Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Francois Excerpts(6 months ago)
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James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman asks about the supply of shells. I am delighted to tell to him that we previously confirmed the provision of 300,000 artillery shells to Ukraine. The latest figure is that this country has procured 400,000 artillery shells directly into Ukraine.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
James Cartlidge
As the Secretary of State confirmed, we will have two A400M aircraft available for D-Day 80 on 5 June. The number of people who will be dropped will be 181, for the very good reason that that is the number of paratroopers who, at sixteen minutes past midnight on D-Day itself, landed and took the bridge that we named Pegasus.
James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend, who has Defence Equipment & Support in his constituency, has been a consistent champion of supporting Ukraine and he comes to every questions session to make that point. We are working hard to get more munitions in there; I mentioned 400,000 artillery shells, but I could list an enormous amount of ordnance. I can tell him and the House that we are not just doing everything possible ourselves, but cohering our allies and learning the lessons for our own armed forces. We have to be in this for the long haul, and the fight for Ukraine’s freedom is the right one.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I think my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement may have—inadvertently, I am sure—just misled the House of Commons. Pegasus bridge was captured in a glider-borne assault by the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, not a parachute assault. I know that because I was at the D-day 70 with the then Prime Minister David Cameron at 12.16 am to commemorate the assault. I am sure it was an error by my hon. Friend; no one will want to believe that an MOD Minister tried to change the history of D-day because the aircraft did not work.
Mr Speaker
The good news is that that is a point of clarification, which have been resolved.
Ukraine and Georgia
Mark Francois Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Leo Docherty
We are ramping up the production of artillery right across Europe and in states beyond Europe. That is a complex effort involving the military industrial base. Those steps are in place, and I am confident that we will see an increase in supply. The hon. Gentleman asks about state assets. Of course we want that to be the outcome, but the route must be legal.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
We in Britain, relative to the size of our Army, have given more military equipment to Ukraine than anyone. We have now given the Ukrainians all our heavy artillery to help them fight. Kharkiv cannot be allowed to fall. But let us be honest: all the kit that the Ukrainians needed to have won this war already—from F-16s to long-range missiles—has been sitting in American storage depots for two years. When will we get it through to the occupant of the White House that if he carries on dithering and the Russians take Kharkiv, not only do the Ukrainians lose, but he loses, too—literally?
Leo Docherty
My right hon. Friend makes a pertinent and correct point. Of course, we led as hard as we could in the aftermath of the invasion, and we led the way with the critical provision of systems such as NLAW—the next generation light anti-tank weapon. Historians will reflect on whether the months following the invasion were an opportunity missed to give a decisive advantage to our Ukrainian friends, but our focus now is on ensuring that, in the round and overwhelmingly, the combined effect of the huge package from the United States, as well as ours and that of all friendly nations, can ensure that the Ukrainians maintain their defence and, ultimately, liberate their sovereign homeland.
Defence
Mark Francois Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Grant Shapps
This is a serious issue, and I am surprised by that sort of attitude. I want to ask, because it is a serious point, whether the Opposition are now ready to commit to that extra £500 billion if they were elected, because I have yet to hear that confirmed, and that is an important issue for our Ukrainian friends. I accept that the Ukrainians have the Opposition’s support, but they also need the pledge of money and the certainty that this House will provide it, come what may.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
If I heard the Secretary of State correctly, a few minutes ago he said that we have now gifted all our AS-90 howitzers to Ukraine. We are buying 14 new Archers. We are then buying a completely different system based on Boxer, which will take some years to come into service, and our multiple-launch rocket systems are being refurbished. What is he doing to ensure that the British Army is not left without heavy artillery for the next few years, because what he is talking about is a dangerous risk?
Grant Shapps
As my right hon. Friend will realise, it is not a move I have taken easily. There is a balance to be struck between where the weapons can do the most good and the extraordinarily difficult fight that our Ukrainian friends are in right now. I thought, believe and think that that warrants the provision of further AS-90s. The new equipment, as I do not need to tell him, is vastly superior and will be in our hands quickly, not least because of the excellent work of the Minister for Defence Procurement, who has sped up the acquisition of new equipment through his brilliant integrated plan.
I want to be entirely clear with the House: there are choices to make when we do this gifting, and we have to make the choices as to where we think the equipment will be most useful and how quickly we can replenish it. One of the very good things about this significant boost in defence spending, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) will appreciate, is that it will enable us to replenish not only equipment but, crucially, munitions, which have been a real concern of his and many others.
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Gentleman wants to relitigate the past, but I think we all agree that we cannot do anything about it. I want to talk about the future, and the future is that those on his own side have yet to commit to the 2.5% that is required to ensure that our nuclear deterrent can deliver on time. In March the Prime Minister and I published the defence nuclear enterprise Command Paper, setting out our long-held and unshakeable commitment to our own independent nuclear deterrent.
Mr Francois
I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s desire to look forward rather than back but, just for the record, does he remember, as I do, that at one point the Liberal Democrat policy on Trident was to maintain the submarines but to send them to sea without any missiles?
Grant Shapps
I will be as diplomatic as possible: the Liberal Democrats asked us to investigate a range of options, and I am very pleased that the one we ended up with was the four-submarine continuous at-sea deterrent.
We are investing £41 billion in our next generation of the Dreadnought fleet, and investing in our replacement UK sovereign nuclear warhead as well.
John Healey
I will give way to two of his colleagues who have not yet intervened on me, and then I am sure I will come back to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely).
Mr Francois
Governments should be judged not by what they say, but by what they do. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Wedgetail. If Labour were in government, would it specifically commit to going back to the original five Wedgetail AEW aircraft, rather than the three that are now on order? Is that what Labour would not say, but do?
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to participate in this important and timely debate on defence. It comes at an exciting time for defence, following the Prime Minister’s welcome announcement that we will now increase the UK’s defence spending from a little over 2% of GDP at present—more if we include Ukraine —to 2.5% by the end of the decade. Moreover, that welcome increase is linear in nature, rather than the traditionally back-loaded version, so it provides a solid path against which both our armed forces and our defence industry can appropriately plan.
As ever with these announcements, my colleagues on the House of Commons Defence Committee will want to scrutinise in detail the Secretary of State’s claim that that represents an additional £75 billion for defence over the period. A lot seems to depend on where we draw the baseline in making the calculation. Nevertheless, the declared increase to 2.5% indisputably represents billions of pounds of extra investment over the six years in question, which helps to send a powerful signal both to our allies and to any potential aggressors that the United Kingdom is prepared to defend itself, its values and its interests, both across the globe and at home.
Allied to that, we also had the recent announcement by our very proactive Minister for Defence Procurement of a wholescale reform of how the UK plans to procure its military equipment in future. The new system, known as the integrated procurement model, was announced in February. If I were asked to characterise it in one sentence, I would say that it represents moving from a bureaucratic peacetime model of procuring equipment to a much faster wartime model. Indeed, in Poland the Prime Minister spoke powerfully about putting the UK defence industry on to a war footing. That is very much in keeping with the Secretary of State’s speech at Lancaster House in January, in which he said that we are now moving from a post-war to a pre-war world—about which I fear he may yet be proven right.
Taken together, this suggests that after years of concentrating on wars of choice—in Iraq or Afghanistan —we are now again focusing on the possibility of having to fight a war of necessity, and perhaps even, ultimately, a war of national survival against an adversary on the scale of Russia and/or China.
For someone who has always believed that the first duty of Government is the defence of the realm, I warmly welcome what one might call this new type of clear-eyed realism, which now seems to be infusing our defence planning in a way that, at least with regard to wars of necessity, has arguably been absent for many decades. For instance, we are now recreating across Government a national defence plan, akin conceptually to what was considered everyday normal business during the cold war.
I hope that I am not betraying a confidence when I tell the House that the Minister for Defence Procurement and I, and others such as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), who is in his place beside me, have discussed several times the need not just to change policy in terms of procurement, but crucially to change culture if the reforms are to have real meaning.
I note that the dynamic head of Defence Equipment and Support, Andy Start, when speaking at the Royal United Services Institute recently, explained that the reforms began in March and that the operating model will reach what he calls a “minimal viable product” by the autumn, with the whole programme in full flow by next year. As someone who has previously expressed a great deal of frustration about the bureaucracy and tardiness of our procurement system, I can only wish the Minister for Defence Procurement and the head of DE&S Godspeed in implementing these reforms as fast as possible, particularly as the international outlook continues to worsen. We urgently need a sense of urgency, as it were, and it appears that, finally, we are starting to develop one.
All that said, I would like to highlight one area in which I believe we still remain both operationally and strategically vulnerable: the realm of air defence. Given the concentration, over more than 20 years, on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we effectively disinvested in the air defence of the United Kingdom relative to other priorities. I am pleased to note that in the last few years we have reinvested in some of our radar stations in Scotland and along the east coast, which I warmly welcome.
Nevertheless, the experience from Ukraine strongly suggests that if it were ever to come to a shooting war with Russia, which has made great use of mass cruise missile strikes, most of those fixed radar sites would likely be lost to cruise missile attack in the first 24 to 48 hours of hostilities, in addition to threats from ballistic missiles. Against that eventuality, we retain a small number of mobile radars—the number is classified, but it is small. It is true that we might also be able to rely to some degree on NATO assets or other specialist assets from elsewhere, but certainly in terms of fixed NATO radar stations they might also be subject to the same cruise missile attacks, and the precious NATO airborne early warning and control system—AWACS—aircraft could be tasked elsewhere in war.
In terms of fighter aircraft for the defence of the UK, the Royal Air Force currently possesses 137 Typhoon aircraft in three tranches, the oldest of which—in tranche 1—are, on present policy, due to be retired in the spring of next year and either cannibalised for parts or sold off to foreign buyers, likely for a pittance compared to their initial acquisition cost. Considering that the Russian air force still possesses thousands of combat aircraft, that would be an act of absolute folly, and one that I personally have likened to selling off our Spitfires prior to the battle of Britain. As I was told by BAE Systems executives on a visit to Warton a few years ago, because of the extremely complex supply chain that goes into the manufacture of Typhoons, it would take at least four years to build one from scratch, or three years if, as they put it, we hurried it all up in an emergency. If, therefore, the UK were to fight what some strategists describe as a “come as you are” war, in which people have to fight with equipment that is immediately available or can be reconstituted at short notice, there would be no prospect of building additional Typhoons in time to fight.
Moreover, both Russia and China have had a long-standing policy over many decades of putting older equipment into a war reserve that can be drawn on in times of conflict to replenish stocks. That is exactly what the Russians did in the Ukrainian conflict, when they pulled mothballed tanks out of depots from as far away as Siberia, to make up for the very large number of losses of more modern fighting vehicles at the hands of very spirited Ukrainian defenders who, one might add, were armed in many cases with British manufactured NLAWs.
Conversely, the UK Ministry of Defence has virtually no concept of a war reserve, although events suggest that we should rapidly be developing one. As a comparator, the US keeps thousands of retired combat aircraft, some very recently retired, in a giant desert boneyard, as it is known, in the Mojave desert, in hot and high conditions where aircraft do not rust. The Americans regularly rehearse taking aircraft out of the stockpile and refurbishing them to return them to the frontline. It therefore seems to me that it would be madness to sell off over 20% of our fighter force. Surely it would make much greater sense to put those aircraft into storage, either in the UK or in the Mojave desert, to begin to constitute a warfighting reserve of our own.
Not only would that come at very little expense, but it would constitute a reserve air wing of up to three squadrons in time of war, not least as the Tranche 1 Typhoon, armed with advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles and advanced short-range air-to-air missiles, is still more than a match for Russian long-range bombers, which might attempt to assault the UK via the back door over the north Atlantic, carrying multiple long-range cruise missiles.
John Spellar
Is it also the case that these aircraft have considerable aircraft life left in them? It is not as though they are approaching redundancy.
Mr Francois
The right hon. Gentleman, a former Armed Forces Minister like me, is absolutely right. Many of them still have half their so-called airframe life remaining. As I have said, they are more than capable of intercepting and shooting down the threat aircraft that they would have to match. That is all the more reason to keep them against a rainy day, rather than flogging them off or breaking them up for parts. Crucially, creating such a war reserve would demonstrate a sign of intent to any potential aggressor that after many years of doing the opposite, the UK is now preparing to fight a sustained conflict with a peer enemy, should that become necessary. Hopefully, in so doing, we will make that eventuality far less likely.
Linked to the vulnerability of our radar stations and the shortage of fighter aircraft are the extremely worrisome delays in airborne early warning. The Royal Navy’s early warning aircraft, Crowsnest, is many years late. It has only recently entered service for the air defence of the fleet. For the Royal Air Force, the Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft were withdrawn shortly after the integrated review was published in 2021, leaving us without a mainstream airborne early warning aircraft. The E-3 was meant to be replaced shortly thereafter by the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail, but the programme has been subject to multiple chronic delays and is still not in service.
The RAF is clearly embarrassed by this and is attempting to deploy chaff between in-service dates, when the aircraft could take off the runway, and an initial operating capability, when the aircraft might actually be ready to fight. The latest information I have is that the ISD could now be in autumn 2025, whereas the IOC could be in the first or even the second quarter of 2026, which is still two years away. That leaves a critical gap in our air defence capability for which the MOD, and Boeing in particular, must be held robustly to account. Moreover, the initial buy of five Wedgetail aircraft was inexplicably cut to three several years ago by ministerial fiat, even though we were contractually obliged to buy all five radars, which themselves were very expensive.
In short, the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail is rapidly becoming the RAF’s equivalent of the Army’s Ajax programme—a procurement disaster that has gone on year after year at vast expense to the taxpayer, without actually entering operational service, as Ajax still has not. The Defence Committee, alarmed by that, has invited the head of Boeing Defence, Space and Security, Mr Ted Colbert, to appear before the Committee at Westminster to provide an explanation, although we are still attempting to finalise a precise date for his personal appearance.
Boeing is an organisation in crisis after the sad deaths of more than 300 people caused by the two crashes of its 737 MAX aircraft. We have seen further serious safety incidents, most recently in January when a door flew off an Alaska Boeing 737 MAX 9 in mid-flight. That incident was followed by a number of so-called whistleblowers, involved either at Boeing or in its supply chain, coming forward with very serious allegations about failures in the way the company builds its aircraft. No doubt partly as a result, Mr Dave Calhoun announced that he will step down as chief executive at the end of the year. In the first quarter of this year, Boeing reported a net loss of more than $350 million, and it is still experiencing serious production problems across a range of aircraft, both civilian and military, of which the UK Wedgetail is but one example. The US Air Force also has numerous issues with Boeing, not least in its much-troubled KC-46 air tanker programme.
For many years, Boeing as a company has done extremely well in winning major multibillion dollar procurement orders from the MOD, in return for which it has placed very limited amounts of work on those programmes with the defence industry in the UK. To give specific examples, according to the MOD’s recent figures, on the E-7 Wedgetail, the estimated UK content is around 10%; for the AH-64 Apache, it is only 7%; for the P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, it is barely 4%; and for the original CH-47 Chinook helicopters, it was just 2%. According to the answer to a written parliamentary question I tabled, the UK content for the new order of CH-47 extended-range Chinooks for our special forces will generate a UK workshare of about 8%. Taken together with the purchase of the Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic reconnaissance aircraft, for which no workshare figure is publicly available, that represents some $10 billion of business for Boeing from the UK MOD for which the UK workshare has been 10% at best and 2% at worst. Boeing has done incredibly well out of the UK MOD, while UK industry has done incredibly badly out of Boeing.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is also bad news for the defence budget? Those contracts are in dollars, and the dollar exchange rate puts huge pressure on the defence budget.
Mr Francois
Another former Armed Forces Minister is right, and he will know that the effect of the dollar exchange rate on buying so many big off-the-shelf items from the US has cropped up time and again at both the Defence Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.
The problem does not apply just to air platforms. Boeing had a major logistics contract with the MOD called the future logistics information system, or FLIS, which was due to run until late 2020. However, as was evidenced by the Public Accounts Committee, in late 2020 the MOD signed a five-year contract extension called “Bridging the gap”, worth £515 million to Boeing, which was not even competed. That raises questions about the degree to which the MOD seems to be mesmerised by Boeing as a company, to the detriment of value for money for the UK and for our industrial workshare. Indeed, the PAC subsequently reported:
“We are…concerned to hear that the MoD awarded the contract for this £515 million programme to a large defence prime contractor without a competitive tendering process.”
That is all the more surprising given that in the 1990s, the standard policy of the MOD was to ask for a 100% offset in major off-the-shelf procurements of military equipment from abroad, especially from the US. For instance, in the late 1990s, for the purchase of the C-130J Super Hercules, Lockheed Martin was required to place work to the equivalent of 100% of the multibillion-dollar contract value with UK industry. The work could take one of two forms: direct offset, which is work on the aircraft platform itself, such as propellers or undercarriages or logistics support, or indirect offset, which is other high-quality work to be placed with the UK defence industry over the life of the programme, but not necessarily directly related to the platform itself.
Under the Blair Government, for whatever reason, the policy was quietly dropped. That has allowed a situation to develop whereby the MOD has bought a number of big-ticket items from the US without receiving any legally binding guarantees of compensating workshare for the UK industry. I therefore suggest to the next Government, of whatever political colour, that if they are reviewing defence, they might want to look at reintroducing the concept of 100% offset for any further major offshore procurements.
In some cases, it is operationally the right thing to buy something off the shelf from the US. I would argue that Wedgetail—at least when it was five aircraft, anyway—was the right decision, but I do not think it acceptable that we hand out such handsome contracts to foreign suppliers without UK industry being given its fair share.
In conclusion, a cynic might say that Boeing is a company increasingly in crisis, which is falling apart even more rapidly than the aircraft it purports to build. That is serious for us in the UK, as like it or not, Boeing is one of our major defence suppliers and is responsible for supporting key equipment in service. We do not want that company to fail. Therefore, we can only hope that the incoming management will take a firm grip of the situation and turn it around—the sooner, the better.
Lastly, it is very good news that we are reversing the downward trend in defence spending and are now investing more, rather than less, in the defence of the realm. That is very much to be welcomed, but it is a question not just of how much we spend, but of how well it is spent. I very much hope that with the new integrated procurement model and perhaps a couple of humble suggestions that I have been able to offer this evening, we can put more of that money to good use to ensure that we, our people and our allies remain safe in an increasingly dangerous world. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Several hon. Members rose—
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
May I begin by welcoming the debate? As the hon. Members for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and for North Wiltshire (James Gray) said, we used to have more of these debates, but it is very good we have had one in Government time. While the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said we are down to the usual suspects, it still has been a high-quality debate. There were excellent speeches from the Labour Benches by my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and by my right hon. Friends the Members for Warley (John Spellar) and for North Durham (Mr Jones); from the Government Benches by the right hon. Members for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin), for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and for New Forest East, and the hon. Members for Harwich and North Essex, for North Wiltshire, for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), for Bracknell (James Sunderland) and for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely); and from other Opposition parties by the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord). It has been an excellent debate.
The first duty of any Government is to keep the nation safe and protect our citizens. From deployments abroad and the response to the invasion of Ukraine to deployments at home during the covid-19 pandemic, our armed forces are essential to our national defence, our national resilience and meeting our NATO obligations. Labour is deeply proud of our armed forces personnel, veterans and their families, and of the contribution that they make to our country. Theirs is the ultimate public service, and their professionalism and bravery are rightly respected across the world. We thank them.
Labour is committed to strengthening our national defences and supporting our armed forces. Strong national defence is a secure foundation upon which Labour’s mission-driven Government will be built if we are fortunate enough to win the general election when it comes.
Labour’s commitment to NATO is unshakeable. We are the party of NATO and Labour’s values of democracy, freedom and peace are embedded in its founding treaty. Article 5 is the cornerstone of Labour’s commitment to Britain’s security. Labour’s support for nuclear deterrence is total. We will upgrade the UK’s deterrent and build the new submarines needed at Barrow. We believe that defence procurement can strengthen UK sovereignty, security and economic growth.
There has been much talk about the commitment to 2.5% of GDP, so I wish to make it clear that Labour is totally committed to 2.5%. In fact, the last time defence spending was at 2.5% was under a Labour Government in 2010. The current Conservative Government have cut defence spending. It has never been 2.5% in any of the past 14 years of Tory Government and we have seen the Army cut to its smallest size since Napoleon. My right hon. Friends the Members for Warley and for North Durham and my hon. Friend the Member for Halton made those points very well in their contributions.
Labour will always do what is needed to defend Britain and we will always spend what is necessary to deal with the threats that we face. That is why we are committed to getting back to 2.5% as soon as we can in a responsible way. We will set out a credible plan to do so if we win the general election. It is why we will hold a strategic defence and security review if we do get into government to look properly at the threats that we face and at what we are already spending. It is simply not credible to claim, as the Government do, that it can be done by firing 72,000 civil servants, as the Secretary of State set out. The last time that this Government promised to make their defence plans add up by firing MOD civil servants in 2015, the number of civil servants in the MOD increased, so it is hardly credible now to claim that that will do the job.
In his opening remarks, my right hon. Friend the shadow Defence Secretary said that people will judge the Government on what they do, not on what they say, and that is absolutely right. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said that the Government’s promises were all smoke and mirrors and soundbites for the next general election, and it is hard to see them as anything else when they have been left so late in this Parliament to be announced.
The Institute for Government has said that the Government’s plan does not add up and is not credible. It says that cutting 70,000 civil service jobs will get nowhere near close to delivering the savings needed and that, even when using our research and development budgets as well, it will leave questions about how the rest will be paid for. The House welcomed the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford saying that the Defence Committee—the Chair of which is also in his place—will be scrutinising the £75 billion figure. I look forward to hearing what it has to say when it has done so.
The truth is that the Conservatives have failed on defence over the past 14 years. They have cut spending and they are still doing so. They have hollowed out our armed forces. Since 2010, the Conservatives have reduced our armed forces by more than 43,000 personnel, one in five ships has been removed from the Royal Navy, and more than 200 aircraft have been taken out of service in the past five years alone. They have cut the British Army to its smallest size since Napoleon, while the threats are increasing and NATO is boosting its high-readiness forces from 40,000 to 300,000. Ministers now plan to cut the Army further. Those are the facts.
Recruitment targets have been missed every year, so the Government have not even been able to recruit the numbers they want, and retention rates are dropping. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton referred in his remarks to the “outflow” and the state of reserve forces in respect of some research that he has been doing into the numbers. Therefore, the past 14 years have corroded the nation’s contract with those who serve, and we must do better. The Government have left personnel living in damp and mouldy housing and, perhaps not surprisingly, morale has fallen, as has retention. Is it any wonder, when we leave people living in the conditions that we have seen in some of our forces accommodation? Nearly half of all serving personnel live in the lowest grade single-living accommodation and more than 4,000 personnel live in accommodation so poor that the MOD is forced to reduce or scrap collecting rent altogether. Contractors hired by Ministers missed 21,000 maintenance appointments between April 2022 and February 2024.
The report of the independent Kerslake commission on armed forces housing entitled “Homes unfit for heroes” has called the state of forces housing
“a tax on the goodwill of service personnel and their families.”
During the cost of living crisis, the numbers of personnel and veterans on universal credit are rising, and some troops are even using food banks to get by.
In government, Labour will renew the country’s commitment to those who serve, set new standards for service accommodation and legislate for an armed forces commissioner to act as a strong independent champion for our forces and their families to improve service life. We will fully incorporate the armed forces covenant into law, fulfilling the moral contract that our society makes with those who serve. I noticed that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who speaks for the SNP, said that he wanted a representative body but was willing to support some of Labour’s proposed policies.
On procurement, the Conservatives have wasted over £15 billion of taxpayers’ money through mismanagement of defence procurement programmes, with over £5 billion wasted since 2019 alone. Forty-six of 52 major projects are not on time or not on budget. Ajax was supposed to be in service in 2017, and £4 billion has been spent so far, but there are no deployed vehicles and it will not be in service until the next decade. It is no wonder the Secretary of State is not listening and is too busy chatting—he does not want to hear about the failures of defence procurement on his watch, or the Government’s cost-saving cuts to E-7 Wedgetail, which are cutting the number of planes from five to three, with taxpayers footing 90% of the original cost to get only 60% of the planned capability.
Mr Francois
I am very critical of Wedgetail, but, just as a fact, on Ajax, the initial operating capability for the first vehicles is at the back end of 2025. That is next year, not in the next decade.
Maria Eagle
I accept that fact. If I said the next decade, that was not what I meant to say.
The Public Accounts Committee has described the defence procurement system as
“broken and repeatedly wasting…taxpayers’ money.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley was right that we need an industrial base and that short-term cost cutting will not do. He said that we need to speed up procurement, especially of administration, when it comes to making these decisions.
The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford said that we need a change of culture as well as reform in procurement, as did the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, who set out his ideas about how best to change culture in organisations that can be quite resistant to change. I accept that that will be a difficult job, but I think there is acceptance across the House that it needs to be done.
At the moment, it is fair to say that the Government have been wasting taxpayers’ money hand over fist, and that is not just waste in procurement. Parliamentary answers show that the Department has lost £927 million to fraud since 2010, with £619 million of that since 2019—that would be enough to pay for 170 Challenger 3 tanks—yet the average length of time for Fraud Defence to conduct an investigation has increased from 519 days in 2019 to 742 days in 2023. Why? The Government seem to have stopped focusing on good administration.
A Labour Government will do better. Under a future Labour Government, we will drive deep defence procurement reform inside the MOD to reduce waste and ensure that our armed forces have the kit they need to defend Britain.
Labour is committed to strengthening our national defence and supporting our armed forces and their families. We will always do what is necessary to defend the country, and we will always spend what is necessary to deal with the threats that we face. Britain will be better defended under Labour.
Defence Personnel Data Breach
Mark Francois Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Grant Shapps
I have outlined the Government’s position on this a couple of times, but I do want to note that the hon. Gentleman says “consider it likely”; I am saying that I cannot rule it out. Those are two different things. We need to allow for this forensic work to go ahead before we start attributing it. However, if there is attribution, there will clearly also be consequences.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Well, at least it wasn’t Capita. This will be very worrying for service personnel and their families and for veterans, who will feel disrespected by the fact that the Government seem to have briefed that it was China overnight and then not had the nerve to confirm that in the House today because someone rang up from the Foreign Office and said, “Don’t do that.” When, oh when, will we start standing up to the Chinese in the way that they are clearly not frightened of doing to us?
Grant Shapps
Indeed, it was not my right hon. Friend’s favourite contractor on this particular occasion. None the less, we will be carrying out a comprehensive review of the contractor’s work. Again, I want to make it clear to the House that we did absolutely everything that we could to avoid this being made public until I had the opportunity to come to the House. We proactively endeavoured to ensure that our own approach towards removing the data that was online—closing that system down, ensuring the personnel were paid, making sure the alternative payments system was in place for expenses and other things—could all happen ideally before we came to the House. We most certainly did not wish to see nor brief out the story. Unfortunately, as a large number of people were impacted or potentially impacted, it was almost impossible to expect them not to go and talk about it, and I believe that that is how it came into the public domain.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about this. He is a champion for ensuring that these contractors do the jobs they are actually paid to do. We are now trawling through all the detail and, as I have said before, we will not leave this hanging. We will take every appropriate action because, as he might imagine, my entire team and I are very concerned about the welfare of our personnel—brave men and women who do not deserve to have this happen to them. We do not want to see it happen in the name of the MOD, either.
Defence Spending
Mark Francois Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I am really sorry that the right hon. Gentleman cheapens what is a very important discussion about the defence of the realm with such a ridiculous remark. We should all come here in the right spirit to discuss these important issues, given the subject matter. He asks about Ukraine. Ukraine is a part of what our armed forces and this country are having to deal with. We do not ask America to strip out its help to Ukraine, in the same way that we did not ask it to strip out its help to Afghanistan or Iraq, because it is part of the core defence budget. Yesterday—I did not mention this in my statement, and perhaps on this basis the right hon. Gentleman may be forgiven—we also said that our enhanced amount of money for Ukraine is not now just for this year, but we are going to carry on doing it every single year into the future. So, yes, it is part of our core expense.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I commend the Secretary of State for obtaining this massive £75 billion increase in defence, which theoretically would allow us to buy 20 new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. At the risk of upsetting our excellent First Sea Lord, we are not likely to do that, but we are putting our defence industry on a war footing. Can we do the concomitant thing and create a war reserve of equipment with older Typhoons, older warships and older armoured vehicles, so that if we had to fight at short notice we would have enough equipment to do it and so that we can tell our adversaries that when we say, “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” we actually mean it?
Grant Shapps
I thank my right hon. Friend not just for his words, but for his constant campaigning on this subject. Those of us who have been subject to him in a Select Committee know that he knows his facts, knows what he is talking about and has done as much as anybody to ensure that this uplift is happening. I can confirm for the House that we will not be using the £75 billion for 20 new aircraft carriers.
My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point about what we could do with older equipment. I have to say to him that right now, I am much more minded to send that equipment to Ukraine. That is why, yesterday, I pulled together the biggest donation package to date, in what is now the third year of the war, of equipment to Ukraine. For the time being, I think we will be sending it in an easterly direction.
Grant Shapps
The integrated procurement plan, brilliantly created by my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement, has ensured that exports and exportability are a key part of the contract. I have mentioned how we have already used this model to speed up the production of DragonFire.
We are also using the integrated procurement model to make sure that we do not over-spec things, so that they do not become like—
Grant Shapps
I was not going to say Ajax, but I will say it now. Ajax was over-specced to the point where it became a very delayed project. Fortunately, it is now back on track.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Francois Excerpts(8 months ago)
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James Heappey
The contract has now been placed, and it increases our supply of .155s significantly. I take issue with the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes: I am not aware of the exercise he referred to, but in exercises that I have seen, in which the UK has operated alongside the US, again and again the American senior commanders have held the UK force elements in the highest regard.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
As I used to do my right hon. Friend’s job, may I join the tributes to the outgoing, outstanding Armed Forces Minister?
The “Ready for War?” report just referenced identified problems with recruitment as one issue that impedes our ability to fight. The Defence Secretary himself has called our recruitment system “ludicrous”, and he told The Times earlier this month that
“the ‘Amazon’ generation, which is used to getting things instantly, were not prepared to wait a year to join the army.”
He is absolutely right, so when will the utterly ludicrous “Crapita” finally be sacked?
James Heappey
I am unable to answer my right hon. Friend’s specific question, but he will be heartened to hear that as a consequence of all that is going on in the world, and the geopolitical uncertainty that requires us to use our armed forces so extensively, in recent months we have enjoyed record expressions of interest in joining His Majesty’s armed forces. Obviously, we need to make sure that the time between expressing an interest and starting training is as short as possible; all colleagues on the Front Bench perceive the need for that.
Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment
Mark Francois Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the First Report of the Defence Committee, Ready for War?, HC 26, the Eighth Report of the Committee of Public Accounts, Improving Defence Inventory Management, HC 66, and the Nineteenth Report of the Committee of Public Accounts, MoD Equipment Plan 2023-33, HC 451.
It is a pleasure to open this debate. There is only one way to start it, and it is how we should start every single debate on defence: with a clear-eyed appreciation of the threat to our country, our allies and our interests. Russia, which the integrated review identified and its refresh reaffirmed as our greatest adversary, has mobilised a war economy, spending nearly 40% of its budget on defence and security. Such is Russia’s rush to rearm that, notwithstanding all international sanctions, the International Monetary Fund has upgraded its economic forecast for the country from 1.1% to 2.6%, which makes it the fastest-growing economy in Europe.
Not only has Russia, through its renewed and devastating attack on Ukraine, shown its willingness to disregard every aspect of decency and international law, but its war machine is feeding an imbalance in munitions in Ukraine which we in the west are shamefully not doing enough to counter. The reality of war is that, ultimately, production lines tell. Notwithstanding the £2.5 billion that the UK is spending on military support this year, we need collectively to be doing more, not just in supporting Ukraine but in transforming our own supply lines. We need to enhance our own readiness to help deter Russia from a wider conflagration.
While the threat from Russia is grave, it is not the only threat we face. In east Asia, from which the Defence Committee has just returned, China has doubled its official spending on defence to $232 billion a year, although the real figure is much, much higher. North Korea is nuclear-armed, dangerous, unpredictable, and in closer alignment than for many years with Moscow. Iran and its proxies are destabilising the middle east, and, via the Houthis, pose a constant threat to shipping through the Red sea. In that regard, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force are actively engaged as we speak.
Following our withdrawal from Afghanistan, the willingness of the west to face up to these challenges is being studied by the global south—countries that are vulnerable to destabilisation and worse on the part of our adversaries. Any sense of the west’s being distracted, or unwilling or unable to rise to the challenge, risks encouraging the increasing number of autocratic states to act in contravention of international law. The sabre-rattling in Venezuela over resource-rich provinces of Guyana, a Commonwealth country, is just one recent example.
Has the risk picture changed for the worse in the last few years? Clearly it has. Have we fully risen to that challenge? We have not. Those of us who are old enough to recall the joy of the Berlin wall coming down will also recall that we had, in that decade, been investing more than 5% of GDP in defence—well over twice our current commitment. In 1989, there was a justifiable rationale for reductions in defence spending, but what goes down to match a decreasing threat must assuredly go back up to meet an increasing threat, and that is where we stand today.
In the Defence Committee report, we are robust not only about the professionalism of the armed forces, but about their ability to rise to any challenge. However, they are being run hot continuously, and that has a direct impact on their ability to train for, recruit and retain for, and be equipped to face the toughest challenge imaginable: a full-scale prolonged conflict, alongside our allies, with a peer adversary. That is just one of many challenges that our armed forces are designed to meet, but it is the most significant—the challenge above all others that we seek to deter.
I welcome the extensive engagement of our armed forces in this year’s NATO exercise, Steadfast Defender, but the days when that could be a routine exercise conducted by forces dedicated solely to the preparedness to face the Russian threat are long gone. Our forces’ sheer range of commitments, from global engagements to domestic MACAs—military aid to civil authorities—maintain constant pressure. The impacts are simple: recruitment and retention that is not up to the task; a hollowing out of munition stockpiles and our means to replenish them; and an inability to prepare and train for the worst-case scenario at the intensity required to bolster our allies, and with the confidence to deter adversaries. Our report highlights the urgent need for change.
To enable us to be fully prepared for peer-on- peer warfighting, something must give, be it the scale of operations and engagements or the size of national investment in defence. There is no doubt in my mind about the course that needs to be taken. The global operations conducted by our armed forces have a critical supporting role in our efforts to deter and prevent expansionism by our adversaries. What the UK needs is not a diminution of our ambition, but an increase in our investment.
In saying that, I am acutely aware of the regular charge that additional UK investment in defence is wasteful if the Ministry of Defence does not get its house in order on procurement. The Public Accounts Committee has set out in its report the difficulties faced by the MOD in meeting its equipment plan objectives. Reports over the years, not least from the Defence Sub-Committee under my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), have highlighted where the MOD needs to do better on procurement. I have no doubt that we will hear from my right hon. Friend and others about some of the core weaknesses that these reports have revealed.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
The answer to my right hon. Friend’s question is yes. Could he explain to the House that one of the things that the Committee thought about very carefully was how candid we should be about the weaknesses in our armed forces? After much careful deliberation, we did not include anything in our “Ready for War?” report that we had reason to believe our potential adversaries did not already know.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
May I begin by saying to the Minister for Defence Procurement, for whom I have great regard and who is trying to reform our broken procurement system, that everything I say in the next few minutes is not personally aimed at him? To quote “The Godfather”:
“It’s not personal…It’s strictly business.”
At his speech at Lancaster House on 15 January, the new Defence Secretary now famously said that we are moving
“from a post-war to a pre-war world”.
His words clearly resonated, both nationally and internationally. For example, when I was on a visit to Washington recently, those words were played back to us by Pentagon officials. Shortly after, in an unclassified letter to all Conservative MPs, the Defence Secretary stressed the need for industrial improvements and to rearm, in terms reminiscent of the 1930s.
However, let us consider what that actually means. The head of the MOD, a senior Cabinet Minister, has said, in effect, that we are now likely to go to war. Although he did not specifically state who with—be it Russia, China, Iran or someone else—that one statement, which I fear may turn out to be true if we do not rapidly improve our conventional deterrence, has incredibly serious implications for our entire defence and security posture. The much-vaunted integrated review has now been completely overtaken by events. In a world with increasing Iranian-inspired violence in the middle east, sulphurous threats over Taiwan emanating from Beijing and now the state-sponsored murder of Alexei Navalny, even the most naive liberals surely have to concede that the Defence Secretary might just be right. The integrated review, and its 2023 refresh, are completely lacking in any great sense of urgency in response.
Similarly, the MOD defence Command Paper, which was meant to dovetail into the integrated review, also lacked a sense of urgency, even to the point of retiring a number of key frontline systems, such as radar planes and tactical transport aircraft, in favour of new equipment, arriving much later in this decade. Many analysts expected that to change post Ukraine, but no major equipment decisions were altered, despite Putin’s barbaric invasion in February 2023—something that some members of the Defence Committee effectively predicted in a debate in this House some six weeks before the invasion began.
Dame Meg Hillier
The right hon. Gentleman is in the unique position of being a member of both the Public Accounts Committee and the Defence Committee. Does he share my view that it is a bit like groundhog day when hear the words “defence” and “review” in whichever order? I do not know how many such reviews we have had in the last few years, yet we never see the step change necessary to ensure we will deliver the capability our country needs.
Mr Francois
The Chair of the PAC is entirely right, although in the MOD context, if it is groundhog day, “groundhog” sounds like a vehicle that has slipped to the right.
More recently, after a detailed inquiry, the Defence Committee, on which I serve, published a damning report on 4 February 2024, entitled simply “Ready for War?”. I have served on the Committee since 2017 and this is one of the punchiest reports we have ever produced. In answer to the question in the title, the all-party Committee, which includes six former MOD Ministers, concluded:
“Despite the United Kingdom spending approximately £50 billion a year on defence (plus more for Ukraine) the UK’s Armed Forces require sustained ongoing investment to be able to fight a sustained, high-intensity war, alongside our allies, against a peer adversary. ”
In plainer English, and as the subsequent detail in the report starkly points out, despite a considerable outlay of taxpayer’s cash, we could not fight a sustained war with Putin’s Russia for more than a couple of months before we ran out of ammunition and fighting equipment, not least as we have very few tanks, ships or combat aircraft in reserve. The full report can be found online.
Given that it takes years to build a modern warship—a totally ridiculous 11 years in the case of the new Type 26 frigate—and four years to build a Typhoon fighter, if we had to fight what the strategists sometimes describe as a “come as you are war”, one with little further warning, we would have to rely on whatever equipment we had to hand or could rapidly remobilise. We simply do not have enough war-winning kit to win as it is. As the Public Accounts Committee’s report on the 10-year equipment plan illustrates starkly, the difference between what the MOD aspires to buy and the funding it is likely to have available is £17 billion. However, it is worse because the three services account for the plan on a different basis. Without going into all the technicalities, an apples and apples comparison across the three services shows that the gap is £29 billion. Even beyond gaps in capability of our kit, our greatest weakness is now the lack of skilled personnel to operate and maintain the equipment that we do have. Without them—and far too many of them are leaving, as the Chair of the Defence Committee said—even multi-billion dollar aircraft systems simply remain in the hangar.
One perfect example of how dysfunctional the MOD has now become in relation to people is the saga of Capita—or, forgive me, “Crapita”, as it is now affectionally known to the Defence Committee. It has totally messed up the recruitment system for the British Army. A few years ago, its share price topped £4; today, it is barely 13 pence. Everyone in Defence knows that the outsourced contract has been a disaster, yet absolutely no one in the upper echelons of the Department has the moral courage to sack the company. The Defence Secretary recently described the situation in The Times as “ludicrous”. He is absolutely right. Indeed, no doubt he has made a note of his own comments on his own famous spreadsheet, but still nothing actually happens. Capita limps on as the Army bleeds out—with, in some parts of the Army, three soldiers now leaving for every one that Capita somehow, painfully, manages to recruit. If we think we are going to deter the likes of Vladimir Putin in this manner, we are living on a different planet, in a parallel universe, in a fantasy dimension.
Given that we now spend the thick end of £50 billion a year on defence, the British taxpaying public are quite entitled to ask why so little of our defence capability works properly. Why are some of the Army’s fighting vehicles 60 years old? Why do we have hardly any battle tanks that actually work? Why do we have hardly any submarines that are now regularly put to sea? Why do we have aircraft carriers that perennially break down whenever they try to leave port? Bluntly, it is because we now have a Ministry of Defence that has become in recent years a gigantic, sclerotic bureaucracy; constantly hidebound by needless, self-generated red tape; obsessed with process rather than outcomes; in which some senior civil servants are now more interested in wokery than weaponry, endlessly ripped off by some of their own major contractors, such as Boeing, to name but one; and in which key elements of our fighting equipment are so old—and the procurement system for replacing them so broken—that we now cannot fight a major war with Russia for more than a few weeks, as it well knows.
Moreover, as the Red Book clearly shows in tables 2.1 and 2.2, we are cutting the core UK defence budget next year by £2.5 billion and playing “smoke and mirrors” with the donations to Ukraine and with addressing an overspend on the nuclear enterprise from the Treasury reserve in order to pretend otherwise. This act of what the Russians call “maskirovka”, or strategic deception, is wholly unworthy of a Conservative Government. If Members happen to believe, as I do, that the role of our armed forces is determinedly to save lives by convincing any potential aggressor that, were they to attack us, we would defeat them, then we are palpably failing.
This is not an intellectual parlour game. Ultimately, this is about whether our grandchildren are going to grow up in someone else’s re-education camp, but we might not know that if we walked into the current MOD. We can try to blame the military, for instance, for so frequently over-specifying new military equipment, such as Ajax, that it enters service many years late, but in the end the responsibility lies with the politicians who, theoretically at least, are supposed to be in charge.
The Romans had a famous saying about military matters: “Si vis pacem, para bellum”—he who desires peace save-line3should prepare for war. Given that the Secretary of State, the man who runs the Department, has told us that we are in a pre-war world, surely we had better start preparing for it, if we are to have any chance whatsoever of preventing it, and we should now do that in earnest, before it is too late.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I know that he is coming towards the end of his speech. Would he care to remark on a couple of slightly more optimistic features of deterrence, because deterrence of conventional forces depends on far more than an equal balance of equipment, even though, as he says, we are nowhere near achieving that? It also depends on our allies and others who will fight in the same cause. Does he not accept that it is not just enough to take our defence spending up to 3% or more, such as the 5% we regularly spent through the cold war, but essential to ensure that our American allies remain totally involved in the deterrence process and that the Ukrainians succeed in fending off Russia, because if they succeed we can contain Russia in the future, as we successfully did in the past?
Mr Francois
I agree with every word my right hon. Friend, the former eminent Chairman of the Defence Committee, just said. My one caveat is that the MOD’s excuse for these capability gaps is that we can rely on allies to fight with us. But they will be relying on us, and if we are unable to support them or they are on wartime tasks elsewhere, things might go horribly wrong.
I say all of this not just as someone who served proudly as a Territorial Army infantry officer in my local Royal Anglian Regiment during the cold war; not just as someone who is still very proud to carry the late Queen’s commission; not just as a former veterans and then Armed Forces Minister in the Ministry of Defence, albeit almost a decade ago; but most of all, as I said at Prime Minister’s questions last week, as the devoted son of a D-day veteran. Stoker 1st Class Reginal Francois died when I was 40 years of age. He told me one night of the carnage—his word—that he witnessed that day, albeit from offshore, on a minesweeper named HMS Bressay. In the afternoon, they were opposite Omaha beach.
Let me quote Shakespeare’s famous phrase:
“This story shall the good man teach his son.”
My father was a good man. The story that he told me was of a country that eventually, reluctantly, had to go to war against the evil of Nazi tyranny because for years its politicians had been so parsimonious—he actually said “tight”—and so naive that when Nazism emerged, we completely failed to deter it. That is the lesson of the 1930s, but it was also his lesson to me.
My father made me take a solemn vow that, as his son, I would never take living in a free country for granted, because, as he said, too many good men had died to achieve it. Two years after we had that conversation, he was dead. That is why I am here this afternoon. That is why I came into politics in the first place. As a wartime serviceman, my father was a great admirer of Winston Churchill, our greatest ever Prime Minister, who led this country through a war of national survival and then lost a general election for his trouble. When I walked into the Chamber earlier this afternoon, I could still see the damage caused when the Chamber was bombed in 1941. Churchill insisted that it not be repaired, lest we forget, and he was right.
In summary, I may not be my father’s contemporary, that famously courageous MP, Leo Amery, so I cannot claim to “speak for England” on this matter, but I was elected to speak for the people of Rayleigh and Wickford, and so, on their behalf, I issue this stark warning today. The skies are darkening. Brutal dictators with powerful weapons at their disposal are on the rise. The democracies are on the backfoot rather than the front. History tells us time and again, and indeed ad nauseam, that the appeasement of dictators—be they called Adolf Hitler or Vladimir Putin—does not work. We should be increasing the defence budget to at least 3% of GDP—what my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) used to call “at least three to keep us free”—not cutting it, as we now are, and pretending that we are not. The first duty of Government, above all others, is the defence of the realm, and we forget that at our peril. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The debate encompasses a wide range of issues. My colleague on the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), outlined some of them. I will focus on one aspect: industrial capacity, by which I mean not only the big, well-known manufacturing plants, or the well-known prime companies that we often rightly hear from in the national media, but their extended supply chains and material suppliers, and equally their often under-remarked-on workforce—not just the engineers and craftsmen but the crucial production workers, who are vital for ramping up production and our ability to surge in a crisis. We have experienced difficulties with that in response to the war in Ukraine.
Many in that supply chain also sell to the civilian market, including the public sector. Many of the specialist engineering companies in the midlands supply Formula 1, civil aviation and premium vehicles, as well as defence. They need orders from defence and from public sector bodies to maintain their workload and employment, and to train the workforce of the future. That is why—this will be a theme throughout my contribution—a whole-of-Government approach is necessary. Underlying that is the question of whether we are in a new environment or just an oscillation. Basically, is there a war going on? The people of Ukraine certainly know that. The Baltic nations, Poland, Finland and Sweden know that. It does not mean that war is inevitable, but it certainly means that it is now possible, and failure to respond will actually make it more likely.
One has to question whether the commentariat and the British establishment understand that. The Government need to make clear their view on the state of international relations. Do they regard the invasion of Ukraine by Russia as an interlude—a very bloody one—after which the situation will return to something approximating normal, albeit not the status quo ante, or has there in fact been a tectonic shift, and are we at best back in the cold war, although with a hot war going on in Ukraine and the danger of extension elsewhere along the new iron curtain that is descending over Europe? That is clearly understood not just by the politicians and the defence establishment, but by the publics in Sweden and Finland, with a dramatic shift in opinion, after centuries of neutrality, and their historic decision to join NATO and become very active participants.
Even so, across NATO, there is not that sense of urgency, or a clear realisation of the crisis. Only this week, the boss of the Scandinavian ammunition company Nammo was in the press pointing out that societies were still in peacetime mode. He gave the example of its factory in Norway, which needs additional electricity supply capacity in order to expand. A new site for TikTok has been created nearby, but the factory cannot get enough electricity. He rightly pointed out that the defence of western Europe is slightly more important than cat videos on TikTok. He contrasted that with the Defence Production Act in the United States, which was the Truman-era response to the Korean war, based on the Franklin D. Roosevelt War Powers Act. It gives extensive powers to the US Government, and they are using them. That is why they are responding to the weaknesses in procurement and ramping up production capacity, including through several Government-owned and Government-constructed, company-operated plants. Will the Minister indicate whether our Government are looking at that as a possible mechanism?
Do the Government recognise the fragility of the supply situation? Recent crises such as covid, and the situation in the Red sea and Ukraine, have already shown how vulnerable our supply chains are, and many firms and customers are finding that the so-called cheapest option can end up being very expensive. To be fair, that applies not just to the United Kingdom; all around the world, companies are finding that extended supply lines and single points of failure at home or abroad can have very damaging consequences. The discussion has shifted, and now there is much talk about reshoring, near-shoring and friend-shoring. I am not sure how much of that has penetrated the calcified mindset of our Treasury and the senior civil service, but I hope that the Minister will be able to shed some light on that.
This is not a Eurocentric issue; we must also be aware of the increasing tension in the Gulf, particularly arising from the destabilising impact of Iran and its proxies across the middle east and north Africa, as well as the increasingly aggressive attitude of China, which is why deepening relations through AUKUS and with Japan is so necessary and welcome. I hope that the Minister can report on the success this week at the AUKMIN—Australia-UK ministerial consultations—and AUKUS conferences taking place in Australia. We fully understand why the Secretary of State is there today, rather than responding to this debate.
We have to be clear that these problems did not come out of a clear blue sky. They were shown to us some years ago. The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford identified the evidence that we had from an American general. When the Americans conducted an exercise with the British Army about an outbreak of conflict in Europe, we basically ran out of munitions in about 10 days, but nothing was done about it. Even once the conflict started in Ukraine in February 2022, and it soon became clear that artillery would play a major role in it, the Ministry of Defence did not place an order for new shells until July 2023. The Minister cannot complain that I have not given him notice of this issue; I have raised it several times in previous debates, and have never had a satisfactory answer about that delay. We cannot afford that degree of indecision going forward. It is not as though we have not had shell crises before; we had one in 1915, which brought down the Government. I am afraid that there does not seem to be much collective institutional memory in the civil service today.
Mr Francois
We are giving £2.5 billion in the next financial year to Ukraine, and it is money well spent, but we cannot spend the same pound twice, so does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if we rightly give that money to Ukraine, we cannot then spend it on Army salaries, British shells or submarine maintenance? In other words, it is for the Ukrainians; it is not part of the UK defence budget, is it?
John Spellar
Well, it is unfortunately scored as being in the UK defence budget, and in the claim that we are keeping up defence expenditure; that masks an actual cut in British domestic defence spending. It is absolutely right that we supply the Ukrainians—I think we should be supplying more—as they are on the frontline and are carrying the fight. We—not just us, but the rest of Europe, the United States and the free world—should be backing them up with matériel. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that trying to slip that into the defence budget, rather than it being part of our national commitment, is the wrong way of handling it.
Even with new production, I am still not clear—perhaps the Minister will clarify this—on what is happening with the increasing capacity for propellants and explosives. Across the western world, very few points—just two or three factories—are capable of making them, and they are stretched to capacity. I understand that difficulty, but I want to know what is being done to create new capacity. I know that the United States is doing it, but what are we doing here and in Europe? In that context, I commend the article from Iain Martin in The Daily Telegraph, in which he says that, whatever our differences with other European countries over the EU and Brexit, we should certainly be working much more closely on maintaining and creating new defence capacity—not just military but industrial as well.
Although I accept that the Government and this House must take the lead, others must follow. If we are, as I have been arguing, in a new defence environment, the City of London and the finance houses must accept their responsibilities. They must make it clear that not only is investment in defence a good investment as it leads part of British manufacturing, but it is their patriotic duty and part of the defence of the free world. However, getting that message across and changing the mindset needs a whole-of-Government approach, not just the involvement of the Ministry of Defence and those of us in the House who are interested in the subject.
As I said to union representatives in the evidence session, the unions have tens of thousands of members in the defence and aerospace sector. They should not stand idly by while mobs try to shut down their workplaces. Only this week, we had demonstrations outside GE Aerospace in Cheltenham, which was, for over a century, the Smiths factory. There have also been protests outside the Leonardo site in Edinburgh, which I presume is the old Ferranti site. I hope that unions are backing not just their members’ employment but the national interest, and will look at whether any funding is going to bodies that are organising to shut those places.
I fully acknowledge the issues facing our uniformed forces, as well as their expertise and commitment. I am pleased that others will highlight their contribution. I regret that the Government have taken their commitment for granted. In any conflict, supply and resupply are crucial. Conflicts are won not just on the battlefield, but—sometimes even more so—in our factories and those of our allies. That is why we need a rethink, a reset and a recovery of lost ground. Will the Government take up that challenge?
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I begin by joining the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin), in thanking the men and women of our armed forces—we should never forget their dedication. It is often said that the first duty of government is to keep the nation safe and protect its citizens, but we have a Conservative party that has admitted that it has “hollowed out” defence. We have had a return to war in Europe and growing threats around the world, as has been explained, and we now need a clear-eyed vision of what we need to do in defence. It is about deterrence—there has been a lot of talk about warfighting, but the success of defence is in deterring action from happening.
We need to recognise how we have got to where we are today. I hear all the calls from Conservative Members for increases in defence expenditure. I do not question those individuals’ commitment or dedication, because I know that many of them are very committed individuals who believe in defence, as I do. However, I find it a little ironic that between 2010 and 2016, the defence budget in this country was cut by 18%. Even with the increase, the defence budget is still 7% lower than it was in 2010, and the Budget on 6 March included a cut in the defence budget. I hear all the stirring cries for increasing the defence budget, but we did not get into this situation by accident.
In 2010, we had a Conservative-led coalition Government who tried to scare the public by saying that they inherited a £36 billion black hole in the defence budget. That was absolute nonsense. The figure came from a 2009 NAO report on the equipment budget that said that there was a £6 billion black hole in that budget, and that if we had flat cash for the next 10 years, the figure would be £30 billion. The spin doctors added another £6 billion to that figure, and it became the myth that was reiterated.
That myth masked what the Government were really up to, which was slashing the defence budget over that period, and we are still seeing the consequences of those decisions. The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), whom I respect, talked about a 1930s moment. I agree that we are in a 1930s moment—the similarities are there. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Conservative Government cut defence expenditure, including Winston Churchill, who admitted it in later life.
Mr Francois
I hope this does not come across as nit-picking—it is important. The 10-year rule, which was a rolling 10 years, was not just a Treasury policy: it was the policy of the entire Government, and it was not rescinded by the incoming Labour Government in the 1920s. It was the policy of the whole Government, and it was only rescinded in the mid-1930s, a few years after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. It is important to get that right.
Mr Jones
The right hon. Gentleman has got that on the record. I am not going to get into a history lesson about the 10-year rule—I think the history books tell the story—but we have seen what happened from 2010 onwards.
We have had a cut of 40,000 personnel in our armed forces, and it is not just about numbers; it is about experience. Individuals were made compulsorily redundant. If I had made people compulsorily redundant when I was a Defence Minister, The Sun and the right-wing press in this country would have been shouting from the rooftops, but they did absolutely nothing, and we lost experience. One in five of our ships was removed, as were more than 200 aircraft, and the satisfaction rating among our armed forces personnel is now below 50%. We have had a system over the past few years that has wasted money, as we have chronicled in our report, and we actually now have the £30 billion black hole in our equipment budget that was predicted in 2009, as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), has referred to.
This is not about whether the defence budget is 2%, 3% or 5%. It is about looking at how we have got into this situation, and how we change it—how we face the challenges that confront us today. Whichever party is in government after the next election will have to face those challenges, but we have to get away from British exceptionalism. We have great ambitions to be a global power, like some kind of imperial power. I am sorry, but we are not. We can continue that myth ad infinitum, but unless we link the resource to the ambition, it is not going to work.
For the past few years, we have had the nonsense slogan of “global Britain”—some pre-imperialist view of what we are doing around the world. I am sorry, but it is absolute nonsense. We have to look at what we can do to protect our own defence. The idea that we are going to be a major player in anything that happens in the south-east of the South China sea—that having two offshore patrol vessels based in Singapore is going to deter the Chinese—is nonsense. If anything happens there, frankly, any commitment that we could give is like a gnat on the backside of an elephant compared with what the Americans would be able to do. We have to be realistic about that.
What do we need to do? We need to look at what we must deliver as part of our NATO commitments. We also need to get away from the myth—and it is a myth, in our Army in particular—that we will deliver a force of divisional strength under any NATO commitment. We cannot do it now, we have not been able to do it for quite a few years, and we just need to be realistic about that. We need to sit down with NATO and look at what we can contribute to European defence. Clearly, the nuclear deterrent is a key part of that. However, do we, for example, need a full spectrum Army? No, we do not. We need to plug into our NATO allies, and ask what we can deliver well as part of the overall defence against the threat coming not only from Russia in Europe, but increasingly from China in the north Atlantic as we get global warming and the opening of sea lanes.
There is an idea that we will be sending aircraft carriers around the world. No, we will not. We need to commit them to NATO, and that means some very tough decisions. It also means that we need a mindset change. We have to be honest with the public about this, and say that we will not be able to do everything. There are then some hard decisions to be taken about the armed forces. For example, we should say to the Army, “We’re not going to be doing that, but we are going to do this very well. We will dovetail that into NATO commitments, and actually make a real difference.” There are big decisions that will have to be taken by any Government, whoever gets in after the next election.
Please let us get away from the myth—and it is a myth—that we will be going around the world and intervening in every single conflict. For example, look at the air strikes on the Houthis in the last few weeks. We have contributed four aircraft because we want to be seen to be alongside the Americans, but I would ask: what is the strategy for doing that? There is no strategy. Okay, we have bombed the Houthis, but is that going to resolve the situation? No, it is not. Does it show that Britain is a global power? No, it does not. Frankly, we do not have the resources, unless someone will say that the defence budget is going to be 3%, 4%, 5%, 6% or 7%, but no Government are going to commit to that.
I say to Conservative Members and the commentariat in our right-wing press that they should just be honest with the British people about what we can do. We can and do have a valuable role to play in NATO and we have willing partners that want to work with us. I am certainly very excited about Sweden and Finland joining, although we need to make sure that we actually get those commitments. As I say, some hard decisions have to be taken and there are some home truths for our armed forces. As the Chair of the PAC said, there are capabilities that we will just have to get out of. We will have to say, “We’re not going to do that, but we’re going to do this and we’re going to do it well, and we are going to contribute,” and that will maximise our influence.
On China, people ask: do we just forget about the South China sea? No, we do not. We use our strong diplomacy, and our great and fantastic abilities with technology and other things in those areas, but it is not about deploying people or equipment out there. Frankly, the sooner we get the reality of such a wake-up call, the better. I will always call, and I have always called, for increased defence expenditure, but I will not do so if it is just to try to plug a vision that will never ever be achieved. We need to make sure that we spend that money well.
That leads on to the point about skills raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar). We need to see any defence expenditure as potential growth in our economy. However, we are not doing that if we are giving contracts to the United States, or to Spain for fleet solid support ships, and not thinking about growing our defence industries here. I accept that there has to be international collaboration, but we must have give and take. The idea that the French would ever give an FSS ship contract to a Spanish shipyard, frankly, is just—
Danny Kruger
I defer to those on the Front Bench on what transparency is appropriate, but I recognise the point made in the hon. Lady’s Committee’s report and I think in the Defence Committee report about the difficulty of getting the information that the Committees need to do their work. I recognise that nuclear is identified as a separate line in the budget and is protected in theory, but I am concerned about what might be a marginal increase in this enormous budget. It is around a quarter of our total defence spending. If that increases even marginally and the shortfall has to be made up from our conventional defence budget, that entails a significant reduction in that conventional spending, which is so important at the present time.
Mr Francois
According to the MOD’s own figures in the latest supplementary estimates, the amount we are spending on what it calls the defence nuclear enterprise is now gusting towards 20%. Everything my hon. Friend says about the risk of that gradually eating everything else is entirely correct.
Danny Kruger
I thank my right hon. Friend for that. If we managed to get the genuine increase in defence spending that is needed, the question then arises of how to spend that and where the money should go. I say this not just on behalf of the 20,000 or so defence personnel in Wiltshire, but because it is the right thing to do: we need to put people first. I recognise that there has been a significant step change in the doctrine of defence policy in recent years towards the recognition that an army is fundamentally about its people, and I respect that. The fact is, probably because of the many decades of disinvestment, that we have problems of low morale, low pay, often poor housing and a shoestring training budget, all of which contribute to the recruitment crisis we have in the armed forces that my right hon. Friend mentioned.
The PAC report makes clear that we are losing people faster than we can recruit them, and that is entirely unacceptable. We have to improve recruitment. The Public Accounts Committee heard that for every five people recruited to the armed services, eight are leaving. That is a national security crisis. It is not just a problem for recruitment, but a profound security risk.
I recognise the point that the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) made that we have had too many reviews, so I hesitate to use the word—if I could think of another word, I would use it—but we need a quick total review of the people issue in our armed forces. It could be done quickly and all it probably entails is an amalgamation of all the work done by others, but I would like to see that with a great degree of urgency. It should look at recruitment, terms and conditions, families—crucially—and onward progression in all three services, so that we can with the urgency required turn around the recruitment crisis.
Having made the general point about the importance of investment in people, I come quickly to the major services of the armed forces, and first is the Navy. It is important that we invest in all five domains, including in the grey zone and sub-threshold activity, which are so important. Our principal specialism in the United Kingdom historically and now remains our sea power. It is a good thing we are moving towards a maritime strategy. I recognise that is the Government’s priority, and I say that as a representative of a land-locked county with all these soldiers in it. Nevertheless, we need significant investment in the Navy. We would all like to see these things, but let us actually do it and have more submarines, more escorts and more minesweepers. We need seabed warfare vessels. On that point, I call the House’s attention to a report from Policy Exchange a month or so ago talking about western approaches and the significant threat we face in these islands and across Europe to undersea infrastructure. It is fundamentally our responsibility on behalf of Europe to protect that.
I have mentioned the new model army and the New Bletchley report, and I would like to see a real commitment to a reformed and modernised Army. We have to recognise the point made by the former Chief of the Defence Staff Nick Carter when he said that the Army is the weakest of the three services. That is a sad state of affairs. I suppose one has to be the weakest; I am sorry it is the Army. There are big questions over our ability to field a division in Europe, as promised to NATO. According to a senior US officer, the UK cannot even be called a tier 1 power. I understand that the Committees were told by a former commander of joint forces command that our Army will not be ready to fulfil its NATO commitments until the early 1930s. Indeed, that was the assumption of the integrated review, so in a we are sense back to the 10-year rule, which is not how things should be. [Interruption.] Did I say 1930s?
George Galloway (Rochdale) (WPB)
On that surreal note, let me quote Rudyard Kipling:
“We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!”
There is plenty of jingo, but the ships, the men and the money are more difficult to find. I genuinely hope that some of the fantasy talk in this debate is widely seen by the general public. It was a Gilbert and Sullivan performance as Members first conceded that our weaknesses are such that we had to conceal the extent of them in the report—that is what the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said in an intervention.
George Galloway
No, I will not. I am mindful of Madam Deputy Speaker’s injunction that she is fast running out of time, and I do not intend to take my whole 13 minutes. The right hon. Member should not worry—I will make sure that people see his performance. He said that we need to conceal the extent of our weakness, then he adumbrated our weakness. If that was not our total weakness—if there are weaknesses that he concealed from that list—I ask myself, why on earth are these people pirouetting in this Parliament about which enemy they are going fight, and in which theatre of war?
Mr Francois
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will keep this brief. For the record, the gentleman has traduced me. He has said directly the opposite of what I actually said, as Hansard will show.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point of order, which he has used to make his point. Let us return to George Galloway.
James Cartlidge
I am happy to engage with the Committee, as I did during the week on artificial intelligence. There will always be a balance to be struck between what we can share and where we have to recognise the sensitivity of defence.
From the High North to the Mediterranean, we are deploying 20,000 service personnel from our Navy, Army and Air Force on the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender, which is one of the alliance’s largest ever training exercises. It is a valuable opportunity to strengthen interoperability between us and our allies.
I am happy to report that, as the right hon. Members for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and for Warley (John Spellar) said, overnight we have had confirmation that a new defence and security co-operation agreement has been signed with Australia, which will make it easier for our armed forces to operate together in each other’s country. It will also help facilitate UK submarine crews to visit Australia as part of AUKUS.
A large number of points have been made in this debate, and I will try to take as many as I can. The Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin), and several others, particularly the right hon. Member for Warley, talked about the importance of industrial resilience, and I totally agree.
The right hon. Member for Warley made an important point about finance. We must not forget the private sector’s role in investing in defence. We have seen commentary on environmental, social and governance, on which he wants to see cross-Government work. I am pleased to confirm that, with my Treasury colleagues, we held a meeting at Rothschild’s in the City to see what more we can do, and I am confident that we will be saying more on this important point about how we make the case for investing in defence as a way of investing in peace.
Mr Francois
On ESG, there have been many references to the second world way today. Is it worth reminding the House and the country that, if we had not had a defence industry building Spitfires and Hurricanes in 1940, this debate would not be taking place? In fact, this place would no longer exist.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It shows why I want to see us supporting our sovereign capability, because where the Spitfire was there in the 1930s, we hope that the global combat air programme will be there in the 2030s.
UK Armed Forces
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James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman talks about a crisis in recruitment but, as I said, January saw the highest number of applications to join the Army for six years. That is an important and positive development. On the size of the armed forces, we should talk about not just the number of soldiers, but the amount of accommodation to support them, and the platforms, the weapons and the capabilities. That is an extremely expensive undertaking. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is the right thing to do, he needs to lobby his colleagues on his own Front Bench, because they have not committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence, let alone 2.5%.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
As a former Armed Forces Minister, I pay high tribute to His Majesty’s armed forces but not to His Majesty’s Treasury. The Red Book—the Budget Bible—shows clearly in tables 2.1 and 2.2 that next year’s core defence budget has been cut by £2.5 billion. That is true. It ill behoves any Government—let alone one that purports to call themselves Conservative—to use one-off payments to Ukraine or overspends in the nuclear budget from the consolidated fund and pretend that they are part of the defence budget, when everyone in this House knows that they are not. As the son of a D-day veteran, I say to the Government—if not to the Minister, for whom I have great regard—more in anger than in sorrow that what they have done is deeply dishonourable, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend was a Defence Minister, and I respect his great passion about all things related to the armed forces, particularly because of his father. When we spend on the nuclear deterrent or on supporting Ukraine—purchasing weapons and providing ordnance, ultimately to help defend ourselves—that is legitimately described as defence expenditure. After all, how else are we to pay for that, and from which budget? Compared with last year, there is a real-terms increase of 1.8%, which if we spend what we expect will amount to £55.6 billion and 2.3% of GDP.
Defence Acquisition Reform
Mark Francois Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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James Cartlidge
It is interesting to hear what the hon. Gentleman has just been WhatsApped by the Labour Whips Office, but I am happy to share what is happening in the real world if he wants to hear it. Andy Start, who runs Defence Equipment and Support, is an excellent national armaments director. He has been out leading trade fairs in Ukraine, he has led reform in DE&S, and above all, at a time of war in Europe, he has overseen DE&S, particularly in Abbey Wood, getting equipment out to Ukraine and helping to keep it in the fight.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Forgive me, Sir, but—Yes! [Laughter.] I have waited for years to hear an MOD Minister issue this statement, and this very good Minister has done just that. It is true that the Public Accounts Committee said that the procurement system was broken, and last summer the Defence Committee endorsed that in a report, produced by a Sub-Committee that I chaired, entitled “It is broke—and it’s time to fix it”. Well, I take this to be the “fix it” or “put right” plan. I welcome it, and in particular the sense of urgency that goes with it. Given that the Defence Secretary has told us that we now live in a pre-war rather than a post-war world, we must do this sooner and, crucially, faster. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but can the Minister assure me and the whole House that the sense of urgency that I mentioned will be at the centre of this, and that he and Andy Start will now get on with it?
James Cartlidge
I am honoured by my right hon. Friend. We enjoy our robust exchanges, but that was an example that I shall particularly remember.
The phrase “a sense of urgency” is, I think, what the public want to hear. Important as today’s exchanges are, this is really serious; it is above politics. This is about the fact that our adversaries are ramping up their procurement and their technology—frankly, in some instances, at a frightening pace. That is why embracing the deep relationship with industry, the constant feedback loop on data from the frontline and from war gaming, is so crucial. I think the Committee has an important role in this regard. I set out our intention in my statement, but for it to be embedded we will have a key set of milestones that will enable us, if we work together, to show that it is being implemented; if we can do that together, we can put the pressure on to ensure that it becomes manifest.
Ukraine
Mark Francois Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support, and indeed all Members of this House from all parties, for the tremendous support that Ukraine has experienced from this Parliament. As he said, whatever else our divisions, no one should be in any doubt about the united voice with which we speak on this subject. He is right to mention the exceptional work done with training. I imagine he has seen some of the Interflex training, and there is no greater pride than seeing, with other world leaders, their own trainers training here in the UK. We can be truly proud of that and, as I mentioned, we will be doing more of it.
The right hon. Gentleman is also right about NATO membership as the ultimate path for Ukraine. We have the 75th anniversary of NATO coming up in summer in Washington D.C., and it is important that the west helps to set that path for Ukraine’s membership even more firmly. He will be pleased to hear that my right hon. Friend the Attorney General is working proactively on the legal matters, as are the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary on sanctions, which will only work, as recent reporting shows, if they are done in a collective manner, including with the G7 and other bodies.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about a military action plan. In conversations with my opposite number, Minister Umerov, as well as President Zelensky and others, what they want is for us to work privately with them on the £2.5 billion, and that is what we are doing. There are strategic reasons for not producing a published plan on that. We will release information to the House as appropriate, but there are military reasons to do it rather differently on this occasion. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that not only do we spend the published amount, but we go over and above that in a variety of different ways.
The right hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of the partnership co-operation agreement, and we will be publishing a series of follow-ups. For example, one measure is to teach English as the second language for Ukraine, and I know from talking to my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary that 100 universities are in the process of being linked to Ukrainian institutions to press that plan forward, and much else besides is involved with that agreement on security co-operation.
Lastly, the shadow Secretary of State mentions the family visa scheme for Ukrainians. As he knows, I had a Ukrainian family of three and a dog live with us for a year after the invasion, and they are still living in this country. They are keen to return home to build Ukraine back when this war ends. In the meantime, this Government have put in place further visa arrangements, which, if not the most generous in the world, are among them. I know from speaking to the family who lived with me that they were delighted with that statement by the Home Secretary recently.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
The Defence Secretary has recently drawn parallels with the 1930s. He spoke powerfully at Lancaster House about our transition from a post-war world to a pre-war one. In a similar vein, I was part of a Conservative Friends of Ukraine delegation to Congress recently to lobby Republican congressmen to support the aid package. In one such conversation, a Republican perfectly reasonably asked me, “Why should I tell the people of my district to send their taxpayer dollars to Ukraine?”, to which I humbly replied, “Because as a member of NATO, it is ultimately cheaper than sending your sons and daughters.” In that context, does the Defence Secretary agree that while we must respect American domestic politics—it is not for us to tell them what to do—this, again, is a time for the new world in all its power and might to come to the rescue and liberation of the old?
Grant Shapps
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that matter. I am aware of his work in Congress—in fact, I think we were there at roughly the same time last month—and his clear explanations and lobbying of Congress to help release that money to Ukraine. His point is absolutely right: the aid package is in America’s interest not just to come to the rescue of Europe but because other despotic leaders, other autocrats and other regimes of any type will be looking at whether we simply lose and give up because we get bored of the fight and then walk away. They will draw conclusions about that and whether they can always take on the red line of the west and the no-go area if all they have to do is wait it out. This is why my right hon. Friend is right to say that it is indubitably in America’s interest to step in, because otherwise they will find it far more expensive in the future, perhaps in other parts of the world, to defend the world order.