Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anthony Mangnall

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I will try to be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was struck by a letter in The Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago from Lieutenant General Sir James Bucknall. It is short, and it should be required reading for all Members. His final paragraph ends with the line:

“There needs to be an honest, unvarnished appraisal of our current capabilities.”

As has already been said by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), plans do not survive first contact, and in these instances we need to review them, and to do so at pace.

There are just four points that would like to make in this debate, because I suspect that all the other points I would have made have already been made far more articulately and far better than I could have made them. The first is on recruitment, which my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) mentioned. It is extraordinary that the stats for the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army are all higher. In the 12 months running up to 30 September 2021, the Royal Navy had an uplift in recruitment of 4.3%, the Army had an uplift of 25.2% and the RAF had an uplift of 8.2%. The staggering difference between the three services and the way in which the Army succeeds show that there are lessons to be learned by the RAF and the Navy on how they can encourage that level of recruitment.

As I said earlier in my intervention on my hon. Friend, the concern I have is about outflow and retention. Even the briefing document we were given for this debate talks about the fact that there is a problem with staffing and retention in the Defence Nuclear Organisation, and it is not just limited to that area. It also occurs in the Army and the Air Force, and in some of the places where we really want to have our staff because there is a national security need for it. This needs to be addressed immediately, and I hope that the Government will be able to give some clarity in their summing up.

On housing, a number of Members have touched on the idea that we must ensure that our armed forces personnel are given the best services and that they have the equipment they need. That point also stands for their families and for the housing and accommodation they are given. I am proud that I have the Britannia Royal Navy College in my constituency, as Private Stone said earlier, but we occasionally have a problem there when we find it difficult to staff people who are coming down to train future recruits, and to put them into suitable housing within the vicinity. We have been fortunate in that we have always managed to get through those difficult situations, but the problem is going to become greater, because house prices in coastal areas such as mine are shooting through the roof. I respectfully ask the Minister to refer to some points on housing for armed forces personnel, because this is going to come up time and again.

I think I have been very clear in my time in this place about my support for international development and the aid budget. One of the things that came up when we were having the debate around foreign aid was whether we should look at certain reforms, and if we return to 0.7%, I would really like us to look at ways in which some of that money could be spent through the Ministry of Defence to support our armed forces to undertake humanitarian missions. There is real value in those sorts of things—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. Fine, but I think there is real value in having the ability to unilaterally send in humanitarian forces using our defence budget.

The last point I would like to make is that our military academies have extraordinary export value. We attract an enormous number of foreign students who come through them and pass out, and we should cultivate that further. I am particularly pleased that the current captain of the Britannia Royal Navy College, Captain Roger Readwin, has done a fantastic job in attracting cadets from all over the world to pass through this historic college. More of that would not only give us the ability to learn from other countries but ensure that we strengthened our defence relationships with countries around the world.

The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) says that he does not like slogans. Well, I like “global Britain”, but I think it needs to be fleshed out. If we are going to talk about global Britain, we have to prove it in the things that we do. I have said before that this is about the four pillars of trade, defence, diplomacy and development. If we can ensure that our defence is linked with other countries around the world and that we can help to train people in this country, that will send a strong, positive message and provide us with armed forces that are able to respond to some of the problems we are facing. The fragility of the world is more apparent than ever. If we are to play a part in global Britain and if that is to have real meaning, we must adapt as well as update.

UK Maritime Sector

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anthony Mangnall

Thursday 16th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UK’s maritime sector.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George. May I first draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interests? I am also chair of the all-party parliamentary group for shipbuilding and ship repair. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate, and the 16 Members from across all parties in the House who supported the application.

It is right that we meet today, in London International Shipping Week 2021. This is an opportunity to discuss the maritime sector, which is worth some £46 billion to the UK economy, ranging from shipbuilding and ship repair to ship brokerage in insurance, in which we are world leaders. It is an opportunity to speak up for the sector, which we need to do. I am a passionate believer in a bright future for this country, and the sector supports 1 million more jobs than air and rail. Further, 95% of UK imports and exports are transported by ship.

During the pandemic, we took it for granted that we could order on Amazon or similar sites, and that the package would arrive, but few people consider how that package actually comes to their doorstep. I know Mrs Jones certainly does not give much thought to that. However, it is important, and other aspects are in play—48% of our food supplies come through the maritime sector, as does 25% of our energy needs.

The sector is vital to the resilience of our economy and is also a wide-ranging industry. Ports, for example, generate £600 million in private sector capital each year. It is a source of highly skilled, well-paid jobs. There is an important issue here across the industry, which is mentioned in the briefing note I received from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers: we must invest in those skills and ensure that we have not only individuals with the right set of skills, but the right numbers of workers. As the RMT quite rightly points out, its membership is an ageing population. It is important that we focus on that and make the sector attractive to young people as an industry to come into.

Internationally, the sector will be worth around £3 trillion by 2030 and it is a great source of exports from the UK. Indeed, many businesses throughout the UK are providing not only products for the marine sector around the world, but services. My own region, the north-east, has a long tradition of service industries working around the world. When the Dubai flight from Newcastle recommences at the end of November, marine engineers will be flying all round the world to service ships, but their companies are based in the north-east. It is important that we recognise that fact.

The sector’s problem, certainly in shipbuilding and in other areas, is that there is a view among the public that this is a smokestack industry—an industry of yesteryear. It is quaint that we are involved, but the sector is not the future. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. I do not know how we can do this—the debate obviously allows Members to highlight the issues—but we must promote the sector and say that it is not only important to our economy in the present but can be more important in growing our economy in the future. That is where the Government come in; they have a key role to play in.

Let me turn to the shipbuilding and ship repair sector, where there have been welcome moves by the Government, such as the national shipbuilding programme. We have a shipbuilding tsar—the Defence Secretary—and to be fair to him, I think he is committed to this, but does he actually believe that we can be a world-leading shipbuilding nation again? I think we can, with the right support.

It is a mistake to think that there is any shipbuilding industry around the world that is not reliant on the state—either directly owned by the state or provided with huge subsidies. We should not get into the mindset that if we have to put money into the shipbuilding and ship repair industry or help it with finance, that is somehow a bad thing. It is a good thing if we can grow the industry. The Koreans do not bat an eyelid at putting in huge amounts of money, nor do our European neighbours—the Norwegians, the French, the Germans or anyone else.

The other key issues are port infrastructure, which will be important, and skills. I will talk later about research and development, because the next thing that will change radically in this area is the green agenda. This country has an opportunity to get ahead and be world leaders there.

I welcome the national shipbuilding strategy, but we are still waiting for the refresh, which was promised in August. Its main emphasis—this is self-evident to anybody who knows the industry—is that the industry needs a drumbeat of work running through it. The strategy committed to a 30-year drumbeat of work, but we must ensure that that is a reality, and the Ministry of Defence, which is obviously constrained by the Treasury, is still not laying out that clear pathway for the industry. We saw that with fleet solid support ships, which I will refer to later.

There have been some welcome moves in defence and elsewhere, whereby people are looking at how the UK shipbuilding industry underpins prosperity. The Royal United Services Institute study of aircraft carriers said that 36% of the money that went in came directly back to the UK taxpayer in tax and national insurance, and that is not counting the knock-on effect of the local economic boost generated in those areas. We should not just look at the top line when we are considering contracts; we should look not just at the price, but at how that money comes directly back to the Exchequer.

We need a whole-Government approach to ensure that, when we procure ships, we look to the UK. There was an announcement last week or the week before about Border Force’s new cutters. The existing ones were built in Holland, and I think one was built in Finland or Estonia. That is a £200 million contract, and the default mechanism should be to get them built in the UK. If 30-odd per cent. comes straight back to the Exchequer, that is an opportunity.

A throughput of work is important because that allows industry and business to invest. It is a way to draw in capital to the industry. The problem is that the Ministry of Defence is still in competition mode, which no other country in the world is into, so we have a farcical situation with a fake competition going on between four consortia for the FSS contract. We had a great example of how to do it when we procured the aircraft carriers. Yes, there was a shotgun marriage between various UK yards to provide them, but it worked.

Let us look at those contracts. There was a lot of controversy about the cost, but the build was on time, on budget and world beating. There is nothing like it. We should be proud of that. That was an opportunity to get a consortium of companies together to produce world-beating ships, but what did we do? We broke up the alliance afterwards, which was absolutely shocking. It should have continued.

From the point of view of the taxpayer, should we give out contracts to various companies no questions asked? No, we should not, but we should have a partnership approach rather than competition. The partnership approach should ensure that we have a skills agenda and that we get value for money. Also, the partners put their own shareholder capital into the business. I was speaking to businesses this week at DSEI, the defence and security equipment international exhibition. They do that, but they want certainty. We have the strategy in a nice glossy document, but there is an old mindset of false competition. If we can get that drumbeat of work running through the industry, we will be world beating not only in providing great first-rate ships for our Royal Navy, but in being able to compete for work regarding other vessels. That will be key.

I am not talking about only the bigger yards. The Wight Shipyard Company, which recently won a Queen’s award for international trade, is a small company on the Isle of Wight that produces great vessels. Companies such as that should be the first call, rather than throwing contracts open to international competition, because no other country would do that. There is certainly an opportunity to look at that sector for Border Force ships. Again, that would give security to individuals.

We need some joined-up thinking. We need to ensure that the Treasury not only looks at every single contract, but that the work is there for the long term. The easiest thing in terms of the build programme would be to get on and order the FSS vessels. If we did that, we would have a throughput of work in Rosyth and other places, and we would retain skills. An important thing in the shipbuilding report is that if we are to retain skills or get an influx of new skills into the industry, we need a continuation of work. What we do not want is stopgap areas where we are not employing new apprentices and the workforce get older and older. That point was made by the RMT about its members who work on ships. Oversight is needed. What other skills do we need and in what areas? That is a role for Government as well.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt. The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about the skills that we need to create a workforce who can work in the sector. I am interested in his thoughts on retrofitting, because a lot of merchant vessels out there need to be retrofitted with modern technology that allows us to meet our green ambitions. That goes hand in hand with the way in which we want to train a new generation of skilled workers, especially on tackling climate change.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with a great deal of knowledge, and he raises an interesting point. I think the understanding is that we cannot ever compete with the Koreans or others in the far east, because they will do the work cheaper. He knows as well as I do that the country that is doing more retrofitting than anywhere else is Norway. Let us be honest: Norway is not paying poverty wages to its workforce, and it has different overheads from other countries, so if Norway can do it, we can do it, but we need a strategy for that. I will come to green shipping in a minute, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a huge market. New green technology will come in, but a lot of it will be retrofitted to existing vessels.

That brings me to research and development. What we need from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is an R&D fund that is ringfenced for the industry, because that would ensure that we got the innovation we need. One area that I have spoken to several Members about is hydrogen, which will need a large amount of R&D. Some good companies are already doing that type of work, but we perhaps need to provide them with Government assistance and access to capital.

We have some great brains thinking about green technology in shipping, but I fear that we will get foreign investment coming in to buy out some of those companies and to provide the capital, but they will then take all that abroad. What we need to do—it can be done by the Government—is give support to the new technology here in the UK, so that we can retain not just the technology, but the jobs that will be done now and in the future in a host of areas in green shipping, as well as the new technologies that will come through. I accept that some of those might not work, but we should be brave enough to invest. It is not a great scandal if, at the end of the day, something does not work. It is important that that is done, which is why marine research and innovation need to be at the forefront of any initiative we undertake.

We have the maritime enterprise working group, but it remains on a non-permanent basis. I do not wish to criticise the Minister, because he is passionate about the sector, and about aviation as well. If I remember correctly, he is a bit of a plane spotter when it comes to knowing different types of aircraft. He announced the £20 million investment in the clean maritime demonstration competition, which he described as a turning point. That was welcome, and it is great that he did it, but he must get more money out of the Treasury for the sector. If we do not get more money to the sector, we will be at a disadvantage.

The opportunities are there. We talk about the carbon targets that we want to meet, which are good. If we do this right, however, we can get jobs out of it as well, so it is important that we invest now and that we ensure that the talk about net zero and so forth has some real teeth. It would be sad if we had new and innovative companies working in the sector, but the technology went abroad, and we ended up importing it or allowing other countries to develop it. That technology will be very important.

Within this new agenda, we must take a legislative stance as well. We are a world leader in working with the International Maritime Organisation and others on standards and regulations for the future. Those will be new concepts, so ensuring that we have regulations and international governance that are in our favour, not that of the Chinese and others, will be important. I do not underestimate the Chinese in particular, in terms of their wanting to have international rules that favour their industries rather than ours, so it is important that we play a key part in that process.

I will finish where I started. This is an industry of the future. We need to talk more about it, and we need to invest in it. Yes, the private sector involvement is hugely important, but if Government money and strategies can be put in place at the key point, they could be huge levers, not only to lever in more private sector capital, but to grow the sector. Perhaps we just need to say to people, “Just think when you are ordering things—how do they get to your doorstep?” That is the basis of it.

I am a passionate advocate for the sector. It is not yesterday’s industry; this is the industry of tomorrow. What it needs is a direct and clear strategy, and money behind it. Now is the time to provide those things.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anthony Mangnall

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the members of our armed forces and diplomatic staff who have worked tirelessly over the past months in Afghanistan. The shambles lies with Ministers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said. We have to scrutinise this and ensure that lessons are learned. We have some very difficult and unpalatable choices to face in Afghanistan, and some people to speak to whom we do not want to speak to, but those choices will have to be made if we are going to avoid any humanitarian crisis and rescue the people who have been left behind.

The lessons do need to be learned and Ministers need to be scrutinised, but I have a problem with this motion. As outlined by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Intelligence and Security Committee is the only Committee of this House that can have access to the highest grade of top secret information. The motion covers intelligence, but it would be very difficult for the Committee to have access to that. Its members would have to get the highest level of security clearance, and staff would also have to meet those requirements. There would have to be new accommodation to ensure that that information could be discussed. The ISC has its own dedicated accommodation. Computer systems would have to be put in place that could deal with that intelligence. That would simply not be possible, and that is a good reason why the Committee should not be set up in this way.

The Intelligence and Security Committee was set up under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 and its powers extended under the Justice and Security Act 2013. We have already asked to see the intelligence that informed Government decision making. Once we have seen that intelligence, we will then wait to see the next steps. It would be wrong to prejudge that. Not only would it be impractical to set up this Committee and take forward some of the things in the motion, but it would undermine the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We are already having a battle with the Government on trying to get access to information in areas that intelligence has now seeped into—for example, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the very difficult practicalities around setting up an inquiry and the intelligence that has to go with it. There is also a limitation on how much intelligence we are able to get out of Afghanistan because there is no network there. Does he agree that there has to be a period of time before any substantial inquiry could ever be looked at?

[Mr Jones]

No, I do not agree, because the intelligence will be there—the Joint Intelligence Committee report and others—and we will be able to see that. We have not publicly announced that we are going to hold an inquiry, because that would be wrong before we have seen the intelligence. The Minister has assured us today that the Committee will get that information, which will be important before we make those decisions. I understand the good intentions with the proposed Committee, but the motion has been fatally drafted by the inclusion of the intelligence element.

As a long supporter of the Select Committee system in this House, I share some of the concerns of the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). I sit on the Defence Committee, which has already instigated an inquiry looking at the military’s involvement in that short period.

This is a mess, and it is right that the Government are held to account. I share the anger that many Members from all parts of the House feel at having been ignored in trying to do their job representing their constituents and trying to get people out of very desperate situations. The Minister’s blasé approach does not help. We are elected to represent our constituents here. This situation has created a huge amount of pressure on many Members of Parliament who have large numbers of individuals involved, as well as on our staff. The Foreign Office has to learn lessons. One of the biggest mistakes was dividing the issue between three Departments. Those lessons need to be learned, and Members of Parliament have to be listened to. Our emails and letters cannot just be ignored and treated as other representations to the Foreign Office.

If those things are done, that will improve the situation, but the lessons have to be learned, and the actions and the scrutiny have to be done. In terms of intelligence, the only Committee that can do that is the ISC. We will wait to see what the intelligence assessment says, and then we will take those decisions. That is why I feel I cannot support this motion tonight.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anthony Mangnall

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I join the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) in welcoming this Bill in principle but giving it a qualified welcome. It amends the Communications Act 2003, and in terms of technology 2003 is light years away.

When I was at school computers were not as common as today and even having a telephone at home was a rarity, so great changes have taken place in these types of technologies—as I have seen even in my short lifetime—and the pace of change is only going to increase. That is why this Bill is welcome in updating our laws, and it will not be the last Bill we require, because as technology advances, further updating will be needed. However, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the Intelligence and Security Committee warned about all this in 2013. It was the same with the National Security and Investment Bill last week; the warnings have been there. Yes, there has been a change of direction in the Conservative party from panda hugging to panda bashing now as the flavour of the day, but the question of security should always be central to all this.

To be fair to the Government, they have not stood still. We have been ahead of other nations in terms of Huawei and security and having the Huawei cyber security evaluation centre, which has helped us protect our networks. But a balance must be struck between open competition and being able to interact with other nations, and also protecting our security.

I want to touch briefly on the issue of security, as that is what the Bill is about. I think some people are getting carried away in thinking that the Bill will be used in a protectionist way to protect our own suppliers or as a way of cutting off altogether any trade with regimes that we might have huge reservations about, such as China. We are never going to be able to do that. The powers in the Bill are clearly around security, and my only problem is with the definition of the word. I would argue that the way in which the Government approached the matter of the Huawei security centre had security its centre in order to protect our networks. As the Minister knows, I was one of those who agreed with the Government’s decision in July to allow Huawei to have 35% of the market as long as the security was there. The National Cyber Security Centre was clear in its evidence that that could be maintained. It was the American sanctions that changed that.

When a Secretary of State makes his or her decision on whether to take a vendor out, the important thing is that it is made on the ground of security. It is not clear from the Bill how that will be looked at. I would not want to see lobbying for a certain company, for example, or a situation such as we are currently seeing on the Conservative Back Benches where anything with “China” on it has to be resisted. I should point out that many people in the Chamber tonight will have mobile phones in their pockets that contain Chinese components. Even Ericsson and Nokia, which we are going to allow into our system, use components that are made in China. We cannot just close our minds to China altogether, so these decisions must have security at their centre.

Any decisions made by the Secretary of State have to be around security, and I have some concerns about DCMS having control over this. I raised a similar point on the National Security and Investment Bill. I am not sure that the Department has the necessary expertise. Personally, I would sooner see the Secretary of State taking such decisions alongside the National Security Council, or a sub-committee of the NSC, for example, to ensure that security could be at the heart of those decisions. Likewise, I have reservations about Ofcom. As a regulator, it has been around for quite a while now, but I wonder whether it has the expertise to look at the security sector.

A specific practical point about DCMS and Ofcom is that if a decision were taken by the Secretary of State on security grounds, a lot of the relevant information would be highly classified and would not be available to people without the necessary security clearance. I presume that the Secretary of State has the highest security clearance, but I doubt whether anyone in Ofcom would do so. I would like to hear more about how that will work in practice when they are dealing with highly classified information, because the Bill makes it clear that that is the only way in which a vendor can be struck from the marketplace.

Another issue, which has already been raised, is whether Ofcom will have the necessary budget and focus to undertake this work. The right hon. Member for New Forest East made the point about a revolving door, and that is an issue that concerns many people. There is a revolving door between industry, the various regulatory bodies and the Government.

There is also an issue around oversight. I do not see anything in the Bill that will allow parliamentary oversight of these decisions. Clause 17 refers to the Secretary of State being required to lay a copy of their decisions before Parliament, but there is also a get-out clause in that the requirement

“does not apply if the Secretary of State considers that laying a copy of the direction or notice (as the case may be) before Parliament would be contrary to the interests of national security.”

Anyone who has been in the House for any length of time and who has worked in this field will know that that is the usual way for civil servants to get out of any kind of question whatsoever. There is a need for oversight in this regard. I am not trying to make work for the Intelligence and Security Committee, which I am a member of, but it is the only Committee of Parliament that has a high enough security clearance to be able to see the information that will inform these decisions. Without that, there is an issue in the Bill in terms of how Parliament will scrutinise the Secretary of State’s decisions effectively.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman while he is making such good progress. If a decision were not to be laid before Parliament, would he accept the idea of it going before the Intelligence and Security Committee?

[Mr Jones]

Yes. If we were able to see it, at least we would be able to get access to the intelligence that informed it. The DCMS has its own Select Committee, but that Committee does not have the clearance, so I would suggest taking the approach the hon. Gentleman describes. There is a way of doing that. Under the Justice and Security Act 2013, the DCMS does not come under the Intelligence and Security Committee’s remit, but we could change the memorandum of understanding to include this issue. I think that is needed, and I said the same thing on the National Security and Investment Bill.

On diversity, we would love to have a large number of vendors, but there is a clear issue we have to recognise. People talk about market failure. There has been a market failure because, in terms of Huawei and the Chinese state, there has been a deliberate decision to buy in to a sector. There has also been a tendency among us all, as consumers of telecoms services, to make sure that the rates go down as low as possible. That has led the prices down, so there is no money in the infrastructure at all, which is why companies have got out of the sector.

There is an area where diversity can come in, and that is open RAN. If the investment goes into that, we could be a world leader, but let us not make the mistakes we have in the past, where we have been a world leader—for example, in fibre technology in the early 1990s—and then gave that lead away.

On the removal of Huawei from the 5G network, the 2027 deadline needs to be maintained. I am sorry, but I think the Secretary of State is wrong in what he is suggesting. If he does what he suggests, that will add further costs and slow our progress. The equipment that is there now has been through the cyber security centre. We are satisfied that there is no security risk from that equipment, so why rip it out before we have to do so? All that that will do is slow our system down and slow the economic advantages that can come from 5G.

We have concentrated a lot in the debate on the hardware. Will the Bill somehow make us completely immune from cyber-attack? No, it will not. The other side to this, which is just as important, is to ensure that we educate companies to ensure that they use their systems safely and that upgrades are done on security networks and other things. That is about the basic education of the people who use a mobile phone or any type of computer network.

With those concerns, I welcome the Bill as a step forward. Let us see it not just as a way for us to somehow solve all our cyber-problems, because we will not. We still have to be vigilant, and we still have to make sure that our security services have the finance, ability and expertise to respond to the enemies who are attacking us.