Ukraine

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Defence Secretary has been busy in recent weeks, so I welcome his statement today and thank him for keeping the Opposition parties updated on Ukraine during these grave escalations of Russian military threats on the Ukrainian border.

This is the most serious security crisis Europe has faced since the cold war. The Ukrainian people, citizens of a proud, independent and democratic country, face an unprecedented threat from, as the Secretary of State has said, two thirds of Russia’s entire forces now built up on its borders. There is unified UK political support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity in the face of that continuing Russian aggression.

The Government also have Labour’s full support in helping Ukraine to defend itself and in pursuing diplomacy, even at this eleventh hour and even though President Putin has proved more interested in disinformation than diplomacy. We also fully support moves to reinforce the security of NATO allies, as the Labour leader and I told the Secretary General at NATO headquarters earlier this month.

President Putin wants to divide and weaken the west, to turn back the clock and re-establish Russian control over neighbouring countries. The real threat to President Putin and his Russian elites is Ukraine as a successful democracy, choosing for itself its trading and security links with the west. An attack on Ukraine is an attack on democracy.

We welcome the message from Munich at the weekend that any invasion will be met with massive sanctions in a swift, unified western response. The European Union, of course, will lead on sanctions legislation for most European allies, especially to clamp down on finances or critical technologies for Russia. How is the UK co-ordinating with the European Commission and European Council? What meetings have UK Ministers had to discuss that co-ordination?

The other message from Munich at the weekend was that allies stand ready for further talks. The Defence Secretary has said this afternoon:

“I am pleased with the efforts being made by a range of European leaders, including President Macron”.

What diplomatic initiatives is our UK Prime Minister taking, befitting Britain as a leading member of the NATO alliance and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council? With the most serious tensions and developments in the Donbas, why did the UK Government remove UK staff from the OSCE monitoring mission there, when those from all other European countries have stayed to do a job that is more vital now than ever?

The Defence Secretary said, rightly, that we continue to “support Ukrainian defensive efforts”, including with lethal aid. What more will he now do, with NATO, to help Ukraine defend itself? Can he speed up action via the Ukraine naval agreement? How feasible is a no-fly zone? What consideration will he give to support for Ukrainian resistance?

We cannot stand up to Russian aggression abroad while accepting Russian corruption at home. For too long, Britain has been the destination for the dirty money that keeps Putin in power. Where is the economic crime Bill, which was promised by the Government and then pulled? Where is the comprehensive reform of Companies House? Where is the law to register foreign agents? Where is the registration of overseas entities Bill? Where is the replacement for the outdated Computer Misuse Act 1990? Where are the new rules on political donations? Why does the Government’s Elections Bill make these problems worse by enabling political donations from donors based overseas?

Whether or not President Putin invades Ukraine, Russia’s long-running pattern of aggression demands a NATO response. Will the Secretary of State report from his meeting last week with NATO Defence Ministers on how the alliance’s overall posture is set to change? Will he explain what action could be taken to better co-ordinate NATO with the joint expeditionary force—for instance, creating a regional readiness force?

Finally, does not Ukraine expose the flaws in the Government’s integrated review of last year, with its first focus on the Indo-Pacific and its plan to cut the British Army by another 10,000 soldiers? Will the Secretary of State now halt any further Army cuts, and restore the highest defence priority to Europe, the north Atlantic and the Arctic?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support. He will know that throughout this process the Government have been grateful for efforts to be united across this House. That has been one of the strongest messages we can send to Russia, as is our being united across NATO and the EU, to make sure that this behaviour is seen as unacceptable.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about sanctions. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has been in conversation more than weekly with the EU on co-ordinating sanctions to make sure that the EU Commission, which is the EU’s lead on sanctions, the United States and the United Kingdom are as closely as possible in lockstep. The EU has taken the position that it will prepare and deliver the sanctions, should an invasion happen, at that moment. The United States and the United Kingdom have laid out—we have put this before this House—the sanctions that they would put in place. That is a difference of approach. However, we know from our own experience that the EU can move very quickly at a Commission level when it wishes to do so. There is no lack of appetite in the EU to deal with President Putin through sanctions should he make the tragic error of invading Ukraine. No one should play into the differences of timing to suggest that; it is simply a different mechanism of approach. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is also working through a group called the Quint plus plus—that is, the US, the UK, Italy, France and Germany, plus NATO and the EU. They are all working together on these types of responses and are regularly having discussions.

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman on the OSCE, but I know that one individual has been in touch. He is a UK citizen. When the Foreign Office advice was issued, there were certain pieces of advice to citizens of our country. If someone find themselves in any organisation, we give our advice to them. Other members of the OSCE have left—not all of them—but I will get him the full detail on that as well.

As regards the bigger questions on issues such as aid, Ukrainian resistance and further support, the right hon. Gentleman will know that this has been best pursued on a bilateral basis between countries or groupings of countries such as through lethal aid. Much has been made of the fact that countries such as Germany and France have not provided lethal aid to Ukraine. I simply reflect, as I did at NATO last week, that the strength of an alliance of 30 is that we can all play to our strengths. It is important that we recognise that not every country, in its political system or political leadership, is going to have the same view, but in an alliance of 30 we can play to our strengths and deliver to Ukraine what it needs. We have seen, for example, an increase in aid to Ukraine from the likes of Germany, as well as medical supplies, while in other countries such as the United Kingdom and the Baltic states, lethal aid plays a part. That is really important. In order to keep going together at the same speed, we recognise that if we are going to tackle Russia, we have to be able to play to those strengths. The EU has a strong role to play in helping the resilience of neighbouring countries such as through migrant flows in Belarus. If 1 million refugees appear in Hungary, Romania or Poland, I would urge the EU to step up and think about what it is going to do about millions of refugees on its soil rather than think about it afterwards. That is where the EU Commission can play a strong role in resilience-building.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the integrated review, but I think the situation is actually the opposite of what he said: if we read the full integrated review and the defence Command Paper, they show that we have to be ready. They show that Russia and adversaries like Russia do not go in with a big bang and just arrive in a big invasion; they soften up their targets using sub-threshold methods, cyber, corruption, organised crime and so on, and they turn up incrementally. Many of the forces we now see massed on Ukraine’s border were in fact pre-positioned in April following an exercise and then went home to barracks. That allowed them to be ready and to deploy in days, while NATO’s traditional model has been that it has taken us weeks and months to deploy.

That is why, in our defence Command Paper, we put a premium on speed and readiness. That premium may sometimes mean less mass, but that is why we have an alliance to pick up on that; we have an alliance of 30 countries, and we way outspend Russia collectively as a group of nations, and indeed on capabilities. It is also why I am now able to offer our NATO leaders true forces—forces that will actually turn up on the day, rather than what we had even in my day, when I was serving in West Germany or north Germany, which was fictional numbers, which meant that that when we pressed the button, instead of a division, we got a brigade. That is far more important in showing strength to the Russians and showing that we mean what we say and that we can deliver on it.

I was Security Minister when I introduced the Criminal Finances Act 2017. There was no greater champion of taking down dirty money in the City than me. I brought in the unexplained wealth orders. I brought in the mobile stores of wealth when people got round the provisions. I helped to set up the economic crime unit in the National Crime Agency. I ensured that we changed the law on tax evasion so that we got more people. I also pushed incredibly hard and successfully through the G7 for the transparent register of beneficial ownership.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to do more. I absolutely supported at the time, and still do, a register of foreign agents. He is also totally right on areas such as Companies House. The whole Government are now looking at these issues and are committed to doing something about them, and I expect an announcement soon on a range of them. He is right that the consequences of Russia’s actions, going way back to Salisbury and before, are that we must stop the oligarchs resident in this country, with their dirty money, behaving as if this was a place of refuge, when they should not be welcome. If it comes to an invasion of Ukraine, Russia should know what it costs to be isolated.

Migrant Crossings: Role of the Military

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for elaborating on his urgent question. I take issue with his point that the Navy has to make a binary choice between work at home and work overseas. Ships are deployed all over the world right now, and other ships are making ready to set to sea in response to whatever crises may unfold in the Euro-Atlantic over the coming weeks.

In addition, there is capacity to do as we do year round, which is to deploy naval resources into the channel for purposes such as fishery protection and, indeed, securing our border. That is an important point. The purpose of our nation’s armed forces is to secure the UK’s national security interests both at home and abroad, and I would argue that deploying our armed forces to ensure that our borders are robust is a perfectly appropriate use of them. Indeed, as I know my right hon. Friend is very aware, there are parts of Europe right now in which state-sponsored illegal migration is being used as a sub-threshold weapon of competition. I am not suggesting for a second that the migration across the channel is that right now but, in the absence of robust defence of our borders, it could be in the future, and the MOD therefore has a perfectly reasonable role to play in ensuring that our borders are robustly protected.

My right hon. Friend specifically asked about pay. Clearly this will be a multi-agency effort under Royal Navy command. Where agencies are already doing things in the channel, they will continue to be funded by the Departments that own them.

Success is that we do not allow anybody to land in the UK on their own terms. For how long? Until the deterrent effect is achieved and the cross-channel route for small boats collapses.

There is a limit to my right hon. Friend’s question, which is the role of the Royal Navy and the military within the channel—that is what I am here to answer today—but I completely agree that this is just one part of a wider system. Indeed, he is right to note that the MOD has plenty of equity in providing stability in countries such as Iraq and in the Sahel, where the majority of migrants are coming from, and we are engaged in that.

Nobody is pretending that the presence of a rear admiral and a few extra Royal Navy ships solves this issue. It is regrettable that only part of the Government’s solution should appear in the papers, and I will do my best to answer any questions my right hon. Friend asks.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

This Government now really are desperate. They are desperate to distract attention from accusations about the Prime Minister lying and partying in Downing Street, and they are desperate to prop up a Home Secretary who has been utterly failing for two years as the number of cross-channel migrants has tripled. The military are there to protect the nation, not Tory Ministers.

The Minister has confirmed today that the armed forces will be involved in what he calls operational delivery. He says the details are still being worked through, so let me try again. What will the armed forces now do? Will naval vessels be deployed in the channel? Will the Navy be used to push back migrant boats? Will the Navy use sonic weapons, as No. 10 wants? Will it step up the use of drones for surveillance? Will it transport migrants from British beaches? What military accommodation will be used to house and process migrants? We are told by the media that Rear Admiral Utley has been put in charge. To whom will he report, the Home Secretary or the Defence Secretary?

This announcement is official confirmation that the Home Secretary is failing. Our armed forces are always the Government’s last resort. The military aid to the civil authorities code means such assistance is granted only when

“the civil authority lacks the necessary capability to fulfil the task”.

Who will pay the military’s bills for this work? What will be the arrangements for co-operation between the UK and French military? The Minister promised me last month that he would

“publish details of Military Aid to the Civil Authorities…tasks on a fortnightly basis beginning in January 2022. These updates will be placed in the Library of the House.”

When will he actually do this, and will he publish the detailed terms of this MACA agreement?

The Navy was used before, in 2019. Two patrol vessels were redeployed from defence tasks to the channel. They intercepted no boats, at a cost of £780,000 to the taxpayer. Will the Minister guarantee that this military deployment in the channel will not compromise our armed forces in any of their fundamental defence tasks? When will the Home Secretary step up to do her job to secure a proper security agreement with the French, break the smuggling gangs, and prevent more tragic deaths of migrants in the channel?

[James Heappey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I do not share his view of the Home Secretary; we have worked closely with her on a number of issues, including Op Pitting over the summer, where she made a number of courageous decisions about how to accelerate border flow at the Baron Hotel, and indeed throughout the past year when the MOD has been trying to support the Border Force. The fact is that this is not a MACA request; it is something quite different. It is asking the Navy to take primacy, from a command-and-control perspective, to bring to bear all the Government’s maritime assets that set sail, across all agencies, in order to try to cohere a more robust response at sea. It is an evolution of what we have been doing rather than a replacement of something that had previously existed.

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there may be a requirement for more naval assets—warships—to be in the channel, but they sit too high off the water to be a credible platform from which to cross-deck people from a dinghy, so the presence of naval assets is probably from a command-and-control perspective rather than from an interdiction or interception perspective. There are better platforms within the Government’s inventory, and things that we can lease from the open market, that will be much more effective for mid-channel cross-decking under RN command and control.

Neither the Royal Navy nor the Royal Marines will be engaged in pushback, but that tactic has been developed by Border Force, and if it is applicable it will be used. The Royal Navy will not use sonic weapons. The Royal Navy or the wider military may be involved in transportation of people when they reach the shore as they enter the processing system. There may be a use for military accommodation. As I said, this is a UQ responding to a partial revelation of the plan, and I make no apology for the wider plan being still in development.

Rear Admiral Utley continues to report to the fleet commander, who reports to the First Sea Lord, who reports to the Secretary of State. Costs will lie where they fall, other than for novel capabilities, in which case there will be a chat with the Treasury. The MOD and the Navy enjoy excellent relations with the French MOD and the French Navy. We are confident in our ability to manage the cross-channel relationships.

I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman if I promised him an update on MACAs; I forgot that I had done so and I will make sure that that is rectified.

Ukraine

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I welcome its contents and make clear Labour’s full backing for the steps the Government have been taking on international diplomatic efforts to de-escalate threats, on defensive support for the Ukraine military, on necessary institutional reforms within the country, and on tough economic and financial sanctions in response to any fresh Russian invasion into Ukraine.

There is unified UK political support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Crimea, in the face of escalating Russian aggression. This bilateral UK backing is hugely appreciated in Ukraine, as I and the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), confirmed when we visited Kiev last week. Four things were clear to us from our wide-ranging discussions. First, this crisis is made in the Kremlin. Ukraine’s independence and borders were guaranteed by Russia, alongside the US and the UK, in the 1994 Budapest agreement under which Ukraine also decommissioned its nuclear weapons, then making the whole of Europe much safer. What special role and responsibility does the Defence Secretary believe the UK still has as a guarantor of this agreement? Ukrainians warmly received recent visits from Defence Ministers, as well as the Defence Secretary himself, just before Christmas. When will the Foreign Secretary also visit Ukraine to underline the UK’s strong continuing support?

Secondly, talking is better than fighting. The international unity last week, especially at the NATO-Russia Council, is very important to Ukraine. NATO, as the Defence Secretary said, has acknowledged Russian security concerns. What are the areas it has offered as open to dialogue, and is any further international diplomacy scheduled with Russia?

Thirdly, Ukraine has faced active Russian aggression for many years. Russia’s big military build-up on its borders now is part of the continuous attacks Ukraine has faced, as the highly destructive malware detected by Microsoft at the weekend in many Government networks shows us and reminds us very strongly. What role will the UK play in delivering the new cyber co-operation agreement that NATO and Ukraine have signed today but the Defence Secretary did not mention in his statement?

Fourthly, Ukraine is a different country now than it was in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and Russian proxies seized parts of eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 Ukrainian lives have been lost in fighting since then. Its military, its sense of identity, its resolve to resist Russia, and its determination to become a good European country—as Prime Minister Yatsenyuk put it to us—have all become much stronger. It is critical that the Kremlin appreciate that any new military attack on Ukraine will be bloody on both sides. What is the Defence Secretary doing to get across to President Putin that important message on miscalculation? When did he last meet his Russian counterpart?

Finally, I turn to military support to Ukraine as a sovereign nation seeking to defend itself. The shadow Foreign Secretary and I were told many times last week how highly Ukraine values UK military training, and how frontline troops bring out their British Operation Orbital certificate when asked about the best help they have had. We welcome the recent expansion of bilateral British support to naval co-operation, and we back the new delivery of defensive weaponry that the Defence Secretary has announced this afternoon, but let us be clear that that will be framed by Russian propagandists as provocation. Will the Defence Secretary spell out clearly that those are defensive anti-tank weapons with a much shorter range than the US Javelin missiles that Ukraine has had for some time, and that they will not be used unless Russia invades?

These are dangerous days for security in Europe—especially for the Ukrainian people. Even at this 11th hour, we across this House hope deeply that diplomacy, sound judgment and respect for international law will prevail with President Putin.

[Mr Wallace]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour Front Bench for their support and for the detailed engagement that they have undertaken with the Ukrainians. I know that it has meant a huge amount to them to see cross-party support for their rights. I thank him personally for the effort that he and the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), have gone to.

These are difficult and dangerous times, as the right hon. Gentleman said. It is important to navigate the very thin path between provocation and defence of people who are clearly under threat and intimidation, so that whatever we do cannot be exploited by the Kremlin for its own narratives. I have continued to brief the Opposition and other Members of this House to make sure that they are fully informed.

I will try to answer some of the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. First, the Budapest memorandum is indeed one of the three main treaties that Russia is in breach of or is not upholding. It was a fair deal done between the Ukrainians and Russia, and it is important that we remind Russia—through diplomatic channels first of all—of those obligations. The situation is a stark reminder that we cannot pick and choose from treaties that have been signed up to.

We believe that the subsequent Minsk protocol is something that we would wish to support and for Russia to engage in. It respects some of the concerns around the Donbass, and I hope that that is one of the best paths towards securing a peaceful resolution. It does not seem at the moment that Russia is engaging enough on that. I think that is definitely the treaty to look at. Of course, it is underwritten by France, Germany and the United States through the Normandy format, and we would support the use of that. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary plans to visit Ukraine soon, which is also important. I have spoken to her about it, and I think her office is just working out dates for her visit.

On cyber, I will write in detail to the right hon. Gentleman about the NATO initiative. We have supported Ukraine for a number of years with cyber-defence to ensure that its resilience is improved, taking the lessons that we have here and sharing and working with them. That is why it is so useful that the National Cyber Security Centre is not only domestically but internationally recognised. When its experts come to give advice, it certainly helps with resilience.

On what more we can do, one concern that we have to address is Russia’s sense of encirclement, as I said at the beginning, and a fear that is untrue and based either on a misconception or, indeed, a falsehood. One way to address that is through better transparency. We have had schemes such as the Open Skies scheme, and we have had a number of treaties, some of which have been broken by Russia, which is unfortunate, but I certainly think that more transparency is needed. We often have Vienna inspections in this country; we had some only the other month by Russian military personnel who visited an RAF base. That is one of the best ways to demonstrate the realities on the ground, and that NATO is not an aggressor and we are not planning some offensive.

More work can definitely be done to deal with that situation, and to give Russia its voice. I was delighted that we had the Russia-NATO Council, the first in two years, only last week, because it is incredibly important that we get to hear and meet Russia face to face. I have not met my counterpart, and obviously since the Salisbury poisonings relationships have been at a low ebb. For many years, the Russian Defence Secretary and the British Defence Secretary have not had periodic or routine meetings, and I think it is important we offer that. Whether Russia will accept it is a different issue, but it is important that we reach out, at the very least, and have a discussion, and give each other the respect that I think sovereign nations deserve.

On weapons systems, I concur with the right hon. Gentleman. Absolutely—these weapons are short-range. They are not strategic; they are tactical. They are the sort of systems you use if someone is attacking you. This is an infantry-level type weapons system, but nevertheless it would make people pause and think about what they are doing. If tanks were to roll into Ukraine and invade, it would be part of the defensive mechanism.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Oh dear. I think the right hon. Gentleman has not even read the defence industrial strategy, where it is very clear that we have committed to enhancing sovereignty. He will know, because he has watched the solid support ship contract with great interest, that we have also classified those ships as warships and started that competition. It is incredibly important that we recognise that, first and foremost, this Government are going to do more, and have done more, to enhance British shipbuilding than any other Government for many, many years, including the one he was a member of.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

May I start by thanking the Defence Secretary and you, Mr Speaker, for the words about Jack Dromey? On this side, we mourn deeply his very sad and sudden death. He touched everyone he worked with—everyone has a proud or affectionate Jack Dromey story—and our House and our politics are the poorer without him this week.

Turning to the question, there are indeed 300,000 UK defence jobs, many linked to MOD contracts. Why have the National Audit Office and the MOD’s own accounts officially confirmed 67 cases of overspends, write-offs, contract cancellations, unplanned extensions and admin errors since 2010, costing at least £13 billion in taxpayers’ money wasted since 2010? Those are only the published data—they are the tip of the iceberg—so will the Secretary of State now commission the NAO to conduct an across-the-board audit of MOD waste, as Labour in government would from day one?

[Mr Wallace]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of the contents of Labour’s dodgy dossier on defence procurement, which are a fascinating read. They include allocating the loss on Nimrod, which the Labour party had governed for 13 years, to a Conservative Government and the fact that the Labour party had estimated that aircraft carriers would cost only £2.7 billion when in fact they cost over £6 billion. Considerable amounts of the so-called “waste” in the dossier show a breathtaking misunderstanding of both accountancy and how things operate when it comes to procurement. Retiring an aircraft last year that was due to retire in 2015—the Sentinel—does not make it a write-off or a waste; it is getting rid of a piece of equipment that is no longer value for money in delivering what we need to deliver. If he wishes to become the future Defence Secretary, I suggest he takes a course in accountancy first.

[John Healey]

The Sentinel was, of course, retired before the replacement E-7 Wedgetails were ready, so the MOD rightly accounted for £147 million in constructive loss in its accounts. However, £4 billion has been wasted since 2019 alone, since the Secretary of State has been in post, and the National Audit Office has judged the MOD’s accounts for the defence equipment plan “unaffordable” every year for the last four years. It has said that there is a budget black hole of up to £17 billion. The Secretary of State has taken no serious action to deal with these deep-seated problems. He is failing British forces, and failing British taxpayers.

[Mr Wallace]

Desperate!

Let us start with the first point. The Sentinel is not an early-warning radar, which the E-7 Wedgetail is. If we are going to say that I retired one platform capability and replaced it with another, let us try to make sure that we replace it with the right type of capability, otherwise someone will be flying the wrong plane in the wrong place at the wrong time—but then I suppose we should not really be very surprised by Labour.

I entirely understand the NAO’s observations. There are, absolutely, a great many things to put right, and in putting them right, yes, we cancel programmes that we cannot afford, yes, we retire capabilities that should have been retired previously, because that is called putting your house in order. Otherwise, we end up with an NAO ruling that

“The MoD has a multi-billion-pound budgetary black hole which it is trying to fix with a ‘save now, pay later’ approach.”

That was the NAO’s report on the Labour Government in 2009, and the “pay later” is what we are now living with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend points out the other job that Defence does, which is building this country’s resilience wherever one may be in the United Kingdom. It is always important to remember that our armed forces have a day job—a main job—of defending our country. When we are out of this national crisis and pandemic, it will be important to look at making sure that other people step up to cover. In the long term Defence personnel are always there, whether for floods, pandemic or other threats, and they will continue to be so. That is why it was important that we put soldiers and sailors at the heart of our Defence Command Paper.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Today’s US-Russia talks in Geneva start a critical week of dialogue over Ukraine. I assure the Secretary of State that we fully support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. As a defensive alliance, it is clear that it is not NATO’s but Russia’s actions that are dangerously escalating the current tensions. What leading role is the UK playing to ensure that any agreement on the talks is fully co-ordinated with NATO and with European allies?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. I will continue to work with him, and the Leader of the Opposition, to ensure that he is kept informed as much as we can on the situation. That goes for the Scottish National party as well. I have personally been to Ukraine five or six times in my time as Security Minister and Defence Secretary. The lessons of Afghanistan are that as we move together, whether as NATO or as a coalition, we will continue to work with—

Ajax Noise and Vibration Review

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I start by thanking the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for publishing this Ajax noise and vibration report. I pay tribute to his determination to get to the reasons why this Ajax procurement has gone so badly wrong and his commitment to updating the House openly on progress. This is vital to the UK’s warfighting capabilities and our frontline troops, so all sides of the House and beyond want to strengthen his hand in undertaking this work.

However, since the Minister commissioned this report, things have gone from bad to worse on Ajax. The Comptroller and Auditor General has confirmed to me that he has launched the urgent National Audit Office investigation into Ajax that I and the Defence Committee requested. The Public Accounts Committee has described the Ajax programme as a “catastrophe” and the MOD’s procurement system as “broken”.

This is a £5.5 billion programme that has been running for the past 10 years, has only delivered a couple of dozen vehicles and still has no definite date for completion. It is the biggest Defence procurement failure of the past decade. It is failing British taxpayers and failing British troops.

The first concern for any Minister or commander is rightly the safety of our own forces men and women, so this is an important report. It confirms that 17 individuals who worked on Ajax are still receiving specialist treatment for hearing loss, 11 have long-term limitations on their military duties and four have been medically discharged from service. What, if any, compensation have they received?

The Minister also refers to

“the significant number of personnel across defence whose exposure to noise results in short or long-term restrictions to their military duties.”

How many is that significant number, and when will the permanent secretary report on the wider problems?

More serious is what the Minister has described as the

“series of failures to act”

when concerns were raised about health and safety risks: the 2018 MOD safety notice that was not acted on, the 2020 Defence Safety Authority report that was retracted and the multiple warnings, including from the commanding officer in charge of the trials unit, that were not actioned. The Defence Secretary declared in this House last month that,

“it is really important…that we fundamentally learn the lessons and people carry the can for…their decisions.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 492.]

Has anyone been fired for the failings? Has anyone been demoted? I hesitate to ask this, but has anyone responsible been promoted since they worked on Ajax?

Fundamentally, there is a Defence Secretary-shaped hole in this report. There is no mention of his role or his misjudgments in this Ajax disaster. When exactly did the Defence Secretary first know about the flaws in Ajax? What action did he take then to investigate and fix the problems? The Ajax vibration problem has been known in the MOD since at least 2018, so why, when the Defence Secretary published his defence White Paper this year, did he double down on Ajax, scrapping Warrior and scaling back Challenger at the same time? Finally, neither this report nor the MOD’s continuing Millbrook trials were ready last month, so why did the Defence Secretary press ahead to confirm in “Future Soldier” that

“capabilities will be built around…Ajax”,

with other systems?

It is deeply unsatisfactory that the action following this review is to launch another review. It is also deeply unsatisfactory that Ajax is still in limbo, beset by suspicions that it is simply too big to be allowed to fail. Will the Minister now answer the remaining fundamental questions? What are the causes of the noise and vibration problems? Will the Defence Secretary scrap or stick with Ajax? What is the MOD’s cost for the additional trials and testing? What contingency plans are in place for the Army to have full reconnaissance and force-protection capabilities while Ajax is delayed or, indeed, deleted? Has the Minister discussed with the Welsh Government a plan to support jobs if Ajax is cancelled? What impact does this continuing delay to decisions on Ajax have on the Army’s ability to deploy the planned strike brigade?

The Defence Secretary’s rapid further cuts in Army numbers is directly linked to more advanced technology based on Ajax. Will Ministers now halt their Army cuts, at least until they have fixed this fundamentally failing procurement?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for welcoming the transparency that this report represents from the Ministry of Defence. He is absolutely right that its commissioning and publication have sent shock waves through Defence. That is valuable and important. Everyone needs to be aware of the important imperatives—people need to answer for them and ensure that they are on track—and, even by commissioning and publishing this report, we have sent an important and salutary message, as well as learning a lot of detailed facts. He was generous in that respect, but he was most ungenerous and wrong regarding the Secretary of State.

As set out in the report, we first knew of this issue in November 2020. Ministers acted promptly. I am concerned that at the time it was described to me as a late discovery item, and that was mentioned in the report, and a culture of optimism bias continued. That is why I insisted that no IOC would be declared without ministerial involvement. That is why we were, and have been, very focused on ensuring that we got to grips with this programme, which we have, and on ensuring that we had this report not only commissioned, but published.

The report has laid bare a host of very difficult issues inside Defence, across a whole series of organisations. That is what the Defence Secretary and I are absolutely focused on getting to grips with, and what we are doing. The purpose of the report was not to apportion blame, but to discover the facts. That is the normal process in industrial companies where there are issues of concern—to establish the facts and to set out recommendations. That has been done.

We want to have a second report—I have referred to that previously in the House—to dig deeper and to make certain that the lessons are learned and that the recommendations are appropriate. As I have said, if there are examples of gross misconduct, they will be acted on.

What the report revealed, however, is a deep cultural malaise: across Defence, horizontally, parts of it are not speaking to each other as they should be on a programme of this nature. Concerns are not being elevated as they should be, vertically up through the system. That is a problem, a failing, and it needs to be addressed. If we want to have proper procurement, we cannot have a culture in which people take the view that they want to hear only solutions and not problems. It is necessary to have a proper airing of concerns and for them to be taken up and dealt with.

The shadow Secretary of State raised a number of other points. A large number of hulls have been delivered to Merthyr and are being worked on. Of course, there has been a succession of capability drops in the project, so hulls will have to be enhanced and improved over time.

The right hon. Gentleman may believe that things have got worse. That is not my experience. On the contrary, we are in a far, far better position than we were last year and in a far better position than we were six months ago. Detailed work has been undertaken and conclusions from Millbrook will be with us before Christmas. GD has growing confidence in the design modifications that it believes can be effected. I will have no position on them until we have tested them, gone through them and made certain that they work, that they are efficacious and that they give us the kick that we require. There is a lot of work still to be done on headsets, but I have seen the benefit of having a full-time focused SRO and with ministerial focus on the project, driving it forward. We are in a far better place to take decisions on Ajax than we were. The project is in a healthier state than a year ago, as should be the case. It is an important capability that we need for our operational requirements, and we will continue the hard work to ensure that it is delivered.

Army Restructuring: Future Soldier

John Healey Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, although I am disappointed not to receive the breakdown of the new Army structure, as I know he intended, which he says is now on the website. The devil, as always, is in the detail and we will study that closely.

The Defence Secretary says that this statement builds on the defence Command Paper published in March. It does indeed answer points about Army structure, but it provides no answers to the bigger, more important questions about Army strategy and Army size. The Command Paper confirmed:

“Russia continues to pose the greatest nuclear, conventional military and subthreshold threat to European security.”

Yet it failed then to define a clear mission and role for the Army, especially in relation to that threat. This statement fails the same test. Given recent events, not least in Ukraine, surely the Army’s primary role must be to reinforce Europe against Russia and to be an effective war-fighting partner to NATO allies. This demands high-end war-fighting capabilities, not just light forces and cyber operations. A single war-fighting division was promised for 2025. This is the heart of our UK commitment to NATO deterrence and defence. The Chief of the Defence Staff has said that it is

“the standard whereby a credible army is judged”,

so why will this fully capable division, including a new strike brigade, now not be battle-ready until 2030?

The Defence Secretary has described the new Ajax armoured vehicle as the “nucleus” of our modernised war-fighting capability, yet his Minister has now admitted that there is “no realistic timescale” for getting Ajax into service. Why did the Defence Secretary scrap Warrior, scale back Challenger and double down on Ajax when the MOD knew that there were serious problems? What is the plan to provide the Army with kit it needs now if it has to contribute to a major conflict? The Secretary of State cannot say he has reduced the role of the Army; he cannot say the Army already has the high-tech kit it needs to replace boots on the ground; and he cannot say the threats to the UK have diminished—indeed, today he said they are proliferating—yet he is still cutting the Army’s established strength by 9,000 over the next three years, and that is on top of 16,000 soldiers cut since 2010.

The Prime Minister promised at his election manifesto launch in 2019, on behalf of all Conservative Members:

“We will not be cutting our armed forces in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed forces.”

The Prime Minister may take the pledges he makes to our armed forces and the public lightly, but we do not. By the time of the next election, Britain will have the smallest Army in 300 years. Size matters. The Defence Secretary’s deeper cuts now could limit our forces’ ability simultaneously to deploy overseas, support allies, maintain strong national defences, and reinforce our domestic resilience—just as they have in helping the country through the covid crisis. We are a leading NATO member and a United Nations P5 country that may again get called on to deploy and sustain forces away from the UK. We may not seek a major crisis but experience tells us that it may well come to us.

Why have MOD civilian staff increased by 2,200usb since 2015 while the number of full-time soldiers has been cut by 5,000? Why has the Defence Secretary recruited 962 MOD managers in the past year alone? Why has the black hole in the defence budget got £4 billion bigger since he became Defence Secretary? Why is he the only Cabinet Minister to agree real cuts to the revenue budget for his Department over the next three years? Despite what he claims, is not the truth that this plan for the British Army is dictated by costs, not threats?

The Army rightly says that the role of the infantry

“is at the core of the Army; from peacekeeping to combat operations, anywhere in the world—our Infanteers lead the way.”

Yet they will bear the brunt of the cuts in this new structure. What is the cut to infantry numbers? Will this involve a halt to recruitment or simply a slowing of the rate of recruitment? Will the new brigade combat teams have a mix of wheeled and tracked vehicles, and will this mean moving at the pace of the slowest? We welcome the new special operations brigade, but how will this increased number of special forces be fully recruited from the reduced ranks of the wider Army? We welcome the plan to maintain the British Army presence across the UK, but can the Defence Secretary confirm whether all existing planned base closures in England will still go ahead? Will the UK’s long-established training base in Canada close, and does this signal the end of training for tank warfare?

I fear that this plan leaves the British Army too small, too thinly stretched and too poorly equipped to deal with the threats that the UK and our allies now face, which are growing and diversifying.

[Mr Wallace]

Dear oh dear! I think the official Opposition are probably inaccurate and probably out-of-date and indeed pose all sorts of questions where the premise is just completely false. For example, we do have an armoured division that is a going concern—it is called 3 Div. It is in place. It is there to do its job. It is fulfilling the NATO commitment. Yes, much of its equipment needs to be updated, modernised or changed, which is why we are today announcing an extra £8 billion of spending, but it is actually an armoured division. A number of the platforms that the right hon. Gentleman talks about are going to be tapered out as new equipment comes in, so the Warrior is likely to come out in around 2025 as our Boxers start to get delivered into the different regiments. They will taper out of service as the new equipment comes in. Where gaps could arise, such as in the helicopter fleet with Puma coming out of service, I have sought an interim procurement, the competition for which will start soon. I am therefore determined to ensure that there is a limited gap, if any. There will be some gaps in capabilities, but that is the consequence of taking a decision to modernise and deliver for our armed forces.

I turn to some of the right hon. Gentleman’s other questions. First, the RDEL, which he often talks about, is in fact a 0.2% increase. It obviously depends on whether the line is drawn at 2021, 2022 or 2024—

[John Healey]

Look at the Red Book.

[Mr Wallace]

I have, but of course the Red Book changed in a different year from when our settlement started. The right hon. Gentleman will know that our settlement started a year before everyone else’s because I went in to bat for the Department recognising that a one-year settlement would have been too difficult.

Secondly, there is not a £4 billion black hole in our budget; in fact, it is on track. So that was not accurate, either. On whether the BCTs will be both wheeled and tracked, they will mix the two at certain stages. However, it is not just about tracks and wheels; it is also about speed. When I served in an armoured infantry regiment in Germany in 1991, the Warriors completely outraced the 432s, which were 1960s armoured vehicles. Indeed, I am so old that the tanks were Chieftains, and the Warriors had got ahead of the Chieftains. It does happen even in tracked, and the challenge in modern warfare is balance in bringing in the latest in a fashion that keeps pace with the integration required.

On the range of battalions, I welcome the Opposition’s acceptance that this is a good idea; I thought that they would. It is about being in the business of conflict prevention. One of the problems that we see is failed states and small conflicts being allowed to balloon into large-scale conflicts that displace people around the world. We should be there earlier with conflict prevention and help the resilience of many countries either that neighbour a failing state or where conflict could balloon out of control. Perhaps the best way for all of us to avoid both significant cost and stress and bloodshed is to be there properly and helping alongside aid agencies, the United Nations and others to ensure that conflict does not grow.

BATUS–the British Army training unit, Suffield—is not closing in its entirety; we will use it for different functions and purposes. It is a huge training area, and one of its challenges has been air, the demands on integration and getting a multi-domain operation running while using forces—a whole armoured battle group in effect—in the middle of Canada, when we could have greater effect by having them closer to home and more ready. Readiness and presence deters our adversaries. Sitting in Tidworth on a month’s notice to deploy does not put off an adversary such as Russia, which constantly exercises and changes the readiness profile of its forces to keep all of us guessing. That is one of our challenges. We are often worried by Russia’s actions and, after the recent Zapad exercise and the build-up of forces on the edge of Ukraine, it is right that NATO countries are deeply concerned by that activity.

I say to the Opposition that this is an increase in funding, in both capital and RDEL. It is a force designed to ensure that we get the right balance between people and equipment. If we play the numbers of people game, we will see, as we have seen over the decades, that the losers will be in equipment. We then get forces such as those when I served that are hollowed out and not able or ready enough to deliver the wanted effect. We should not forget that when the Iraq war happened in 2003 and a so-called armoured division was deployed, it was in fact one armoured brigade, 3 Commando Brigade and 16 Air Assault Brigade. It was not the armoured division in the field; it was pushed together in a whole group of different forces. That is because we need to be adaptable to the threat and the enemy so that, yes, when a conflict breaks out, we can deliver critical mass, but we also have to be in a position to join together with our allies, as we always have since the war. NATO is an alliance that we must plug in and out of to be part of a greater force to reach critical mass and, indeed, have concentration of forces.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about another part of eastern Europe and the Balkans that is currently experiencing destabilising actions, activities and messaging that do no one any good. As she will know, it is a EUFOR deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but there is also a NATO deployment, and I am open to exploring what more we could do in that area. Baroness Goldie will be attending the conference my hon. Friend asks about.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

May I offer our very best wishes to David Perry, whose heroic actions in Liverpool yesterday may have prevented a despicable and devastating attack on the city’s remembrance ceremony?

I say to the Defence Secretary that we share his grave concerns about deteriorating security and destabilisation, both in Bosnia and on the Ukraine border. We fully back the diplomatic efforts he mentions to de-escalate tensions, but, as the Chief of the Defence Staff said yesterday, we also

“have to be on our guard and make sure deterrence prevails”.

So may I ask the Defence Secretary to confirm that a war-fighting division is still the bedrock of the British Army and the defence capability Britain offers NATO? When will this division be fully capable for combat operations?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct to identify that a war-fighting division is the bedrock. Obviously, as we reform and invest in new capabilities, the scale and availability of that division will fluctuate, as we re-equip and re-posture. However, that does not prevent our already having a very, very high-readiness battle group available in Estonia, with a matter of hours to move, as one of the best parts of deterrence is readiness, as opposed to simply having just scale on its own. We can have scale, but if we cannot get to the battlefront, we are not necessarily deterring anyone. That is why we are investing in those new capabilities, but he is correct to say that a war-fighting division is obviously part of our cornerstone commitment to NATO.

[John Healey]

The Army told the Select Committee on Defence last year that it will not be until the “early 2030s” before it can field a fully equipped war-fighting division, including a new strike brigade. There are serious questions about capacity—or, as the Defence Secretary says, scale—as well as about military capability. Britain’s previous contribution to the UN peacekeeping in Bosnia was about 2,400 troops, and that was when the Army was still 145,000 strong. His current cuts will leave the Army at exactly half that size. So if, in the worst circumstances, our forces are called on in both eastern Europe and the Balkans at the same time, how confident is he that Britain could meet NATO requirements?

[Mr Wallace]

I am very confident of that: we have just completed another round of forces allocation within NATO to make sure that we are all able to meet our commitments. We have a new scheme in NATO whereby we can trade different capabilities. For example, we have traded some capabilities for more maritime contribution, so that we can keep our abilities strong and present in the sea as much as we can on land—it will not have escaped the right hon. Gentleman that Russia, for example, is capable of using all the domains to threaten our security.

On the division the right hon. Gentleman talked about, the Chief of the Defence Staff’s comments to the Select Committee represented the situation at the end of the transition, but all the way through that transition the UK’s premier armoured division, 3 Division, will have battle-winning capabilities and the ability to take on Russia as part of a NATO commitment. Only recently, I visited the division on Salisbury plain—it is the single biggest brigade or battle group we have had on Salisbury plain for decades—and saw more than 270 vehicles go through their paces, planning and making sure that they are up to date with the latest equipment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s frustration; I am equally frustrated. He will know from his time in the Department that one of the biggest challenges was that people’s appetites often outstretched their pockets. We also have to adapt to threats when they change, and that causes an impact, as do things such as dollar fluctuations. There are a lot of factors in complicated procurement, but that is not to say that we do not need a lot of things to go right. I would be delighted to talk to him about some of the simple changes that could make a big difference.

The other issue is ensuring that Ministers are on top of all the detail, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement is on that detail and ensuring that we get a grip of this. It is also about having not part-time but dedicated senior responsible officers—I am not sure why no one has done that for decades. We should then hold those people more responsible.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I was disappointed to get the Defence Secretary’s written ministerial statement on the ARAP data breach and general update just before I left for these questions in the Chamber, which was too late to put to him the many concerns felt on all sides of the House. It should have been an oral statement. I hope that he will consider making such a statement.

The Defence Secretary has pledged to assist investigations into the grave allegations about the murder of Agnes Wanjiru in Kenya nine years ago by a British solider. Why has he not launched an MOD inquiry into the separate serious allegations that the killing was an open secret in the regiment and that senior officers suppressed the information?

[Mr Wallace]

While I have not opened a formal investigation, I have absolutely asked the question of the Army to get the bottom of what happened with the original allegations and where we got with that. At the same time, I am respecting the judicial process. The right hon. Member and I will know that we can comment only so far on what is ongoing with that incident and others that appear in the service justice scheme, or indeed on any foreign assistance required.

Data Breach: ARAP Applicants in Afghanistan

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the data breach exposing ARAP applicants in Afghanistan.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I understand the strength of feeling on this subject, and this question gives me the opportunity to set out where we are with the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and yesterday’s data breach. I would like to place it on record that I had offered a statement for when we return from conference recess, as the investigation I have ordered will be able to report fully by then, and I still expect to make those details available.

As you know, Mr Speaker, I have taken the obligation we have to the Afghan personnel who have supported us throughout extremely seriously. Despite this disappointing event, we should pay tribute to the armed forces for Operation Pitting and the that we have managed to evacuate 8,800 people and families eligible under the ARAP scheme since April, in addition to the 1,400 who had already been relocated prior to that date. However, worryingly for me, over the last few weeks lapses from the highest standards in the management of those people remaining in Afghanistan have been brought to my attention by both hon. Members of this House and others. For that reason Ministers raised concerns both last week and yesterday, and sought assurances that these problems would be rectified. Those assurances were given. However, it was brought to my attention at 2000 hours last night that there had been a significant data breach. To say I was angered by this is an understatement and I immediately directed an investigation to take place.

Initial findings show that an email was sent at 17.44 hours as part of the “weekly contact” we maintain with ARAP currently remaining in Afghanistan. This had been copied to all the 245 applicants, rather than blind copying them. The email was immediately recalled on identification of the breach and then a subsequent email was sent advising people to delete the email and change their addresses, which many of them have done.

So far, one individual has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation and processes for data handling and correspondence processing have already been changed. I have directed that extensive steps are to be taken to quantify the potential increased risk to individuals in order to take further steps to protect them. The Information Commissioner has been notified and we will co-operate fully with any of its own enquiries.

I apologise to those Afghans affected by this data breach, and we are now working with them to provide security advice. As I speak, the Minister for the Armed Forces is in the region speaking to neighbouring countries to see what more we can do with both third country and in-country applicants. This is an unacceptable level of service that has let down the thousands of members of the armed forces and veterans, and on behalf of the Ministry of Defence I apologise.

I offer the reassurance that the scheme will continue to operate and bring people back to the United Kingdom for however many are eligible and however long it takes.

[John Healey]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

There is rightly cross-party concern about this very grave security breach, with names, email addresses and in some cases photographs of 250 Afghan ARAP applicants, all still in Afghanistan and in danger, shared in a mass mailing. This needlessly puts their lives at risk.

I welcome the Defence Secretary’s presence here this morning and welcome his apology, inquiry and commitment to a statement when the House returns after its short recess, but it is not the apology but the action which matters most now. These Afghan interpreters worked alongside our British forces and the Government rightly pledged to protect them. Ministers must make good on those promises now, so can the Defence Secretary answer the following questions: when will he complete that assessment of the increased risk these individuals now face as a result of the data breach; what action is he taking urgently to evacuate them and their families; and why on earth is the MOD mass emailing people who face life-or-death situations?

I know from ARAP evacuees in my constituency who have separated family members still in hiding in Afghanistan that their social media has been blocked. Is there any evidence of email surveillance or interference from the Taliban? How will the MOD remain in contact with these people if they follow the advice to change their email addresses?

Yesterday, Ministers confirmed that 7,900 applications have been made to the ARAP scheme, with 900 so far approved since the end of August. Have there been any data breaches linked to other ARAP applicants?

This is the third known serious defence data breach in as many months. Each time, we have the same response: public apology, internal inquiry, then silence—no report on the inquiry results, no confirmation of action taken to tighten up the system. The Secretary of State rightly started by paying tribute to all involved in Operation Pitting. Our forces were totally professional in that extraordinary evacuation from Kabul, but they must be asking now: how can we trust our back-up at the MOD?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Member makes some points that I would say are deservedly landed, and I hear what he says. First, yes, we mass email individuals, but we also email individually. This was a weekly catch-up email that was sent to over 250 people to make sure that they were kept in touch, because, quite rightly, as many Members have pointed out on a number of occasions, they need to be engaged and know that there is someone out there keeping it going and trying to get them through the country.

This was a mass email. It did not contain individuals’ home addresses or anything. The photo profiles that the right hon. Member mentioned were ones that were in profiles of the email addresses as opposed to the individuals’ names. Indeed, having looked at all the email addresses, I can say that the vast majority were not specific names, necessarily; they were email addresses rather than particular names. However, that does not change the fundamental impact that the email could have had and could still have.

I have asked Defence Intelligence to go through all the cases and assess the risk to the individuals. That will be ongoing. I can of course get an update, and I will be happy to share with the right hon. Member where we are with those updates on intelligence. I can certainly also give a Privy Council briefing to both him and, indeed, the Scottish National party if it wishes, on the greater security situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

This group was not the wider cohort that the right hon. Member referred to—the people who have applied since ARAP. To put it in perspective, some 68,000 have applied for ARAP. Obviously, when that number is scrubbed and worked through, it reduces significantly, but that is the number of emails that have been sitting in email boxes and have been worked through—and are being worked through—to try to make sure that we find the right people with the right criteria and then, obviously, communicate with them.

This matter relates only to the number of people who had been called forward under Op Pitting, had been security checked and were ready to go but either never made it to the Baron hotel or never made it on to a flight. That number started at 311, as hon. Members will remember. Of the 311, there are 260 principals left in Afghanistan—that is 1,232 people if we include their families—43 principals, or 163 pax in total, in third countries, and eight with whom we have still not been able to establish communications despite trying numerous times. That is the cohort that this relates to. We will do everything we can.

As far as getting those people out of the country, as I said, the Minister for the Armed Forces is now in one of the neighbouring countries and will continue to do that. I have spoken to my defence sections and offered to increase resource and to give reassurances to those third countries. The MOD funds the flying of those people back to the United Kingdom. We have already done so, and I will be happy to update the House as we go about how many people come out of the country.

Some of the other challenges, obviously, relate to security, and we have to have that balance in bringing people back who sometimes turn out, eventually, to have the wrong record; we want to protect the British public from that. But fundamentally, that is the cohort of people that these emails relate to.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I am also delighted that my whole team has remained together on the Front Bench. I cannot remember that happening in any other Department in my time in politics, but it is a good thing to have continuity. It does, however, limit our excuse to say, “We are just getting on top of our brief.”

This is why Afghanistan matters. It is often the keystone or lynchpin in that part of the world. What happens in Afghanistan can ripple throughout the region and further along, as we saw with al-Qaeda in 2001—it is really important. The Minister for the Armed Forces and I will be setting off to the region this week to discuss that with a number of neighbouring countries. Pakistan and China are significant countries in the international community that we have to engage with to make sure that Afghanistan does not go from bad to worse, and that we reverse radicalisation where it appears.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right: the biggest threat from Afghanistan is the country becoming once again the base for extremist terrorist groups. The biggest risk is that the British Government give that the same lack of attention and preparation they gave to Afghanistan in the 18 months ahead of the NATO withdrawal, so why on earth is the Prime Minister now cutting back, by more than half, on his National Security Council meetings?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Member will be referring to a report by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that he has commented on previously. The report makes a number of those points, some of which I disagree with because, as I have said at the Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister often chooses that, on national security, Departments can generate their concerns and come together with national security Ministers to discuss the issues. It does not always have to be done in a formal NSC meeting; it can be done in a sub-committee, where we sometimes get across even much smaller issues.

The report also makes the point that Afghanistan is not mentioned much in the integrated review, but the right hon. Member will notice that in the defence Command Paper it is mentioned nine times—it is incredibly important. We did not neglect it in the lead-up to the fall of Afghanistan; in fact, we were investing more troops and more people in the last few weeks until we got to the point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State, John Healey.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I want to ask the Defence Secretary about the Ajax armoured vehicle, the biggest defence procurement failure since the Nimrod. What did the Defence Secretary know about the Ajax flaws when he published the integrated review in his Defence White Paper in March, scrapping Warrior, scaling back Challenger and fully backing Ajax?

[Mr Wallace]

I know that this was a troubled programme; I have never resiled from that at all in this House. In fact, as the right hon. Member will know, since I took over this job we have been determined to open up the programme and get to the bottom of its failings. We will shortly come to the House with more detail on that. Going right back to March 2010, this has been a troubled programme that needs to be fixed. Can it be fixed? That is what we are working to do. It is nothing to do with linking Warrior and the others, which the right hon. Member is trying to make the case for.

[John Healey]

This is not just another troubled programme or another piece of Army kit. The Secretary of State’s defence White Paper confirms that Ajax is fundamental to the future of British ground forces. Our NATO allies in Europe already see a Prime Minister with the hots for his Indo-Pacific tilt. Now Ajax, alongside the AUKUS nuclear propulsion pact, raises serious concerns over Britain’s sustained contribution and commitment to NATO. What is the Secretary of State doing to settle those concerns?

[Mr Wallace]

First of all, what the right hon. Member has missed is that I committed to and brought forward the buying of Boxer, which is a German-British-Dutch project that will be made in Telford, providing jobs. I also brought forward the Challenger 3 upgrade, with Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land—a German company partnering with a British company to provide jobs. That is a strong, solid, metallic commitment to Europe. At the same time, we press forward with the future combat air system with Italy and Sweden.

Ajax Armoured Vehicle Procurement

John Healey Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for making the statement and for advanced sight of it. May I, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, thank Mr Speaker for ensuring that the Defence Secretary understood his determination to see that Ministers account properly to this House, after Monday’s written ministerial statement was slipped out late in the afternoon in the middle of the Prime Minister’s statement on Afghanistan in the Commons?

This was the Minister’s shocking admission in that statement on Monday, underlined again today, though in more guarded terms:

“it is not possible to determine a realistic timescale for the introduction of Ajax vehicles into operational service with the Army.”

It is three months to the day since this House last questioned the Minister on Ajax and since then things have gone from bad to worse: the Public Accounts Committee pursuing a critical inquiry; the National Audit Office agreeing to my request and that of the Defence Committee for an urgent investigation; the Government’s own Major Projects Authority again flagging Ajax red and saying that successful delivery “appears to be unachievable”. This is a programme that has cost £3.5 billion to date, delivered just 14 vehicles and is set to be completed a decade late. The Minister’s statement now puts Ajax on an end-of-life watch. He confirms that the vibration problems were well know before the Ajax trial started in 2019. Indeed, he said today there was an Army safety notice in place on that vehicle in 2018. How much did the Defence Secretary know about the flaws in Ajax when he published the Defence Command Paper in March backing Ajax, scrapping Warrior and scaling back Challenger?

The Minister now says that he has realised that what is required for Ajax is what he calls a full-time dedicated senior responsible owner. So for over a decade this Ajax programme, the most costly defence procurement, second only to the deterrent, has had nobody senior responsible who has taken full-time charge. No wonder Ajax is the biggest procurement failure since the Nimrod, and this has happened entirely on this Government’s watch. Ministers are failing British forces and failing British taxpayers.

Specifically, can the Minister tell the House how many of the 248 Army personnel tested so far need medical treatment, and for what? What is the expected MOD cost for the additional trials and modifications? What impact will the indefinite delay have on the Army’s ability to deploy the essential planned strike brigade? Has the Minister approached the Welsh Government with a plan to support jobs at General Dynamics and the Welsh economy if Ajax is cancelled? What contingency plans are in place for the Army to have full reconnaissance and force protection capabilities while Ajax is delayed or indeed deleted?

There are alternatives to Ajax. So alongside the report that the Minister says he will commission from the new senior responsible officer on whether to complete or to cancel Ajax, will Ministers also commission full viability reports on modifying Boxer with its fourth generation ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance—capability, on the Combat Vehicle 90s used by our European NATO allies, and on the Warrior upgrade cancelled in the defence Command Paper? How much longer will it be before Ministers make a firm decision on the future of Ajax and provide certainty for all involved?

Finally, the defence Command Paper made it clear that the Government’s rapid further cut in Army numbers is linked directly to more advanced technology based on the Ajax, so will Ministers also now halt their further cut in Army numbers at least until they have sorted out and fixed this fundamentally failing procurement?

[Jeremy Quin]

I am pleased to respond to the comments by the right hon. Gentleman. I think he was being just a little ungenerous in talking about statements being slipped out. I have always thought that it is best to inform this House as swiftly and transparently as possible. I was very pleased to make, on the first day this House returned, a statement that gave a full update as to where we were on Ajax. I was proud to make that statement in written ministerial form on Monday.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to my being guarded in this oral statement on full operating capacity. I am not being guarded. I state what is obviously and transparently the case. I cannot give a date on reaching FOC when I have said what I have said on initial operating capacity, which I mean and I will stick by—that is, that we will not accept an IOC until we have a clear resolution to the issues on noise and vibration. We are working through how that will impact and how the timetable will move on in getting from IOC to FOC, but quite transparently we need a vehicle that works and is fit for purpose, and that is what we are determined to deliver.

When this programme was initially set up in March 2010, under a different Administration, I do not believe there were, at that stage, SROs. I may be wrong, but I believe that SROs have been introduced subsequently. [Interruption.] You had them?

[John Healey]

We introduced them.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am better informed. So there were SROs in the MOD at that time, and I suspect that they would do what SROs have continued to do since, which is to have a proportion of their time allocated to particular projects. In saying that we want to have an SRO 100% committed to this project—and, I hope, the same SRO who will be able to carry it right the way through to completion—we are recognising the fact that this is a troubled programme that needs the extra resource and the commitment of a full-time SRO, and that is what we will deliver.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues. On health and safety and on medical concerns, I am determined, as I made clear in my written and my oral statement, that the full health and safety report will be published so that hon. Members can see it for themselves, and I will update the House on information regarding the medical testing at that stage.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about additional costs. There are no additional costs to be incurred by the MOD with regard to additional testing being done by General Dynamics. That is part of the overall contract. There will be additional costs incurred by the Ministry of Defence in conducting independent trials at Millbrook. I think that is right and appropriate. This is an independent process. I want to see the analysis coming to us, so we will be paying money for the Millbrook trials, but I think that is appropriate.

On the strike brigade and contingency plans, we cannot have Ajax introduced to the strike brigade until we have Ajax—that is axiomatic—but we do have clear views as to contingencies. The Army is always evolving its full process on contingencies. I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the very helpful session chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Chair of the Defence Committee, which was attended and spoken at by the Commander Field Army. There is a range of capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as existing platforms, to fill any gap that is required to be filled.

I would counsel the right hon. Gentleman against what may be wholly unnecessary, inappropriate and inaccurate scaremongering about jobs. This is an incredibly important programme not only for the British Army but for thousands of people who are employed on it across the country—from memory, over 200 firms, including, as he says, General Dynamics in south Wales. We are committed to working with General Dynamics to achieve a resolution of these issues. As I have said before, I cannot 100% promise to this House that we will find a resolution to these issues, but we are determined to work it through with GD. As I have been very open and transparent in saying, an important step in that is the independent testing at Millbrook to enable us to know where the vibrations in the vehicle are originating from and whether the design modifications that are already being examined and thought through will work and achieve effect. I beg the right hon. Gentleman, and other Members, to be mindful of those people who will be concerned about their jobs and livelihoods, particularly if we can, as I sincerely hope and trust, find a long-term resolution to these issues, as we are determined, working with General Dynamics, to do.