Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Defence)
Liberal Democrat Peer
My Lords, in the other place, my colleague Al Pinkerton pointed out that prosecution should not be persecution. Clearly, there is a whole set of issues that we still need to resolve in the context of Northern Ireland, having gone through a long period agreeing the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act. Obviously, we welcome the new legislation that the Government are...
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s response to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, that the Government are working at pace to associate with Erasmus+. I semi-declare an interest, in that I have worked with several students on Erasmus Mundus programmes. Does the Minister understand the importance of getting in at the start of the multi-annual financial framework? Year-by-year arrangements do...
I am grateful to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patel, because he has just outlined many of the issues that your Lordships’ House needs to think about in the context of this Bill. We have heard from several noble Lords that this is a matter of choice. Suddenly, the main campaign of those advocating for the Bill is to give people choice. In particular, we have heard that it would create a...
My Lords, there seems to be an issue with public opinion at present about a failure to understand the importance of defence. Recent polling has suggested that many people of service age would not be willing to fight for our country. What are the Government doing to engage in the national conversation that the strategic review said was necessary to help people understand the importance of...
My Lords, the UK and the European Union had a rapprochement over security and defence in May of this year. Is there scope through that to begin to work bilaterally with Ireland within the realms of Ireland’s ongoing neutrality? That might be a way of ensuring that Ireland can begin to step up to the plate without saying to it, “Please write a cheque”, which seems to be mood of some of...
My Lords, I rise to welcome the SDR. Like the vast majority of speakers, we on these Benches feel that the work of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his team, particularly Fiona Hill and Richard Barrons, has been remarkable; it really does give us an integrated defence review, whereas recent iterations of the so-called integrated security and defence review were a little more fragmented and...
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to the Minister for the Armed Forces for a briefing yesterday. It meant that, temporarily, I was under a super-injunction. I was a little surprised when I was summoned to the MoD. On Monday afternoon I received a message asking me to come in for a confidential briefing. I had no idea what to expect, or of the magnitude of what we would hear in the...
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, I am strongly committed to Europe—we set up Cambridge for Europe together. However, I wonder what the Minister thinks the message would be to our friends and partners in eastern Europe, particularly the Baltic states and Poland, if we were somehow to turn away from Ukraine or send a message from this place that we are somehow not united—because...
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the recent change in their policy regarding the cap on the number of Afghans eligible to come to the UK under Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, what plans they have to charter planes to allow those to leave Pakistan and arrive in the UK via a safe route.
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of Afghans eligible to come to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy who are currently (1) still in Afghanistan, or (2) in Pakistan.
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role played by the Afghan Territorial Force (ATF) 444 in supporting UK Forces, and whether ATF personnel should be eligible to come to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy.
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Afghans and their families have come to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy in the last two months, and how many they expect to arrive before 31 December.
To ask His Majesty's Government what advice they are giving to those eligible to come to the UK under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy who are currently in Pakistan and whose visas have expired or will shortly expire.
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the possible security implications for the UK of the privatisation of the ZTMC Titanium Mine in Ukraine.
