Defence

Debate between Lord Coaker and Lord Spellar

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

That question goes to the heart of everything we read from the all the various Select Committees and debates. It is the desire of all those Committees, of this Parliament and of all of us who take an interest in defence that we identify the strategic threats we face as a country, and then mould and adapt our armed forces and our security and intelligence services to meet those threats. I will say a little more about my hon. Friend’s point in a minute.

Only yesterday, General Sir Nick Carter, the head of the British Army, said on the “Today” programme that the threats had never been greater in his 40-year career. In evidence to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, Mark Sedwill, the National Security Adviser, confirmed that in the last two years we have seen an intensification of the threats we face. Indeed, the former Defence Secretary spoke at another evidence session of an intensification of the risks that our country faces.

We can all name those risks: we have seen the various adventures that Russia has been involved in; we have seen what has happened with China and North Korea; we have seen terrible terrorist incidents in our country; we have seen the identification of risks in respect of new technologies, cyber and artificial intelligence and where that may take us; and we have seen the undermining of the rules-based international order. Those are not made-up threats; they are very real assessments of what our country faces, alongside its allies and those who stand with us. Parliament has a responsibility and a duty to debate how we will meet those threats. That is, I believe, something that the public would expect us to do.

This has been added to, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, by Brexit, which has caused us, as a nation, to reflect on our place in the world. I say strongly to hon. Members—looking around, I think many will agree—that this Parliament should once again send a clear message to our allies and the rest of the world that as a senior member of NATO, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a leader of the Commonwealth, we will not turn inwards and we will not flinch from our historical role as a promoter of democracy and defender of human rights, while also ensuring that our own interests are fully protected.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned North Korea. Is it not the case that the actions of the North Korean regime are a massive threat to the international rules-based order, and does not that need to have higher priority in the thinking not only of our own Government but of our allies?

[Vernon Coaker]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. North Korea and China are threatening some of the rules-based international order—particularly, as he says, North Korea. We have to meet that threat, and this debate is partly about how we do that. We have to win the argument again with the British public on this. The British public have to be persuaded—or not, because they can say, “We don’t agree.” We as a Parliament have to make the case again for why it is sometimes important for us to be concerned about actions that are taking place thousands and thousands of miles away, and understand why they have an impact on our own interests and our own security here at home. It can no longer be enough just to assert a problem—we have to once again make the case as to why matters such as North Korea are important.

Just two years after the strategic defence and security review of 2015, here we are in the midst of another review, led by Mark Sedwill. I know—other Members have mentioned this to me—that the Defence Secretary is trying to pull away the defence part of the security capability to provide a longer time to reflect, and I hope he is successful in doing that. However, as it stands, we have a review that is shrouded in uncertainty and that we are now told is to be delayed. One particular thing that was said in the Committee is completely wrong and has to be changed by the Government. Mr Sedwill said that

“this exercise was commissioned by the Council as fiscally neutral.”

Fiscally neutral? How can we come to such a conclusion before all the strands of the review are finished? Surely this is about matching resources to threats, not the other way round. Let this be the line in the sand that ensures that this principle is at the heart of the decisions we take as we now move forward.

We see story after story appearing in the media, speculating on which capability may or may not be cut. Why does this speculation abound? Why are there not statements to Parliament? Why is there no explanation of what is actually going on? To be fair to the Minister, I know that he will be concerned about some of this, but it is not good enough for the Government to dismiss these potential capability cuts as mere speculation by saying, “We don’t comment on these” or “No decisions have been made”. I do not want—nor, I am sure, does any Member of this House—a statement to be made to this House in three months’ time telling us what is going to be done rather than this House having debated and discussed it and come to a view as to where we should go. I do not want, and I do not believe Parliament wants, to wait for a set of decisions to be presented to us as a fait accompli. That is not good enough. Our country deserves better. The public and Parliament need to be properly informed. I am certain that colleagues across this House believe that it is for Parliament to debate the issues, to inform the decisions, and to play our full part in the choices we make as to how we defend our country and its freedoms.

According to the permanent secretary at a hearing of the Defence Committee at the end of last year, it appears that the Secretary of State has, as yet, made no explicit request for additional funding from the Chancellor. Will the Minister tell us where the discussions that have been reported in the media have got to? Will he confirm what the Defence Secretary is now saying to the Chancellor? Has he demanded any additional funding? Where has the discussion got to, or not, as to whether there is to be any additional funding? Will the Minister also confirm whether the defence aspect of the capabilities review has been delayed?

Britain and International Security

Debate between Lord Coaker and Lord Spellar

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I start by welcoming the new Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), to his role. I hope it goes well for him.

Today’s debate is of great importance. As the Secretary of State said, it has taken on even greater significance after the harrowing events in Tunisia and the separate attacks in Kuwait and France last week. Like him, I extend our heartfelt sympathies to the family and friends of all those killed or injured. This must be a truly desperate time for them, and they deserve our full and unstinting support. I also pay tribute to the consular staff, police, Foreign Office officials, service personnel and others who assisted in the highly professional multi-agency response to the appalling tragedy and horror in Tunisia. I am sure I speak for the whole House in expressing our deep gratitude for their effectiveness in the face of a highly challenging and dynamic situation.

As if we needed reminding, the events of the past few days have shown that the security of British citizens does not begin and end at the border. The interconnected nature of the modern world is such that the radicalisation of a graduate in Tunisia can have consequences as profound for the safety of British citizens as if that graduate lived here in the UK. Last week’s tragedy again emphasised the fact that the fight against Islamic extremism will be gruelling and enduring. It would be easy to conclude, as some already have, that taking on such a poisonous ideology is all too difficult and we cannot win. That is a counsel of despair, and we should have no truck with it. This has to be the time when the democratic nations of the world come together with those battling the threat wherever it occurs. Terrorism cannot be allowed to succeed, and the terrorists have to know that our will to defeat them remains undiminished.

I wish to respond directly to the Secretary of State’s comments about the possibility of further action against ISIL. We are all horrified by what has happened in Tunisia and by the growing threat that ISIL poses. We must tackle that threat to our citizens both at home and abroad. We stand ready to work with the Government to defeat ISIL and will carefully consider any proposals that they decide to bring forward. We all need to be clear about what difference any action would make to our objective of defeating ISIL, the nature of that action, its objectives and its legal basis. Any potential action must command the support of other nations in the region, including Iraq, and the coalition that is already taking action in Syria.

This is a time for a considered assessment of the best course of action that we can take to defeat this deadly threat to the UK—an objective that unites all of us throughout the House. In redoubling our efforts to tackle extremism in the middle east, north Africa and beyond, we need to be honest not only about the scale of the challenge but about where we may have gone wrong. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent over the past decade, a territory controlled by jihadis, spanning northern Iraq and Syria, is hundreds of times larger and better organised than anything al-Qaeda ever conceived of. The fall of Mosul was a victory of 1,300 men over a 60,000-strong force of Iraqi army and police. The United States has said that five of 18 army and police divisions disintegrated completely in the fall of northern Iraq last year.

The Syrian crisis comprises five different conflicts that cross-infect and exacerbate each other. It started with a popular revolt against Assad, which soon became intertwined with the struggle between Sunnis and the Alawites. That then fed into the wider Sunni-Shi’a conflict, with a standoff between the US, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states on one side and Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese Shi’a on the other.

That all demonstrates that it is essential that the Government and all of us recognise that, given the ever closer relationship between development, foreign policy and defence, political solutions are essential in order to ensure long-term stability. That is the crucial point at the heart of this afternoon’s debate. Military activity can create the conditions for politics to succeed, but there have to be strong alliances and clear objectives. That is the strategic challenge that will have to be met in the coming years if the threat to us both at home and abroad is to be tackled successfully.

I acknowledge that there are no easy solutions, but is it not crucial that the Government work with our allies to bridge the sectarian divide and bring together what seem, at least from the outside, implacable enemies to fight ISIL? Will the Minister who winds up the debate say what more the Government propose to do to tackle the threat of ISIL and how we can improve Iraqi resilience on the ground? How can we better empower and work with our regional allies and build up the relationships that are so crucial to the success we need? Similarly, what role are the armed forces playing here at home to support operations by the police and the security services to prevent Islamic extremist terrorism here in the UK?

Today’s debate is one of the most crucial of our time—not the debate in the House, although that is important, but the debate in our country about what our future global role should be. Many hon. Members have participated in that debate. Our belief is that the country stands at a crossroads. Which path should we take? Our view is that withdrawing from the world is not just undesirable but impossible. Britain can and must play a positive role in securing and improving international security. Our allies look to us to take up that mantle, and in short we have a responsibility to do so.

[Mr Spellar]

Before my hon. Friend moves on to the more general issue, will he clarify the fact that the House’s refusal in 2013 to become involved in a brief bombing campaign against Assad—Members of all parties were involved in that decision—has absolutely no logical connection with taking military action against Daesh? Linking the two does not serve the interests of developing a proper national policy.

[Vernon Coaker]

My right hon. Friend’s well made point is crucial to the debates that we will have in the House. The decision about whether we should take action in 2013 was related to Assad and his use of chemical weapons. The House as a whole took the view that it was not convinced that the motion before it would help us deal with that problem.

The Defence Secretary has not put a proposal before the House today, but he suggested that we may need to consider what further action can be taken, and how we should deal with Islamic extremism and with Daesh or ISIL. The situation is totally different today compared with 2013, and we do no service to the country—or to anyone—if we are not clear about the difference between 2013 and 2015. We must all consider how we tackle Islamic extremism and terrorism, and keep our country and citizens safe. There will be debate and discussion on that, and people will have different views, but if we conflate 2013 with 2015, or whenever, we will not do the country a service, let alone anyone else.