Asked by
To ask His Majesty's Government how they intend to consult
Parliament on the deployment of British armed forces in the
Middle East.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (The ) (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister and Government Ministers have
consistently provided updates to Parliament through Written and
Oral Statements, and through Oral and Topical Questions. However,
publishing operational activity to Parliament in advance could
undermine the effectiveness of an operation and potentially risk
the lives of Armed Forces personnel involved. While the
deployment of the Armed Forces is a prerogative power and the
Government are under no legal obligation to seek parliamentary
approval, we will continue to update the House as fully as
appropriate.
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. He is quite right
that the Government have kept the House updated and given the
Opposition the opportunity to continue to express their full
support. Just over a decade ago, the then Foreign Secretary, now
the noble Lord, of Richmond, speaking in the
context of the Middle East, said that
“wherever possible, Parliament should have the opportunity to
debate, in advance, the commitment of UK forces to military
action overseas, unless there is an emergency where such action
would not be appropriate”.
I think the whole House would agree that last Saturday night was
such an exception.
With the news today that Israel has apparently decided to
retaliate for that attack, the House will know that the situation
is very serious. Does the Minister not agree that this would be a
good time to clarify the role of Parliament in relation to the
use of military force overseas? Does he think, on behalf of the
Government, that some form of consultation should be enshrined in
law? If so, will he bring forward a draft resolution for
discussion and debate in both Houses?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, the noble Viscount makes a very good point, and it is
something that I will talk to my colleagues about. I do not
believe that the situation has changed. We have said before that
when these irregular, single-point actions—which are limited,
proportionate, necessary and legal—are required, we will continue
to take action to protect lives, particularly in self-defence, as
we did over the weekend. If that situation should change, we will
certainly review the situation; we will keep the House fully
involved.
Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)
My Lords, we are very fortunate to have the Foreign Secretary in
our House. Indeed, it is probably the best decision that the
Prime Minister has taken. It is an excellent idea that we have
the Foreign Secretary here, and I hope this may be the norm in
future. I hope the Labour Benches are focusing on this.
In a more serious vein, the Middle East situation is extremely
serious. British forces have been involved. Surely we should now
be having a major, full-day debate in this House on the Middle
East, as a matter of urgency and priority, and regular debates as
long as the situation continues.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, that is something for the parliamentary scheduling
people. A major debate at this point would be very useful but may
take up far too much parliamentary time.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister take this opportunity
to thank and congratulate the RAF pilots who prevented needless
loss of life in Israel over the weekend? Will he take the
opportunity to reaffirm our country's long-standing relationship
with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan—a relationship that goes
back more than 100 years —which was brave and correct in
defending its own territorial integrity over the weekend? That is
exactly the kind of relationship that should in general be
assumed, without needing to come back to Parliament for
preauthorisation every time we stand by our old allies.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend. I also place on
the record my admiration, and that of the Government, for all our
Armed Forces in what must be an extremely difficult situation.
Operation Shader, which has been in place since 2014, has been a
remarkable success, and very active. I did not realise that since
it was put in place, the RAF has flown 8,700 sorties and released
4,300 precision weapons.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, the Minister may recall me saying in the context of a
previous Question put to the Leader that the Armed Forces place
enormous importance on the support of the British public for the
difficult and dangerous things that they do, not least as
expressed by the will of Parliament. At the same time, they have
to rely, crucially, upon the principles of security and surprise,
on which their effectiveness and safety depend. Is it not
difficult to see how a piece of legislation brought before
Parliament could balance those difficult, competing issues?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
The noble and gallant Lord makes a very good point, and it is
certainly something that I will talk about. I could not agree
with him more that operational security and force protection are
at the very heart of what we are trying to do here, and must
never be compromised.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests, and
specifically my association with the Royal Navy.
Our dedicated and professional service personnel are now deployed
on several fronts in the Middle East, stabilising the region in
the face of co-ordinated efforts by Iran and her proxies. Iran's
senseless aerial attack on Israel at the weekend undermined
international airspace. Iran's proxies in Yemen continue to
undermine freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, and last week
Iran seized the “MSC Aries” in the Strait of Hormuz, again
threatening global maritime efforts. What additional capabilities
are we planning to deploy to counter these threats?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness and most of the House are aware,
we do not discuss these things in advance, for fairly obvious
reasons. However, an enormous amount of diplomatic effort is
being put into trying to calm matters and get a more stable
situation out there. As I am sure people are aware, my noble
friend the Foreign Secretary is out in Israel today, trying to
ensure that any further escalation of what is potentially an
extremely dangerous situation across the entire region is
canned.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, perhaps it is time that we learned from experience. In
recent years British and western forces have been involved in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and none of them has turned out
well. I pay tribute to the forces concerned—it was a question of
the strategy and the political view that was taken—but we really
need to be careful about this and not cause any more chaos in any
more countries.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, there are some fundamental rights and justifications
that we as a responsible military power need to be prepared to
step up and protect. I believe that these decisions are not taken
lightly; they are taken extremely seriously. An enormous amount
of thought and activity goes into each decision to take action,
and that level of thinking should continue.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that it was three British-supplied
drones that killed three British aid workers last week in
Gaza?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, we do not comment on comments
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, thanks to our armed services are all very well, but
they are now being very much stretched. It would be good to hear
something from the Government about increasing the defence budget
rather than the taxes that can be lowered.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that most of the House is fully aware of
where I sit on this. We have a finite amount of resource within
this country, and it is a question of where that gets allocated.
We are spending more this year on defence than we have ever spent
before; it looks as if it is going to be about 2.3% or £55.6
billion. It would be fantastic to be able to buy more ships and
planes and employ a whole lot more people, but the capability and
ability of our Armed Forces protect this country extremely
well.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, the last time that tensions rose in the Middle East,
which sadly ended up with fighting going on, we had deployed in
the north Arabian Sea an aircraft carrier, two nuclear submarines
and eight destroyers and frigates. Does the Minister believe that
what we have deployed there now, even with allied forces as well,
is capable of protecting the two major maritime choke points that
are so important to the world's and our economy, or does he
believe that we should have more there? Of course, that relates
directly to cost and expenditure.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
The noble Lord is right. We are part of a substantial
international force within both the Gulf and the Red Sea.
Together, there is a significant amount of power there, hopefully
to deter any further aggression by malign influences.
