Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, as the Defence Committee has said, we need to acknowledge explicitly that choices about our military capability limit our capacity to be a force for good, if we are not to fall back into the situation of over-commitment and overstretch of our Armed Forces from which the SDR was designed to free us and which I believe it tried hard to do. We indeed have over-commitment. We have over...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I shall be very brief, but I was forestalled by the noble Lord on the Cross-Benches in saying how much we owe to the noble Lord the Minister for his integrity, decency, care, patience and good humour. I do not think that he has had nearly enough credit. That said, I am afraid that I am going to be a little Cassandra-like, although I passionately want to believe that the Executive...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I, too, had the honour to serve the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and I wish to thank him for introducing the debate today. Pace Jane Austen, it is self-evident that a foreign policy requires a foreign service. Today I want to speak on that point; and not on Russia, my usual subject. The Government's new foreign policy centre, under Mr Mark Leonard, said in its mission statement:...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: All right. The story illustrates why one needs to be there. It happened in the Congo many years ago, but it could easily happen in Sierra Leone and Angola now and probably in many other countries. A week before independence in the Congo, I was driving through the African city at night. A soldier flagged me down and said that a comrade of his was in trouble. We drove around the unlit, muddy...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: I listened to the debate with great interest. It is highly complicated and specialised and I hesitate to intervene. Can we be sure that there would be an absolute duty on the central council to pass on details of someone who behaves in a thoroughly unprofessional and undesirable way in one part of the devolved kingdom to the other bodies? Unless such a provision is in the Bill, it will be...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, has the Minister considered the possibility of offering scholarships to people who would become teachers? It is fairly certain that a number of people who might have decided upon teaching are deeply discouraged by the prospect of debt, more so than many others because teachers are not exactly highly paid. Is there no possibility of special scholarships for people who commit...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is no more than prudent for the Government to take note of the fact that, many years on, the Russians have still not signed the Start II Treaty, that they are producing new nuclear weapons, and that they show no sign whatever of taking proliferation seriously? Will the noble Baroness agree that in those circumstances the Government are behaving with...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, we all owe a great debt to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, for enabling us to talk yet once more about this immensely important subject. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, when Secretary of State, wrote in his preface to the MoD paper, published in July 1999, Defending against the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons, that to know what the biological and chemical...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, will the Minister give way? Before the noble Baroness goes further, we need to make it plain that, as I understand it, we are seeking the inquiry not so much to discuss the research--nobody disputes the fact that ongoing research is a long-term strategic necessity--but what went wrong with the delivery of the necessary services, justice, (whatever one wishes to call it) to the Gulf...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: asked Her Majesty's Government: How many aircraft in the Chinook fleet have been fitted with (a) cockpit voice recorders and (b) flight data recorders; how many aircraft have not been so equipped; and when it is expected the programme will be completed.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, the Strategic Defence Review was published in July 1998, over 19 months ago. By then it was well known that thanks to the monstrous depredation of Front Line First, the Defence Medical Services were collapsing. In the SDR debate of 8th July 1998, the Minister rightly referred to the, "hollowed out" and "demoralised Defence Medical Services", and pledged to make new money and...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: I believe that I am right in saying that one will find the photograph which was referred to inside that book. The noble Lord is perfectly correct that it is not on the cover, but it is inside. I mention that simply as a matter of fact.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: But Section 28 simply states: "A local authority shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality". Why is that in any way unacceptable? We are not discussing proper consultation by teachers. We are discussing intentional promotion which is very different.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I believe Sinn Fein/IRA have claimed that the Government's proposal to suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive is unlawful. That this was, however, implicit in the agreement is evident in the validation and review provision in paragraph 7, which states: "If difficulties arise which require remedial action across the range of institutions, or otherwise require...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: I do not know whether the noble Lord the Minister had noticed that I would be raising an issue at this stage rather than at the further reading because I think it is the time for it to be considered, and it is relevant. I was not clear yesterday exactly what the two governments expected to review and under whose chairmanship they would do it. I am clear that if the Government has taken us up...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I am quite old enough to remember what the days of Hitler were like and I understand the fear and the anger. But could I suggest that, in paying so much attention to this small, unpleasant creature, Mr Haider, who does not represent his country and is not a member of the government, we are giving him stature, and that is a terrible thing to do; it is a great responsibility? I...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, the IRA has refused to join in the current review and has withdrawn its representative and the so-called, "propositions put to the de Chastelain Commission since November". It said categorically in November, after appointing him, that it had never contemplated and would never discuss decommissioning. Its proposition appears to have been (since we still do not know what was said), "a...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the course suggested might also complicate our present opt-out under the Schengen agreement, which would presumably need some renegotiation? That also could be a difficulty.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that there are some practical reasons involved? I was in Guinea following the French withdrawal. All the street names had been removed. I arrived by lorry just before nightfall and the only way I could identify the British embassy was to look for the flag, which fortunately was flying. While there are practical reasons, I heartily endorse the noble...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, on Saturday by chance I happened to meet what might be termed "my Somerville constituency". About 10 of them were involved in local government across the whole range, including a very senior head of an authority, and in every party. They all felt a deep anxiety--I accept that this is a matter of perception--about the prospect of the cabinet system, for the precise reasons just given...