Good afternoon. This is the second session of the Committee’s inquiry into the UK-EU reset. We are particularly focusing this afternoon on foreign policy, security and defence co-operation. I welcome our three witnesses and ask them to introduce themselves to the Committee.

I am Charles Grant, director for the Centre for European Reform.

I am Sophia Gaston, the UK foreign policy lead at the global security think-tank ASPI and a visiting fellow at King’s College London.

I am Richard Whitman, an academic from the University of Kent and the senior associate fellow at RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute.

Thank you. I am chairing this afternoon as the Committee’s Chair is sadly unable to be with us for this session. To begin, how important do you think the reset potentially is, both for this country and for the EU? How widely do you think it could go in achieving a fundamental change to our relationship?

I think the reset is important. We have had a pretty bad-tempered, rather difficult relationship since the Brexit referendum, which has not helped either party—neither the UK nor the EU. Given the very important geostrategic challenges that both face, with Trump’s America, Putin’s Russia, a difficult and rising China, insecurity in the Middle East and so on, we need to work closely together because we have so much in common in terms of our fundamental values and fundamental interests—not everything, but most things are in common. I think it really makes sense for us to work together and try to achieve a reset. For me, the big question is whether working together more closely on foreign and security policy, which is happening already to some degree and will happen more, actually triggers and facilitates closer co-operation on economic issues. The short answer is that it does not seem to be doing so yet, but it may do in the long run—and I hope it does in the long run.

A well-functioning British-European Union relationship is the central foundation of a well-functioning European region, certainly in security, defence and foreign policy terms. I think there are also dividends in terms of prosperity as well. When we get into conversations around defence industrial production and so on, the relationships between those two areas will become more clear. I also think that in light of the re-election of Donald Trump, the question of how well other liberal allies function effectively—how they communicate, co-ordinate and act—becomes even more paramount. That means you have to have a very stable foundation. The reality is that the vast majority of the world’s liberal alliance is in Europe. If we are not functioning well here in our home region, then it is very difficult. That foundation needs to be the basis and the precondition on which we also bring in other allies in areas like the Indo-Pacific. The re-election of Donald Trump has enhanced and intensified the urgency around this reset.

As the other two witnesses have said, it is extraordinarily important to get the relationship right and to change the tone and tenor. From the UK perspective, there has been a lot of focus in recent years, post Brexit, on a sort of flexilateralism—doing lots of bilateralism and lots of minilateralism with others. But the EU-UK relationship has been the open goal in many ways, particularly since Russia’s war in Ukraine since 2022, but also with the change in Government in the US. It should be an easy thing to do in terms of the shared and common interests, and it is absolutely pivotal, frankly, to negotiating a better European security architecture for the future. The health and vitality of the relationship is a really important indicator as to whether we can get European states not just to work together, but to work together in an effective way that best plays to the strengths of European states, whether they are within or without organisations like the European Union.

All three of you have set out why the reset has become ever more important because of the change in the global situation, and certainly the British Government have made clear that they regard it as a priority. To what extent does the EU think it is a priority? There have been suggestions that it has moved down the agenda because of all the other things going on.

It certainly has been a priority for the British Government. I think the level of ambition of the British Government has been quite low, which I regret—we can perhaps come on to that. The EU’s level of ambition has been quite low as well. The EU certainly wants to have close security co-operation with the UK—without question; it values that very greatly. I do not think that it does not think that that is important. But I think the EU is quite happy with the trade and co-operation agreement as it is. It was negotiated by the EU, largely on the EU’s terms, with Boris Johnson’s Government. The EU quite likes this deal; it is a good deal for the EU. In my view, it is not a great deal for the UK, but I think the EU thinks it is a fine deal and is in no hurry to reopen it. If you say to EU or member state officials, “We’re doing so much together on security; why don’t we think about reopening the TCA?” then the short answer is no, they do not want to do that. Some of them do, but most of them do not. They think reopening it would lay you open to the charge of cherry-picking or setting dangerous precedents, and the EU is very focused on precedent. If they give certain rights to the UK, they have to give certain rights to other third countries. The EU is not keen to reopen the TCA, but it is keen to have a closer political relationship with the UK. It wants to have its cake and eat it, in a way.

Both the strengths and relative vulnerabilities of the UK and the EU have evolved considerably over the 10 years since the Brexit referendum. There has been this constant dynamism to the question about the motivations of each side. It is a relative question. In some ways, both sides actually have greater motivation at this exact point. You can ask the question as to whether it was the right thing for defence and security to have been carved out of the original TCA conversations. In some ways, Britain held back on that because we felt it was our strongest card to play. That remains true today, and in fact, because of what we have demonstrated in the conflict in Ukraine, our role as Europe’s primary security actor has been reinforced—so in many ways, that decision has been validated by subsequent geopolitical events. Equally, we are now in a situation where, because of Ukraine, we have recognised the vitality of mass. That is where the EU comes in, so now the EU is in this position of having to start to get its act together on building an industrial base, to which we would like access. It is very difficult to look at that constant dynamic of relations between the two and in any concrete terms say, “They hold all the cards here” or “We hold all the cards here.” There have also been surprises along the way. I remember the UK-France summit back in early ’23, where it was actually the French who were starting to bring the question of mobility into the conversation. Those conversations were really interesting, because we could see the phantom architecture of some future conversations at an EU level, and France, having been a key obstructionist on many areas of our cherry-picking, was the one putting that on the table. What has become very clear, particularly in the last few years, is that there are areas and demands on both sides, and what those are is becoming much clearer. As our largest trading partner and as this consolidated economic bloc, the EU has a lot of power in those conversations, but Britain’s strengths in these discussions are more apparent in part because they have been tested.

We are in an extraordinary situation in which logically the EU and the UK are alliance partners in terms of the major endeavour for the continent—Ukraine’s security. But we have ended up with something much less than the sum of its parts in the way that the relationship operates. It is interesting that there has not really been as much pressing from national capitals as you might have expected, in terms of securing a better deal or, if you like, a change of mood. Within the Brussels beltway—within the EU institutions—there are very variable views. Some of those things play out at the sharp end, particularly in the defence-industrial area, which I am sure we will get on to. The relationship is really disappointing in what it is offering—not just in the terms in which we talk about it but in what has been built over the last few years, particularly since 2022. Yes, we have the TCA, but outside that we have a kind of organised ad hocery—things are done in a way that makes things happen, but not through the most effective and efficient method. Sometimes they are done with a bit of grudging acceptance on both sides that we have got to find a way of operating, without necessarily standing back, thinking about our common interests and changing the terms of the debate, both in national capitals and within Brussels.

Thank you. I call Dan Carden.

Do the UK Government have an overall strategic vision for the reset? If so, do you know what it is and do you have any suggestions for what it maybe should be? You can carry on, Professor Whitman.

I think the short answer is no, because “strategic vision” would imply a real sense of what the end point might be, and therefore that would inform the ambition and what might tuck in behind it in terms of different policy areas. The security and defence policy area is indicative. It is surprising on both sides, but particularly the UK side, that the ask has been very modest and unambitious. It has not really pushed the EU particularly hard, or pushed in some capitals, to come up with anything interesting.

You talked about an ad hoc set-up. Isn’t it going to be like that? Isn’t that the point of leaving the European Union—that we are not going to be in this all-encompassing relationship and that we will have to do things step by step?

Yes, but what we do not really have is a place in which we have a serious political conversation about where the shared ambitions are and where it might be sensible to work together hard, particularly in the context that we find ourselves in now. Perhaps in the past, other institutions and other places could have taken up the slack, but that is not the case now, particularly with the change in Washington. From the UK side, obviously we recognise that there is a political difficulty in having a conversation about the relationship with the European Union.

Do you think that new institutions need to be created to allow that space?

On security and defence, there are other places where the conversation happens and there are other ways we might think about it. I have written about the idea of a European security council, for example, that brings together all the actors beyond the EU. The EU is of importance in terms of European security—it is of crucial importance in terms of Europe’s economic security and European societal security—but it is obviously not everything in terms of how best to secure the continent. That is a mixture of the way in which states make a contribution—the way in which they do it bilaterally, unilaterally and multilaterally, and within the two multilateral institutions in Europe. One of them, NATO, the UK is a big player in, but the other is obviously the European Union, where we need to find a relationship so that both sides are able to get the maximum value from the relationship. However, that has to be cast in attractive terms and terms that are also a little bit, dare I say it, inspirational in showing why you would want to have a deep and developed relationship rather than just focusing on some important but less heroic ambitions.

Ms Gaston, do you agree?

If we look at the current Government’s strategic vision for the reset of the relationship as a whole, it is trying to pursue the most ambitious alignment as possible while also adhering to its self-imposed red lines—so you have ambition and caution simultaneously. Unfortunately, the red lines, coupled with this constant looking over one’s shoulder to these perceived areas of potential political sensitivity, has had quite a coercive and depressive effect on the ambition. Both those factors are happening simultaneously. It is evident that much of the work done has been very much behind the scenes. It has been sitting in the Cabinet Office and has not really been talked about publicly very much—except for the work we are doing on Ukraine with European partners; that is an area where the Government feels it is on politically safe terrain. I think there is this really profoundly depressive function in the existence of this narrative around Brexit betrayals, and the way that would be fed into the media and become a Westminster story. That still has a really significant impact on the way the Government is approaching the relationship, and it is quite problematic because the Government is being responsive to and coerced by not even public opinion, because we know where public opinion has gone on a lot of these questions, but media and political opinion. It is difficult to separate the consciousness of that from how the Government is pursuing its strategy. Certainly, when the new Government came in, there was a lot of expectation in European capitals and in Brussels that there would be this big reset and that it would take the opportunity with this big parliamentary majority to really push ahead, but actually they were surprised at the caution with which the relationship was continuing to be approached. I think the political piece is really central here. If we focus specifically on the foreign policy, defence and security piece, in many ways we are approaching it in a more complex way than a lot of the other policy areas, because we have specific strengths. The relationship is more balanced in our favour, in part because we have this incredibly established industrial base with big primes, we have demonstrated the capacity to lead in Ukraine and so on, so these questions about EU-wide mechanisms are not always attractive to us, even when they offer mass. There are some ways in which that ad hoc approach, minilateralism and so on have been more effective. I think that is why the approach to this sphere—this domain—has been so much more complex and requires a different approach from many other aspects of the relationship.

One last one from me. Charles Grant, you might want to comment on the UK Government’s strategic vision. The Government says it doesn’t have to choose between its close relationships with the United States and with the EU. Is that right?

Let me start with your first question. I agree with what my fellow panellists said: there is very little vision about the future relationship. For political reasons that we are aware of, the Government is quite reluctant to talk about Europe or present it in a positive way, so there is a lack of vision, which I regret. Having a summit on the 19th, which will presumably be an annual event, will help because once you create a summit, you create streams of work that officials have to get on with. In a way, the declaration of the summit and people talking about it will force political leaders to give a bit of vision, so I think it will improve a bit on that front. We do need new institutions. On foreign and security policy, regular meetings at Head of Government level, Minister level and official level will help to plug the British into EU thinking on foreign and defence policy. That would have three benefits. First, we would learn what is going on. One of the biggest problems with Brexit is that British officials and politicians do not really know what is happening in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg anymore because they are not physically present. Secondly, it would give us the chance to influence what happens in the EU circles. Of course, outside the EU—not being a member—we have much less influence that we used to, but certainly because of our assets, experience and capabilities, we would have some influence. Being regularly plugged in would allow us to exercise some influence. Thirdly, it would give us the chance to build alliances and friendships, which have not been maintained as well as they could have been since the Brexit referendum. So I think new UK-EU institutions are important. What was your first question again?

Does the Government have to choose between its relationship with the United States and with the EU?

Any British politician from any mainstream party would have to say that it does not have to choose, but if it does, with the exception of co-operation on intelligence, defence technologies and some military issues, our fundamental interests and values are lined up with those of the European Union, rather than those of Trump’s America. On issues like Ukraine, NATO, the World Trade Organisation, the rule of law, the United Nations and multilateralism generally, it is very hard to argue that Britain should abandon the EU just to get close to Trump’s America, because on so many issues we just do not share values with Trump’s America. I think that, if we have to choose, we choose Europe, but any British Prime Minister will go on pretending they do not have to choose, so long as she or he can get away with it.

Ms Gaston said that the EU expected that, with a Labour Government elected, there would be a move closer, and you are talking about new institutions. I am wondering whether there is a problem on the European side: that it still cannot accept the United Kingdom as independent from the European Union.

I think there is a bit of a problem on the EU side, but I would put it slightly differently. The problem is that some Commission officials are quite dogmatic and doctrinaire in the way they view relationships with third countries. I would argue that Britain is a sufficiently important third country, and sufficiently influential in terms of economics, trade and defence capabilities, that they need to give us a bespoke relationship. For example, they say that they cannot give Britain access to the Schengen information system or the Eurodac databases for justice and home affairs co-operation. An official actually said to me, “We can’t give you access because that would create a precedent, and other third countries that are in Schengen would not have the same access as you.” I said to the official, “Well, do you not agree that if we did have access, it would make it easier for both of us to catch crooks and terrorists?” They said, “Yes it would, but it is so important that we do not let you pick too many cherries.” I think the dogma is sometimes stronger than it needs to be, and EU officials need to catch up with some of their political leaders, who are more open to revisiting the relationship with the UK. Some of the political leaders, particularly in central and eastern Europe, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, are really quite open to thinking things through in a radically different way, but a lot of the Commission officials are not. I have to say that they have an excuse for not doing so because, as we have discussed, the British have been so unambitious themselves and have not been very willing to set out a vision for a closer relationship.

That is quite a powerful point.

The specific point you raised about the Schengen information system and Eurodac had quite a lot of attention over the weekend. You are saying that officials have a narrow-minded attitude, but this is, as it is supposed to be, a major issue at the summit. Do you think it is still possible for European leaders to say, “No. This will benefit both parties. We want it to happen?”

I hope, to some degree, yes. I guess there are always ways of compromising and fudging these things. The British are not asking for membership of these databases; they are asking for workarounds that would give them something close to membership. I hope that there will be a bit of good will; it is an awful journalistic cliché to talk about good will, but it really matters, and the British have lost a lot of good will over the years since the Brexit referendum. Sunak’s Government restored some of it, to some degree, and Starmer’s Government has restored it further. That is good, but we will have to go on doing it, and behaving in a way that is regarded as serious and sensible, in order to get the good will that we need if political leaders are going to revisit some of these arrangements.

I would like to go back to Dan’s point about the EU versus the US, and potential relationships. We have heard in previous evidence about the potential economic benefit of a UK-US trade deal versus closer alignment with the EU, which is no doubt arguable one way or the other. In terms of the timeframes, you have talked already, Ms Gaston, about the change in reality with the new US Administration. Donald Trump seems to be very intent on doing some kind of trade deal; he only has a limited amount of time to do that. Is it entirely possible to do a trade deal with the US—given how long it would take us to get any negotiated agreement with the EU—and not have it affect a deal with the EU?

Ever since the Brexit referendum, I have been very sceptical that there would ever be a full free trade agreement, by which I mean an FTA as defined by the World Trade Organisation, which includes most goods traded between two entities. I am very sceptical mainly because of agriculture. I do not think the US wants a full FTA with the UK, unless we give American farmers access to British markets. Politically, that is very difficult. Whether you are Conservative or Labour, it is a difficult thing to allow. I think the Labour Government is committed to a deal on so-called SPS—sanitary and phytosanitary—standards with the EU. I regard that as politically very significant and symbolically important, because if you do a deal with the EU, which would require us to follow EU standards on a dynamic basis—meaning that when the EU changes its rules, we change our rules—that would mean we have to accept EU standards forever and ever. If we accept EU standards, we cannot let American farm products into our markets that do not reflect or comply with EU standards—the old chestnuts are hormone-treated beef, chlorine-washed chicken and so on. If we do a deal on SPS—as far as I understand it, the Government are really committed to doing that, and the summit conclusions will say, “We will work out a deal on SPS”—that means there will never be a full trade agreement with the US ever. That does not mean you cannot do an agreement on certain things like artificial intelligence, digital trade or certain aspects—I think Peter Mandelson has talked about that—but it will not be a full-blown free trade agreement.

Going back to the question, “Do we need to choose?”, we will align, where it makes sense, with both the EU and the US. With the EU, because of our geography and economic structure, we will continue to pursue a full-fat, comprehensive trade deal that involves an enormous number of different sectors and dynamic alignment. That is where we are going. On agriculture and pharmaceuticals, the EU is obviously the place—that is partly reflective of where the British people’s expectations are, the sort of standards they want and so on. The real area of alignment with the US will be around tech, and then there will be other areas of alignment that could be grouped together into something that could be described as a trade deal but that would be a collection of different areas of co-operation. With technology, we have in some ways already made a choice that we will be pursuing closer alignment with the US approach on things like AI. There are ongoing discussions about the UK-US tech co-operation agreement. I am spending half my time in Washington at the moment. It is really important to note that the UK is the only country in the world that the Trump Administration regards as a meaningful co-creation and co-development partner on advanced technology capabilities. We have a huge advantage with that. The reason why that is important is that it is also the central underpinning of a lot of defence innovation. You can see the kind of architecture—this where something like AUKUS comes together, where you have that pillar 2, which is all around advanced tech capabilities, and that integration between the advanced tech agenda and the defence innovation agenda; all of that is coming together. That will be a really important foundation of our future US relationship.

Just to expand on that slightly, yes, there is AI and defence co-operation, but when it comes to defence, national security and especially foreign policy, we have a Trump Administration that has signalled a radical shift in its relationship with Russia and its expectations for what allies do around China. In terms of trying to walk a political line between relations with the EU and US, do we have diverging priorities? Is the UK able to navigate those two things, and maintain a relationship with both, or do we have to choose a direction of travel?

Your question raises a couple of very important things. First, alignment with the US will almost certainly require secondary areas of alignment, particularly around China. If we are pursuing UK-US tech co-operation agreements, while also doing so through AUKUS, there will almost certainly be demands on the alignment of our innovation ecosystem and how that is secured. The question of China is addressed through that. So that is one thing, and the Government need to prepare for, understand and map all the areas that is likely to touch. The second part is on the fact that while defence co-operation, and security and strategic co-operation, with the US will remain vital for us moving forward, we also need to be pursuing that with the EU, partly because that is the mechanism through which the European region—our home region—will be defended. This is really where the potential conflict emerges. One risk we face is bifurcation in the defence industrial marketplace, where the US essentially focuses on the Indo-Pacific and partnering with Indo-Pacific allies, and Europe focuses on itself. What we have been pursuing over the past five or so years is interoperability between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, and trying to integrate. So, things like AUKUS being a NATO-first proposition, so that all AUKUS technologies can be operated in a NATO context and vice versa—AUKUS submarines will be used in the Euro-Atlantic, things like that. That is where GCAP and all the other programmes come in. The risk is that you start to see a rewinding and stripping out of the process of integration between security theatres under the pressure of European sovereignty and autonomy and American sovereignty and autonomy. The UK will have a really crucial role to play in preventing that from happening, because we will be the bridge between security theatres vis-à-vis that relationship with the US. We really need to be thinking about how we ensure that NATO, in particular, and then other forums such as the G7 and so on, continue to emphasise interoperability and interconnectivity, so we keep liberal allies and the whole function of defence industrial production working together in concert, rather than pulling apart.

Professor Whitman, the same question: does the UK have to choose between US and EU foreign policy priorities when it comes to Russia and China?

The UK, at the moment, is hedging. The difficulty is not knowing where US policy is going, particularly on Russia. We have a particular perspective on Russia, because we see it as the first-order security threat for our nation in Europe. That is a very difficult place for the UK to be, because historically we have chosen to align—or our first-order foreign policy consideration has been how we align—our foreign policy to the US in a way that makes us most useful and gives us as much influence as possible. If we are in a place where we have almost diametrically opposed positions—on something like Russia or Ukraine—then it is probably the most difficult moment for British foreign policy that we have seen since Suez, I would say. But even more complicated than is that if the US and the Trump presidency are reimagining the international order as we have seen it work best for the west, which is that we have all overseen international prosperity delivered by particular kinds of relationships and using particular kinds of institutions, and they are walking away from that, then, again, that is a really difficult choice, because it would move the UK away from something that it has valued and seen its prosperity built on, and that it has seen—bottom line—as the best way to preserve the nation’s security. If it continues to hedge, then I think it is going to get increasingly difficult to do so, unless the Trump Administration’s foreign economic policy, foreign policy and security policy reaches some kind of settled state. The problem at the moment is that it has not, and we do not really know what it might be over the coming weeks or months. It is very difficult to make decisions, particularly long-term decisions, on what kind of relationships you want to have if that is so uncertain for the UK.

Professor Whitman, I wanted to touch on comments that Mr Grant made about the Schengen information system on border security and Eurodac on fingerprinting, and remarks that have been reported that the EU may not grant the UK access. What impact does not having access to those databases have on the UK?

It means that we continue in the situation we are in now. When the Government came to power, it was talking about a security pact in the broadest understanding of security, running all the way through from internal border security to classic security and defence. I think the Government envisaged that as a sort of package, and one where it was of benefit to the UK to think in those terms. It was always going to be very difficult to do. As you know, there are different legal bases for different kinds of arrangements; in internal security, there is the role of the Court of Justice, for example, and our acceptance, or not, of its jurisdiction. Politically, it is very bad news; this is a modest thing to be able to do. To my mind, it suggests that, perhaps from the EU side, the level of ambition is not as high as it might be. This is something that is obviously mutually beneficial, so it is a very unfortunate signal in terms of how they think about the relationship and how they want the relationship with the UK to continue to be circumscribed and ultimately impacted by Brexit.

Given that modesty of ambition, as you put it, are there any realistic workarounds to not having access to those two databases?

What we have put in place over the last few years is the way we try to liaise with third countries, in particular. We have treaties and other agreements with third countries—particularly the French, but also the Belgians and others, where we have the juxtaposed borders, but also where we obviously share a border. All those things are working, but they are not working as well as they should. The question is not whether we can put ourselves in a place in which we will have a better arrangement. A normal working relationship between the two sides would suggest that you look at things where you can make the relationship work better in an operational sense, and where there is mutual benefit; that is where you would look to see the relationship function much more effectively. I think it says something about the politics of the relationship that we are not in a place where the obvious areas where you can have wins are ones we are picking up on. It is also taking us a very long time; all these things do not necessarily have to wait for a summit to get agreement on, and ditto on aspects of the security and defence policy relationship. Those things can be done without some big, all-encompassing agreement and/or a summit. It is unfortunate that we are loading up so much on the summit, and that we have not yet reached a point where we have a good working relationship so that we can work through these things, as and when they become important to work through.

I want to take us back a few steps to an earlier discussion about the UK’s ambition for the security partnership with the EU. To come to you first, Professor Whitman, what do you think the priorities should be for co-operation with the EU, specifically in relation to foreign policy and security?

Foreign policy is the easy one, and I think that we are already seeing that. The interesting thing is that the UK does foreign policy with the EU in different places, such as the G7 and bilaterally. The face-to-face, or timetabled, foreign policy relationships are a little bit clunky, but it is the stuff that goes on underneath that really matters—as Charles said earlier, you set the pulse, if you like, and then you serve that need. Defence in an operational sense, such as working with the EU on the things that they do, particularly on conflict crisis management, is fairly straightforward and easy—I think you could almost reach the necessary agreements in an afternoon. The thing that is much trickier is on the defence industrial side, but that is also potentially where the EU has significant value to add. That has been structured and organised in such a way, at the moment, that it makes things difficult for third countries, unless you are Norway. It makes them particularly difficult for the UK. That is because the EU operates on the principle, which I understand, that if you are talking about money, it is EU money, so it should be spent on the EU. More importantly, they want to have whatever they develop in that area not leaving them reliant or dependent on a third country. In a way, that is curious to think about a dependency on the UK as a negative thing, as this is other European countries, but frankly I think that that is where we are at.

One of the biggest problems with the existing frameworks is their attitude towards third countries, which I think has been a mistake, frankly: the extremely punitive construction of the third country relationship in these forums. In the context of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, there have been plenty of opportunities to revisit that approach, but the EU has not taken them—again and again, it has chosen to continue that punitive approach. One of the instruments that the EU has used to make it almost impossible for the British defence industry to co-operate—even with a full-scale invasion and land war in our region; the stakes could not be higher—are the rules around intellectual property. Essentially, they would require British firms to give up all intellectual property of capabilities as part of that process, but that is just not viable for them or for the UK in terms of our national interest. That is an example of a practical obstacle that has needed to be worked through. There are also really important questions to ask about what the mass capability of the EU is useful for, and where it is less useful. We can all see that one of the biggest issues from the Ukraine war has been the replenishment of munitions, where mass is extremely important and would add a lot of value as a collective endeavour. There are other aspects of the defence innovation pipeline where the flexibility of bilateral and minilateral co-operation in a defence context is actually preferable to having a large number of actors. We do not quite know how that is going to play out in the EU context. Look at something like AUKUS: you have the three most interconnected countries in the liberal alliance, and they are still struggling to work through the bureaucracy of creating things together and moving at the same pace. Think about the EU context, where you might have nine or 10 partners wanting to get involved. How do we ensure that pace is achieved in that ambition and in that context? Some of this is going to be iterative and will have to work out as it goes. But what is going to be really crucial is that, whatever structures we design moving forward—and I hope the UK is able to be an influential voice in that—we maintain flexibility so that we are able to meet the challenges and realities that we face, rather than just creating a new giant, bureaucratic, slow-moving endeavour that replicates all the problems we have in our national defence procurement systems—or even compounding them, in the EU context. On top of the defence industrial piece, there is a lot we can do through regular political dialogue, structured meetings and formal consultation mechanisms with the EU—the UK being able to attend EU high-level meetings, intelligence sharing and joint strategic planning, as well as access to EU defence instruments. There is a lot of scope for developing this relationship.

I agree with what Sophia has said, although I am perhaps slightly more optimistic on the defence industry questions. As Sophia rightly says, the French have been winning the argument, until very recently at least, on rules on intellectual properly, export controls and so on. They have been creating disincentives for British companies when it comes to taking part in the European defence fund or EDIP—the European defence industry programme—which is going through the works at the moment in the EU bureaucracy. So many countries now want a more open system, whereby Britain and other third countries should be allowed to take part in EU defence industry programmes, that the French are beginning to lose the argument. The Germans in particular switched; the Nordics and the Baltics have always been in favour of a more open system, as have the Poles. I think the French are beginning to lose the argument, which is why EDIP is currently blocked; the French and the Germans cannot agree on it. The rules for the SAFE—this €150 billion fund that we have read about recently—have not been decided yet, but I think they will be relatively open. The French are fighting a rearguard action, but in the long run, it clearly does not make sense to have a European defence industry base that does not include the British. I think a lot of people realise that. I do think that the EU matters for the defence industry, because it has money, and it will have more money in the future with the new budget to be sorted out in a couple of years’ time—the new seven-year budget cycle. Operationally, the EU is not going to be very important. It will do a few things every now and then, but NATO remains the premier organisation for European security. Even with Trump perhaps semi pulling out of NATO, or being much less committed to NATO, the Europeans will keep NATO going because it is the structure in place that works. They want a structure to be in place if and when America comes back and is more fully committed to it. NATO is not under threat, as far as the Europeans are concerned. As Sophia says, there will sometimes be minilateral groupings: the big six countries of Europe—Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, France and Britain—will meet every now and then and do things together, and there will be other formats, such as the JEF—the joint expeditionary force, which is the Nordics, Baltics, Dutch and British—that will matter. The EU will matter a little bit but mainly for the defence industry. On that, I predict that in the long run, it will be much more open than it has been, and the British will be more able to participate, I think, in the future.

Thank you; that is really helpful. I return to something Sophia mentioned about the collective endeavour and the importance of European countries working together. In relation to the very high percentage that is collectively spent on international aid among European partners—44% of all global aid comes from the EU—do you think there is merit in the UK working with EU partners to co-ordinate a policy or a delivery in that area? Charles, I address that question to you.

I think that there is merit. The British overseas aid programmes have had a very high reputation in Europe—often regarded as some of the best managed and most focused on poverty elimination. The EU also has quite a good reputation for much of what it has done. They have worked together quite well and co-ordinated a bit. However, they are all suffering from savage cuts—not just the British programmes but a lot of European aid programmes are also being hugely cut. I think there will be certain benefits in trying to co-ordinate to make sure they do not duplicate. If one country is cutting back its aid programmes in a certain part of the world, perhaps the EU should not cut back so much, and vice versa. The more co-ordination, the better.

Do you think that might be a topic for the summit in May?

That is an interesting thought. I have not heard it raised so far, but I hope it is. It would be a good idea to make it a topic for the summit.

I would just add that that area demonstrates very well what we have lacked in the relationship, which is being able to have a high-level discussion about what the broad ambitions are in particular policy areas. If you look at comparable partners—Canada and Japan, for example—and their relationships, the trade relationship is one thing, but there is also a structure for the political dialogue, broadly understood, where there are shared ambitions that both sides have agreed on, and an agenda to do so. They are not works of perfection, but we do not have that. The TCA and its institutions are not equipped to have those kinds of conversations or, frankly, to make effective use of resources. If the one thing that we absolutely do have in common with the EU is our anxiety about the western order—if we want to put it in those terms—and our neighbourhood, these are the concrete and tangible ways that we should be looking at how we most effectively use our resources. The EU is always going to have more scale, but there are things that the UK does, and is able to do, that would add significant value to the EU, as much as the EU would add value for us. The strange thing is that we have a great stake in the EU being successful in this area, but we have no say. We have to find ways in which we can nudge, or at least seek to influence, where we can.

You have all separately spoken about the challenges with defence and industrial co-operation. I have seen some of those in my own area, in the Black Country, where a lot of defence manufacturers have lost out on contracts with EU suppliers that they might otherwise have got before Brexit. We have talked about the barriers; how likely do you think it is that we will get a better deal, and what might that look like after the negotiations? Perhaps Professor Whitman could start.

I think this is also about the level of ambition, isn’t it? If you think about it logically, the one thing we know that Europeans do not produce enough of is their own defence. We are now finding ways to raise the money to make it possible to provide that, but there is the realisation that one of the key problems we have is the infrastructure in place to make it possible. We have seen that with ammunition and it is right the way across the board. Logically, what we actually need in Europe is a common market for defence, frankly.

Which of our red lines cause a problem with that?

Well, sector-specific and all that. I say this not to be flippant. We need to be looking at how we eliminate the barriers to it being possible to produce more of what we need, more effectively. That is not just how we raise the money and move it around and how we procure, but also how we move information around. It is very difficult to move information across borders in the defence area, and difficult to move people. We have highly skilled people working in the industry, both to build and to service. Moving them around is one of the things that has also been complicated for the UK since Brexit. To me, this is one of the areas in which the British Government could say, “We have a shared interest here. We have something to offer.” Instead of looking at the programmes the EU has put in place, and the way in which it wants to support the development of an EU defence industrial structure, what could we collectively build that is not going to cross our respective red lines but will add to the one thing we need—to provide for our own defence and to give Ukraine the means to provide for its own defence? The EU is of lined up on that and we are lined up on that as an ambition. How do we think about a way of eliminating all the barriers, to make this much easier?

Thank you. Mr Grant, you spoke about the SAFE fund, which is the £150 billion cross-EU package that is available. Might the UK access that? How would we go about negotiating access?

The rules for SAFE have not yet been agreed by the EU. There is, as always, an argument between the French and the others on how open these rules should be. I think the Commission, which is quite French in its thinking, has proposed that you will need two member states to be able to bid for a contract under this procurement, or one member state and a third country that is allowed to bid. When Britain has its defence pact agreed it will, in theory, be allowed to bid, but there first has to be another agreement between the UK and the EU on what terms the UK would be allowed to take part. That means basically you pay to play; there will be some idea that the British will have to put some money into the fund to get loans out it. This all has got to be settled. To answer your earlier point, I do think you could be optimistic about things changing in the future. Political leaders in Europe will have to become a bit more flexible. The French in particular will have to move some way from their current position. I also think the point about visas is important. Defence companies, like lots of companies, find it very hard to move people from one side of the channel to the other at short notice because of the visa requirements. One of the problems is that the competence for visas on the EU side is shared between the European Union and the member states, so nobody can fix the problem just like that. I hope one of the priorities of the summit is to make it easier for people to work on the other side of the channel—not just touring musicians but businesspeople as well.

To complete the circle, do you have anything to add, Ms Gaston?

One of the impediments to the EU being an effective defence industrial actor thus far has been that national Governments essentially have a carve-out to give preference to national companies. There is an ideology around this that is inherently parochial. For us collectively in Europe to get serious about building a defence industrial base that could, first, rival what the United States has been able to offer on mass and scale—obviously separate to the very specialised things that the US provides, which we cannot fill—and, secondly, meet the realities of where we are, we have to move beyond that. Every country is going to have to take some hits to its own direct national interest and the preferences of its firms. With every decision, there will be some countries that are losing out. Until we develop a culture where we are comfortable for that to happen, it is going to be very difficult for us to move forward on this. I mentioned AUKUS earlier, but it is such a fascinating microcosm of what the same challenge is going to be—the competitiveness in creating a trilateral marketplace between just three partners, and how you structure innovation challenges so that you produce the capability as effectively and quickly as possible. That does not always mean it can be totally equally balanced between all three partners, and the same is going to be the case in the EU context. What we need to be influencing towards is an EU structure where you somehow balance having the scale of that mass marketplace with an innovation pipeline that is more focused on flexible minilateralism that produces the best kit most quickly and most cheaply, allowing other partners to buy it. Being a privileged customer versus a producer is a mindset shift that we are going to have to make, and that is going to involve Britain taking some hits on this as well if we want to be involved. That to me is the big political question underlying a lot of this, which is deeply contingent on its effectiveness.

I wonder whether we could expand a little on what you have said so far about support for Ukraine and the EU-UK relationship. Thinking about the US being unreliable, and certainly inconsistent, in the support that it is giving to Ukraine, what more do you think the EU could do in place of the United States to support Ukraine?

We have to give some credit to the EU—it has moved itself into a place that is extraordinary in terms of what most long-time observers would have thought about in terms of, for example, getting together to buy ammunition, the scale at which it has undertaken training and the resources it has given Ukraine. That is in the past now, and the question is how we best secure Ukraine for the future with, as you say, the uncertainty around the level of US support—that is putting it politely. Clearly, one of the things that the EU is doing is thinking about how Ukraine can be integrated into all these developments, which is why Ukraine has a special pass when it comes to the defence industry in particular, because the recognition is that we have as much to learn from Ukraine as we have to teach. What Ukraine needs more than anything else from us is money so that it can build what it has even more effectively, and partnerships in areas such operating kit so that it can get it back on the battlefield effectively—the sort of things Germany is doing. This is also an obvious area where the EU and the UK can forge a genuine strategic partnership. The term is bandied around a lot, but what does a strategic partnership mean and what should it mean? It should mean we have a clear sense of what the objective is, and we look at the best way we can deliver on the strategy. We have committed to provide for or assist with Ukraine’s security, and that means many things—not just the pledge to do so but how we are going to resource it. We have gone past the early phase, which was giving Ukraine stuff that we already had. It is now about how we gear up to build the stuff that we need for the very long term, how we can stockpile that for our own and for Ukraine’s use, and how we get that backwards and forwards with Ukraine in terms of innovation, particularly in the areas that have been so important on the battlefield. All the things that the EU have done with the UK—the way we have co-ordinated and liaised diplomatically on sanctions and on training and so on—we must step up massively if we are really going to provide Ukraine with the support it needs. At the moment, I do not sense that there is a plan, to put it frankly. We have the arrangements that we inherited from the US in terms of the Ramstein process. Obviously, the UK is now on that, but how are we going to sustain that without the United States? In what areas can we not sustain it without the United States? What is the maximum we can deliver? What are the things that we cannot deliver on? How are we going to put in place compensating arrangements for that? We do not seem to be having a conversation about where the EU and the UK should strike an alliance for the purpose of delivering that much more effectively. To my mind, it is too piecemeal, it lacks strategy, and it is much more about thinking about how we manage day to day, rather than about where we want to be, how we lock Ukraine in and how we support Ukraine.

Ms Gaston, the European Union has a seat at the table of the coalition of the willing but is not participating as a coalition member. Obviously, not all EU countries are signed up as part of the coalition. Could the EU do anything more on its stance in respect of a so-called reassurance force for Ukraine?

Certainly, but the question is whether that is conceivably possible in terms of building consensus among the 27. I just do not think that is where we are at the moment. With a reassurance force and the coalition of the willing, it has been really important to say, “Let’s bring the first movers and the most enthusiastic out to the front.” That has been helpful in the way the British and French have approached this. It is a volunteer endeavour, which has meant that everybody speaking on behalf of the coalition of the willing is really enthusiastic and totally aligned in their commitment to Ukraine and the need for it to have stability and security moving forward. You are not having what you often have in these sorts of conversations in the EU context: disruptive actors, feet-draggers, dissenters and so on muddying the message. Part of the deterrence function of that force is projected through the confidence of those involved in it and their all being on the same page. That said, obviously not everybody is entirely on the same page, because there are a lot of questions about what the force should look like and the context in which it needs to be surrounded, and particularly on the absolute utility and necessity of the US playing a role to underpin the presence of such a coalition. I do not know that it would be helpful for the EU to pursue greater public involvement in that if it is not able to secure consensus among the EU27, and that could in fact be a risk to the conversation. However, it is really good that it has a seat at the table. We should also note that because it does not look as though Ukraine will have an immediate pathway towards NATO any time soon, the role of Ukraine’s potential pathway to the EU becomes more important and somewhat more strategic and security oriented, because the EU is having to provide the reassurance function. That will cover many dimensions, such as, very significantly, the future health of Ukraine’s economy, so that it can try to get back on its feet. That includes the reconstruction fund and so on. I would expect the EU to play a significant role in that. The coalition of the willing is a space where ad hoc, nation-level leadership is most effective at this stage, because it is involving other actors. Countries like Australia are participating in that.

As far as I can see, the red lines are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Before I answer the specific question, let me make a broader political point that we have not touched on yet. One of the things about the UK that matters most to European partners is its political system and the way it is evolving. If you talk to the French or German Governments or the Commission about what kind of deal they might offer the British and how flexible they could be to get a more ambitious deal, they say things like, “Maybe we could do that, but if there is another Government in the UK in four years’ time that is very Eurosceptic and committed to tearing up these deals, what is the point?” The fact that the British political system is very seriously divided on the European question is a factor that matters for the ability of the UK to get an ambitious deal with the EU. On your specific question, I do not see the red lines changing. As I have said, I would like to see a more ambitious agreement with the European Union. I have a few ideas as to how you could get a better deal than the TCA, but let us be frank: as you implied in your question, as long as the red lines remain, it is not going to be enormously different. Somebody in Mrs von der Leyen’s office said to me recently that the British are slowly learning that, even with the best will in the world, any improved relationship with the EU is not going to be fundamentally different from Boris Johnson’s Brexit settlement, because of the red lines that Labour has set. I do not see them changing, but the red lines do not go as far as saying, “No dynamic alignment with EU rules and regulations.” They have not said that, and they do not say there can be no role for the European Court of Justice. My answer is to go sector by sector. I think we can get closer to the EU in several sectors. We have already discussed SPS—plant and animal health. I think that will happen, because the British Government have committed to it. The next obvious sector to look at is energy, where there is a mutual self-interest in getting closer to the EU. We have to do a deal with the EU to merge our emissions trading schemes quite soon. If we do not, British exporters to the EU will get clobbered by the carbon border adjustment mechanism that the EU has introduced. So there is a strong self-interest in the UK doing that and I think it will happen. There is also electricity trading. We lost the good model of electricity trading that we had before Brexit, so we pay more for our electricity now, and there is less security of supply for both sides of the channel than there would be if we went back to some system of de facto being part of the single market for electricity trading. Again, I realise that we would have to accept dynamic alignment, but I think there is a close mutual self-interest in getting closer on energy. Once you have done SPS and energy, you can maybe look at a few other areas, like chemicals or pharmaceuticals. There is a limit to how far you can go, of course, because if you go too far, the EU will say, “Hang on a minute, what about freedom of movement?” You cannot be in bits of the single market without having freedom of movement. I do think, however, that in the long run, we can keep the red lines for the time being but still get a better, more economically advantageous deal for the United Kingdom if we go sector by sector.

One of the reasons why I think there was a hope, and maybe an expectation, that the Labour Government might come in and do something really bold—for example, rejoin the customs union—is because where public opinion is at and having an EU majority in Parliament are not guaranteed to last into the future. To Charles’s point about future uncertainties politically, if you are going to do those sorts of things, there is a fair argument to say that with an approach of careful incrementalism, or, “We’ll do this in our first term and then in the second term we’ll be able to move to this,” you are relying on so many hypotheticals about situations that may never present themselves again. Given all the domestic social, political and economic pressures, in even just a few years we and the EU could be in a less favourable place for those sorts of things. That was driving some of the expectation of a willingness to confront the red lines. In a way, the Trump situation has created political opportunities to say, “Well, circumstances have changed and now we need to look at this,” or even just, “Coming into Government, we looked under the bonnet and the economic situation was really difficult, so we‘re going to need to make some different decisions.” For a lot of people who would like to see a more ambitious and closer relationship, that is driving the frustration. But I agree with Charles that you can do an enormous amount even given the straitjacket of the red lines. It is also important to think about where the EU itself is changing. The attitude towards migration in the EU has changed significantly over the past few years. We now have border checks in a lot of Schengen countries and reforms to asylum seeker policies and so on are going on at that level.

I do not think I could do a better job of setting out the difficulties with the red lines, but there are two other things to say. One is about the shadow that they throw in other areas, as we are seeing in the defence area, for example. It creates difficulties because of the kind of relationship we have. You will be well aware that there is a good reason why Norway has a more developed security and defence policy relationship with the EU than appears to be possible for the UK: it is a member of the European economic area and in Schengen. That is the EU’s red line. We have two sets of red lines—it is not just the UK red lines that create problems. Also, the Government do not seem to explore the possibility of having a conversation about the red lines in the context of, for example, the TCA review. We could have a national conversation about what we think might be a good agenda for the TCA. If we work back in time, under the coalition Government we had something called the balance of competences review, which looked at the benefits and costs to the UK in different policy areas given the relationship we had then with the EU as a member state. We could do something similar for the TCA. At least we would then have a decent evidence base on which we could argue, “Are these a good or a bad thing?” It would perhaps change the debate. We also need to recognise that we have ended up with a peculiar one-legged stool. Everything is on this particular trade relationship that we have, and it makes it so difficult to develop the relationship in other areas that are allied to the economy. Foreign economic policy is absolutely allied now to how we can run the UK economy.

I have a couple off the top of my head. The first is the so-called Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention—the PEM—which is about rules of origin. If the EU agreed—and I think it would agree—Britain could join that, which would allow supply chains to more easily comply with EU rules of origin. British exports could therefore more easily benefit from the zero tariffs that apply to goods manufactured in the EU or the UK. PEM includes Turkey, Switzerland and several other countries. The EU has granted mutual recognition of certification bodies to some other third countries in free trade agreements. It did not give it to the British because it did not like the idea of Britain having a goods certification industry that certifies medical equipment, car parts and so on as complying with goods safety standards. But that is something the EU could grant the UK with a bit of good will. I already mentioned visa issues. The EU has an issue with the fact that to get a visa to enter the UK for work, the visa has to be sponsored by somebody. That is quite bureaucratic for people on the EU side. They do not have an equivalent system of their own. That is the EU complaint. The British complaint is the rule that you cannot live or stay in an EU country for more than 90 out of 180 days. As I said before, the rules differ in every single EU country anyway, so it is difficult for British firms to send people to the EU for a few weeks or a few days. Visas, the PEM convention and certification bodies would be small but useful steps in the right direction—as well as, of course, touring artists. Let us let them travel to the EU. That would require the EU to change its rules on cabotage, which is quite an awkward and difficult issue for the EU, but let us make it a big British demand so that you can trade it off against something else.

I agree with all of those. The youth mobility scheme is an obvious win-win. The reason why I brought up migration earlier is because it is relevant to trade, because freedom of movement is contingent on the single market and so on. The EU regards them as the same. If we are having conversations about youth mobility, we are having a conversation about a space that is related and linked to economic and trade questions. We can use that as a gateway to other conversations. I know that there are concerns in the Home Office about numbers and so on. You could easily add in caps for each individual country, so that you have a balanced approach—a sort of one in, one out system. You could also add an academic and research co-operation dimension to that. On students, our higher education institutions are in a really difficult financial position at the moment; what can be done in the UK-EU relationship to ameliorate that? There is no shortage of opportunities. What has been interesting and challenging at times is how certain issues have become contingent on other issues. We need to separate those out where it is unhelpful—that is, fish and defence co-operation—and try to leverage them where the EU is bringing them together, as with mobility and some of the trade and customs barriers.

Let’s move to Aphra, because she has to get away shortly.

Very quickly.

In 30 seconds; those were all great ideas. The other thing that is worth looking at is where we have learned. We learned from the Horizon deal that we could negotiate something that is mutually beneficial in an area in which we have a strength and the EU has a strength. We fiddled things on the money side in a way that was not disadvantageous. That is one of the most positive episodes we have had in the post-TCA relationship, so let us learn from it. The other idea is that we should also press the EU to tell us where it has best-in-class agreements in different areas, and to explain to us why we cannot have a best-in-class agreement. For example, in the foreign policy or defence policy area, Ukraine has a particular kind of relationship with the EU, and we are now able to point to that and say, “You can do that if you really want to.” We should be a bit more confident in doing it in some other areas and saying, “Yes, please.”

I want to focus on the trade-offs. We have mentioned fish, and the current fisheries agreement expires in June next year. There has been a very public discussion, particularly from some EU member states, about linking a defence and security agreement to fishing rights. Mr Grant, how do you think the Government should approach this trade off?

The latest I have read is that there will probably be an agreement on this. I think there is a good chance of getting an agreement on the security and defence pact in time for the summit, and that in return the British will make some sort of commitment, at least informally at this stage, to roll over the existing amount of fish that the EU takes out of British waters for another three or four years—more than two years anyway. I think that will be the agreement. I am not an expert on fish, but what the French and the EU are demanding is not completely unreasonable. Post the Brexit settlement, the EU has been allowed to take a greater share of fish from British waters for five or six years in a row. What the French are saying is, “Let us keep that higher level for the future.” The British were initially reluctant to do that. Both sides think that they got a bad deal in the Brexit settlement, so both sides are a bit difficult on this. What the French are asking for is not inherently unreasonable. It was unreasonable for them to say no deal on defence without a deal on fish. That was ridiculous, and many other EU Governments thought that that was ridiculous, but the substance of the French request is not unreasonable, and that is probably the way forward. The French want a multiannual agreement and the British, if they are stroppy, can say, “If there is no agreement at all, we will have to negotiate annually.” That gives the British many cards to play, because we have more fish, relatively speaking, than they do—so it is a British card, fish. That is why the French have been so concerned with getting that card removed from the table. I think it will be okay, but I hesitate to predict—one never knows.

Are there other areas where there might be particularly difficult trade-offs? Linked to that, where there are industries that are relatively small, but vital for some parts of the UK, such as fisheries, which are really important for some of our coastal communities, what can they do to not get lost in these negotiations?

I will leave that for my colleagues to answer.

Professor Whitman, you are in the heartlands now.

I live closer to the coast, maybe. One of the things that we have learned, or that we have forgotten and relearned, is linkage, and the EU’s strong preference for linkage in whatever the issue is. There are a whole series of agreements that we have to return to with the EU across time, and we must make sure that we are better prepared in terms of not only seeing linkage established early on, but building partners within the EU that help us delink, if I can put it in those terms. That is a lesson-learned exercise. The other thing that we, perhaps, have to think a bit harder about is how we use our sector interest groups that connect to continental Europe, which lost a bit of their purpose because of Brexit, in terms of how far they act as a bridgehead for us in other countries to get the message out more effectively. To come back to where we started, one thing that the UK Government have been particularly poor on in recent years, particularly where we are now in terms of the reset, is our public diplomacy in third countries. It is not good. We are not good enough at poking and prodding those groups that might have some influence or at least be able to get ideas under the noses of the Governments of those countries. We have not worked those hard enough. I will give one concrete example. If you look at think-tanks across Europe that deal with the idea of closer foreign security and defence policy in Europe, you can count on the thumbs of one hand member states where they brought out a paper that suggested what the relationship might look like. To my mind, that is a failing in terms of our ability to get in on the ground and encourage discussions, which obviously involves us—the UK Government in third countries—sponsoring, encouraging and facilitating that kind of dialogue, because it can only work to the UK’s advantage.

That is a really interesting lesson learnt. Thinking about where we can learn lessons from, is there anything from the recent EU-Switzerland agreements that we might want to learn lessons from?

I think you can learn lessons from it because the EU has shown that it can be flexible and swallow its own dogma. It allowed Switzerland access to the single market for goods without it being a part of the single market for services and in some other respects. Switzerland does, of course, accept the free movement of people, more or less, but the lesson to be learned is that if a third country is a sufficiently important partner, you can think of a bespoke agreement that does not have precedent and is unique if it is in the interest of both parties. That is what this new Swiss deal—if it is agreed in a referendum in Switzerland, which is an open question—would be, so that is important. On the previous point, Richard is absolutely right. I think that the current British Government have not been very good at engaging with public diplomacy, broadly defined. British Ministers and British officials have not been encouraged to go and take part in think-tank debates, conferences, speaking tours and so on, either in the UK or the EU itself. I regret that. Previous Labour Governments have been more open to debating and arguing with outsiders and experts, but I think the current Government's political culture slightly militates against that, which I regret.

That is actually a bigger problem that affects a lot. It is the same situation in Washington as well. They are constantly saying to me, “Where are the other Brits? We are having big think-tank events, all the other partners are there, and the Brits are not,” so we are not sending enough people.

Who should be there? Ministers, parliamentarians or academics?

Parliamentarians and senior officials. It is also about understanding that the foreign policy and security community outside Government is a strategic instrument. It is part of the UK’s—

Soft power.

Soft power and influence operations. We fund the entire sector way less than our peers. For most of our peers, their Governments directly fund a lot of this third sector, support them, commission work and facilitate a lot of the functions. It is possible to do that. That is understood as an extension of the national interests. That has been very exposed by Brexit, because we were in Europe by virtue of being there. But it is a problem in all other markets, as well. There is a bigger structural problem, probably worth an inquiry of its own.

The Committee is going to Washington, so we are going to do our bit.

Excellent.

The focus has been mainly on foreign policy and security. Can I wrap up by asking each of you to say briefly what should be the achievable objectives set by the Government, particularly with the summit coming up, as a part of the whole reset process? How should we judge whether this has been successful?

It will be successful if we help to restore trust and build a lot of goodwill. I said before that it is a journalistic cliché, but it is really important, because that goodwill has been missing in recent years. I think that most of us agree that we want the EU to be more flexible than it is inclined to be. If you want it to be more flexible, you have to generate that goodwill. The Government has not made a bad start. It has been fairly polite and house-trained in the way it has dealt with the EU, but it could do a lot better. A bit more vision would help. Continental politicians like a bit of vision, perhaps more than British politicians do. A bit of vision and a bit about where we want to go in the long run would help to enhance that goodwill and that good feeling about the UK, which is what we need if the EU is to be more flexible and give us a better relationship. So, I think more ambition on the UK side and more flexibility on the EU side.

In terms of foreign defence and security co-operation, we want a lot more structured dialogue; formal consultation mechanisms; integration to be in the room; and a lot more visibility of European planning and the capacity to be a strategic partner in that. We want more access to EU defence and strategic instruments, where it makes sense. Not just access to them but the capacity to be involved in shaping the direction that they take, and I think we have legitimacy to do that. On the political piece, the Government needs to be aware that it should not be so constrained by the straitjacket of red lines. It needs to understand that public opinion is, firstly, extremely influenced by the media and its focus at a particular time on any given issue. I have done public opinion polling about what people would be willing to accept to achieve greater co-operation with the EU—a better trading relationship, better security and defence co-operation, all the things we know British people care about. With the ECJ, paying money into EU funds and freedom of movement, there is actually quite a lot of movement between the three and at various points some are more acceptable than others. So, it is about not seeing public opinion or political opinion in an overbearing way that constrains the reality of the opportunities here. That has played too big a role in making Government extremely cautious about these things. For all that we want to see the EU being more ambitious on this, I think that to some extent they will respond to perceptions of British ambition. I think there is a feeling that we need to move first, so hopefully they can move into a slightly more bold posture.

The first thing is that I hope we get rid of the language of the reset once we have had the summit and that we go on to a different plateau, or whatever we might happen to call it. We will get a summit statement that will read as all of these things do. I think the real test is that if you talk about the relationship with the US, for example, the EU constantly refers to something called the trans-Atlantic declaration, which really set a road map. If we get something like that and we keep coming back to that summit declaration as a point of departure that really settles the question as to what the two sides want to do with each other, I think it will be a great summit. I fear, unfortunately, that we will get something that looks as if it puts us in a slightly different place but the level of ambition will not be all that it could be, particularly in the security and defence area. There, the UK has to continue to press for an exceptional relationship with the EU. It has to press through national capitals—through the other relationships that we have—for differentiation for the UK, to recognise the role and the place that it plays in Europe’s security, and the role it will need to play as we rebuild the European security architecture.

Okay. May I thank the three of you very much? We suspect that this subject will continue to feature on our agendas, so, if you have further thoughts, please feel free to let us know. Thank you for coming this afternoon.