Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment

Debate between Meg Hillier and Mark Francois

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[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.