Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure this debate has been immensely enhanced by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Levene, who has just sat down, whose huge experience is of massive value to all of us. I begin by reminding the House that for many years I have been a member of the delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, where I am currently chairman of one of the committees.

It is only seven weeks or so since we had our last defence debate, but in view of continued tensions which confront us it is timely that we have another one today—I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister for that. That is especially so when one contemplates what I describe as the “arc of trouble”, which stretches from the Baltic states in the north, through the Middle East and North Africa, to the Atlantic Ocean, where Nigeria continues to struggle with Boko Haram. Not all of it, but much of this tension, which has increased in recent times, stems from Russia’s increasing posturing and provocation, and I will concentrate most of my remarks on Russia.

This increased provocation by Russia comes despite a faltering economy, which we should remind ourselves has been compared in scale to that of Spain and which is mainly a consequence of crude oil prices that are near $50 a barrel. At the same time we are seeing burgeoning defence spending—admittedly from a comparatively low base when we remind ourselves that Russian defence expenditure only four years ago was less than that of the United Kingdom—and an intensification of Moscow’s military build-up throughout the entire region from the Arctic through to the Mediterranean. We have seen evidence of their tinkering in Libya recently.

Our allies in NATO and the east continue to feel threatened by the hard power imbalance in their neighbourhoods. Russia has the ability rapidly to amass significant forces on its border, and continues to mount anti-access and area-denial capabilities in the Baltic, Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. The Russians have threatened nuclear strikes against NATO allies and have withdrawn from or violated key arms control agreements. In addition, very importantly, they have developed a highly sophisticated propaganda and disinformation campaign, often blatantly distorting facts and the truth—a matter I shall return to in a few moments.

One cannot help feeling that, with the mounting threat from Russia, the NATO allies are relatively sleeping through all of this, and it is not helped by the continued uncertainty which comes from Washington. That is not only down to the wild and sometimes contradictory tweets and speeches from the President himself but down to this period of uncertainty in the formation of a new Administration in the United States. In the past, it has often taken up to June before all the political appointments are made, but last week, upstairs in the International Relations Select Committee, of which my noble friend Lord Howell is chair, we heard evidence that the current appointments in the United States are proceeding very slowly and that some of the most senior Pentagon political offices remain unfilled.

Perhaps one of the few firm messages, though, to come from Washington recently is President Trump’s dissatisfaction at the poor response to the target declared at NATO’s Welsh summit of moving towards 2% of GDP going to defence. When the noble Earl, Lord Howe, opened the debate, he referred to the five states whose defence spending comes to less than 1%. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, in his speech, talked about the need to name and shame those that do not spend even 1%. Unfortunately, he did not name them, and therefore I will. It has been implied in the past that it is bad manners and not very friendly to name the backsliders, but it is Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Slovenia and Hungary that currently spend less than 1%. That is a disgrace, particularly given that some of those countries are extremely wealthy and really ought to be moving towards the Welsh summit target. Indeed, some of them, particularly Belgium, seem to be spending less each year, which again I would have thought was indefensible.

This has been said before, but I repeat that it is a sad reflection on our European friends that after Brexit —I speak as one who was not in favour of it—80% of the spending on NATO’s defence will come from non-members of the European Union. That is also a disgrace. However, one constructive and praiseworthy development in recent times has been the decision to deploy battalion-size battle groups in the three Baltic states and Poland. I have expressed concerns in the past about the delay in their deployment, and I am very relieved that the first of the UK-led contingent has already arrived in Estonia. I have felt for some time that these months, which we are in the middle of now, covered a dangerous period of change and uncertainty which could have encouraged Mr Putin to make another provocative incursion one way or another.

I have two particular questions to ask the Minister. First, will he tell us when the Estonian deployment of UK troops will be complete? Will he tell us when it is expected that the other deployments—I am thinking of the Canada-led one in Latvia, the German-led one in Lithuania, and the United States one in Poland—will be complete? These deployments, although small in size, will provide an essential tripwire, which should warn Moscow that to engage with them would have immediate Article 5 implications.

Finally, I referred earlier to the propaganda and misinformation programme which the Russians are so good at. I ask the Minister to confirm that all preparations have been made, alongside our Estonian battle group deployment, to have adequate back-up of Russian speakers and media facilities to counter the inevitable sniping and vilification which we can be assured that the Russians are bound to spray over them in the months and years ahead.