Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, as someone who had a little to do with the decision by NATO to take on the ISAF in Afghanistan, I welcome the Statement, first, because it allows us an opportunity here to underline our support and sympathy for and congratulations to the troops who serve this country in Afghanistan and to recognise their sacrifice, underlined yet again today by another death of a British soldier,...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, this is a timely and fortunate opportunity for us to debate the role of our armed services. I commend and thank the noble Lord, Lord King, for giving us this opportunity to talk about these serious issues. He and I have both had responsibility for the great office of state in charge of the Ministry of Defence and we know how complicated and difficult it can be. Since it essentially...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I start by declaring my interest. The noble Lords, Lord Sterling and Lord Greenway, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and I are all distinguished Elder Brethren of Trinity House—unpaid, of course, but proud and pleased to be part of an organisation that has saved the taxpayer very considerable amounts of money, has been efficient and effective and goes back to...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I hope that I will be allowed to correct an omission regarding a registrable interest that I did not declare. I am a non-executive director of Western Ferries (Clyde) Ltd, which operates ferries on the Clyde. Like the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, but at a much lower level, I am on both sides of the argument.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I am tempted to say, "Here we go again", and suggest that the participants in this debate—we are virtually all the same—could say simply "Speech number 10" and sit down. First, I declare an interest as an adviser to Cable & Wireless. However, I speak not in that regard but with reference to the positions that I held in government and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. I...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: I think that I am about to die. It is said that before an individual dies, their whole life flashes before their eyes. I have that sense now. For 11 of the 18 years we spent in opposition, I was Front-Bench Opposition spokesman for foreign affairs. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I used to parade around television and radio studios talking to diminishing audiences about the intricacies of...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: The noble Lord makes the argument most succinctly, but he voted for it. The biggest extension of qualified majority voting since the treaty of Rome was established, and we saw that through. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was a great proponent of the Single European Act, although she claimed afterwards that Malcolm Rifkind had confused her at the time. I thought that I was turning the same...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: I wonder whether the noble Lord remembers a debate that he and I had on Sky television at the time of the Maastricht ratification procedure. He made the statement, which made the front page of the Observer the following Sunday, that if Maastricht was carried through, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer would have no more powers than the treasurer of a rate-capped local authority. That was...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: The noble Lord refers to untrustworthy foreigners. I was Secretary-General of NATO, which is an organisation that lives by confidentiality and a lot of things that go way beyond the normal aspect of data. There are 26 members of NATO. Most of them are members also of the European Union. If NATO has since it was established in 1949 managed procedures to protect what needs to be protected, why...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: I listened carefully to the noble Lord on the defence aspects of common foreign and security policy and I could not disagree with him more. I led NATO for four years, but I am also a passionate European. More than both of those, I am a passionate realist. I live in the United Kingdom; we are part of the European continent and a European community of nations. If we are to look after ourselves...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: Who are these other countries in the European Union that are antagonistic to NATO?
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: I wonder whether the noble Lord, instead of taking one sentence out of context from the new combined treaty, would read all of the next couple of paragraphs. There, the answer to the question is quite clearly laid out. Even if we reached the point, by unanimity, of deciding that there would be a defence policy, the caveats about individual nations are quite clearly laid out in the next...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: The noble Lord, for whom I have great respect, has got this completely wrong. I put to him the answer to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch: where do we get the money from? One of the ways that Europe can find the money for the required capabilities, including the heavy airlift planes that are currently so vitally necessary, is to do so collectively and not...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, who has joined us today. She was a star in her previous job, and I hope that she will bring the same qualities here as well. She came to visit me when I was Secretary-General of NATO, and it was a breath of fresh air. I remembered the visit made to me by her predecessor, whom I had asked why my protection in the...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I oppose the amendment. I declare a not very relevant interest: I am an adviser to Cable & Wireless plc, which is the second largest telecoms provider in this country. On a number of occasions, we have debated the use of intercept material and the implications for national security, especially for the sources of sensitive information on which we rely in this country and on whose...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I, too, welcome the debate and the White Paper on which it is based. With our troops engaged in armed conflict in two major theatres, it is absolutely right that we regularly look at all the issues concerning them. This applies not only to their physical and equipment needs, which are mightily important, but to the political and military background to what is happening and how we...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, although I intend to speak from my past, not current, experience, I should say, whether relevant or not, that I am deputy chairman of Cable & Wireless, a telecommunications company in the United Kingdom. I am delighted to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, who has made a devastating contribution to the proceedings here today. He has allowed me to be briefer than I...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I am sure that clever lawyers could draw up a precise framework and even cleverer lawyers will be able to find their way round it. That is the point made by my noble friend Lady Ramsay. Depending on the discretion of the judge—at the end of the day, that is what we would be depending on—the defence can range far and wide, as it has done in the past, and compromise material that...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I am not in a position to give a precise answer to that, but I recollect that recently there was a case where some form of intercept material was put into court and the judge decided that all the material, not simply the extract that was relevant, had to be transcribed and be part of the court's evidence. I am merely postulating what might happen if the current restrictions were...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, frankly, I can think of nothing worse than withdrawing the case halfway through. We are here discussing the effectiveness and deterrent value of the law. I accept that cases will not proceed to court and that bad people will not be prosecuted in certain circumstances. That is the price we pay for ensuring that the information is available. It is a fact that terrorist outrages have...