Carrier Strike Strategy

Debate between Julian Lewis and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Thursday 28th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lewis]

I think that is a very perceptive suggestion. When it comes to the issue of keeping the country safe from threats to our way of life, which now take on new forms that are much more difficult to recognise because they do not operate at a level that would automatically trigger the same sort of alarm bells as traditional military threats, the support that I find as chairman of the Defence Committee from Members of all four parties represented on it is absolutely outstanding. The House should acknowledge more than it does the high degree of consensus among defence-minded people in all the major parties, irrespective of occasional disagreements on specific aspects of defence now and again.

I want to bring my remarks to a conclusion by talking about the 1998 Labour Government strategic defence review, which I described as unfunded but highly strategic. It was a very good review. If the funds had been made available for it, it would have been an outstanding success. At that time in 1998 the threat from the Soviet Union had gone away and it was hoped that we would not have to consider a major confrontation in Europe. So the thinking behind that review went something like this: given that we do not anticipate our armed forces having to be engaged in the European theatre in future, it follows that if they are to be engaged on a significant scale anywhere, it will be at some considerable distance from Europe. Given that we no longer are a global imperial power with a network of strategic bases around the world from which to intervene, it follows that we need a concept that enables us to have a movable strategic base. At the heart of that strategic defence review of 1998 was the concept of the sea base, which had two central pillars. One was carrier strike and the other was the amphibious taskforce.

Carrier strike was to enable us to exert air power to the land from the sea, and the amphibious taskforce was to enable us to insert land forces on to territory likewise from the sea, taking the whole strategic concept into a way in which we could travel to the theatre where the need to intervene militarily applied.

Only a year ago we faced yet another major potential crisis. It was widely reported in January last year that the core ships—HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark of the amphibious taskforce—were going to be pensioned off 15 years before their due date. I can honestly say that the most influential report of the 27 so far produced by the Defence Committee since I have been chairing it was the one that we brought out in February 2018, which described the proposal to lose our ability to exert land power from the sea as militarily illiterate. I absolutely welcome the intervention of the Secretary of State for Defence, who could see the risk and what was going to happen. Some people have criticised the modernising defence programme for not being been quite as substantial as they expected. However, that is to miss the point, because although I welcome the concept of the fusion doctrine, which my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred to, there was a way in which it posed a risk to the future of our armed forces. The way in which the defence theory for the future was being amalgamated in the national security capability review with newer threats, such as those from cyberspace and disinformation, was conceptually sound but economically dangerous. I shall explain after taking an intervention from my hon. Friend.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

On that point, the great challenge of the fusion doctrine, whose strategic vision is really intelligent, as my right hon. Friend says, is that, as ever—it is difficult to say out loud—the adversary in the Treasury and those who were in my view driving the policy forward saw it as an opportunity to take hold of the defence budget and bring it into a greater whole, without fully understanding the need for hard power to remain in our national picture.

[Dr Lewis]

I am delighted with that intervention, which has saved me at least the next two paragraphs of what I was going to say. That was precisely the danger. The defence budget was being wrapped up inside an overall defence and security budget and we were being told that that national security capability review would have to be fiscally neutral. So effectively, if £56 billion was going to be put together overall, and if more money was to be spent to meet the new sorts of threats we are constantly told about—threats in space or cyberspace, or threats of disinformation that are not really new but are moving into new dimensions—every £1 received for those threats would mean £1 less for the Army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force. That is why there were leaks— clearly authoritative—about potential cuts in each service, including about the loss of HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, which would have happened if the Secretary of State for Defence had not fought and won the political battle to strip out the defence elements from the national security capability review and have a separate modernising defence programme. That meant that he was no longer caught in that fiscal or financial ambush.

Let us not be too complacent in congratulating ourselves on the advent of such marvellous vessels, because they very nearly did not happen, first because of the Treasury, back in 2009-10, and secondly because even as we brought in half the concept of the sea base—carrier strike—we were in danger, right up to a few months ago, of losing the other half of the concept. That was amphibious capability, without which we would not have a rounded overall capability to intervene strategically in whatever theatre of the world a threat might arise unpredictably. Believe me, when a threat arises in the future, it will be unpredictable and we will be lucky if we are sufficiently equipped to meet it. That luck depends on the advocacy of people such as those we have heard from this afternoon, in every party represented in the debate. I hope that my hon. Friend who speaks for the Scottish National Party, the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), will presently make a speech and keep up the tradition.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Julian Lewis and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), one of my colleagues from the north-east for whom I have the greatest respect. He was more than helpful in the last Parliament in helping me to find my feet.

It is an honour to be invited to speak in this great Chamber on the first day of our new Parliament. I would like first to put on record my thanks and admiration to our exceptional police force in the north-east and across the country. They were on duty and on high alert, keeping us all safe as we fought our elections. Alongside all our emergency services and our armed forces, they provided such extraordinary resilience throughout the truly horrific terrorist attacks in recent weeks and the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

It is a great honour and a responsibility, having been returned by my constituents in north Northumberland, to ensure that the legislative process, which has begun today with the Gracious Speech, and which is required to take the United Kingdom out of the EU, is met in full. At almost every door I knocked on across the north-east, the message was the same from leavers and remainers alike: “Please deliver Brexit properly, and get on with it!”

I am therefore proud to support this Government’s plans to deliver Brexit, using the repeal Bill to bring all existing EU law into UK law. The Gracious Speech is rightly clear that Brexit will be this Government’s absolute priority and that, as a strong union of four nations, we shall build new frameworks to continue our deep and special partnership with all our long-standing European allies; have the opportunity to create new trade deals with countries across the globe, supporting jobs across the UK; and have the flexibility outside the EU to support economic growth in developing countries. Free trade has been the greatest tool in reducing poverty for centuries, and I look forward to our great nations leading the way on that once again.

As an MP from the north-east of England—from the most northern point of the north-east of England—I am aware that its economic growth has remained behind that of other regions for too long. We are now seeing increasing export markets, as entrepreneurs look globally for new customers in leading-edge technologies. The opportunity for the UK Government to develop regional investment policy is most welcome. There will be no more EU funds—our money sent to Brussels, only to be partially returned to us with endless strings attached. We will be directly connected to the decision makers when it comes to how we get that regional support.

As the MP for the most beautiful constituency—I am happy to challenge all comers on that one—I have a large number of small farm businesses and fishing communities in Berwick, Seahouses and Amble. It is therefore pleasing that the Government will be introducing legislation on agriculture and fisheries as we leave the common agricultural and fisheries policies, and that we will determine our own long-term and sustainable plans in these important areas.

I look forward to clarification from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on how and when we will take back control over the UK’s exclusive economic zone, which I understand is 200 miles from the shore, or the midline between shores—otherwise we would be halfway into France before we started. Our fishermen need that clarity as soon as possible. My sheep farmers are also particularly keen to learn how the new trade deals with the EU and nations around the globe will ensure that their export markets can thrive and grow in the new global Britain.

As a result of Brexit, my constituents will now have a direct link to Government on all the laws we make and impose on them. At present, 60% of our laws are made by the EU, and we can only rubber-stamp them without amending authority. After Brexit is completed, and once we have left the single market and the EU’s customs union, the British people will know that, at last, their vote really can, and does, make a difference to how their country is run.

I for one am so proud of the British people for voting to get back control of their country and to take up once again the full mantle of responsibility for their country’s future direction. This is an exciting time indeed to be in the privileged position of serving as the Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed.

I am also delighted that the Gracious Speech has confirmed that we will continue to meet our NATO commitment to spend at least 2% of national income on defence, though it is safe to say that, as a member in the last Parliament of the Public Accounts Committee, which focused on all matters defence—from the equipment plan to the reconfiguration of our defence estates and, most importantly, the continued and right support for serving personnel, veterans and their families—I shall be raising questions about whether that 2% is really enough and following in the footsteps of the former Member for Aldershot.

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

I gently remind my hon. Friend that the 2% is the result of low management of expectations. As late as 1995-96—long after the end of the cold war—we were spending no less than 3% of GDP on defence, and many of us think we ought to do that in future.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. We are at one on that. We can and perhaps should be doing much more to ensure that the Treasury can support the Ministry of Defence in the work it has to do.

If, in this Year of the Navy, we are to ensure that we can afford to build the ships we need to protect our nation’s interests in conflict and in peace, we must be honest about what it will take to do so. As HMS Queen Elizabeth prepares to leave Rosyth and start her long service as a beacon for our country’s commitment to NATO, she will need to be supported by many other ships, submarines and aircraft, and the brightest and best young men and women committed to serving their nation. It is therefore excellent to see that the Government will continue to invest in our gallant armed forces and deliver the armed forces covenant across the United Kingdom.