Continuous At-Sea Deterrent
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady and I will probably always find room for disagreement on this. I will come on to the issue of deterrence later.
I want to make progress, because it would be remiss of me not to mention the town of Barrow-in-Furness and give our thanks to the people of Barrow, who have crafted these giants of the deep and continue to do so, ensuring that we have the right technology and the right vessels to deliver our nuclear deterrent.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the way in which he is introducing the debate. The question about other countries possessing nuclear weapons takes me back to the old arguments where we used to ask people to name a single country that would either acquire nuclear weapons because we had got them, or get rid of them if we decided unilaterally to get rid of ours. Do you know what? They never came up with the name of one country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
It is a whole community that delivers the Tornado’s fighting capability. In countless conflicts around the globe—be it the first Gulf war, the second Gulf war, or taking the fight to Daesh over the skies of Iraq and Syria—the Tornados have been at the forefront, and the pilots, navigators and ground crew have all been part of it. RAF Marham has an exciting future, however, with the two new F-35 squadrons and the additional training squadron.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Gavin Williamson
What we set out in our negotiations with the European Union is the opportunity for Britain to opt into various programmes if it is in our national interest to do so. But it still keeps coming down to the most important point: what delivers our security in Europe is not the European Union; it is NATO. It is that framework that will continue to deliver that security.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)
I announced to NATO Defence Ministers last Wednesday a significant increase in our commitment to the alliance, making the UK contribution to the enhanced forward presence in Estonia the largest of any nation. At the Munich security conference, I met counterparts from the global coalition of countries tasked with defeating Daesh, and in Norway, I had the opportunity to further our discussions with the Norwegian Government about how we can enhance our security in the high north.
Dr Lewis
The Secretary of State is far too modest: I was sure he was going to tell us about his dip in the icy Norwegian waters.
On a very much more serious issue, the Secretary of State knows that there are between 200 and 300 war widows who lost their war widows pension on remarriage and who, if they were to divorce or lose their husbands now would have it restored and it could not then be taken away, but who have not had it restored and are therefore in the perverse situation that if they want to get quite a few thousand pounds a year more, they should divorce and remarry their husbands. Everyone agrees that that is an absurd and indeed disgraceful situation, and I know that the Secretary of State wants to do something about it. The war widows have been to see the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and she has expressed sympathy. When will this matter be dealt with? What is holding it up?
Gavin Williamson
The next time I go to Norway, I will be sure to bring my right hon. Friend along so that we can go for a dip together.
My right hon. Friend raises an important issue, and it is one that has been ongoing for a very long time. I have had the opportunity to meet a large number of those affected, and we are keen to work across the Government to find a solution. This is a burning injustice, and I know that those women feel it very deeply. I am committed to finding a solution, and I very much hope that we can deliver that across all Departments.
Modernising Defence Programme
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Very briefly in that case, Mr Speaker, does the Secretary of State accept that as we have not seen the actual document it would be useful to have a debate at an early stage? Will he accept the thanks, I think, of the whole House for having saved the amphibious capability of the Royal Marines? Does he feel, in this era of slightly looser Cabinet joint collective responsibility or whatever they care to call it, that he might accept the fact that the Defence Committee’s target ultimately of a return to 3% of GDP is what is really needed in terms of defence expenditure?
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend always tries to tempt me with that question. I read his report with interest. He makes a point about an early debate. That would certainly be very welcome. I will make representations to the usual channels to see if that can be granted.
RAF Centenary
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, this is the third defence debate in less than a fortnight. For the defence team, it must be as if all their ships are sailing home at the same time. Anyone would think that the House of Commons had nothing other than defence with which to occupy itself. Let us take advantage of it.
Dr Lewis
Indeed it is the most important subject.
It is a privilege to follow two such positive and upbeat speeches from two such positive and upbeat Front Benchers. Both our parties are lucky to have them holding the positions they do. The moving intervention from the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) was especially important. It is so important in such debates to humanise the general subject by reminding the House of the real identities of individuals and what they went through in the course of conflict. She should be very proud that her grandfather’s award of the Distinguished Flying Medal, won for actions before he lost his life, came through, although sadly only after he had died.
The original thought that crossed my mind was: why hold a debate of this sort in November? But of course it was in November 1917 that the Air Force (Constitution) Act was passed, which led to the establishment of the Royal Air Force on 1 April the following year. I will come back to the circumstances that led to that in a few moments, but first I want to personalise the debate a bit myself. Only last month, I went to Millbrook industrial estate in the neighbouring constituency of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), where the defence company Leonardo has a major establishment.
Leonardo was renaming one of its buildings, which had been rebuilt, after Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson, who, as many Members will know, was the only member of Fighter Command to win the Victoria Cross during the second world war. James Nicolson flew with 249 Squadron and was in one of three Hurricanes ambushed over Southampton. Sadly, he was not the only pilot to be shot down. Hon. Members will be aware that, while his aircraft was ablaze and he was about to bale out, he saw an opportunity to fire on an enemy aircraft. Even though his hands and face were burning, he stayed in the blazing aircraft until he had shot down the enemy. In an act of bathos that bordered on a war crime, he was further injured by being shot while parachuting downwards by an over-enthusiastic member of the Home Guard.
At the ceremony to name the building in Flight Lieutenant Nicolson’s honour—sadly, although he survived that encounter, he did not survive the war—I met his nephew, who told me about the other Hurricane pilot who was shot down and whose grave I had seen in my constituency, in All Saints’ Church, Fawley, without knowing the story behind it. Martyn Aurel King, it now emerges, was the youngest pilot to fight and fly in the Battle of Britain; he was just 18 years old, and he died on that day in the same incident. After he baled out successfully, his parachute collapsed and he came down on the roof of a house in Shirley, Southampton, and died in the arms of the householder. We still do not know whether the reason that his parachute collapsed was that it was shredded during the attack on his aircraft, or that he too was the victim of whatever foolish and criminal people on the ground thought it fit to fire on descending pilots, whether the enemy or our own people. A terrible tragedy.
I had seen Martyn Aurel King’s grave because it is in the second of two rows of such graves in the churchyard. The first row contains the remains of Flight Lieutenant Samuel Marcus Kinkead DSO, DSC and Bar, DFC and Bar, whom I have occasionally mentioned in this House as an outstanding pilot in the first world war, the Russian civil war and the middle east, and ultimately one of the Schneider trophy pilots. He lost his life in 1928 trying to break the world air speed record. He was attempting to become the first man to exceed 5 miles a minute—300 miles an hour—in a forerunner of the Spitfire, an S.5 seaplane.
Through researching and eventually writing a book about Kinkead’s life, I came to understand more about the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1917 and 1918. I realised that it had grown out of Parliament’s need to react to the increasing terror raids by Gotha bombers on London in particular, which greatly exceeded in terms of casualties the previous and much better known Zeppelin raids. Lieutenant General Jan Christian Smuts had been charged by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to look into the question of the aerial defence of London in particular and to make wider recommendations. A report by Smuts placed before the War Cabinet on 17 August 1917 was later described by the official historian of air power in the first world war as
“the most important paper in the history of the creation of the Royal Air Force”.
What Smuts said was this:
“Nobody that witnessed the attack on London on 7 July could have any doubt on that point… the day may not be far off when aerial operations, with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale, may become the principal operations of war to which the older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate.”
We have heard about how the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps played their separate parts in the formation of aerial tactics and strategy during the first world war; but what is interesting is the way in which the new Royal Air Force, created in April 1918, by August 1918 was so much more fully integrated with operations on the ground. Of all those events whose centenaries we have been commemorating over the past four years, only one was really positive: the centenary of 8 August 1918, the battle of Amiens, of which hardly anyone had heard—even though German military historians and German generals define that date as
“the black day of the German Army”
and British historians regard it as the start of the 100 days campaign that led to the collapse of German resistance and the Armistice in November.
What was significant was that the RAF operated in such close support of the troops on the ground that, for the first time, with the combination of armour, the vital element of surprise, and the extremely effective use of ground forces in complete and total co-ordination with air forces, the breakthroughs that had so long eluded the allied armed forces—leading to such catastrophic casualties at the Somme, Passchendaele and other, equally infamous, battles—turned into a successful and decisive result for the allied cause.
After the end of the first world war, the new air arm flexed its muscles. In my research into the life of Kinkead, I learned about the way in which it was used to try to exercise air control—to some extent by itself, but more effectively, once again, in combination with ground forces—in Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1920s. In the 1930s, we see a very different view of air power: a belief that air power, coupled with the use of poison gas in particular and high explosive, would lead to the collapse of civilisation. That was what people then anticipated. Air power in the 1930s was very much regarded in the way that we regard nuclear war in the post-second world war era. As it happens, air power was not as powerful as was predicted, and gas was of course not used from the air in the second world war. Why? Because Winston Churchill had made it abundantly clear that any use of gas, either against our own forces, or even against the forces of our ally Russia, would be met by overwhelming response in kind from the Royal Air Force. That was an early example of deterrence preventing a dreadful weapon from being used at all. Poison gas was used in concentration camps because there was no deterrence there; the victims could not hit back.
During the war, there were arguments about area bombing and attempts to bring about the collapse that had been predicted in the 1930s, but it did not work. History has not been kind to the architects of aerial bombardment where whole populations were targeted for strategic reasons. Precision bombing proved to be far more effective and to a considerable extent far less costly. I think it was the historian A.J.P Taylor who described the loss of life in RAF Bomber Command during the second world war—more than 55,000 Bomber Command personnel died on operations—as “an aerial Passchendaele”. That, I feel, is no exaggeration.
When the war was over, the RAF was involved much more selectively in counter-insurgency campaigns in places such as Malaya, where, I cannot resist pointing out, my partner’s father, Frank Souness, won the Distinguished Flying Cross during those operations. He is 88 now and we are very proud of him. The purpose of what the RAF was doing was to try to help those countries that had been British colonies and were ceasing to be British colonies to establish themselves independently without falling victim to communist insurgencies. That was a very different role from what the RAF had been doing during the war, although it bore some resemblance to what it had been doing in between the wars.
Let me move on to the dawn of the British nuclear deterrent. It was the V-bombers, Victors, Vulcans and Valiants, that were responsible for carrying the nuclear bombs that constituted the strategic deterrent. Once again, we see the huge range and versatility of the different tasks that the RAF was called on to perform. We have heard from those on the Front Benches about the precision airstrikes that are being used in Iraq and Syria against Daesh. I supported the use of precision airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq, but I voted against it in Syria; not because I disapproved of it, but because it failed to acknowledge the fact that, apart from the Kurdish forces, there were not moderate forces on the ground in whose support that air power could be used. Time and again, we have seen that it is the combination of air power with troops on the ground that proves so vitally effective.
I conclude my remarks by saying, in relation to the RAF, something that the Secretary of State for Defence has heard me say many times in relation to defence generally—usually about warships: quantity has a quality all of its own. There is no doubt about the calibre of our personnel. There is no doubt about the sophistication of our equipment. What there is doubt about is the size and quantity of our armed forces. So I wish him luck in his continuing fight to get the percentage of GDP spent on defence back towards a level commensurate with the levels of threat we face. If he can supply the money, the people of Britain will supply the personnel and the ingenuity to see that the RAF is as effective in the future as it has been for the past 100 years.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Gavin Williamson
There is one nation that is in breach of the treaty, and it is Russia. It needs to start complying with that treaty, and it needs to comply immediately. It is a treaty between those two nations, and currently there is one nation that is not complying with it.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty of 1987 was based on the zero-option offer, which was a great two-sided deal between the Soviet Union and the west. Does the Secretary of State think that there are any lessons to be drawn from the negotiations which led to that successful deal, in that the west faced down the Soviet Union, walked out—or, at least, allowed the Soviet Union to walk out—without a deal when the Russians refused to accept the zero-option offer, and waited for them to come back and do a genuine deal that benefited both sides? Does he think that that successful two-sided deal has any lessons to teach us for the purpose of certain other negotiations that have so far worked out a lot less happily?
Gavin Williamson
I cannot imagine what my right hon. Friend is referring to, but I think that when it comes to the issue of Russia’s lack of compliance with its treaty obligations, we need to keep hammering home the message, with all our NATO allies, that it cannot ignore its treaty obligations and must start complying with them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
Britain has met and will always meet its NATO commitments, and we undertake to spend the money that is required by NATO guidelines.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As I am sure you will vividly remember, Mr Speaker, on this very date 35 years ago the largest ever demonstration by the campaign for one-sided nuclear disarmament marched in London. Just under 100,000 people marched—although, typically, four times that number was claimed—and the then leader of the Labour party, a lifelong unilateralist, told the rally that NATO should not deploy cruise or Pershing II missiles. If that policy had been followed, we would not have had an intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty. What assessment have my right hon. Friend and his Department made of whether that INF treaty, which has been successful for so long, has now been violated by Russia?
Gavin Williamson
It has been our clear and consistent view that Russia has been in breach of that treaty. We urge Russia to comply with the treaty.
Combat Air Strategy
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who served with great distinction as Defence Procurement Minister and was instrumental in securing the order of the future frigates programme from Australia, which benefits many people and adds to the prosperity of this nation.
The hon. Lady proposes a defence industrial strategy. We have looked at a national shipbuilding strategy and at combat air, and we will look at the concept of developing a land strategy. We want to ensure that whatever we do in defence adds to the prosperity of our nation. That is why we welcome the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), which highlights the importance of defence in creating jobs and economic growth.
We should look not just to Europe in forming partnerships with other nations. For far too long, we have been bound by the thought that we can look only to other European Union nations. Now is the time to look to the whole globe, see what other nations we can partner with and build strong new alliances. We have strong military links and deep connections with many nations. We are confident that, because of our world-leading position in combat air, many nations will want to work with us. I do not believe that we should be in the customs union, and that is the Government’s policy. I do not believe for one minute that being outside the customs union will in any way restrict our ability to deliver Tempest.
Finally, on the modernising defence programme, as I said just the other week, we intend to update the House before the recess.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The combat air strategy signals the Secretary of State’s commitment to the importance of conventional armed forces in the future. How is his combat ground strategy going in persuading the Treasury to pay for it?
Gavin Williamson
There is always great value in heavy armour. In the combat air strategy, we highlight an exciting future. We highlight the fact that we are willing to embrace new technologies and fuse them with traditional jet fighters. We are ensuring we are able to bring new technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence on to platforms to make sure that the Royal Air Force has the cutting-edge capabilities it needs to keep Britain safe.
Afghanistan
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady raises several important points. We want to be in Afghanistan to ensure that we get the right outcomes for the peace process, and it is not possible to put a date on when that will be concluded. However, we continue to work closely with all our allies in the NATO coalition and, most importantly, with the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to try to promote the peace process and bring it forward as rapidly as possible. Work will be undertaken with the Kabul security force, which we have been leading. There is a rapid reaction force element that will support Afghan forces if there are incidents. We have a force there, but it is very much there to support Afghan forces.
All personnel will be in receipt of operational allowance, which is important when we ask service personnel to put themselves in harm’s way. They do such an important and valuable job. I re-emphasise that our work not just with the FCO but with the Department for International Development and other organisations across the international sphere is pivotal in bringing a peaceful resolution to Afghanistan.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I understand that this deployment sends a very strong signal, as my right hon. Friend put it, to the Taliban that they will not be allowed to win, but does it send a sufficiently strong signal to the Treasury—an even more formidable opponent—that an uplift in the defence budget towards 2.5%, and eventually 3%, of GDP is necessary to fund our global role adequately?
Gavin Williamson
We are very much focusing on the Taliban with this announcement, which goes to show how Britain can make a difference in the world. We talk about global Britain, and this is a brilliant personification of how we can make a difference in different nations. It is to our armed forces that our nation so often turns. Whether in dealing with the recent difficulties in Salisbury or in Afghanistan, it is our armed forces that have the capabilities, the knowledge and the ability to deliver consistently for this nation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Our armed forces have the very highest standards, and our ability to pursue people right around the world who have done some very bad things is absolutely the right stance to have. That is what we will continue to do.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Defence Committee will warmly welcome the setting up of the dedicated team. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 means that soldiers and terrorists alike cannot be sentenced to more than two years in jail, of which they will probably serve only half, and that in those circumstances, it is right that we should move to a statute of limitations so that we do not have an unfair imbalance where some are prosecuted and others are not?
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend is correct in his analysis of the current situation. We are keen to find a long-term solution to help all service personnel, from conflicts not only in Northern Ireland but in Afghanistan and Iraq, to ensure that vexatious claims are eliminated.
Defence
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept that our principal allies on the ground in Syria have been Kurdish-led? Does he share my concern that, having helped to supress and eliminate Daesh in Syria, those Kurdish-led forces may now find themselves under attack by Turkey, a country with an ambivalent record toward both Islamist extremism on the one hand and Russia on the other? What will we do if we find our Kurdish allies are attacked by our so-called NATO ally?
Gavin Williamson
We have worked incredibly closely with the Syrian defence forces over a period of time, as have other coalition allies. We are working closely with the United States and France to get a dialogue going between the Syrian defence forces and Turkey to ensure that there is no conflict of the form that my right hon. Friend raises. [Official Report, 3 July 2018, Vol. 644, c. 196.]
Letter of correction from Gavin Williamson:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).
The correct response should have been:
Counter-Daesh Update
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I thank the hon. Lady for her continued support for our armed forces as they continue to be involved in this important operation.
Our commitment in respect of a training mission to Iraq and the need to ensure that we do everything we can to ensure stability in the region was underlined by our recent visits to Iraq and meetings with the Iraqi Prime Minister and Defence Minister. We will continue to do everything that we can to train Iraqi forces to ensure that Iraq’s border forces are in the very best position to deal with some of the threats and challenges. We are also looking into how we can do more with Jordanian forces. On top of that, we have committed to providing more than £30 million of support for UN stabilisation efforts. That makes it clear that Britain is a long-term ally of our Iraqi friends.
We are the second largest bilateral donor in Syria. We have consistently been the country leading the way in making sure that humanitarian support gets through, and we will continue to do that on top of the funding and support that we have been giving to Iraq.
The hon. Lady made an important point about the funding of Daesh, which the Government take exceptionally seriously. We talk about the dispersal of Daesh in Iraq and Syria, but the challenge is actually much wider, with Daesh dispersing much more globally. We need to look carefully at the financial flows that follow these people and that provide support for the acts of violence they wish to perpetrate in the countries to which they go.
The hon. Lady’s point about countering propaganda is vital. For the first time, the United Kingdom has been incredibly active with an offensive cyber-capacity to deal with, correct and address that propaganda. We have seen a 70% reduction in the amount of propaganda coming out of Daesh, so our work is really showing results. We cannot rest on our laurels, however, and we will continue to look at the issue and drive down that propaganda, because we do not want to see any of Daesh’s vile hatred on the internet at all.
On the hon. Lady’s final point about a medal for those who have served in Op Shader, I have been incredibly touched by the commitment and dedication that all our service personnel have shown in the operation, and by the sacrifices that they have made to keep Britain safe—I know that the hon. Lady has, too. We are looking closely at medallic recognition. Ultimately, we hope to try to find a solution that ensures that all service personnel who have been involved in the campaign get the recognition that they deserve. As the hon. Lady knows, we are looking to try to land the support of all members of the cross-Government Committee.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept that our principal allies on the ground in Syria have been Kurdish-led? Does he share my concern that, having helped to supress and eliminate Daesh in Syria, those Kurdish-led forces may now find themselves under attack by Turkey, a country with an ambivalent record toward both Islamist extremism on the one hand and Russia on the other? What will we do if we find that our Kurdish allies are attacked by our so-called NATO ally?
Gavin Williamson
We have worked incredibly closely with the Syrian defence forces over a period of time, as have other coalition allies. We are working closely with the United States and France to get a dialogue going between the Syrian defence forces and Turkey to ensure that there is no conflict of the form that my right hon. Friend suggests.[Official Report, 5 July 2018, Vol. 644, c. 2MC.]
NATO
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
As we see it, 2% is very much a floor: a base on which to build. We can be very proud to be one of the few nations in NATO that meet the 2% commitment, and we can be exceptionally proud of the work done under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon)—and, of course, that of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor before he moved to the Foreign Office—in establishing that all NATO members needed to spend more.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
There are various metrics by which our peacetime defence investment can be measured, one of which is how it compares with spending on other high-expenditure departmental matters such as health, education and welfare. Does my right hon. Friend recall that as recently as the 1980s, we were spending roughly the same on defence as we were spending on health and education? I am not saying we should repeat that, but given that we are spending two and half times as much on education as we spend on defence, and four times as much on health—and that was before the recent rise—does he not believe that defence has fallen a bit too far down the scale of our national priorities?
Gavin Williamson
I could see the excitement on the Chancellor’s face as my right hon. Friend outlined his proposals. I was not sure whether it constituted agreement that we should be setting those targets, but I am sure that we shall have to negotiate on the issue over a long period.
We must ensure that NATO is adapting—and continues to adapt—to the times, and also to the threats that it faces. Since its creation, we have always seen Britain leading from the front. Not only do we assign our independent nuclear deterrent to the defence of the alliance, as we have for the past 56 years, but our service personnel and defence civilians are on the ground in Eastern Europe at this very moment, providing a deterrence against Russian aggression.
It has been my privilege to see their dedication and devotion to duty in Estonia, where we are leading a multinational battlegroup, and in Poland where they are supporting the United States forces. And at the same time our sailors are commanding half of NATO’s standing naval forces, and our pilots, ground crew, and aircraft have returned to the Black sea region, based in Romania, to police the skies of our south-eastern European allies. Just last year UK forces led the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force and we became the first ally to deliver cyber-capabilities in support of NATO operations.
Meanwhile, UK personnel form a critical part of NATO’s command structure. So I am proud that the UK will be sending more than 100 additional UK personnel to bolster that command structure, taking our total to well over 1,000. As we look at the emerging threats and the challenges our nation faces going forward, it is clear that we must make sure that NATO has the resources: that it has the capability and the people to man those command structures, in order for us to meet those threats.
NATO needs the extra support to deal with the growing threats. The dangers we face are multiplying all the time and come from every direction. We are confronting a host of new threats from extremism to cyber-warfare, dangers global in nature that require an international response and a global presence. We are witnessing the rise of rogue states conducting proxy wars and causing regional instability, while old threats are returning.
Russia is a case in point. Back in 2010 Russia was not clearly identified as a threat. The focus of our attention was ungoverned spaces such as Afghanistan and Iraq, but by 2015 the emergence of new threats was becoming apparent to everyone and this threat has accelerated and increased over the last three years.
In 2010 our Royal Navy was called on just once to respond to a Russian naval ship approaching UK territorial waters; last year it was called on 33 times. Russian submarine activity has increased tenfold in the north Atlantic, to a level not seen since the cold war. The Russians are also investing in new technology, through which they aim to outpace our capability. They are concentrating on our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and we must be realistic and accept that we are going to have to invest in new capabilities to deal with these new threats.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)
I have regular discussions with the Chancellor. The modernising defence programme will ensure that our armed forces have the right capabilities to address evolving threats. The Government are committed to spending at least 2% of GDP on defence, and the defence budget will rise by at least 0.5% above inflation every year of this Parliament, taking it to almost £40 billion by 2021.
Dr Lewis
I thank the Secretary of State for that helpful reply. Would he like to take this opportunity to endorse the suggestion by his immediate predecessor that we should aim to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament? Does he agree that that would be a useful staging post on the road to the 3% that we really need? Finally, would the forthcoming NATO summit not be an excellent opportunity to announce any such advance?
Mr Speaker
I thought the right hon. Gentleman was going to give us his usual mantra, “We need three to keep us free,” but it was incorporated in the gravamen of his question.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If we cannot protect our service personnel from the Northern Ireland campaign by a statute of limitations coupled with the truth recovery process, who is going to be next: the Falkland Islands veterans, or even the last few from the second world war?
Gavin Williamson
As I touched upon earlier, it is clear that this House has a simple and clear view that we should always do everything we can to protect those who have served our country. We will look at all options to ensure that that is done.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I very much hope to be able to update the House and the hon. Gentleman in the not-too-distant future. We are very conscious of the importance of our deterrence, which is absolutely pivotal for keeping this country safe, and our submarines in the north Atlantic are absolutely central to that.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
When the threat from Russia receded at the end of the cold war, we understandably cut our defence budget to 3% of gross domestic product. Given events—from Salisbury to Syria—demonstrating that, sadly, that threat is now reappearing, should we not seek to get back to that sort of level of defence expenditure, and will the Secretary of State lay that pertinent fact in front of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend tries to tempt me. We have to be realistic about the fact that the threat picture is changing. It has escalated considerably since 2010—even from 2015—and we have to make sure that we have the right capabilities. That is why we are carrying out the modernising defence programme: to deliver the right types of capabilities for our armed forces to deal with the increasing threat that we face. We have to be realistic about the challenges—those posed by Russia are far greater than the challenges that were presented as an insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan—and how we get the right mix of military equipment and capability to deal with that increased threat.
National Security Capability Review
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(6 years, 11 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
(Urgent Question): I rise to request urgent clarification of the radical reductions in conventional military forces provisionally proposed by the national security capability review, together with an explanation of the reasons for undertaking the review and the financial constraints under which it is being conducted.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)
In the 2015 strategic defence and security review, the Government identified four principal threats facing the UK and our allies in the coming decade: terrorism, extremism and instability; state-based threats and intensifying wider state competition; technology, especially cyber-threats; and the erosion of the rules-based international order.
As the Prime Minister made clear in her speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet late last year, these threats have diversified and grown in intensity. Russian hostility to the west is increasing—whether in weaponising information, attempting to undermine the democratic process or increased submarine activity in the north Atlantic. Regional instability in the middle east exacerbates the threat from Daesh and Islamic—Islamist terrorism, which has diversified and dispersed. Iran’s well known proxy military presence in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere poses a clear threat to UK interests in the region and to our allies.
Like other Members, I have seen much of the work that our armed forces continue to do in dealing with these threats. It is because of these intensifying global security contexts that the Government initiated the national security capability review in July. Its purpose is to ensure that our investment in national security capabilities is joined up, effective and efficient. As I said in oral questions, since I became Defence Secretary I have asked the Department to develop robust options to ensure that defence can match the future threats and challenges facing the nation. Shortly, when the national security capability review finishes, the Prime Minister, with National Security Council colleagues, will decide how to take forward its conclusions. I would not wish to pre-empt that decision.
Although the detail must wait until after the NSCR concludes, I can assure the House that as long as I am Defence Secretary we will develop and sustain the capabilities necessary to maintain continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, a carrier force that can strike anywhere around the globe and the armed forces necessary to protect the north Atlantic and Europe; and we will continue to work with our NATO allies. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and I will be doing all we can to ensure that we have a sustainable budget, so that we can deliver the right capabilities for our armed forces.
Dr Lewis
I thank the current Defence Secretary—[Laughter.] That is not meant to be funny. I thank him for confirming what the previous Defence Secretary told the Defence Committee, namely that the capability review resulted from intensified threats to the United Kingdom. If the threats are intensifying, why has the review provisionally proposed radical reductions in our conventional armed forces, and why is it required to be fiscally neutral, as the National Security Adviser recently told the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy? Who has imposed that financial restriction? The Ministry of Defence? Unlikely. The Treasury? Almost certainly.
If new threats have intensified, is not more money needed, unless of course previous conventional threats have seriously diminished? If previous conventional threats have diminished, why did the National Security Adviser claim to the Defence Committee in a letter:
“Because the main decisions on Defence were taken during the 2015 SDSR, this review is not defence-focused”?
If this review is not defence-focused, and if the 2015 plan therefore still applies, why should thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen be lost, elite units merged or aircraft frigates and vital amphibious vessels scrapped, long before their out-of-service dates?
Finally, is it not obvious that we are bound to face such unacceptable choices as long as we continue to spend barely 2% of GDP on defence? Even after the end of the cold war and the taking of the peace dividend cuts, we were spending fully 3% in the mid-1990s. Defence is our national insurance policy, and it is time for the Treasury to pay the premiums.
Gavin Williamson
I thank the current Chairman of the Defence Committee—I think we are only ever current—for raising those points. In the NSCR, we are looking at the threats that the country faces, and everything that was done in 2015 is relevant today. As I pointed out, the Prime Minister herself has highlighted the fact that the threats are increasing, and we are having very active discussions right across Government about how best we can deal with those threats. There is an awful lot of speculation and rumour in the press, but that is what we expect of the press.
As I mentioned earlier, we need to ensure that we have the right capability, whether that is a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent, our special forces, or an Army, Navy and Air Force that have the right equipment and capability to strike in any part of the globe. That is what we have to deliver. I am afraid that I cannot be drawn on the details at the moment, but I will be sure to update the House regularly, as the national security capability review develops, on the conclusions of the review and how we can best deal with them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Julian Lewis(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Gavin Williamson
What we have in our national security and capability review is the opportunity to step back, look at the threats and challenges that face this country, whether it is from cyber or from more conventional threats, and make sure that we have the right resources in place to deliver for our armed forces. That is what I will be looking at. I am looking forward to meeting the Chancellor as well as many others and having those discussions going forward.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on taking up office in this vital position. When he speaks to the Chancellor, will he take the opportunity of reminding him that, in the cold war years, we spent 5% of GDP on defence and that now we spend barely 2% of GDP on defence? Perhaps a target nearer to 3% of GDP on defence might prevent our armed forces from being further hollowed out.
Gavin Williamson
I will always listen intensely and very carefully to the arguments of my right hon. Friend. I have always seen 2% as a base as opposed to a ceiling, and I will certainly take on board his thoughts and comments in discussions going forward.