Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2022-05-18
Topic: Defense
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity we have today to debate the many issues confronting the world, but I cannot hide my disappointment that I will be spending more time talking about what is missing from the gracious Speech than what is present. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine represents an unprecedented geopolitical situation, yet this Government’s Queen’s Speech barely addressed it and the MoD is not even mentioned Last year’s integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy highlighted the need for the UK to play an active role in ensuring that open societies and economies can flourish across the world by championing free trade and global co-operation, tackling conflict and instability and standing up for democracy and human rights, yet the international development strategy promised in that review and published this week makes no explicit prioritisation to do this. All we got was a vague reference. I hope that when he responds, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, can confirm whether the Government have reneged on this commitment and, if they have not, how they will address the issues driving conflict and defending human rights in line with the integrated review? Turning to Ukraine and defence first, there are no plans to reboot defence plans in response to Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine or rethink Army cuts. Despite promising to "invest in our gallant Armed Forces", Ministers are pushing ahead with a £1.7 billion cut to day-to-day MoD spending, which means less money for forces’ pay, recruitment and families. More than a dozen European countries are now rebooting security plans and looking again at defence spending, so why are our Government not doing so The Procurement Bill fails to ensure greater protection of jobs in the defence sector by adopting a British-built-by-default approach intended to boost manufacturing within the UK supply chain. When we reach the appropriate stage in the Bill’s passage, I hope the Government will support an opposition amendment to deliver this boost to our economy. There is no commitment to bring forward the national resilience strategy to boost homeland defences. We have been waiting for this strategy for 14 months. When will we get it? We need a new security White Paper to revise our defence plans to deal with the new threats to UK and European security, and to halt cuts to the Army. Are the Government considering this A key part of defending democracy, the international rules-based order, the rule of law and human rights in Ukraine and elsewhere is, of course, as the Minister said in his introduction, through international co-operation, whether it be NATO or other forums such as the G7, the United Nations or the Commonwealth. Our shared commitment to strengthening partnerships and to engaging diplomatically and constructively with international organisations from a unified position is unshakeable However, Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has highlighted how misguided many of the Government’s strategic assumptions about foreign policy have been. I cannot agree with the Minister about the integrated review, which wrongly de-emphasised the importance of European security. Also on European security, the key recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on Russia remain unimplemented. Tackling and challenging Russia’s political, economic and military reach is imperative to European security, and the work must start at home. The United Kingdom must stop acting as a hiding place and service industry for criminals and their money Although our current focus is rightly on Ukraine and Russia, it is far from the only global crisis. Many countries have experienced almost non-stop conflict over the past decade. Our support for Ukraine, including humanitarian assistance, should not come out of ODA. The poorest in the world should not have to pay the price of Russian aggression. There are currently multiple crises of nutrition that will only get worse with increasing conflict and the negative effects of climate change Yesterday, UNICEF published a short report on the state of malnutrition. It shows that, in spite of rising levels of severe wasting in children and rising costs of treatment, global financing towards nutrition does not match the need, making up just 0.2% of ODA globally. East African countries are dependent on Ukraine and Russia for 90% of their grain imports and parts of the region are also experiencing severe drought. Worldwide, at least 13.6 million children aged under five suffer from severe wasting, with two in three of these children—roughly 10 million—not being reached for treatment, resulting in one in five deaths among this age group After the Nutrition for Growth summit, I welcomed the Government’s commitment to spending at least £1.5 billion on addressing global malnutrition over the next eight years. I also welcomed their commitment to adopting the OECD DAC nutrition policy marker across their programmes. Sadly, Monday’s strategy did not include a specific prioritisation of nutrition. We still do not know how this money will be spent between nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programming, nor when the money will begin to be disbursed The reason I make this point is because building a good foundation of nutrition is absolutely essential for achieving the Government’s stated objectives of empowering women and girls, providing life-saving humanitarian assistance and advancing work on climate change, nature and global health. I hope that the Minister will today reiterate the Government’s previous commitment of reaching 50 million children, women and adolescent girls with nutrition-relevant programmes by 2025 I could list all the countries we are focused on at the moment in terms of nutrition. In Afghanistan, 25 million people are in need. In Ethiopia, a further 25 million people are in need, with 4 million people displaced. Two-thirds of the population of Yemen are in need after years of conflict. Nigeria faces growing insecurity and, in South Sudan, more than three-quarters of the population are in need after a decade of conflict. We also should not forget Colombia, which remains the most dangerous place in the world to be a human rights defender, with more than 60 activists killed in the first four months of 2022 Rather than restoring the UK’s development expertise, targeting aid on poverty reduction and prioritising climate, conflict and health funding, the Government instead prioritise a naïve, aid-for-trade approach that simply will not work. This is an approach that takes us back to the 1980s and corruption scandals such as the Pergau dam The plan to reduce the proportion of aid spending to multilaterals from 40% today to just 25% by 2025 could result in huge cuts to life-saving programmes. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Global Fund will be protected from any funding cuts and that the United Kingdom will join our greatest ally, the United States, in making a strong pledge at its seventh replenishment. I also hope that the Government will reconsider a much swifter return to the 0.7% target and using the aid budget to help those most in need, and not trade favours with big corporations Finally, I turn to trade, the part of this debate that had at least some substance in the Queen’s Speech, as the Minister mentioned, through the electronic trade documents Bill, which has the potential to ease burdens on businesses and save billions at the same time. The noble Lord mentioned the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill, which will facilitate agreements that the Government claim will boost the economy by over £3 billion. So far, the Government are failing to use British negotiating clout around the world to promote those principles in the integrated review; the principles of high standards, from workers’ rights to trade union freedom and climate commitments. I hope that we will see something different. At the centre of this Queen’s Speech should have been a plan to ensure that trade delivers for businesses and communities, especially at this time of a cost of living crisis.