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.
]]>I look back on my own experiences with the Soviet Union during the time of Margaret Thatcher. I remember her describing President Gorbachev as:
“A man I could do business with!”
I do not think that President Biden or President Macron would say the same about the current occupant of that office. He is a man who has now become a completely new dimension of international pariah. I think I am right in saying that the only person who has sent a message of support to Putin for the actions he has taken is Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The first lesson that I draw out of this is that, after the awfulness of the current situation and invasion, we have had—as the noble Lord, Lord West, said—the clearest possible warning to NATO to wake up and to understand. It has been given an absolute demonstration of what it could face in the Baltic states and others and of the range of an attack that could be developed, not just by conventional military but by the whole new world of cyber, hacking and different threats and disorganisation—which is clearly an important part at the moment of the whole Russian attack.
This is all going on in an incredibly dangerous world. It would have been almost inconceivable at the start of the pandemic for anyone to think that, in the middle of a pandemic, when every country in the world is facing that threat, we would find military action of this kind. The world is facing not just the pandemic. We see the number of failed nation states that there are presently; the mass migration of people; the global scale of the refugee challenge; and—as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned—famine threatening so many parts of the world. I understand that Yemen, which is threatened with the most severe famine, is in fact a customer of Ukraine corn and is dependent on part of the Ukrainian harvests. All those dimensions together emphasise the importance of the calling of this debate, which your Lordships’ House has illustrated so well.
The challenge that we now face is to ensure that the response, not just from the West but globally, is of total world outrage. I agree very much with what my noble friend Lord Howell referred to: it is not just the West, but the East and Pacific countries as well. Everybody must stand up and make quite clear, not just to President Putin but to many Russian people, who will be horrified—many have already shown their horror at what is happening—that Russia will become an international pariah under his leadership and that this invasion must be stopped. International pressure must be brought in every possible way in every possible country that is able to contribute to ensure that the earliest possible relief can come to the brave people of Ukraine. We must then establish much stronger international support for the forces of democratic defence that we need at this time.
]]>I start by paying a warm tribute, as have others, to the tremendous number of our forces, including colleagues in both Houses of Parliament, who have served during this long period, which has brought so many benefits to the people of Afghanistan, and our great sadness that that some were not able to return. These recent events reminded me of my maiden speech nearly 20 years ago in your Lordships’ House, when we had just gone into Afghanistan. I had in my pocket the cap badge of my old regiment, which was the Somerset Light Infantry, and on its top is inscribed its battle honour, Jalalabad. Some may remember that there was a successful defence of Jalalabad, which had the duty of welcoming back the returning army from Kabul: 5,000 troops and 10,000 dependants. Your Lordships will remember that only one person arrived. Part of what contributed to that disaster was that six Afghan army regiments deserted during that tragic retreat. I said at the time that it was easy to get into Afghanistan, but often very difficult to get out. Obviously, I very much share that feeling now.
Having said that, the challenge is: what do we do? At the moment, it is difficult to know quite what the Taliban position is. It is all over the place, obviously itself extremely surprised at the speed with which this has happened. It has a PR spokesman offering rather more encouraging pictures, but it is still governed by a 20 year-old manifesto. The question now is what attitude it is going to take.
It is against that background that I particularly welcome the Statement by the Prime Minister today, with his determination to get the maximum international co-operation to make absolutely clear that the Afghan Government, the Taliban Government, now have to bring themselves up to date from their 20 year-old dreams and decide that, if they want to have any sort of relations with other countries in the world, they must start to bring themselves in line with what are the true interests of the people now in Afghanistan, which is very different from what it might have been 20 years ago. We must protect the changes that have happened, particularly for women and children.
There is so much to say in this situation but, to add another thing, while I welcome the announcement about giving more accommodation to desperate people seeking to escape from Afghanistan, we have to realise that the problem of mass migration of refugees has been yet further hijacked and increased by this terrific event that has happened. That will be a continuing challenge for us in the weeks, months and years ahead.
]]>Today’s debate on the gracious Speech focuses on defence and foreign affairs. I do not think many would disagree with the comprehensive speech by my noble friend Lady Goldie, which described the world in which we live at the moment as significantly more dangerous and unstable than perhaps we remember in the past. The challenge of the current global pandemic, added to those of massive population growth and accelerating climate change, make an extremely dangerous combination.
I want to talk about a further source of huge instability. Interestingly, what I want to talk about was reflected only this week, I think on Monday. The presidency of the Security Council of the United Nations is currently held by China, and on Monday it organised an informal meeting to examine the impact of emerging technologies on international peace and security and how to mitigate the potential risks. I do not know which technologies they discussed, but one that should be high on the agenda is the huge enhancement in communications and the threats that brings.
The whole world of the internet and mobile phones has been a blessing for billions of people and transformed opportunities to communicate, but with it has come the power of others to control it and use it against them for criminal or subversive ends. The enormous increase in cyber hacking and scams has brought with it the huge new industry of cybersecurity, which struggles to contain it.
I was very interested in the comments of Ciaran Martin, the first head of the National Cyber Security Centre, who talked this week about the need to ban ransomware payments to hackers who steal vital data. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen one enormous ransomware attack which shut down the colonial pipeline and seriously endangered the fuel supplies of the whole east coast of the United States. Only a few days later there was a serious attack on the Irish health service, similar to the one that did such damage to the NHS.
Ciaran Martin estimated the global cost of hacking and cyber disturbances at £120 billion. Interestingly, an article in the Times said:
“the NCSC handled more than three times as many ransomware incidents in 2020 than in the previous year. A recent survey … found that almost half of British businesses were targeted … and a quarter had paid a ransom. Hackers … are often sheltered by hostile states including Russia”.
We now face increased activity by criminals or malign foreign Governments, which represents a major threat to our critical national infrastructure, not least since the far greater capabilities of 5G apparently substantially increase the potential points of attack.
Therefore, to protect our national security, it is vital that we give every encouragement to the new UK businesses working in cybersecurity. I was quite surprised to see the growth of such an amazing new industry. Apparently, there are already 1,200 companies working in the field of cybersecurity. I and many other noble Lords strongly supported the National Security and Investment Act, which gives the power to protect such companies if they suffer any unwelcome overseas interest. In that connection, it is interesting to note the number of recent attempts by the Chinese Government or Chinese companies to take them over. I want to draw to your Lordships’ attention the importance of that and the threat it poses not just to our critical national infrastructure but to our vital national defences.
I welcome the emphasis in the integrated review on the vital importance of cybersecurity, the creation of a national cyber force for offensive cyber operations against any who attack us, and the publication this year of a very necessary new cyber strategy.
]]>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.
]]>I say this as somebody who strongly supports the Bill. We need to have powers for the Secretary of State to prevent serious loss and threats to our national security. I note my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s comments, citing some of the pretty valuable businesses that should not have been allowed to go. If wiser counsel had prevailed that could have been prevented. This Bill would have helped that.
The other important thing that the Government have got absolutely right is ensuring that, if we are going to have this Bill and give the Secretary of State these new powers, there has to be proper parliamentary oversight of it. But they either were negligent or perhaps unaware of the important background: there are limitations affecting the operation the BEIS Committee. It is not qualified and will not be able to see any “top secret” information. If anybody on the government side seriously suggests that there could not possibly be any “top secret” information arising in connection with some possible takeover or acquisition, that position is not one they can seriously seek to sustain in a rapidly changing, increasingly technical and pretty dangerous world, as the noble Lord, Lord West, said. This is a pity, because I would like to pay my compliments to the Minister for the way he has handled the Bill. In every other respect it has been a model of parliamentary oversight and the proper review of it.
Referring again to what we now call the front row of the scrum, it seems, if I may say so, that we in your Lordships’ House each come from a different background. I, having been Secretary of State for a number of departments and then, for seven years, chairman of the ISC, was able to see this from both sides and saw the importance of there being, in the end, proper oversight of the intelligence agencies and of the intelligence and information that may be coming to them which government Ministers might be relying on.
Somebody has kindly sent me a copy of the letter sent by Jacob Rees-Mogg to Julian Lewis, and I echo something the noble Lords, Lord Campbell and Lord West, said: it is pretty dismissive and merely says that the committee’s role should not be on an ad-hoc, Bill-by-Bill basis, and that it would be a significant precedent, providing parliamentary oversight of the UK’s intelligence community. Although my noble friend Lord Grimstone paid what may have been a perfectly well-deserved tribute in Committee to the qualities of the BEIS Select Committee, the simple fact is, as my two colleagues have said, it will not be allowed to see any top secret information. It is not cleared for top secret intelligence that comes in, which might, on some occasions, be the key consideration that affects a decision the Secretary of State takes, for which there would then be no parliamentary accountability or oversight.
I have some sympathy with the Minister, because there are others who seem to have dug their heels in on this one, but even at this late stage, the argument does not stack up. A sensible decision by the Government would be to include this limited amendment to an otherwise excellent Bill and get on with it. Otherwise, it is a serious gap, and we could well pay the price for it in the future.
]]>The examples given by the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord West, set out the arguments very clearly. Having been involved, as I was for so long, with the founding of the ISC and its initial seven years of operation, what was carried on subsequently—[Interruption] —bugger! I am sorry; excuse my language.
My Lords, I apologise for that interruption; it was a very amateur performance by me. The integrity of the ISC, which has been very well maintained over the years, means that a very effective instrument is available to government. I wanted to take part in this debate because I have been worried for a long time about the enthusiasm in the commercial side of government for yet more encouragement of inward investment without always paying sufficient attention to national security issues that might arise in that connection. I therefore strongly support the Bill, which I wish we had had earlier. It certainly provides the foundations for a much stronger position, getting a better balance between encouraging our economy while protecting our national security.
I am slightly disappointed—with no disrespect to my noble friend Lord Grimstone—that my noble friend Lord Callanan, who was dealing with these issues before and with whom some of us have had discussions, is unable to respond to the debate, but I will listen with great interest to what my noble friend Lord Grimstone has to say. Like other speakers, I do not quite understand the Government’s difficulty. The noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord West, spelled out ways in which we can make use of the ISC to fill this one gap in the Bill, which has much merit. We need to deal with situations where there is information of such sensitivity that it cannot be put in the public domain, but for which we still need proper accountability and parliamentary oversight in some system or another, which the ISC can provide.
I will listen with great interest to the Minister’s response. I assume that it will not be a matter for a Division now, but one that we must address on Report.
]]>Some speeches have already indicated all the problems that arise with the Bill, but I admire and respect the Government and Ministers for having the courage at last to deal with this issue—to address it and not to duck it, as has happened for far too long.
I have one question to raise. The Bill of course deals with overseas operations, and one area in which a lot of these grievances arose is Northern Ireland. I hope that when she replies the Minister can make the position on that quite clear. I understand that a further Bill is possibly coming forward on Northern Ireland, but can she confirm the present position?
I also notice that there seems to have been a good deal of misrepresentation about what the Bill does. We know that some countries, faced with this difficulty, introduced amnesties and others introduced statutes of limitations. Of course, neither is suggested in this legislation, nor is the decriminalisation of serious crimes.
On the time limit, I do not think five years is unreasonable in the current climate, but it is a sensible provision that this is not necessarily an absolute time limit and can be exceeded if the prosecutor can demonstrate exceptional circumstances that justify prosecution after a longer period.
One area where I will be interested to hear the further discussion in Committee is that of why sexual relations are excluded but torture and war crimes are not. I hope that the Minister can reply on that and that this will come up in further discussions in Committee.
We have all lived with the history of some very unhappy investigations and tragic events that have affected some of our veterans, many of them quite unfairly, leading to much personal distress and family grievance. It is time that this was dealt with. It is also important because in some areas it undoubtedly has an impact on recruitment. There may be people who would think of joining the Armed Forces and putting themselves in harm’s way for the nation’s sake, but do not want to be treated in this way. Even more important, when we are living in a world of fake news as well as the world of social media, knowing what the truth really is in many circumstances is much more difficult. We need, therefore, to strengthen our defences, with proper protection and stewardship of those who serve our Armed Forces.
I join in the tributes paid to the quality of all those who go into some exceptionally nasty and dangerous circumstances—especially at the present time—in defence of our country and its interests. It is our duty as a legislature to make sure that, where they deserve protection, they get it. I therefore certainly support the progress of the Bill. It is very important not to abandon the stage—I think the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, suggested that it was almost too difficult. There must be a brave attempt to deal with this and establish at last an Act of Parliament to give proper protection against some of the grievances that we have faced.
]]>I think we start, after these exhaustive Committee and Report stages, with a pretty wide recognition across the House of the value that can come from covert sources and the vital need to ensure that, in maintaining law and order and a safe country, we do not lose the opportunity of using covert sources. They may be the only way to get the results we want and to prevent very serious crime and damage to our country.
But I think the reason why perhaps we have the problem of these amendments—all of which I oppose—is that many people ask the Government for lots of examples of all the ways in which the various bodies that people wish to delete have actually had any success with covert sources. Of course, the difficulty the Government have, which I understand, is that it is very difficult in many cases. There may be ongoing issues, or they may endanger existing covert sources by giving too many examples of the ways in which we have managed to prevent crime and get the success that we want.
I certainly think that there is general agreement that, if we do have the operation of covert sources, it has been made very clear that we want to be satisfied that they are properly operated; that it is necessary and proportionate; that it is subject to effective scrutiny and inspection; and that there are clear limits on the number of authorities permitted and able to operate it.
When one looks at the list of the authorities, I was not impressed with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, talking about any Tom, Dick or Harry. These are major organisations in our country—public authorities with major responsibilities. I would just make this point: it is not just any list. We know that it would be wrong to have too many. The Minister may correct me, but I believe that there were 34 originally which, under the previous arrangements, could operate. This has now been reduced to 14, which seems to me the right approach to take.
Looking at some of the issues that there are, in my previous contributions I have drawn on the contribution of James Brokenshire, and I join in our best wishes to him. I will just repeat once the evidence he gave on the devastating amount of crime and serious events: in a year alone in London, covert sources helped ensure 3,500 arrests, the recovery of more than 500 weapons, the seizure of more than 400 kilograms of class A drugs and the recovery of more than £2.5 million in cash. The only thing that that does not actually say is which of these agencies in London were part of that. That is part of the problem the Government have had in getting across the message of why these agencies are important.
In the current situation, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, when I think we are about to have global challenges in the supply of vaccines and some new medicines thought to help with treatment, with the struggle there may be and the opportunities for organised crime to get into that area, for the Government to delete the Department of Health and Social Care and its medicines and healthcare products section from being involved in this area—they could be vital; they are needed in those situations—and say that they have decided on this occasion to deprive them of what may be a vital source of intelligence to protect the nation’s health would be unforgivable.
In passing, I note the decision to delete the Home Office from the list except in cases of slavery. I do not know how many noble Lords saw the letter in today’s Times from the Reverend Jonathan Aitken, the chaplain to Pentonville prison. He made the case that in prisons at the moment, where a number of staff are having to self-isolate and are under great pressure and there are opportunities for criminal gangs to get up to dangerous operations of one form or another, it is essential that we do not at this moment take away one of their sources of possibly vital intelligence.
I will not go on about it, because the other thing I see coming—just to cheer everybody up—in our present dramas is a real risk of world food shortages. If there is a challenge of that kind, with the opportunities for organised crime to get into the food area and cause huge problems for different people, that choice moment to delete the Food Standards Agency from being able to keep the fullest possible checks on what is happening seems very unwise. I certainly agree that there should not be a huge range of different agencies, but I do not support any of these amendments. All these agencies have good justification at the moment; it is vital we keep our defences up.
]]>My approach to these amendments is already pretty clear because we are setting up a completely new system. It is now on a statutory basis and has a new and I think generally respected code of practice. It has to report through the judicial commissioner and then the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, to the Prime Minister and Parliament, and to try at this stage to put in all sorts of qualifications seems quite unnecessary.
Take the issue about adding “serious” to “crime”: it seems that in many cases when the police first get some source—some possible informer—they may not be at all clear how serious the crime may be. However, I think we would all feel pretty silly if later on, when very serious crimes were reviewed, they said, “We knew about that, but because we couldn’t tell how serious it was going to be at that time, we never took any action.” That would be pretty unforgivable. Therefore, I do not support adding “serious” to these issues.
I will not say any more about how the issue of economic well-being is linked to national security, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, covered the point admirably. There is no question that many things could happen, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, addressed; he is a former member of the ISC, who took evidence with me. And the noble Lord, Lord West—poacher turned gamekeeper that he is—said that we now see a situation in which many extremely serious things could affect economic well-being. That could involve perhaps many people losing their jobs and significantly higher unemployment, but you could not claim that that is linked to national security.
With the confusions and uncertainties of the world at present, the cyberattacks and the data war that is going on, I would not wish to qualify, limit or restrict a properly set up and statutorily approved new system with too many qualifications, which may limit the effectiveness of its vital work.
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