Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Heappey and Bob Stewart

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been clear all along that if the facts change, so will our approach to force structure. It is important to note that force size and readiness are not necessarily directly connected. A future force may require fewer people because of automation and artificial intelligence, or it may not. We are studying the lessons from Ukraine carefully. We came to a clear judgment in the last IR. As we work towards the publication of a refresh of the defence Command Paper, we will look at whether the assumptions of the last Command Paper are still sound.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Could I ask my very good friend the Minister whether the additional money for defence will allow us to provide more teeth arm units, plus the support arm units—enablers—to NATO?

[James Heappey]

It may do. The reality is that we are still providing a large number of frontline units to NATO, particularly in the maritime and air domains, but my hon. and gallant Friend’s principal concern will be about land forces. Even there, the UK continues to provide the most credible high readiness formations to the alliance. He made an important point that we can have as many fighting units as we wish, but without the logistics and the strategic enablers that get them to the front line, they are not worth having. The Secretary of State, Front-Bench colleagues and I have been clear for years that what urgently needs reinvestment is not a regrowth of our fighting echelon but a re-fleshing out of the logistics and the enablers, which—for good reasons—over the last 20 years have not been needed, but now so desperately are.

Migrant Crossings: Role of the Military

Debate between James Heappey and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that there may be some disagreement between Departments, I can only reflect that my great friends the Under-Secretaries of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friends the Members for Corby (Tom Pursglove) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster), work with me all the time, not just on this matter but on Op Pitting and all sorts of other issues where Home Office and MOD interests align. The right hon. Gentleman is right to note that I was clear that Border Force is developing a tactic. It may well be that the commander is comfortable with that tactic being employed, and there is a difference between the reason why the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines will not deploy that tactic and the reason why Border Force may. Border Force has the appropriate vessels, potentially, to do so safely; the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines do not.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does the Minister consider that use of the Royal Navy will reduce the number of migrants who land in the United Kingdom?

[James Heappey]

I believe that it could, as part of a wider system that is under development.

Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces

Debate between James Heappey and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that Northern Ireland is a rich recruiting ground for people wanting to serve in our armed forces, and especially our reserve. The reserve has an important part to play in the plans the Army, Navy and Air Force have for the future, and I have every expectation that we will be able to extend increased opportunity to Northern Ireland. The detail of that has yet to be confirmed, but I hope that within the next couple of months the hon. Gentleman will get a more detailed answer to his question.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The Minister has outlined a concept predicated on the armed forces fighting an all-out war—a war where no holds are barred and we use everything. I get that; I understand grey-zone thinking—I am a strategist, too; I read it in great detail at university. However, for 70 years we have never fought anything like such a war; instead, we have had limited operations, we have had counter-insurgency operations, and we have had peacekeeping and peace- making, and this Government are preparing to cut the very people—the lifeblood—that carries out such operations, and that really worries me.

[James Heappey]

I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention, but I do not agree with his analysis. In this part of my speech I am setting out the conventional war-fighting capabilities because the shadow Secretary of State set out a very pessimistic view of what they would be, but the reality is that the key change being made through the integrated review and Defence Command Paper is to enhance the capabilities my right hon. Friend rightly stresses will be in most demand as we address the challenges of tomorrow, and they are the ones that exist below the threshold of conflict. If he will indulge me, in a couple of minutes he will hear some of the things that I think might answer his question in more detail.

That is why we are investing heavily in the national cyber force, bringing together the resources of the Ministry of Defence and the intelligence community to deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt and destroy targets in and through cyber-space. It is also why we have established a new space command that will enhance our military surveillance and communication capabilities from space, assist in the co-ordination of commercial space operations and lead the development of new low and high orbit capabilities.

Moreover, we know that the threats to UK interests, both in space and in cyberspace, are not just from ones and zeroes. Our adversaries are investing in capabilities that put our undersea fibre-optic cables and our satellites at physical risk as well, so we need the ability to protect and defend our interests in the depths of the oceans and in the heights of space.

Nor are we alone in seeking to modernise. Our adversaries as well as our allies are making rapid headway, and some of the most cutting-edge capabilities are now commercially available, meaning that the highest grade technology is no longer the preserve of the best resourced militaries. So we are investing to stay ahead of the curve and recover our technological edge, putting aside at least £6.6 billion for research and development to supercharge innovation in the next generation of disruptive capabilities, from directed energy weapons to swarming drones.

But it is not just about what you’ve got; it is what you do with it. I have already set out the vision of the integrated operating concept, and over the next year or two the Ministry of Defence will be expanding our forward presence around the world as we shift from a contingent force waiting for the fight to one that operates and competes constantly. In the land domain, some of our most effective work is with small specialised infantry teams developing the capacity of partner forces in the parts of the world that cause us concern. We are reinforcing that success through the creation of the special operations-capable rangers and thus doubling the size of our partnering force. Our fighting brigades, meanwhile, will move to higher readiness so that they can deploy and operate more quickly. They will also gain capabilities that allow them to engage their enemy at greater range, thus reflecting the lessons on close combat learned from recent conflicts in northern Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh.

UN Mission in Mali: Armed Forces Deployment

Debate between James Heappey and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

If I am honest, the hon. Gentleman raises a point that I have not come across in all the briefings I had before the deployment. I will of course look into that dimension, but I am not sure that those terrorist groups are motivated simply by any pecuniary advantage arising from securing the mines that he mentions. These people are ideologically opposed to any sort of religious freedom or social freedom, and I fear that their determination to disrupt and to be violent would endure irrespective of what natural assets lay beneath the earth, but I will of course go and inform myself on that point.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The Minister says that this force of 300 will form a specialist reconnaissance capability. To do that, the troops will have to speak to the local people. Some 5% to 10% of the local people speak the official language, which is French, and the rest do not. When I took 900 soldiers to Bosnia, I required 20 interpreters—minimum. I suspect we will need at least seven for this force. May I ask my hon. Friend whether there is an ability to recruit interpreters locally, and whether interpreters in both French and local languages—there are quite a few of them—have been thought about? I am sure the answer is yes.

[James Heappey]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right: interpreters are an essential part of any population-centric military mission. There are French-speaking personnel within the force itself and we will be recruiting local interpreters to join the force. Crucially, they will not just be male interpreters who stand on the shoulder of the male platoon commander but female interpreters who work alongside human security officers, so that we are able to engage with all parts of the community in the course of our mission.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Heappey and Bob Stewart

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The whole ministerial team talks to our counterparts across Europe regularly in the context not just of Brexit, but of our bilateral and multilateral co-operations through a whole series of organisations and fora. That work will continue whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, because our military partnerships with friends and colleagues across Europe are vital to the security of this nation.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What progress he has made on preventing vexatious claims against service personnel involved in the Northern Ireland campaign; and on what date he plans to complete that work.