Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I thank the Government and the Minister for providing this debate. It has been a long time coming, but it is welcome none the less, and I congratulate her on the strong statement she has made this morning, and my noble friend, Lady Smith, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, on their powerful speeches. It is right that a conflict such as this, which we are involved in,...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I add my tribute on the impending retirement of the Defence Secretary in the House of Commons. He is the longest-serving Conservative Defence Secretary and, especially in his role in connection with Ukraine, he has been outstanding. We will miss him. I am in many ways sorry that he did not get the job that he aspired to, which I once had the honour of holding. After all, he had the...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who chaired with great distinction the committee before I joined it. Although I joined it only this year, I fully endorse what she said and what it says, and I congratulate it on its perception and insight. Like others, I am sure, I regret that it has taken so long to get to a debate on the important analysis provided by the...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, perhaps the biggest danger that we will face now is that public attention will fade, and gradually that outpouring of grief and generosity that we have seen up to now will fade because of other events taking place. Are the Government going to maintain public interest in the subject? I also draw attention to the role of Turkey in the present crisis. The Turkish people have been the...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I endorse the concerns that have been expressed about what is happening in Georgia today. Some of us who have been long-standing supporters of the ambition of Georgia to join the Euro-Atlantic family are deeply distressed about what is happening there, especially the treatment of former president Saakashvili and other members of the opposition as well. Will the Government keep up...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, it is good to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, who has worked hard as the Prime Minister’s envoy on Ukraine. It is also good to look forward to the maiden contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, who is not only an old colleague and friend but a former Minister for the Armed Forces, with a distinguished record that was only enhanced by him being denied the Conservative...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hintze, in his maiden speech. I applaud and agree with his final sentiment that complacency is not an option. I know him well and recognise his remarkable and successful business career, his pride in his Australian background, especially so on this Australia Day, and his remarkable record for philanthropy, not only to the Armed...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Through her, I thank all those at the Ministry of Defence who are assisting Ukraine at this difficult time. The Ukrainians are defending themselves but, in defending their country and themselves, they are defending us as well. Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he is at war with the West and with us; we must take that extremely...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, on his skilled and very patient leadership in this important committee of inquiry. I join him in thanking and commending the staff who carefully listened to our deliberations and to the evidence presented, and who distilled, with such skill and mastery, an account of our conclusions. We are immensely lucky in...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, ordinarily on such occasions the repetition of words and sentiments can be tedious and unproductive. Too often we hear, “Everything’s been said, but not yet by everyone”, or the House of Lords equivalent, which is, “Everything’s been said, but not yet by me.” However, in the last 48 hours the repetition of such words as duty, service, honour, decency, commitment and...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, there are profound national security issues involved in what has now been disclosed almost by accident in the Liaison Committee yesterday: that the current, temporary Prime Minister, while Foreign Secretary, had these meetings without officials being present. What attempts are now being made to check out how many other meetings he had when he was Foreign Secretary, or as Prime...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, there is an old saying: in Russia, everything changes in 20 years and nothing changes in 200 years. It maybe gets to the heart of the recent crisis, when the unthinkable has become the inevitable. Over the last few weeks I have been wondering, with the rest of the world, what is inside the head of the man who has, on his own, ordered the violent invasion of a sovereign nation state...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I am sure I was not the only one waking up this morning to listen to the news who was not reminded of that similar day in 1968 when we woke up to hear the news that Soviet tanks had crushed the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia. In May 2002, when I chaired the NATO-Russia summit with President Putin as an equal member around that table, I thought that I had finally exorcised the...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I fully support—we should all fully support—the Government and the resolution of the West against this unprovoked attack on an individual nation state. It is outrageous, and we are at a very dangerous point in European history. But I suggest to the Government that we need to do much more to answer some of the disinformation now being put out by the Russians. For example,...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, the Government held a full-scale exercise in 2016 based on pandemic flu, Operation Cygnus. Anybody who reads the report of that exercise today can see that there was a looming problem with PPE. Between 2016 and 2020, the Government did nothing about that identified problem, so that, when 2020 came, we domestically produced only 1% of the PPE that was required in the NHS. Why was so...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: We did the exercises.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, one of my predecessors as Secretary-General of NATO was Lord Carrington. During the Falklands War, although he bore no direct responsibility for the invasion of the Falkland Islands, in honour and in dignity he took full responsibility and resigned as Foreign Secretary of this country. Does the noble Baroness not think that the Prime Minister might like to follow the example of that...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock—who is self-isolating, according to law—and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, the Minister is aware, as he says, of the billions of pounds that are transferred to the Scottish Government under what is known as the Barnett consequentials, but does he know where it is spent? The Scottish Government seem remarkably reluctant to tell the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people how that money is spent. What does he think of the fact that, at the moment, the...
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: My Lords, I was the first chairman of the NATO-Russia Council. I am delighted that it is now back in session and that there are now opportunities to both disagree and agree in that forum. I hope it is kept alive and that the United Kingdom does so. However, is it not a matter of some regret that this country, our country, was not involved in the original Normandy process, which led to the...
