Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of his statement and an advance copy of the White Paper a little earlier, although I believe, Mr Speaker, that the House will share my dismay that so much of the content of the White Paper has been given in advance to the media over the past week, despite your warning to the House and to the Defence Secretary last Monday. Our forces deserve better, as do the public and Parliament.

This defence review could not be more important. Last year we were promised

“the most radical reassessment of”

the UK’s

“place in the world since the end of the Cold War”;

we need just that. The integrated review last week confirmed that

“State threats to the UK, and to our allies, are growing and diversifying”.

In the defence review, the Secretary of State was right to set out that grey zone warfare, terrorism, climate change and organised crime mean that the threats to our national security and international stability are becoming less conventional, less predictable and more continuous.

We need this reassessment, because the last two Conservative defence reviews have weakened the foundations of our armed forces—they cut our full-time armed forces by 45,000, cut the defence budget by £8 billion, and cut critical defence capabilities and upgrades, largely to deal with budget pressures. The Prime Minister promised an end to this era of retreat, and the Defence Secretary pledged that this defence review would be different, yet I fear that it is set to repeat many of the same mistakes. The strength of our armed forces is being cut again; crucial military capabilities are cut again; and there are plans to complete a full overhaul of the Army in 10 years’ time—again. How do the Government square this circle? The threats to Britain are increasing, and our forces will be forward deployed further from home, yet this is a plan for fewer troops, fewer ships and fewer planes over the next few years.

Our armed forces are rightly respected worldwide for their professionalism and all-round excellence, but size matters. Our full-time forces are already nearly 10,000 below the strength that Ministers said in 2015 was needed to meet the threats Britain faces. The Defence Secretary goes further today, confirming that the Army alone will have its established strength cut by 10,000 to just 72,500 over the next four years. How can he argue that these deeper cuts will not limit our forces’ capacity to simultaneously deploy overseas, support allies, maintain strong national defences, and reinforce domestic resilience, as they have done in helping our country through the recent covid crisis? What does he say to the ex-Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, who recently said that further cuts to the Army would mean the UK was no longer taken seriously as a military power, and that this would damage our relationship with the US and our position in NATO? What does the Defence Secretary say to each and every voter who heard the Prime Minister say this at the launch of the Conservatives’ 2019 election campaign:

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

We welcome the plans announced today for cyber, for space, for defence science, for artificial intelligence and for the next generation of fighter jets, but these new technologies may take years to come on stream, so this is a plan for cuts now with a promise of jam tomorrow.

Let me ask the Defence Secretary a series of questions. When will the war fighting division promised in 2015 finally be battle-ready? When will we have enough British F35 jets to fly from our aircraft carriers? Will there be any short-term cuts in anti-submarine warfare capabilities? How will the new Ranger regiment be recruited? Where will it be based, and when will it be fully operational? Will the plans for the combat service support battalions mean any reduction in the number of Army medics? Finally, on funding for single living accommodation, I was not going to raise this, but the Secretary of State said today that, as the Ministry of Defence has told the National Audit Office, the plan is for £1.5 billion over 10 years. However, page 36 of the White Paper says £1.3 billion. Is that a cut, or is it an error?

The finances for the last defence review were a fiction. The MOD’s budget was balanced in 2012, but the NAO has now judged the defence equipment plan “unaffordable” for four years in a row, and it reports a black hole of up to £17 billion. We welcome the Prime Minister’s extra £16.5 billion, but there is a risk that we will be throwing good money after bad. How much of this extra money will be swallowed by the black hole in the current programmes and not used to fund the new ones that the Secretary of State has announced today?

Ministers talk about the rise in capital funding but not the real cut in revenue funding over the next four years. That cut in day-to-day spending is the Achilles heel of defence plans. The Secretary of State should never have agreed it. Will he today spell out the consequences of that real-terms cut in revenue funding for forces recruitment, training, pay and family support?

The MOD’s bad habits run deep. Only three of its 30 major projects, together worth a staggering £162 billion, have a clear green light, and are on time and on budget. It is clear to me that Parliament needs a system of special measures for the MOD. The Secretary of State’s new Office of Net Assessment and Challenge will deal with policy but not money or delivery, so will he commission a special capability review of the MOD, conducted by a top team of internal and external experts, backed by the NAO and reporting to this House?

On nuclear, Labour’s commitment to the renewal of our deterrent is non-negotiable, alongside our multilateral commitment to nuclear disarmament and greater arms control. The Secretary of State made no mention in his statement of reversing 30 years of proud non-proliferation policy in the UK under successive Governments, and the White Paper does not come close to explaining, let alone justifying, this change. Parliament, the public and our allies are owed a much fuller account of this decision from Ministers.

The White Paper also has little to say on the lessons from covid. Pandemic was indeed identified as a tier 1 threat in 2015 and 2018, but no preparation was done, and when the virus hit, less than 1% of our personal protective equipment was sourced in the UK. Full-spectrum society resilience requires training, planning and exercising that must be led by the Government and involve private industry, local agencies and the public. Some countries are ahead of us with such civil-military strategies for the grey zone. Why does the White Paper have nothing to catch Britain up?

Finally, on the principal threats, China is certainly a great and growing power challenge that the US, backed by democratic countries such as Britain, must meet. However, the White Paper rightly confirms that Russia remains Britain’s greatest state threat. Our highest priority must therefore be Europe, the north Atlantic and the High North—our NATO area. While the Prime Minister talks up Britain’s Indo-Pacific focus, how does the Defence Secretary reassure NATO that we are not neglecting the leading role that our alliance countries, including the US, continue to require of Britain?

We want to see this defence review succeed, but there is a growing gulf between the Government’s ambitions and their actions—a gulf that we will challenge hard in the months ahead, and that the Secretary of State has much more to do to close.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

After the Defence Command Paper is announced on Monday, a week today, the defence industrial strategy will be launched the following day, which will give us an opportunity to indicate investments not only in our more traditional industrial base, but in the new and future domains, such as digital, cyber, space and so on. This is incredibly important. Britain is one of the world leaders in both applying our cyber-technology and investing in it, and I predict that the strategy will have something to say about that.

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

May I, on behalf of the official Opposition, offer my tribute to the service of Sergeant Gavin Hillier and say to his family, his friends and his comrades that our condolences are with them?

I certainly welcomed the weekend news that the integrated review will commit the UK to full-spectrum cyber, as the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) has just said, although I strongly feel that announcements of important Government policy such as that should be made in Parliament and not in the press. Is not the wider security lesson from cyber and other grey-zone threats that more civil and military planning, training and exercising is required? Given that some countries are well ahead of us, will the integrated review catch up with the need for full-spectrum society resilience?

[Mr Wallace]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I would take issue with it on one thing, and that is about us catching up. I was the cyber-security Minister—I was the Minister of State for Security—for a considerable period of time. Britain actually led the world both in NATO, where we were the first to offer cyber-offensive capability, but also through our programmes. The national cyber-security programme spent billions on enhancing capability right across not just military, but predominantly the civil sector. The National Cyber Security Centre is a first; there are almost none in Europe.

We are one of the first to have such a centre to be able to advise business, private individuals and the Government how to keep themselves strong and secure. There is always more to do and there are lessons to be learned around the world, but Britain has a lot of innovation and strengths in cyber-security. It is a dangerous world out there in cyber. I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that one of the ways to deliver this is to ensure that we constantly work with our friends and allies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I have listened to my right hon. Friend’s consistent messaging over the last few months. I think the thing that we can all agree with is that, as he said at the weekend,

“we must modernise—but first let’s agree the threat—& then design the right defence posture.”

That is exactly what we have been doing. Obviously, in the Ministry of Defence, we have made sure that we have been doing that in conjunction with our serving personnel, our allies and the threats. I think playing by the Ladybird book of defence design is not the way to progress.

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

Why are Britain’s full-time armed forces still 10,000 short of the numbers that the last defence review, in 2015, said were needed to meet the threats and keep the country safe, which the Defence Secretary’s Government pledged to meet?

[Mr Wallace]

I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman. We are 6,000 under. The strength is 76,500 from the 82,000 that was pledged. He will of course know—it is well documented—that under the previous coalition Government and Conservative Government there was not a satisfactory outcome by the recruiting process. That has now been fixed. Until the covid break, we were on target to fulfil the pipeline and target for that recruiting. We have to make sure we continue to invest in that. That is why we are investing in people. We will continue to invest throughout the process and next week there will be announcements that put people at the heart of our defence review.

[John Healey]

The Secretary of State may want to check the numbers. I was talking about the full-time armed forces, not the full-time Army numbers. He has rightly said before that our forces personnel will go to war alongside robots in the future, but robots do not seize and hold vital ground from the enemy. They do not keep the peace or rebuild broken societies, and they do not give covid jabs. Size matters and no Government can secure the nations with under-strength armed forces. Is it not the truth that over the past decade we have seen our armed forces run down—numbers down, pay down, morale down—and that all the indication from stories ahead of tomorrow’s integrated review is that Ministers are set to make the same mistakes as in the last reviews, with our servicemen and women paying the price for cuts and bad defence budgeting?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget that for the past three or four decades we have had that characteristic, where Government after Government have been over-ambitious and underfunded the defence policy. His Government did it. The Governments before mine have done the same things. I only have to point him, as I do during at every defence questions, to the National Audit Office report into the processes of his Government in 2010 and our previous Governments to show that the biggest problem is that we have been promising soldiers, men and women of the armed forces equipment they never got, or numbers gains when just tying them up alongside. That is not the way to confront an enemy. The way to confront the enemy is to invest in the people, give them the right equipment to take on the threat, and make sure they are active, busy and forward. As a soldier, being active, busy and forward is what keeps you engaged and in there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

I have received a large number of parliamentary questions from the right hon. Gentleman, and I believe that I have answered that question as part of them. If not, I will make certain that it is clear to him. It is 15% by value, and we are proud of the contribution that is being made by UK manufacturing to the F-35. I will make certain that that is covered again.

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The ministerial code is clear that

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament.”

I know that you believe this principle to be fundamental to the proper role of Parliament and the accountability of Ministers. We look forward to the Prime Minister’s statement tomorrow on the integrated review, yet over the last week there have been a series of detailed media briefings about decisions in that integrated review. With the Defence Secretary in his place, can you offer guidance to the House, ahead of the follow-up Command Paper on Monday and the defence industrial strategy on Tuesday, so that we do not have the same serious disregard of the ministerial code and disrespect for Parliament?

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We have indeed seen a steady drumbeat of media stories promoting radical changes to our defence posture, but the Defence Committee has not received any of those briefings, despite frequent departmental requests. What troubles me the most is the MOD’s decision to share with the media the desire to increase our nuclear stockpile with the purchase of 200 W93 US-made warheads. I am a firm supporter of continuous at-sea deterrence, but changes to our non-proliferation policy deserve proper oversight in this House and should not be used a sweetener to overshadow dramatic cuts to our conventional defence posture. May I ask for your guidance on how we can encourage the MOD to brief the Defence Committee—perhaps in the Ladybird book form that the Defence Secretary likes to promote—and to ensure that any announcements on CASD are made in this Chamber first?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I can certainly confirm that I recognise that many of the benefits of naval procurement are seen in the supply chain; General Electric and other systems providers play a hugely important role as part of the UK’s shipbuilding enterprise. I am committed to maximising the benefits to UK industry in all our defence procurement, within the regulations.

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

The extra funding is welcome and promises an overdue upgrade of Britain’s defence and defence industry. The Secretary of State talks about the rise in capital funding but not the real cut in revenue funding over the next four years. This year’s defence equipment budget is £16.4 billion, of which over half is revenue-based equipment support. How on earth has he agreed to this cut, and how is he going to meet the future threats to this country and fix the black hole in the budget by cutting day-to-day defence spending?

[Mr Wallace]

It is great hearing the right hon. Gentleman trying to turn a £16 billion or a £24 billion increase in defence spending into a cut and finding any way, across the budget, to get in the word “cut” so that no doubt at the next election he can claim that somehow we have cut defence spending despite the £24 billion increase over the next four years. We are planning to spend £186 billion on equipment and support between 2018 and 2028. Of course we have to balance revenue spending and capital spending in terms of the resource departmental expenditure limit throughout the process. The reason our Army and our armed forces are different in size from what they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago is defined not just by the threat but by the equipment we have available. The proportion of our RAF that is unmanned, which will grow, of course means fewer people flying aeroplanes. That is the nature of things. If one looks at the US air force, one will see that pattern over the past 15 to 20 years.

It will be quite easy and perfectly straightforward to try to find the right balance, as long as we are defined by the threat and the ambition we need to meet. Some of the money that we have received—the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—is not going to buy new shiny toys in some areas; it is about fixing some of the current problems in infrastructure and so on to ensure that we are more efficient and more productive.

[John Healey]

I appreciate the Defence Secretary wanting to downplay the real difficulties he faces, but we were told by his predecessor in 2012 that the black hole has

“been eliminated and the budget is now in balance”,—[Official Report, 14 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 262.]

yet less than a decade later the National Audit Office says that for the fourth year running the equipment plan is unaffordable and the black hole is as high as £17 billion. On the integrated review, where he promises answers to these difficult questions, may I urge him not to repeat the mistakes of past Conservative defence reviews by trying to balance the books off the back of forces personnel, industry investment and equipment support?

[Mr Wallace]

Since taking my post as Defence Secretary I have been absolutely determined to ensure that the figures that both we and the Treasury use are absolutely of the highest quality and transparency.

If the right hon. Gentleman reflects on the NAO’s 1998 report, he will see the same systematic problems in the management of the defence budget: phantom efficiency savings that turned out to have already been spent by other people have been a significant problem in defence for 20 to 30 years. It is not just a governing party problem. All of that has meant that when we publicise the integrated review, we will start from a baseline where we can all be transparent about our figures and trust the figures we are putting before it. I will not indulge in fantasy savings or phantom programmes. I will not allow the services to procure equipment that has a balloon payment at the end, in 10 or 20 years’ time, when it becomes somebody else’s problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I apologise to my hon. Friend for jumping the gun, so to speak. The IRGC and its activities in the region are destabilising. That is why the United Kingdom is investing, along with its allies and NATO, in keeping places such as Iraq stable and secure. We ask the IRGC and the Iranian Government to desist from that activity, and to return to the table on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action now that we have a new US Administration. Let us try to resolve the nuclear issue and return to some stability.

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

The Secretary of State mentions nuclear proliferation in relation to Iran, but I am disappointed that he makes no mention of New START—strategic arms reduction treaty—which President Biden rescued last week, particularly as Britain is a beneficiary of the stability that it brings to Europe. He made no mention of New START when it collapsed with President Trump last year. He was also silent when the US pulled out of the 34-nation open skies treaty, so why has Britain become a bystander while the international rules-based order has been breaking down? While it remains essential to maintain our UK nuclear deterrent, will he also use the integrated review to reboot Britain’s commitment to help forge the next generation of necessary arms controls and security agreements?

[Mr Speaker]

May I just remind Front Benchers that topicals are meant to be short and punchy so that we get through the list?

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement and I welcome this direct update to the House. This is a chance for us all to thank and pay tribute to the 5,000 forces personnel, both regulars and reservists, who are currently providing covid assistance, and to the leadership from Standing Joint Command under Lieutenant General Urch. The Labour leader and I saw at first hand in November the professionalism and commitment that the team at Aldershot bring to this task. The public also welcome the important contribution our armed forces are making to help the country through the continuing covid crisis, from troops on the frontline building Nightingale hospitals, community testing or driving ambulances and tankers, to the planners, analysts and scientists behind the scenes. The military is an essential element of our British national resilience, and people can see this more clearly now than perhaps at any time since the end of national service. I trust that this will reinforce public support for our armed forces and help to redefine a closer relationship between the military and civilian society.

However, I detect a sense of frustration from the Secretary of State in his statement. The Government have been too slow to act at every stage of the pandemic, and too slow to make the fullest use of the armed forces, as I and others on both sides of the House have argued since the summer. During the first lockdown, the covid support force was 20,000 strong, yet fewer than 4,000 were deployed. The winter support force numbers 14,000, yet now, even with what the Secretary of State calls

“the most significant domestic operation in peacetime”,

just 5,000 are being used, with only 56 military aid requests currently in place. How many of the 14,000 troops does the Secretary of State expect to be deployed by the end of the month, as we confront the gravest period of this pandemic to date?

On vaccinations, it is very welcome that from this week the armed forces are finally being used to help deliver the nation’s No. 1 priority, the national vaccination programme. The Secretary of State has said that 250 teams of medical personnel are on stand-by, and yet only one in 10 is set to be posted this week to the seven NHS regions in England. When will they all be deployed and working to get vaccines into people’s arms? We in Labour are proud that Britain was the first country in the world to get the vaccine, and we want Britain to be the first to complete the vaccinations. We want the Government to succeed. Does the Secretary of State accept that military medical teams can do much more to help?

On testing, we also welcome the work being done across the UK to reinforce community testing, from Kirklees to Kent and in the devolved Administrations. Fifteen hundred personnel had also been provided to support schools with covid testing. Now that schools have moved to online teaching, what changes are being made to those plans? When infection rates come down, testing will again be vital to control the virus. Yet the £22 billion NHS track and trace service is still failing to do the necessary job. There is no military aid agreement in place for Test and Trace, so may I suggest that the Secretary of State offers military help to get the outfit sorted out?

Finally, I turn to service personnel themselves. MOD figures confirm that the average number of tests for defence personnel since April has been just 1,900 a week. With 5,000 troops now deployed on covid tasks in the UK and more on essential operations or training overseas, what system is in place to ensure that those personnel are tested regularly, and what plans does the Secretary of State have to ensure that they are also properly vaccinated?

The challenge of covid to this country is unprecedented. Yesterday, the chief medical officer said that we are

“facing the most dangerous situation anyone can remember”,

so, if the Secretary of State seeks to expand the role of the military in defeating this virus, he should know that he will have our full support.

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. First, on the issue of military willingness to engage, he knows we are of course incredibly keen and eager to offer whatever assistance we can. I will address his questions on the range of those subjects one by one.

One of the reasons why we invest in people as planners in the heart of Departments and local government is to ensure that we shape that ask as it develops and to ensure that we are dealing in the art of the possible, as well as with realistic deployment requests. Sometimes we get initial requests for thousands of people, but once we scale it down and work through what is required, it ends up being a couple of hundred.

That has been partly because some of the Departments or local authorities are not used to MACA. Funnily enough, Departments used to using MACAs, as indeed local government or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government would be—local authorities that have had significant flooding in their time—will be used to that relationship, but for others this is a new experience.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the scale between the designated force and the force actually used. He is right to say that 20,000 were earmarked for the covid response at the beginning and that 4,000 to 5,000 were deployed. That was at any one time. As he knows, our forces work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so we rotate many of those personnel through. Right now, 5,000 might be deployed at any one time, but people will be earmarked to become much more ready—in a higher state of readiness.

To be at 24-hour readiness, or ready within a few hours, places a huge demand on anyone—in effect, to be sitting in your house or barracks waiting to be deployed—so we rotate the forces through the different readiness stages. One stage might be to be ready to move in 24 hours, one might be with three days’ notice or one might be with one week’s notice. Those different readiness stages mean that they can either get on and do their day job, or basically just stand and wait. Therefore, of a force of about 14,000 who are currently earmarked, yes, we have 5,000 today, but I suspect that by the time we have got through this phase—if all demands remain the same—somewhere between 10,000 to 12,000 of those 14,000 personnel will have been used at some stage on the covid response. The 5,000 who are on today will come off, get a period of rest and build-up time with their families, and then come back again. The force has a fixed amount in terms of where we draw the different readinesses, but the deployments are drawn through that process. Of course, all armed forces personnel are able—“available” would probably the wrong word—to help the Government in their resilience and defence; that is obviously the purpose of their job.

We have over 100 people in the planning process for the vaccination roll-out across the whole United Kingdom: in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. We also currently have 21 quick reaction vaccination teams, who are usually staffed by a doctor, some combat medics and nurses. Their job, in a team of six, is to deploy as required. We are holding 229 teams in reserve, should we wish to deploy all 250. The limiting factors at the moment will be the delivery schedule and timetable of the vaccines themselves; of course I could deploy 100,000 soldiers tomorrow, ready to vaccinate, but if the stock is not there, we would be better off deploying them in other ways.

The Government are very keen, and the Prime Minister is determined, to ensure that we match the pace of stock delivery with the pace of delivery into people’s arms—the jabbing. We are very clear that we can do more to assist. The Prime Minister knows that and has indicated that we will be called on as the NHS requires, but we should not forget that the NHS is also recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers, former clinicians and former nurses who are able to do the vaccinations; it is not a purely military response.

In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question on testing and tracing, we have had a one-star within the organisation of test and trace from very early on. We originally earmarked 1,500 personnel for schools testing. We have reduced that down to about 800, who stand by to help not only where needed in the schools that are currently taking key workers’ children, but also with talking to people, through webinars and other remote methods, about how to administer lateral flow tests. We stand ready to do more if required. We have scaled the number of personnel down slightly simply because of the school closures, but we stand ready to increase that number if required.

Let me turn to the personnel themselves. When they deploy on a MACA task, such as the 800 personnel deployed to Manchester, they will be tested before they go and throughout the process. They will abide by whatever the current NHS guidelines are: if they feel ill, they should get a test; and if we feel that they are going in front of people who are vulnerable, we will also take steps to test them. If people test positive, they are very quickly isolated. I can get the latest figures for the House, if that helps. The lateral flow tests have opened up a huge amount of much more easily accessible testing to do that.

I am grateful for the right hon. Member’s support of our Defence. I assure him that both the Prime Minister and I are determined to lean into this problem, and to maximise our efforts wherever we can. Wherever we see an opportunity, instead of waiting for an argument about who does what, we offer to do it. That is why only recently the House will have seen us fly out those vaccines to Gibraltar. We put them on a plane, get them out there and get it done. We can have all the arguments we want after the fact; let us get on with it. We are all—I know this includes the loyal Opposition—united in working to help deliver this. Defence is doing its bit, but we should not forget that it is doing its bit alongside the amazing people of the NHS, who are on the frontline in their tens of thousands, day in, day out.

UN Mission in Mali: Armed Forces Deployment

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It was good to have the written statement last Thursday, as troops began to arrive in Mali; it is better still to have his oral statement today, with the Minister ready to answer the range of questions that arise from this new deployment.

Let me say at the outset, as I said to the House on Monday, that Labour strongly supports this commitment of UK troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, and we do so with our eyes wide open to the risks they face. The public expect Ministers to be open about this too, so I hope the Minister will undertake to give regular reports on progress to Parliament during this deployment.

The Minister rightly said today that deploying “to MINUSMA does not come without risk.” The UN has described this as its most dangerous mission, with 227 personnel killed since 2013, so what assessment has he made of these risks and what specific steps have been taken to reduce them? Last week the French base in Mali at Gao was attacked; where will our troops be stationed and how secure will the British base be?

The Defence Secretary has told us:

“This deployment reflects our continued commitment to multilateralism and international peace and security”.—[Official Report, 3 December 2020; Vol. 685, c. 14W.]

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Britain does have this special responsibility, which we in Labour also take seriously; too often, however, there has been a view that, somehow, peacekeeping is beneath Britain, so I hope to see confirmation in the integrated review that this has changed as part of the Government’s plans for a post-Brexit global Britain.

Certainly, as with Mali, where Britain has special military skills we should step up, and the Light Dragoons and the Royal Anglian Regiment are filling a capability gap in Mali as long-range reconnaissance specialists. Since the Government first announced the intention to deploy these troops in July 2019, however, Mali has become more complex, less stable, more violent. This deployment is rightly limited; what measures must be met for the Government to judge it a success, are there circumstances in which the Government would widen the scope or increase the size of this UK military mission, and could troops in this UN deployment also serve in the distinct and complementary French-led Barkhane mission?

The Government have said that

“it is stepping up its engagement in the Sahel across the development, diplomacy and defence pillars”.

The Minister says that there is, rightly, very significant development interest in Mali, with 6.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. There are also significant security concerns, with drugs cartels, arms traffickers, and al-Qaeda and Islamic State terror groups all active in the region. When co-ordinated action and help are clearly needed, the deep cuts made in the spending review to the conflict, stability and security fund could not have come at a worse time for the Sahel. Will the costs of this Mali deployment be met from that fund? How much in development aid is planned for Mali and the other Sahel countries over the three-year period of this military deployment, and how are Britain’s development, diplomatic and defence activities being co-ordinated within Government?

Finally, Britain’s responsibilities as a leading UN member are being met with this Mali mission, alongside our continuing commitment to peacekeeping operations in eight other countries around the world. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel who serve in these missions. They will, as the Minister says, continue to make the UK proud.

[James Heappey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his positive response to the statement. As we were saying in the Remembrance Day debate a few weeks ago, as people deploy on missions such as this it matters enormously to see support on both sides of the House for what they are going out to do. He rightly asked some questions that I will do my best to answer, starting with, of course, an intent to regularly update the House either verbally—although that met with no support from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—or otherwise on the progress of the mission and the threat as it evolves.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to pick up on the line in my statement that says that this mission is not without risk. This is a dangerous part of the world in which to be operating. It is because it is such a dangerous part of the world that the case for being there as part of a peacekeeping force is so easily made. We should be clear that, despite all the training, all the equipment and all the mitigations that we will put in place—I will explain some of those in a second—our troops are accepting a risk to life and limb in serving in the Sahel, and we thank them for that. We genuinely believe that it is in the interests of the UK and the people of Mali that we contribute to that mission.

We have recognised that in previous deployments perhaps there has been a gung-ho willingness to expand the mission quickly and get on with things without fully understanding the realities of the threat on the ground and how that manifests itself in relation to military operations. In this first rotation—the first six months—we will be expecting the Light Dragoons battle group to deploy and to find its way in the immediate vicinity of Gao, the city in which the UN camp where they will be based is. If, over time, we come to understand that they can operate at range, we will consider that on its merits, depending on the mission design from the UN force commander. Our intention is to find our way slowly, to build our confidence and our understanding, and then to grow the mission, within the confines of MINUSMA. It is important to stress that there is no UK agency in being able just to decide what we do; we are under the command of the UN force commander.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the camp. It is a brand-new camp, and it is indeed in the UN super-camp at Gao. That camp is protected by a German early warning system called MANTIS—the modular, automatic and network capable targeting and interception system—which picks up the IDF, or indirect fire attack, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his reply. That allows people in the camp to take cover and adopt all of their drills when there is incoming indirect fire. Sadly, as a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, I know that that is just the reality of being in camps in those places, but these early warning systems give people great confidence that they can find cover before the rounds start landing.

This is, indeed, a complex mission. The UN’s mission is made all the more challenging as a consequence of the changing political tides in Mali—there was a coup only four months ago—and that means that the military mission, as designed by the UN force commander, and the political mission have some work to do to evolve and to react to those new political realities in Mali, hence our caution over the speed at which we unleashed the Light Dragoons on their mission. We want to see how things develop, and we will update the right hon. Gentleman and colleagues as that happens.

There is no scope to widen the size of our force; we are limited by what the UN requires of us. There is also no scope for us to decide unilaterally, as the United Kingdom, that we want to do more; we are within the UN’s mission. MINUSMA and Operation Barkhane are entirely separate; there is no opportunity to flex one from the other, as to do so would be to break the rules on UN peacekeeping contingents. In any case, the missions are so different; Barkhane is a more offensive, counter-terrorism operation, chasing both JNIM—Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin—and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara around not only Mali, but Burkina Faso and Niger. MINUSMA is a Mali-only peacekeeping operation led by the UN.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked me about funding. We are talking about £80 million over three years, which is indeed funded by the conflict, stability and security fund. It will matter enormously to people deploying on this operation to see the tone of these exchanges. Our intention is to keep the House informed as best as we can. This is a dangerous mission, but our people are well-trained and well-equipped. They are ready and they are up for it, and I wish them a good tour.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman asks a valid question about the timing of the integrated review, and there will be an integrated review at the beginning of next year. The defence announcement was a building block as part of that review, and it will obviously work towards the overall posture of global Britain when it is announced in the new year.

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

The extra funding was a welcome promise to upgrade Britain’s defences after nearly a decade of decline, so it is long overdue. The capital announcement is one thing, but what is the real-terms revenue funding for defence over the next four years?

[Mr Wallace]

Over the next four years, £188 billion will be spent on defence. Some £126 billion of that will be set for resource spending, while £62 billion will be for capital spending.

[John Healey]

I asked the Secretary of State about resource funding, and he has to face that question. The answer is on page 67 of the Chancellor’s spending review report, which shows a 2.3% real cut in resource funding through to 2024-25. That means less money for forces’ recruitment, training, pay, pensions and family support, at a time when our armed forces are already 12,000 below strength after the last review. That could mean new ships, but no sailors. Will the Secretary of State recognise that hi-tech weapons systems are essential for the future, but highly trained service personnel are indispensable? May I urge him not to repeat the mistakes of past Conservative reviews, and instead to put forces personnel at the heart of the current integrated review?

[Mr Wallace]

I know the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in Mr Brown’s Government, who did not have the greatest reputation for financial accuracy. Although we can agree on the spending profile, his interpretation of the rates of inflation and alleged real-term cuts is not something that we recognise. On the “decade of decline”, as he calls it, I thought that before coming to the House I would read the National Audit Office “Major Projects Report 2010”, into the Government in which he was Minister of State, and the spending on defence. That report highlights that in one year up to 2009, the Government overspent by £3 billion. That is where the black hole that amounts to £38 billion came from, so before he throws stones in glass houses about managing defence budgets, he should be very careful.

Perhaps I could be very clear about how we went about getting to this settlement. We started, as I have said repeatedly in the House, with the threat and what we need to meet the threat and to fight tomorrow’s battles, not the last. We then took that request to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, had a discussion, and it resulted in the record settlement that Members see before the House today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I had better not cross that, then. My hon. Friend has rightly championed the Army Foundation College, which was assessed as outstanding during its most recent Ofsted inspection. The college is just one part of the training and education that make our armed forces admired across the world. We expect it to continue to play that role as we modernise the armed forces and train the skilled persons we need to meet future threats.

As we approach and prepare for Christmas, I would like to place on record that not only the young men and women training in the Army Foundation College and the other depots across the United Kingdom, but the men and women operating above the sea, below the sea, in Iraq, Afghanistan and right across the world will be standing guard and looking after our values and interests and allies while many of us are getting time off at home. I think this is the last Defence questions before our Christmas session, and, on behalf of my Department and my Ministers, I would like to pay tribute to them.

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

I reinforce that tribute to our armed forces, who will be serving throughout the Christmas and new year period. I welcome the report that the Secretary of State says he has had placed in the Library this afternoon, and his apology. I also welcomed his written statement last week after troops had begun to arrive in Mali, because on the Opposition side we strongly support the deployment of our forces to support the United Nations mission in Mali; I simply believe that any Secretary of State should report directly to, and answer questions in, this House before committing British forces to conflict zones.

I ask the Secretary of State now, if I may, to report to the House on another matter that for many is at the heart of forces life and aspirations: why is the forces Help to Buy scheme now helping fewer forces families than when it was launched six years ago? What action is he taking to fix the failings of this scheme, so that those who serve are not denied the same dream of home ownership as everyone else?

[Mr Wallace]

I would be troubled if fewer were being helped by it. That is not our intention and, indeed, one of the early things I did when I took this office was to extend the Help to Buy scheme, because it is a thoroughly worthwhile scheme. I will be delighted to look into the matter and present to the right hon. Gentleman why the numbers have dropped and what we can do to increase them.

Remembrance, UK Armed Forces and Society

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have to say that it is an honour to follow the Minister and his moving speech this afternoon, and I pay tribute to him for his four tours of duty and his decade of service in the Rifles, just as I pay tribute to the service that other hon. Members in all parts of this House have given to our armed forces. Parliament is all the better for Members who have committed service in the forces, and this House is also all the better for the service of Members who are committed to the forces. I look forward to the contributions to this afternoon’s debate of many of those hon. Members who are on the long call list.

As we did this morning in this Chamber, this is indeed the moment we commemorate the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when hostilities ceased in 1918. It is the focus of our national remembrance each year: the moment the nation comes together to honour those who have served, those who have fought to keep us safe, and above all, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives so that the rest of us may continue to enjoy the freedoms we do today. The Minister put it far more eloquently than many of the rest of us can, but the men and women who wear a British military uniform make a unique commitment to, if needed, put themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us. I want this day’s debate to recall not just the lives of those lost in the two world wars, but those of the 7,190 UK service personnel who have died in operations since 1945.

I was reminded of this on Sunday, when I, like the Minister, was proud to lay a wreath alongside the president of our local British Legion branch in Rotherham. His name is Ron Moffett; he served for more than 20 years in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and he talked to me of comrades he had lost in Northern Ireland, in the Falklands, in Afghanistan, and in Germany in training. I want my relatively brief remarks in this debate to concentrate on the ordinary servicemen and women: on their extraordinary sense of duty, and on our duty, in turn, to them.

The Minister was right to say that remembrance has a particular poignancy this year. During 2020, we have marked 75 years since the end of the second world war—VE Day and VJ Day—and 80 years since the battle of Britain, and we have all been forced to find new ways to remember: ways that are perhaps more private, but no less important and no less personal. This year, we have also seen the hallmark values that have been there in generations of our forces personnel come to the fore again, as our troops have stood alongside frontline workers in the fight against the covid virus. I have said to the Defence Secretary that during this new national lockdown in England and the national vaccination challenge ahead, if the Government are willing to make further use of our forces in this fight, they will have our full support and strong backing from the public. The system that we have of military assistance to civil authorities is sound. It has been used 341 times for covid help since mid-March and 41 agreements are still in place, but people want to know now what the plan is. They have a right to know, and they also have a right to regular ministerial reporting on such decisions. I say to the Minister that I hope he and his colleagues will do this, because it will also help better understanding and better support for our military.

The Chief of the Defence Staff was right when he said recently that this should worry us all. He said that the level of understanding about our armed forces is at “an unprecedented low.” That is borne out by research that the British Forces Broadcasting Service published in June, which confirmed that 68% of the population do not know what the military actually do when they are not in combat. One third had no idea that our military play a part in thwarting terrorism or dealing with the aftermath of floods, and 53% believe that they use battle tanks to get around on a daily basis.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Sounds good to me.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is harking back to the days when perhaps he did use battle tanks on a daily basis, but I think we are a little short of tanks to go round these days.

On a serious point, the number of veterans in society is set to fall by a third during this decade. It is clear to me that we must do more at all levels to reinforce our country’s understanding of and commitment to our armed forces.

On cadets, community cadet numbers have been falling and we cannot just rely on private schools. We can do more to reinvest in more community cadet forces. We now rely more on the professional expertise and skills of reservists, but the numbers are still below target, and we can do more to make recruitment better and employer support stronger.

On resilience, the covid pandemic has demonstrated that national resilience is an important part of national defence, and we can do more to strengthen Britain’s total deterrence, with large-scale joint civil, corporate and military exercises. On veterans, the Office for Veterans’ Affairs was a welcome step last year, but we can do more to make the UK the best place to be a veteran by enshrining the armed forces covenant in law. I say constructively and respectfully to the Minister that if the Government are willing to take those steps, they will have our full support to do so.

In this debate, we rightly celebrate the national pride we have in our military personnel, full-time and reservist. They are respected around the world for their professionalism and their all-round excellence, but I say again constructively and respectfully that if Ministers talk up our armed forces, they must also account for the declines there have been in the past decade or two. Since 2010, our full-time forces numbers are down by 40,000. Our military has never been smaller since we fought Napoleon 200 years ago. Forces pay is down, forces recruitment is down and forces morale is down. One in four military personnel now say they plan to quit before the end of their contract.

In 2015, the strategic defence review, in 89 pages, devoted just one and a half pages to personnel. Just like the 2010 defence review, it was largely a cover for cuts, which is why our armed forces are nearly 12,000 short of the strength promised in that 2015 review. It is why essential equipment, from new tanks to the radar system to protect our new aircraft carriers, is long overdue, and it is why our defence budget has a £13 billion black hole.

The Defence Secretary has rightly said that previous reviews

“failed because they were never in step with the spending plans”.—[Official Report, 6 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 647.]

Both sides of the House recognise that the Chancellor cut the ground from under the Defence Secretary when he postponed this year’s comprehensive spending review, but we also know that our adversaries will not pause. They confront us with continuous and constantly developing threats that no longer conform to any distinction between peace and war and are no longer confined to the land, sea and air domains of conventional warfare. So the Government’s integrated review is needed now more than ever.

As we move, as the Defence Secretary has put it, from “industrial age” to “information age” warfare, we must never neglect one fact: at the heart of our defence and security remain our forces personnel. Autonomous weapons, artificial intelligence and robotics will all become more and more widespread in the years ahead, but the essential utility of the men and women of our armed forces will remain central. Whether it is the frontline forces personnel doing city-wide covid testing in Liverpool or the special forces who took back control of the Nave Andromeda in the English channel last month, these are only the most recent reminders that although high-tech systems are essential, our highly trained British troops are indispensable. When the Chief of the Defence Staff launched our important new military doctrine, the military integrated operating concept, in September, he stressed that it

“emphasises the importance of our people—who have always been, and always will be, our adaptive edge.”

We honour them and we remember them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind)]

Because we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of world war two, I shall concentrate entirely on that conflict. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you are quietly but rightly proud of your father’s brave record of fighting in the second world war, but as the years and decades go by, fewer and fewer people have that sort of direct personal knowledge. In the limited time available, I would like to take one brief example from each year of the second world war, to try to humanise the picture a little bit for those who do not have the sort of personal connection that I just described.

Let us take, for example, November 1939. A converted passenger liner, HMS Rawalpindi, found herself trapped by two of the largest and most deadly ships in the German navy: the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. The captain of HMS Rawalpindi was Captain Edward Kennedy, who was 60 years old. He had come out of retirement after his service in the first world war and between the wars to re-enlist. Rather than surrender, he took on those two deadly ships, and the Rawalpindi, as was entirely predictable, went down with all flags flying and with few survivors. I am going to develop that theme, which is that many of these events are not necessarily successful, but that does not mean that they are not ultimately setting standards for inspiring their fellow service personnel, their comrades and future generations. They certainly inspired me.

We move forward from Captain Kennedy—who, incidentally, was father of the late Sir Ludovic Kennedy—to November 1940. In 1940, another converted passenger liner, HMS Jervis Bay, was escorting a convoy of nearly 40 ships. The Jervis Bay found herself standing between that convoy and the German pocket battleship the Admiral Scheer. The convoy was instructed to scatter, and Captain Fogarty Fegen, who was the commander of the Jervis Bay, steamed towards certain death and destruction and saved three quarters of the ships in that convoy. There was a time when the names “Rawalpindi” and “Jervis Bay” were known throughout the land, and it is important that we periodically remind ourselves of these inspirational examples where people sacrificed themselves doing the right thing, even though they knew they had little or no chance of survival.

On a happier note, we turn to May 1941, when HMS Bulldog is a member of a flotilla of anti-submarine escorts that bring to the surface the U-110. My late friend, the then 20-year-old Sub-Lieutenant David Balme, heads up a rowing boat of half a dozen sailors. They get on board the U-110 submarine, which has been forced to the surface. They go down, not knowing whether the submarine will blow up from scuttling charges or whether there are people waiting armed at the foot of the conning tower ladder as they climb down, unable to defend themselves. They recover the Enigma machine and the code books and thus make a vital contribution to the winning of the battle of the Atlantic.

Then we come back to the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. It is February 1942, and half a dozen clapped-out, obsolete Swordfish biplanes take on the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau as they sail up the English channel with enormous air cover. Of those six biplanes, all six were shot down. Five of the aircrew survived the operation and four survived the war, and one of them later became my friend: Pat Kingsmill DSO. He is typical of these people who did courageous acts that were on everyone’s lips at the time, but then went on to live quiet lives—in the case of Pat Kingsmill, as an administrator in the NHS for many years.

[John Healey]

I suspect that, like me, the whole House is enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s year-by-year exposition of the second world war. I wonder whether he would accept another minute as a result of my intervention.

[Dr Lewis]

That is extraordinarily generous, but quite typical of the right hon. Gentleman.

We come to September 1943, and three midget submarines attack the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord. Godfrey Place, the captain of the X7, escapes from his sinking submarine, and later becomes admiral in charge of reserves. Although he was a very important figure in the Royal Navy, he still had time to meet somebody like me—a schoolboy in Swansea, when he was there on a visit—and to autograph a book about submarine escape. These little gestures from truly great men inspire young people.

We come to the last two. The airborne assault at Arnhem in September 1944 was another disaster. But Tony Hibbert MC, who later became a friend of mine through my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), went on to work throughout many years, trying to argue for civil defence and protection for this country.

Finally, Operation Meridian—the raids on the oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra—happened in January 1945. Norman Richardson—again, a friend of mine, who sadly passed away—was commemorated on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in the special edition of obituaries in The Daily Telegraph. He was a telegraphist air gunner. These were people who flew on a raid in January, when people in Sumatra were not expecting it, but they did not knock out all the oil refineries so they went back a few days later, when everyone was expecting them, and they did it again. They were shot down, but three quarters of Japan’s oil refining capability was lost to the Japanese war effort.

We remember them all.

Armed Forces: Covid-19 Deployment

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), I want to put on record our thanks to our armed forces for what they are doing during this pandemic. Personally, I appreciate it.

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the deployment of the armed forces to assist civilian authorities in dealing with the continuing covid pandemic.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) for his urgent question and for the opportunity to highlight the vital role of the armed forces in responding to the pandemic.

The Secretary of State was pleased to commit to updating colleagues about the latest developments on covid support by placing regular updates in the House of Commons Library, the first of which will be delivered today. I am also pleased that the shadow Secretary of State will be visiting Standing Joint Command later this week to meet in person the senior military leadership delivering the support across the country.

The armed forces are renowned for their planning skills, technical capabilities and ability to provide rapid and effective deployed response. They are being put to good use yet again. At all times they are acting in support of, and at the request of, the civil authorities from every part of the United Kingdom. So far this year the Ministry of Defence has received 420 MACA—military aid to the civil authorities—requests, 341 of which have been covid-related. The armed forces have provided enormous support while themselves taking all appropriate covid precautions and while maintaining our critical defence outputs, ensuring that at all times they are protecting our country, our interests and our friends.

Our present support for the Government’s preparation for the winter period, including the covid-19 response, is one of Defence’s highest priorities. Defence has established a winter support force of approximately 7,500 deployable personnel, in addition to the many defence medics already embedded in the NHS and the support, when called upon, of our defence scientists in the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Defence is currently supporting 41 MACA tasks, including assistance to the whole-town testing pilot in Liverpool and the Birmingham City Council drop and collect scheme. Personnel have previously supported activities from the Nightingale facility construction, vaccine planning, personal protective equipment distribution and the staffing of testing centres. They remain ready to undertake further tasks.

Defence has made thorough preparations to contribute as requested to civil authorities’ responses through the MACA system and will keep the force elements held in readiness to do so under constant review, adjusting the capabilities provided to meet demand. The nation can be reassured, especially in this week of remembrance, that Defence stands ready, as ever, to support whenever, wherever and however required, and will continue to do so, for as long as is necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

Last Monday, ahead of the new national lockdown in England, I said to the Defence Secretary:

“If he is willing to make further use of the forces this time, this House and the public will back him.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 7.]

The Minister has said 341 MACA requests for help have been in place since mid-March. People want to know now what the plan is; they have a right to know and they have a right to regular ministerial reporting of such decisions, which would also help to build better public understanding and support for our military.

From Friday, 2,000 troops have been deployed to Liverpool, which is double the number we have posted in Afghanistan. Mayor Joe Anderson told me last night that they are delighted to have them, for their sheer numbers and their logistical expertise. He said they had set up 17 centres and had done 23,170 tests in just 72 hours. Is the MOD willing to agree similar MACA support for other local authority areas?

The city-wide testing, of course, is to find people with covid who are infectious, but asymptomatic, and then to ensure that they isolate and do not infect others. That requires regular, routine and continual testing. How sustainable is that deployment? When will the 2,000 troops start to be withdrawn? How scalable is the deployment? Which other cities and towns will also benefit?

The Minister said that 7,500 troops are already on stand-by as part of what he called the winter support force. Our adversaries will watch the extent to which our forces are focused on covid. Will the Minister therefore confirm that it has had no impact so far on forces’ training, standing commitments or capabilities to respond to conflicts and threats?

Finally, the Government have raised the whole country’s hopes with the news of the Pfizer vaccine, but it is vaccinations, not vaccines, that will protect people from the virus. Getting the vaccine to the point of vaccination requires storing and transporting it at -70°C. How is the military involved in planning for nationwide vaccination? Will the military be involved in its delivery? How soon will it start?

If the Government do now make more use of our armed forces to help fight covid, that will be widely welcomed.

[Jeremy Quin]

I very much welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s warm words of support for the wider tasks of the armed forces. I absolutely assure him and the House that all essential Defence tasks continue to operate, with the great professionalism and resolve of our armed forces, be that the continuous at-sea deterrence or quick reaction alert or our army deployments around the world. Clearly, we have had to take precautions; we have had to keep our troops safe and have had to ensure that they continue to operate. Those precautions have been put in place, but they have continued to meet the needs. Early on, we had to pause training. That has now gathered momentum again and I am pleased to say that we are seeing an increase in the number of people applying to join our armed forces, which is, I think, inspired by the work that they are doing in all our communities.

The right hon. Gentleman raised other points. What is the plan? We stand ready to support other parts of the Government. We work in partnership with other parts of the Government. As the Department of Health and Social Care and the devolved Governments require our support, we are there to provide and assist.

I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman spoke to the Mayor of Liverpool yesterday. I hear constantly of the great work between Liverpool City Council, the local NHS and our forces who are assisting them in this process. I think the pilot is now at 18 test centres, with a large number continuing to be supplied as we work with the city council. However, it is a pilot, and we need to see what we can learn from it and test its effectiveness, which has been so far, so good. It is scalable, and as part of this programme we are talking to civilian agencies, the council and the NHS about how others can step in. Often, as in the case of the mobile testing units, the armed forces lead the way, but others may well come through if the Department of Health and Social Care and others believe that this should be deployed more widely across the country.

Draft Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 General Committees

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

Thank you, Sir David. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is some time since I have had that pleasure, but it is a pleasure nevertheless.

I thank the Minister for his technical explanation of this technical set of regulations, and I welcome the level of interest on the Government Benches. As he knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) has been working from home since March, otherwise he might have been in his place as the shadow Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) is one of the few people who seems to have been traced by the Government’s system to deal with the covid virus; he has been advised to isolate for the next two weeks, but is keeping very well. Of course, I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate is here to support me.

The statutory instrument is indeed a largely technical set of propositions which ensure that the procurement provisions of both the withdrawal agreement and the European economic area and European Free Trade Association separation agreement are properly transposed into UK legislation, and correctly applied at the same time to those procurement contracts that have already been launched but not yet finalised.

As the Minister said, the regulations obviously update the 2011 regulations. First, can he confirm how many contracts the regulations apply to? In other words, how many contracts will have been launched but not yet concluded before the end of the transition period? Secondly, can he confirm that the transition period or implementation period will end on 31 December?

The Minister said a couple of other things that I think are of wider interest. He said, as his counterpart in the upper House did when the upper House considered the regulations, that a comprehensive review is under way on the defence and security public contracts regulations. Given that it is more than four years since the Brexit vote, more than two years since the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 reached the statute book and almost one year since this country’s exit date from the European Union, why has this work not been undertaken already? Why are we dealing with these temporary, interim, make-do and make-and-mend measures rather than considering a full set of new regulations that should govern our procurement of defence and security needs for the future?

In addition to the number of contracts or framework agreements covered by the regulations, can the Minister confirm how many applications are expected to be launched between now and the end of the implementation period, or in other words that will fall in future within the remit of the regulations? I also note that the de minimis threshold has been increased by some £65,000. Can the Minister explain why there has been such a big leap? Does it simply update the 2011 levels, or has some other factor come into the calculations made by the Ministry of Defence?

The framework that we are considering is an interim one, as the Minister said, but will apply to contracts that will be in place well into the future. Could he indicate how long the contracts to which the draft regulations will apply may be extant? Finally, the Minister called our departure from the European Union an opportunity for Britain. As a result of the draft regulations, the new system and our departure from the European Union, how many more defence and security public contracts will be placed with British firms over the next year, rather than with EU firms, as the previous regulations would have implied?

[Jeremy Quin]

First, as I am sure the whole Committee does, I wish the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) a safe period, having been traced. I trust that it is no more than being traced, and that he will soon be back among us.

I am honoured that the shadow Secretary of State has joined us this afternoon. It is good to see him in fine form. I thank him for translating into English my technical description of the regulations and the pith of our attempt to provide legal certainty; he was absolutely right. He raised several technical questions that I will try to assist with. Inevitably, I cannot give him the exact number of additional contracts that will flow under the draft regulations between now and year end, but in a typical year we would expect between 2,000 and 2,500 contracts and frameworks to be awarded within the Ministry of Defence overall. On 8 November, we were running at 2,104—slightly below the average for the year, I suppose—of which 35% would normally be awarded under the DSPCR, so that gives an indication of the numbers.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that some of the contracts may run on for some time. As he well knows, I cannot be definitive about how long that will be; it depends on contract negotiations, but it may last for a period of time. However, that is the value of the draft regulations: suppliers will know with certainty the legal basis under which they will operate. They will know that for however long the period lasts, the contract was awarded under the DSPCR, which currently prevails as per the draft regulations.

[John Healey]

I am grateful for the Minister’s attempt to provide specific answers to my questions. Under the DSPCR—if he cannot confirm the answer this afternoon, perhaps he would write to me—how many of the contracts or the framework agreements to which the draft regulations are designed specifically to apply have been launched but not concluded?

[Jeremy Quin]

I can inform the right hon. Gentleman that that is the exact question that I have asked. I have yet to be enlightened with the answer; I wanted to come armed with the statistic to share with him in case he asked me a direct question, but I cannot do it on my feet right now. Given the number of contracts and frameworks that we are discussing—there had been some 2,104 by 8 November—he will appreciate that finding an exact number may be a bit of a compilation exercise, but I appreciate why he asked the question. I will research the answer and write to him, and if I cannot enlighten him fully I will explain why and put a date to it.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the shift in the thresholds. We have introduced the correct number as of 1 January 2020; the main change will have been currency movements over that time, because the DSPCR is set out in euros and clearly we have put down a sterling number.

Perhaps the most important aspect that the right hon. Gentleman asked about is when we can expect the excitement of new regulations, which will be how we procure in future. As he is aware, we have launched DSIS, the defence and security industrial strategy. That work is ongoing, and we look forward to announcing it in due course. It looks very closely at how we can embrace new regulations in future, and how we can ensure that strategic industries remain and flourish in the UK that meet the needs of our defence requirements.

[John Healey]

I am quite attracted to the picture that the Minister paints. Could he give some indication of when he expects the comprehensive review of the regulations to conclude?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his work in leading the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The UK, along with NATO allies, takes the maritime threat from Russia very seriously. This tempo and assertiveness of our operational output will continue for as long as Russia continues to pose a threat and challenge to freedom of navigation. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces would be delighted to meet him and his colleagues to discuss it further.

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

As we belatedly go into this second national lockdown, can we as a House pay tribute to the role of the armed forces? I say to the Defence Secretary that his commitment to update the House regularly on the use of the armed forces in this second lockdown is very welcome. If he is willing to make further use of the forces this time, this House and the public will back him. I also pay tribute to the professionalism of the special forces who took back control of the Nave Andromeda last week. With the integrated review in mind, this is a timely reminder that while high-tech weapons are essential, our highly trained British troops are indispensable. The Secretary of State promised at the Dispatch Box “a multi-year integrated review”, with

“a four-year spending settlement…for capital and a three-year settlement for revenue”.—[Official Report, 21 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 607.]

When will it be published?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for paying tribute to the armed forces. He is, of course, right that the armed forces have gone above and beyond in making sure that we get through this covid process. Because of their training and the skills that they possess, we can answer the call to help with resilience throughout the country. We will not hesitate to take advantage of all their skills. The demand must come from the ground up—from local authorities or, indeed, the rest of Government. We stand by our offer to any part of Government or the devolved Governments to help in that struggle.

As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), the integrated review will be resolved; where we are going to go with it will be resolved. We are thinking through the impact of the Treasury’s announcement that there will be a one-year spending settlement. Once we have thought through those consequences and worked through the implications, I will report straight to the House on what that means.

[John Healey]

Is it not the regrettable truth that the Chancellor has cut the ground from under the Defence Secretary and our British forces? The Secretary of State rightly said that previous Tory defence reviews have

“failed because they were never in step with the spending plans”.—[Official Report, 6 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 647.]

They were a cover for cuts, which is why our armed forces are nearly 12,000 short of the strength promised in the 2015 review; essential equipment, from new tanks to the new radar system protecting our aircraft carrier, is long overdue; and the defence budget has a £13 billion black hole. A fully fledged, fully funded strategic defence and security review is needed now more than ever. What does he say about the failure to deliver on that?

[Mr Wallace]

I think the right hon. Gentleman delivered the speech for a potential future statement. No one has said yet that the integrated review will be delayed or curtailed. What we are saying is that we are studying the implications of the one-year spending review on that. Once we have worked through those implications, he is of course welcome to make his points across the Dispatch Box. I know that he is keen to make those points, but I respectfully suggest that he waits until we have thought through the implications. Then we can have that discussion in Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say that topicals are meant to be short and punchy? We have got to get into that habit.

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

As we have seen this afternoon, there is growing cross-party concern over the Secretary of State’s overseas operations Bill. Will he now accept, after 10 Committee sittings, that it is clear that the Bill simply does not do what it says on the tin—to protect British troops overseas from vexatious litigation and repeat investigations? Will he also accept that, as we have seen this afternoon, the Minister in charge is in denial about the Bill’s flaws and dangers? Will the Secretary of State himself therefore join me tomorrow for Report stage so that we can work together on the changes needed to make this legislation fit for purpose?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the Front Benchers once again, if you are going to ask questions in topicals, they have got to be short and punchy. That is the idea of topicals. I call the Secretary of State.