Global Combat Air Programme International Government Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2024

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Monday 29th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I have an advantage—or disadvantage—on these Benches because, as often with debates on defence, there is nobody behind me on the Back Benches to say anything different from what I may be or had been planning to say.

As other noble Lords have, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, to her place. I am speaking as the defence spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, even though this SI is being brought forward via the FCDO, precisely because we felt that this is a critical defence issue. Obviously, the interplay of defence and foreign policy is vital.

I listened to much of the debate in the other place about the GCAP arrangements. I think that GCAP has the huge advantage that we can probably all pronounce it, as opposed to GIGO and its alternative pronunciations. I will focus on GCAP.

I had the huge benefit of listening to the passion right across the other place for this commitment to the trilateral relationship with Japan and Italy. Much of the discussion here has been about the relationship with Japan, which is clearly very important to the Japanese. Over the last couple of years, the Japanese embassy has been regularly coming to Liberal Democrat conferences. Before other embassies remembered that we existed, the Japanese ambassador and his colleagues were coming to talk to us. The bilateral relationship with Japan and the relationship on this specifically are hugely important. Last week, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was keen to reiterate the commitment of His Majesty’s Government to GCAP, which was very reassuring to your Lordships’ House.

Today, we are obviously supposed to be focusing on the statutory instrument. I have a couple of very specific questions I want to raise. I note that there is no impact assessment, and the reason given for that is that no impact, or no significant impact, is foreseen on the private, voluntary or public sectors in the UK. I wonder why not. What would count as significant? Surely one of the benefits of the Tempest programme is precisely that it is intended to have a significant impact on our defence capability. Presumably, this is simply the language of a statutory instrument.

In particular, it was noted that there would not be a significant impact on small businesses or micro-businesses. I raised this in the humble Address debate last week, with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. The question was about the role of small and medium-sized enterprises. Clearly, if this is about defence investment and defence research and development, there is a potentially significant role for small, medium and even micro-businesses in the United Kingdom. What do His Majesty’s Government think are the possibilities for those small businesses and micro-businesses?

I declare an interest—not, unlike other noble Lords, an Anglo-Japanese interest—as I am a trustee of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust, which organises the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. It is essentially funded by the defence industries and, given that some of the primes were mentioned by the Minister, I thought I should reflect that as a declaration of interest, although I do not benefit personally.

In addition to wanting a better understanding of the impact on our defence industrial base, I also want to ask a few questions related to those from the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on the Labour Back Benches. This is not because I disagree in any way with the proposals here, but in order to get a little more information. Whether somebody was trying to tease the United Kingdom Government in drafting this convention, I am not sure. If we ever wanted to rejoin the European Union, we would be doing so under Article 49. It would appear that, if any country is looking to sign up to this convention, it is under Article 49. There are some provisions under Article 48 and 49 looking at the possibility of expansion. What is His Majesty’s Government’s thinking about the possibility of expansion? The wording seems to be slightly vague at the moment. It is down to the steering committee of the GIGO to decide whether other countries can discuss possible membership. If a third-party country decided it wished to join, would that have to come to the United Kingdom Parliament to be ratified, or is it down to the steering committee, which would not appear to be right? A greater understanding about that would be welcome.

Similarly, under Article 50, about defence exports, what are the mechanisms likely to be if one of the current parties has an arms export ban to a certain country? How is that going to work in terms of dealing with the GCAP?

Finally, there does not appear to be any provision for regular reporting, other than back to the MoD and the FCDO. Will there be a way for Parliament to be updated on these arrangements? These are very much by way of probing questions and not in any way speaking against the statutory instrument and the convention, which are most welcome.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by saying that we fully support the measures before us. As the Minister said in her introductory remarks, it is necessary to deliver the appropriate instrument into law, but it is also about ensuring that UK military capability in the crucial area of air combat is ready. We do so with two great partners, Italy and Japan. Of course, we should not forget that Japan has challenges in its part of the world that many other countries do not face, not least the challenge posed by Russia.

Since the trilateral in September 2023, this project has already achieved significant goals, not least the signing of the international treaty last December that we are legislating for today. This is welcome.

The treaty establishes the legal basis for GIGO—and we need that abbreviation, otherwise we would be repeating “GCAP International Government Organisation” several times, which would extend any debate. The fact that the international headquarters of GIGO will be in the UK is in keeping with the spirit of equal partnership and underpins the importance of GCAP. The first chief executives of the GCAP agency and joint venture are from Italy and Japan—again, that underlines the important collaboration.

As such, the SI before us enables this international treaty to enter into effect, with important measures, as was said in the introduction, on immunity and privileges that are necessary for the effective operation of the GIGO. This SI is necessary to deliver GCAP’s governance arrangements, but in itself will not deliver a single aircraft. Therefore, it is important that we back GCAP to the hilt; the GCAP programme needs to be wholeheartedly supported, with the appropriate funding necessary to deliver our sixth-generation fighter capability.

As Parliament approves this SI, we welcome the remarks of the Minister, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, recently as well, about the Government’s support for GCAP. There has been a lot of speculation and it is important that that speculation is put to rest with wholehearted backing for GCAP. That was consistent across both the new Government and the previous Government during the election. I am sure the Minister will agree that clarity from government is important for Parliament, industry and our international partners. As we approach this SI, it is important that our commitment to GCAP is clear.

I assure the Minister that from these Benches His Majesty’s Official Opposition are clear that we support the SI on the basis that we are supporting GCAP as a whole, including by putting in place the funding necessary to deliver its requirements over the urgent timescale that all three member nations require. That is the key point for all three nations; GCAP is all about pace and timetable. For the United Kingdom and Italy, that means replacing the Typhoon before it is withdrawn from service towards 2040. For Japan, with equal urgency, it means replacing the Mitsubishi F2. That is why any delay or deferment, whether caused by the lack of a clear timetable or otherwise, is so critical.

Reflecting on the points made by my noble friends Lord Howell, Lord Lansley and Lord Trenchard, in 2020 PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that the Tempest programme alone would support an average of 20,000 jobs every year from 2026 until 2050. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also raised an important point about small businesses within the issue of jobs and the economic growth of the United Kingdom. These are well-paid jobs in every constituency up and down the country. Therefore, any notion of holding back on GCAP expenditure would hit our economy hard. Any sense of delaying or deferring GCAP expenditure would undermine our brilliant aerospace industry, and indeed cast doubt over the vast sums of private investment that are already waiting in the wings, from which hundreds of UK SMEs stand to benefit.

We all recognise that GCAP is important to our economy, our future war-fighting capability and our relations with our closest international partners; the Minister recognised that in her introduction. Therefore, we need to ensure that the Government embrace GCAP wholeheartedly and confirm, as I have before, their strong and steadfast support. That includes a clear timetable on 2.5%, so that we can ensure that this programme can be accelerated by investing not only in the core platform but in the associated technology of autonomous collaboration and a digital-system approach, enabling the mass and rapid absorption of battle space data.

As my noble friend Lord Naseby alluded to, it is important that we invest. People often talk of the next war, and I am sure the Minister agrees with me that the best way to win a war is to avoid it in the first place. That requires investment, and that is what GCAP is all about. Part of our overall deterrence posture is to signal to our adversaries that we stand with our allies and friends, and our preparedness to always be ready to out-compete their technology.

I conclude by saying that His Majesty’s Official Opposition fully support this statutory instrument and GCAP, and the powerful gains that it will give to the United Kingdom’s economic and military strength, along with our key partners, Italy and Japan.