Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

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

May I warmly endorse what the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) just said about our late, dear colleague Cheryl Gillan?

It is often said, in the military context, that quantity has a quality all its own. That is perfectly true, but it does not mean that the strength of the armed forces should be measured by their size alone. A revolutionary advance in military technology in the hands of a few can defeat almost any number of assailants; think of the Somme and the mass slaughter of troops by limited numbers of machine guns with interlocking fields of fire—only other new technologies eventually broke that dreadful stalemate. After the end of the cold war, the threat picture finally shifted away from Europe and towards expeditionary warfare, based on carrier-strike, which is air power from the sea, and amphibious capability, which is land power from the sea. Such traditional technologies are still essential for those sorts of campaigns against opponents who are no match for us militarily. Yet against advanced peer opponents armed with hypersonic anti-ship missiles, for example, traditional assets such as surface ships are potentially very vulnerable. As we know, the pendulum has now swung back from countering insurgencies and their sponsors to state-on-state confrontation with major military powers.

As has been pointed out, at the root of our defence dilemma is one inescapable limitation: between 1988 and 2018, defence expenditure halved as a proportion of GDP. The most welcome pledge of an extra £16.4 billion spread over a four-year period should fill a “black hole” in the equipment budget and facilitate investment in critical new areas of technology. What it will not do, sadly, is prevent serious cuts in conventional armed forces. An estimated 2.2% or 2.3% of GDP defence budget is well short of the 3% recommended by Defence Committees past and present, let alone the 4.5% and above regularly allocated during the cold war years. Yet, even if all our dreams came true on the size of the defence budget, we would still be at the mercy of nuclear blackmail and attack if we had not voted in July 2016 to proceed with the renewal of the Trident missile submarine fleet. Given that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), a former Labour leader, and I have debated such matters good-naturedly for more than 20 years and he is up next, let me conclude with reference to the Government’s announcement that they will no longer reduce the total of our nuclear warheads from a maximum of 225 to a maximum of 180 by the mid-2020s. Instead, they will set a new overall ceiling of 260. This is predictably being denounced as a 40% increase; but the cancellation of a reduction is not an increase. Most probably, it is a recognition that advances in anti-ballistic missile technology might tempt an aggressor to think—probably mistakenly—that he could avoid a devastating response. Why, then, raise the theoretical maximum from 225 to 260? The Government have not said so, but my guess is that it is to cover any temporary overlap when the current generation of UK warheads are replaced by their successors. We have always followed a policy of minimum strategic deterrence, and long may we continue to keep ourselves safe by doing so.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I should just be clear that we look at every tender on a case-by-case basis, and we look at each company and each competitive situation on a straightforward tender-by-tender basis. I will not go into the details of what the hon. Gentleman stated.

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

I am sure that the Minister knows that friends of defence on both sides of the House wish to campaign for the 3% of GDP, as recommended by successive Defence Committees, to be spent on defence, but to do that, we need accurate figures. Does the Minister accept that the black hole in the defence budget was correctly described as £17 billion? How much of that £17 billion would be met by cuts and cancellations? How much would be topped up by money from the extra £24 billion, and, at the end of the process, how much of the extra £24 billion will be left for new projects?

[Jeremy Quin]

It is interesting to hear that there are colleagues in the House wishing to campaign for 3% of GDP to be spent on defence.

[Dr Lewis]

For a long time.

[Jeremy Quin]

My right hon. Friend says that to a Minister for Defence Procurement who is interested to hear it. I think we have a good settlement this time round. I am sure that he welcomes the extra £24 billion and regards it as a very good step forward for the defence of our country.

I do not recognise the £17 billion number, but there was a black hole—of that there is no doubt; we said that the equipment plan was not affordable. We recognise that there will be programmes as part of the equipment plan that we want to take forward, so within the £24 billion there will be programmes that we were hoping to finance but did not have the money for, including the Type 26s and the Type 31s. The equipment plan will be published in due course, and my right hon. Friend will be able to get all the details he wishes, and more, from that.

Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Dr Julian Lewis.

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

On the threats from Russia and communist China, will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that conflict in the grey zone is the modern equivalent of the old cold war—in both cases, hostile moves were deliberately kept below the threshold for open warfare? So does he accept that those who warn against cold war containment policies should seriously reflect and reconsider their position?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to another expert—Dr Julian Lewis.

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

Does my right hon. Friend accept that while the cyber-threat to critical national infrastructure can paralyse a society that is then subject to attack by more conventional means, we also have to maintain the methods and equipment to counter-attack anything involving conventional military force? Is he satisfied that the integrated review, while recognising the role of cyber, also recognises the continuing role of conventional defence?

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[Jeremy Quin]

I hope we may have found a technical solution that would enable base-dependent sites to be dealt with to allow sales to social housing providers if the parties agree. Our advice is that the transfer of supply can generally be effected relatively rapidly, and we are willing to share this advice with Annington, which will need to be satisfied that it can perform connections to mains networks safely and efficiently with tenants in situ.

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

It should be possible to restore the pensions of the small cohort of war widows who lost them on remarriage or cohabitation without setting a precedent that would open the floodgates in respect of other cohorts, so what progress is the Department making in addressing this debt of honour?

[Johnny Mercer]

I am aligned with my right hon. Friend’s views. The Secretary of State has worked tirelessly on this issue to try to correct the historic injustice of war widows’ pensions. We continue to examine all possibilities, including the ex gratia scheme and all the other ideas that my right hon. Friend has come up with in his tireless campaigning. We will arrive at a solution. Like I said, the Secretary of State is committed to resolving it, and we will get there in the end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I pay tribute to Tony and to many like him across the country who work tirelessly in the endeavour of veterans’ care. I am clear that the future of veterans’ care is a blended model between statutory and voluntary provision, where there is a role for everybody, and we mark ourselves by the key questions: “How do you access that care? Does everyone leaving who needs it know where to turn?” Until we get there, we continue to need people such as Tony. It is a team effort, and we will get there in the end.

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

Part of the armed forces covenant is, of course, to look after war widows, including an estimated 265 who lost their war widow’s pension on cohabitation or remarriage and have not been able to benefit from the change in the law preventing that from happening in the future. I know that the Minister and the Secretary of State personally have been fighting with the Treasury to find a way to settle this debt of honour. In the light of the latest knock-back, what further plans do Ministers have to try to make good their promise to look after those war widows, who have sacrificed so much?

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I have not had numerous discussions with my Scottish counterparts because I took the decision at the beginning of this outbreak to devolve my authority and the asset to the professionals whom we have embedded in both local authorities and Ministries in the devolved Administrations so that they can just get on with their jobs uninterrupted. My military planners are sitting in Scotland with the Scottish Government and with the NHS, and the only barrier to them being used more is whether the Scottish Government choose to use the assets that are available. It is entirely up to the First Minister of Scotland whether she wishes to use more British military assets. I do not get in the way of it and I do not need phone calls with her; she has those people at her disposal. If the hon. Lady would like us to do more—she said a few months ago on Twitter that we should do more—I would suggest she raises it with the First Minister of Scotland.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con) [V]]

Although our service personnel are already making a fine contribution, has my right hon. Friend examined which aspects of Israel’s efficient and highly successful vaccination programme involving her armed forces might be applicable to our own use of military medical resources?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend obviously urges us to make a deal. I think that right now, as we speak, members of the Government are trying to make a deal with the European Union to enforce the decision by the British people to leave the European Union. What would be a mistake is if both sides forgot that security is not a competition—it is a partnership. That is what I always said as Security Minister, and as Defence Secretary I mean it now. There has been no sign among many of our European allies that that situation has changed. We are still partners in going after whatever threatens all of us, our way of life and our values.

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

I am encouraged by the Secretary of State’s replies so far. Given that there is no security for Europe without the United States, what specific reassurance can he give that we shall not be sucked, via Permanent Structured Cooperation, into the European Union’s persistent attempts to create an alternative NATO without the United States, which would be a particularly dangerous military version of Hamlet without the Prince?

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend raises a worrying spectre. First, we are very grateful to the Germans, who have tried very hard to get a proper third-party agreement with PESCO, although we have no plans to participate in it because we have serious concerns about the intellectual property rights and export controls that it would seek to impose. However, we will always be open to working with European industries—on the future combat air system, for example. We have engaged with the Swedish and the Italians, for instance, because the collective security of Europe is often based on a good sovereign capability in our industrial base. We will continue to do that on a case-by-case basis, and to do that with our other allies such as the United States. Britain is also the keystone of European security.

Remembrance, UK Armed Forces and Society

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I fully agree with my right hon. Friend: torture is not an acceptable part of what any soldier or any citizen of this country should take part in. Where former Governments, of all colours, have been found to have not upheld those standards, they have either been prosecuted or faced the consequences. No one is excluding that and no one is decriminalising it.

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

Does the Secretary of State accept that the primary problem is not repeated prosecution, but repeated reinvestigation? The Bill does little to rule that out. With the sorts of cases that he has outlined, the problem has been the innumerable investigations. They are what were so traumatic for the troops, not the tiny number of prosecutions. As the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland says:

“Nothing in the Bill limits the investigation of offences—even outside the period of five years…The Bill impliedly contemplates the possibility of multiple investigations.”

That, I am afraid, is where the Bill falls down.

[Mr Wallace]

First, the Bill deals with two parts of why often people are investigated. One is under civil proceedings, where they are investigated or interviewed, or involved in the inquest. Many of those personnel find themselves repeatedly interviewed, either as a suspect or, indeed, through constant summonses as a witness in an inquest. As we know from a number of cases, that has happened on multiple occasions. That is why the second part of the Bill deals with the civil route and the first part deals with the criminal bit.

On the criminal bit, one change is the requirement after five years for a number of thresholds to be gone through before a decision to prosecute is progressed. We think those thresholds are enough to make sure that investigators, or the prosecutor, before perhaps embarking on a repeat investigation—for example, if there has already been one—have to have regard that this is important new evidence. In my experience, investigators do not just investigate for investigation’s sake; they investigate to reach a point of prosecution. If they feel that a prosecution is unlikely, they will not pursue it. I feel that will therefore reduce the number of investigations.

My right hon. Friend also makes the point, in regard to the critics, that the Bill does not prevent prosecution in certain circumstances of egregious crimes committed either against humanity or our treaty obligations at all. That is really important. We will never prevent new evidence from producing a prosecution if a crime has been committed.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I greatly admire and respect the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), but I fear that it would require rather more than just an improvement to the way in which service authorities investigate allegations to solve this problem, because the problem derives in large part from the application of the Human Rights Act abroad.

The purpose of this Bill should not be to stop sound cases being prosecuted, and it does not do so. Its purpose should be to stop unsound cases being repeatedly investigated, and that, I fear, it fails to do. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) seized on this point in his earlier intervention, in which he referred to intimidation by reinvestigation, and he is right; that is the nub of the problem. The Secretary of State conceded that only a small proportion of these many cases—most of them spurious—end up in a prosecution. He suggested that, if it were known that there would be less likelihood of a prosecution, there might be fewer rounds of investigation and reinvestigation, but I am afraid I do not find that wholly or, indeed, at all convincing. Something must be done to stop the repeated reinvestigations, which, in large part, happen because of the application of the Human Rights Act abroad.

I first became aware of the scale of this problem several years ago when I heard speeches from my hon. and gallant Friends the Members for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti). The effect of that was to interest me in trying to take the matter further during the two periods for which I chaired the Defence Committee. In those two periods, we produced three reports. The first inquiry was carried out by the sub-Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), now the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. That inquiry dealt with Iraq and reported in February 2017. The second one dealt with Northern Ireland and reported in April 2017.

The third one, dealing with the whole panorama of all these scenarios, reported in July 2019. That report warned that the European Court of Human Rights

“has gone far beyond the original understanding of the European Convention on Human Rights, and… its rulings have stretched the temporal and territorial scope of the Human Rights Act beyond Parliament’s original intentions”.

The report examined proposals by Professor Richard Ekins, now professor of law and constitutional government at Oxford University, in which he proposed to restore the former scope of the HRA and the application of the ECHR. As long as that legislation, which was never intended to be applied abroad when it was enacted by this House in 1998, persists in its extended application, we will not solve this problem.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is not only the United Kingdom facing an issue with the extraterritoriality of the ECHR? The French Conseil d’État —in which I must declare an interest, as my wife is a member—has also been investigating this, as has the German court, because this extraterritoriality was never envisioned by the signatories in the ’50s, nor was it envisioned by the then Prime Minister in the ’90s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

I absolutely accept that this is not a problem confined to us. It is something that has crept into the international scene. Law-observing democracies are finding themselves hamstrung because of the misapplication of what is essentially civil law to the battlefield. That is wrong. It was never intended to be the case, and until it is put right, we will not solve this problem.

It is true that the Government, in this Bill, are considering derogating from the ECHR; clause 12 encourages, but does not require, such derogations. That would help, but according to Professor Ekins, whose work with Policy Exchange I acknowledge, that would be no substitute for amending the Human Rights Act and providing that it should not apply outside the UK, or at least that it should apply only in strictly limited circumstances. Parliament should go back to what it intended in 1998. It would also be much better for Parliament to require the Government to derogate in relation to overseas operations and to amend the Human Rights Act so that it does not apply abroad.

With good will on both sides, the Bill can be improved, and I urge those on both Front Benches to work together in pursuit of an improved outcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

Again, I am comfortable responding about disinformation, which the military has an active role in countering, but misinformation is the responsibility of my colleagues in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

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

What recent representations he has made to his counterpart in the US Administration on President Trump’s proposal to reduce the number of US troops deployed in Germany.

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

I met with my NATO counterparts, including Secretary Esper, on 17 and 18 June to discuss the alliance’s enduring role in European security.

[Dr Lewis]

I am glad that the Secretary of State has been making representations to the US about the importance of not cutting conventional forces in Europe, but can we make such representations if we ourselves have any intention to do what is reported in the press—namely to inflict swingeing cuts on the Army and to revisit the argument we won two years ago about the Royal Marines’ amphibious capabilities? Does he accept that, although we have 21st century threats to meet, that is additional to, not a substitute for, the conventional preparedness we need to maintain?

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend has been in this House long enough to know that he should not believe everything he reads in the newspapers, especially around the time of an integrated review. We in the United Kingdom believe that, as the motto of Sandhurst says, we serve to lead. We lead by contributing and giving, which we have done over the history of NATO. We are the biggest contributor to NATO in Europe. We are the provider of NATO’s nuclear defence in Europe, and we will continue to be a main leader in NATO. That is how we believe we will see off the threats we face from the likes of Russia.