopter maintenance, as well as work against piracy.

My right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Defence Committee gave us a little vignette of his ancestor ending up in Davy Jones’s locker and described how one of the first multinational taskforces was at the battle of Trafalgar. He went on to describe NATO as a vital resource from which a coalition of the willing could be formed. That probably encapsulates this debate as well as anything else should any headlines emanate from it.

My right hon. Friend also discussed value for money, which is incredibly important. The United Kingdom emphasises the importance of resource management and rigorous prioritisation of military requirements. Our national position is that NATO budgets should operate within the framework of zero nominal growth, but approved budgets will require the consensus of all 28 member nations. Within agreed common funding ceilings, NATO prioritises all military requirements. As my right hon. Friend will know, there is an ongoing debate within NATO regarding the limited use of common funding as an enabler for NATO forces in 2020. The United Kingdom consistently urges realism and applies a rigorous standard to all NATO expenditure.

The hon. Member for Bridgend and other Members talked about the implications of the US pivot. The US has been clear that the rebalancing towards Asia should not be seen as a threat to the transatlantic relationship. Security threats and challenges evolve; so should the response. The US is increasingly a security partner to Europe, rather than the provider of security for Europe. The unbreakable bond between north America and Europe remains the bedrock of our security. The US has demonstrated its commitment to NATO, including through practical investments, such as the bases for NATO’s ballistic missile defence. It is worth repeating that even after the withdrawal of US army personnel from Europe, their numbers remain higher in Europe than anywhere else outside America. There are about 70,000 US personnel in Europe.

The question of whether Scotland would remain a member of NATO were it to vote to leave the United Kingdom next year has been raised. The SNP Minister for Transport and Veterans, Keith Brown, this week admitted for the first time ever, before the Defence Committee, that Scotland’s membership of the defence alliance would not be “automatic”. It most certainly would not, and nor would its membership of the EU, the UN Security Council, the OECD and almost every other international forum that it enjoys being a member of through being part of the United Kingdom.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) made a very good speech about Syria, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) also referred to. I say clearly again that the United Kingdom has made no decision to arm the Syrian opposition. Our priority remains finding a political solution and establishing a transitional Government. We are providing advice, non-lethal equipment and technical assistance to the moderate opposition, whom we recognise as the sole legitimate representatives of the Syrian people.

In closing, I come back to my earlier argument. The uncertainties of the 21st century make an alliance such as NATO more, not less, important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said, NATO remains the world’s most successful military alliance, based on a shared set of democratic values. The Government fully intend to maintain that success and to build on it.