Ukraine: Military Equipment

Debate between Bob Seely and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on international supplies of military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

The UK has been leading international support for the armed forces of Ukraine for 10 years since Russia first invaded Crimea in 2014, training more than 60,000 new recruits since 2015 and committing almost £12 billion in economic, humanitarian and military aid since 2022. From the UK-founded, UK-administered international fund for Ukraine, which has pledged more than £900 million, to spearheading capability coalitions, our efforts have paved the way and made a genuine difference. Our NLAW anti-tank missiles and our Javelins helped brave Ukrainians to devastate Putin’s menacing 40-mile armoured convoy, which was headed for Kyiv. We were the first to send main battle tanks with our Challenger squadron, plus 500 armoured vehicles and 15,000 anti-armour weapons.

Last week the Defence Secretary announced to this House a new package of 200 Brimstone anti-tank missiles, plus £245 million for artillery munitions. The UK will also co-lead an international capability coalition, alongside Latvia, to supply cutting-edge drones to Ukraine, in addition to the UK’s co-leadership of the international maritime capability coalition. The Defence Secretary has urged partners and allies to commit to long-term support for Ukraine. At the NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting on 15 February, the Defence Secretary and his counterparts from 14 NATO allies and Sweden signed an agreement on two new multinational procurement initiatives focusing on munitions and missiles. Spearheaded by the UK, these initiatives aim to increase defence industrial capacity across the Euro-Atlantic area, replenish stockpiles at pace and continue support to Ukraine.

[Bob Seely]

I commend the Government for their impressive record, but does the Minister accept that the equipment pledged by NATO nations is not reaching Ukraine in anything like the amounts promised? Does he accept, for example, that less than a third of the 1 million shells promised by EU nations have arrived, that more than 300 artillery barrels will reach the end of their productive life this year, that very few pilots are being trained and that the Ukrainians are perilously short of air defence? This is at a time when the Russians are on a war footing, with 40% of all their Government spending geared towards the destruction of the Ukrainian state.

Specifically, may I ask whether Defence Intelligence and the Government reckon that the Ukrainians will be able to hold their current positions, and if so, for how long? When will artillery stocks run even lower and fall off a cliff edge? Will the Minister confirm that we have delivered on all our pledges? I was in east Ukraine last week. Does he understand that, after the obliteration of the frontline town of Avdiivka, the Ukrainians are now asking which of their towns will be the next to be destroyed by Russian artillery, while Ukrainian soldiers die because they lack kit? Finally, does he accept that the situation is becoming acutely dangerous for everybody, with the forces of fascism beginning to overpower free states and their NATO allies? Where does he believe we might be with security throughout Europe in the next few months?

[James Cartlidge]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend and I pay tribute to him and all parliamentarians who have visited Ukraine and shown our solidarity and support for our ally. I know that he has a background as an officer in the Intelligence Corps, so he speaks not only with the passion we all share but with significant expertise on these matters. He will therefore be aware that there is a limit to what I can say on the operational situation and being drawn into trying to estimate the level of supplies. These are all sensitive and important points.

I think we can all agree that what my hon. Friend says about air support and training is important. I was at RAF Valley recently and, as I understand it, we are providing 26 Ukrainians with elementary flying training. We are flying the F-16 and we have Typhoon F-35s, while other countries will be providing the actual platforms. He is absolutely right to say that air defence is a critical part of the conflict and we need to supply more. We have provided over 1,000 air defence systems but we want to do more.

On the overall position, as I have said, we cannot provide a running commentary on the exact operational situation, but we provide regular tweets sharing what intelligence we can. Fundamentally, my hon. Friend is right to warn all of us, and indeed our allies, of the risk, were the situation to be reversed. We can say with some certainty that when the war started, we would all have been surprised to be in this situation with Ukraine having won back so much territory and, frankly, remained in the fight. That is thanks in a huge part to the role of the United Kingdom, and we should be proud of that.

As the Secretary of State confirmed in his recent oral statement, we provided NLAWs before Russia invaded and have been training Ukrainians since 2014—60,000 in total—but I know there is more to do. My hon. Friend has a very good understanding of these matters. These capability coalitions—one on drones and the other on maritime— are a good way to turn the support that has been provided into targeted and effective capability on the frontline. We are clear that we need to do more, and our allies need to stay with us in the fight.

Ukraine

Debate between Bob Seely and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

Absolutely: I can send that message to the families—and, by the way, the hon. Lady has also made an important point in reminding us of the huge generosity that we have shown by taking in so many of those families, a number of whom are in my constituency. I can certainly reassure her, on the basis of what has happened literally in the last week. We should be judged not by words but by action, having created a maritime coalition that will support the crucial strategic interests of the Black sea. I am talking about access to the Black sea, security, and the ability to get grain in and out. We have also continued to provide those crucial weapons, including air defence systems.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on their global leadership, which we all recognise, but a couple of matters concern me. First, the importance of supplying basic kit has been stressed by Members on both sides of the House. The supply of 155 and 155-2 shells is critical, and it needs a long-term plan. It is great that we have supplied 300,000 shells, but the Russians are using up to 15,000 shells a day, and the Ukrainians are responding with between 3,000 and 7,000, so this is a massive artillery war. Secondly, Putin’s regime is gaining ground politically because the Russians are holding ground while they target western support. So the long-term supply is critical physically, but it is also critical in terms of the message we send that we are not cutting and running but are in for the long haul.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend, who of course served in intelligence, makes some excellent points. On the particular importance of artillery, I have already spoken about the volume of shells and the guns that have been gifted, but I should add the spare parts to support them, which are easy to forget about. I spoke earlier about the Ukraine defence contact group. I recently attended a Teams call with all my fellow Ministers involved in that, under US leadership. Country after country listed its latest gifting, including artillery and many other munitions. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that we need a long-term plan. I think there is huge determination across the west and all our allies to continue this effort. Of course it is challenging, but that is why we need to bring in that additional element of ensuring that Ukrainian industry can start to rise to the occasion.

Wagner Group: Sanctions Regime

Debate between Bob Seely and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I have previously answered an urgent question, tabled by the right hon. Lady, on a matter relating to dividends in Russia, and—again—I respect her consistency in respect of a range of points that relate to this issue in one way or another. However, as she knows, I cannot go into the details of the specific case that she has mentioned. There are all kinds of reasons for that, and I think it important that we preserve it. I may be wrong, but I suspect that it would continue under any future Government, because there is very good reason for it. That is why we talk about the sanctions regime in aggregate rather than discussing individual confidential cases.

If we take the overview, we see that this country is doing everything possible. Our position on Ukraine is that we are not directly deploying our armed forces into the theatre, so we have to use every other lever at our disposal, including sanctioning more than 1,200 individuals and 120 entities and freezing assets worth £18 billion. It is a very ambitious sanctions regime, and we should be proud of what we are doing as a country to support Ukraine. We have played a key role in helping it to withstand the Russian invasion, although of course we recognise there is more to do.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am not going to talk about any individual case. I know that the Government are doing very good work on the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill and the Bill of Rights, and—certainly on this side of the House—we all support that and recognise its importance.

I want to talk specifically about the SLAPPs primary legislation and where it will be. If it is to be in the Bill of Rights—as has now been indicated to me—rather than being a separate law, that may limit the scope of what we can do about SLAPPs. It may not cover all the stuff that is needed to cover the SLAPPs and the lawyers who engage in this practice, the SLAPPers. We need separate primary legislation, a SLAPPs Bill like the ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced yesterday. A gold-standard, best-practice SLAPPs Bill has been written for me, which the Government can take on or allow me to introduce. It covers a little bit of privilege, it covers the private investigator market, and it is broad enough to cover all the abusive SLAPP practices that will not be covered in the Bill of Rights. Will the Government please consider this course of action, as the most sensible course to ensure freedom of speech and a free media ?

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend speaks with huge passion about these matters. Only yesterday, as he said, he presented a ten-minute rule Bill relating to this issue. He will appreciate that there are issues relating to parliamentary time, and that this is above my pay grade. I feel very strongly that we have done as much as we can on SLAPPs, but we want to go further, because we need legislation. I said at the end of the Backbench Business debate—my hon. Friend, of course, spoke in it—that I had heard what was said, and that we would now act. The Ministry of Justice took that forward; we had the call for evidence, and we have responded to it. At present, however, our position is, I am afraid, that we will commit ourselves to primary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. I cannot say more than that at this moment, but I am aware of how strongly my hon. Friend feels about the issue.

Lawfare and UK Court System

Debate between Bob Seely and James Cartlidge

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

Let me be clear to my right hon. Friend. I was simply referring to the debate as a whole. I recognise that he referred to all parties; I was just putting in some balance because we had only heard about one party. On his point, I am more than happy to meet him and look at the detail of what he proposes, because I do not think it is directly relevant to the matters that we have been debating.

It is important to consider lawfare threats in the broader context of Government action to curb abusive foreign influence. Last year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy brought in the National Security and Investment Act 2021 precisely to target foreign state interference in our economy.

[Bob Seely]

I am grateful to the Minister for listening to the debate. He says that the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) was not directly relevant but, with great respect, it was, because we need to protect people such as Charlotte Leslie, who are trying to do due diligence; we need to protect officials at the SFO to ensure that they are not hounded individually; and we need to protect journalists and people here. We need to protect quite a lot of people in this debate. He says that the Government will do everything in their power, which is great, but we need to get on and act because there is a real specific problem at the moment.

[James Cartlidge]

I recognise that there is a lot of concern about sources of money. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) and a number of other colleagues have talked about the source of funding. I do recognise its importance, but stress that the legal profession has a robust due diligence mechanism in place to prevent dirty money corrupting our courts. Anti-money laundering regulations exist to combat illicit financing. The suspicious activity reporting regime requires legal professions to report to the UK financial intelligence unit within the National Crime Agency where terrorist activity or money laundering is suspected. Law enforcement officials must act safe in the knowledge that the Government defend their investigative remit as we all collectively rely on their industry. There has been a lot of talk about following the money. I just make the point that we do have robust regulations in place, as my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Justice Committee said earlier.