Defence
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before the Secretary of State comes in, I am slightly conscious that 13 Back Benchers have indicated that they wish to make speeches, so there will be an impact on the length of those speeches if we are not careful.
Grant Shapps
I will be less generous with interventions and will rattle through the remaining important content for our military services.
We are building on the recent defence drone strategy and our £4.6 billion investment in uncrewed technologies over the next decade. As we discussed earlier, AI and other tech advances are transforming the way warfare is fought, and our pan-defence procurement reforms have enabled a speeding up of our ability to deliver new technology. I have mentioned DragonFire several times at the Dispatch Box, and it will be delivered five years early.
Fifthly and finally, Putin’s war in Ukraine has underlined the need for all NATO allies to rebuild their stockpiles and grow their defence industrial base. To keep our defence production lines running, we have reformed the procurement process to prioritise exportability from day one. That is now an accredited part of UK production when we make procurement decisions. Our £75 billion boost for defence includes an additional £10 billion to produce even larger stockpiles of munitions over the next decade. That gives certainty to industry and boosts our regions.
Defence supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK, and the boost for defence will provide even more opportunities—opportunities for apprentices and for seasoned engineers. Those jobs would be at risk if the path to 2.5% were not followed, so it is very important that we give that commitment to our defence personnel. We undertake to do that, but we will go further: we will also invest £4 billion in military accommodation, because we recognise that retention, as well as recruitment, is so important. That £4 billion would not exist without the increase to 2.5%. We are also ensuring that there are wraparound childcare services for service families and the service pupil premium.
I thank—as I know the whole House will—the committed, professional and courageous members of our armed forces for everything they do for us in more difficult times. They keep us safe. We are backing them with more money and, in a more dangerous world, I think that is the right thing to do. As I go to Washington with the Prime Minister for the NATO summit in July, we will be saying to other NATO countries, “Follow our example. Follow us because it is the right thing to do and because it is cheaper and more effective than waiting for wars and conflicts to break out.” I encourage other Members of this House to follow us.
John Healey
I am finishing off now; the hon. Gentleman will have his chance to speak.
Labour’s plan will renew the nation’s contract with those who have served through an independent forces commissioner. It will make allies our strategic strength, with new French, German and EU defence agreements, and renewed UK leadership within the AUKUS alliance. It will direct British defence investment first to British jobs with deep procurement reform. Labour is the real party of defence. With Labour, Britain will be better defended.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
As both Front Benchers have made clear, we are all in this place indebted to the hard work of our armed forces personnel. Alas, we live in a dangerous world. The optimism that followed the fall of the Berlin wall and China joining the World Trade Organisation has proved illusory. The Defence Committee is currently investigating the grey zone: the gathering of intelligence, the manoeuvring for advantage, the pressurising of independent states, the disruption of democratic processes and the deployment of proxies. Into that category can be placed the hack of the defence payroll discussed earlier today, which follows the hack of our electoral data.
However, those are simply symptoms of a much wider pattern of step-by-step aggression. If, at a future date, our adversaries were to step over the threshold into kinetic warfare, no one could argue that we had not been warned. For any who believed that the modern world was too sophisticated, nuanced and interdependent ever to consider the brute force of state-on-state aggression, least of all in Europe, their delusions were shattered in February 2022. As we speak, in Ukraine hundreds of thousands of people are engaged in the gallant defence of their homes and families from an autocratic aggressor operating on the simple mantra that “might is right”.
In our last defence debate, I called on the Government to recognise the current threat by setting out a clear path to increasing the UK’s defence investment to 2.5% of GDP. The announcement of just that trajectory is most welcome. I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence on that achievement and on the vital additional support to Ukraine. It is all the more welcome that that increase was not achieved by some hockey-stick projection of what will happen in five years’ time, but is being realised on a linear basis, with a step up each year. That provides credibility and certainty of delivery, and will send a message to our adversaries and a clear message to British industry that we need it to invest in capital equipment, skills and innovation.
The announcement also sends a powerful message to another critical group: our NATO allies. We are celebrating 75 years as the most effective and successful defence alliance the world has known. As the Secretary of State referenced, it remains the case that NATO enjoys, on paper, a substantial overmatch in matériel against Russia. That is well and good, but NATO must constantly up its game. Russia has shown itself oblivious in its tactics to the human cost of its devastating war in Ukraine. Against that backdrop, it is essential that we maintain a substantial conventional overmatch, especially in deep fires and ensuring air superiority, with the stockpiles to maintain it. We need to continue to do so, notwithstanding Russia spending eye-watering amounts to replace their losses in Ukraine with more modern equipment.
NATO also needs to ensure that military capabilities recognise the new geopolitical realities, namely the close relationship between China, Russia and other potential aggressors: North Korea, with its nuclear capability, and Iran, with its regional proxies looking to seize opportunities from the distracted west. A clash, were it to come, could come simultaneously from multiple quarters. Europe must recognise the implications of that and pull its weight.
When I spoke last, I said that I found it hard to believe we would not end up feeling the need to invest up to 3% of GDP, but that any such decision should be based on a bottom-up analysis of necessary capabilities. It will also be influenced by one other critical factor, which is that the increase in our commitment should be noted not just by our adversaries and our industry, but by our allies. NATO must set a new benchmark of 2.5% to reflect the new realities. That additional £140 billion of defence investment across the alliance would go a long way to reassuring us all that defence is receiving across this continent—a continent in which a live war rages—the greater priority it demands.
This debate is a general debate on defence. Members may wish to tackle a whole range of issues, each of which would be worthy of a parliamentary debate in its own right. To name but a few such themes, there is the balance, given the announced new investment, between the current equipment plan and innovative weapon systems emerging from the Ukraine war; the role of the Royal Navy, the balance of its current commitments, the shipbuilding programme and the continuous at-sea deterrence; the modernisation of the Army, particularly its armoured components; the increased prevalence of unmanned aerial systems, the importance to the Royal Air Force and the industrial base of the global combat air programme, and our future role in the space domain; and our home defence, to which the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) alluded earlier. When I asked the Prime Minister whether, post the failed Iranian attack on Israel, we would be reviewing the need for a multilayered UK air defence, that was because I believe we should. Increasingly, citizens will be vulnerable not just to land-based missile or drone attack, but from the same from vessels at sea, with limited warnings.
These are all valid areas of debate, but I want to restrict my remarks not to those internal defence debates, important though each is, but to the wider issue of how, in a much darker world, defence needs to be working with our allies across Government and with broader society as a whole. Arguments are being made that, in the circumstances, our full focus and commitment must be to Europe. Strengthening our ability to play what would be a vital role in that theatre is of course necessary, as the Committee’s report “Ready for War?” set out. However, we have strong continental allies with land-based and land-focused forces, and the contest of the future will be determined not by a stand-off in eastern Europe alone; as in earlier eras, the search for resources, for critical minerals and for dominance of sea routes will remain.
We have influence and we are trusted in many parts of the world. We have genuine friends, a concept unknown to our adversaries. Our role in supporting our allies—for example, in competing with an expansionary China—may lie not in the South China sea, but on the coasts of Africa, in the Gulf and in the high north. We should not lightly neglect the assets we have. In particular, our history has provided us with geographical reach and a position that our adversaries would love to usurp. As senior US military and naval officers are not slow to remind us, UK bases overseas remain absolutely vital, not least Diego Garcia. We must be deeply protective of assets with so much strategic value in protecting the free world, including supporting regional allies.
There is also how defence is viewed inside Government. For anyone who has had the privilege of the serving as a Defence Minister, and I am delighted to say that there are many of us on the Defence Committee, the picture is familiar: the darkened room, probably Cobra, with the ominous description of whatever dire visitation is expected, be it fire, flood, plague, strike or even the failure of security baggage checkers, and all faces turn in our direction. There will always be a requirement for MACA—military aid to the civil authorities—requests and the military will always rise to the task, but it should not be called upon as often as it is. Our armed forces must be training and preparing for their tasks, and their rest and recuperation time is critical if we are to retain and recruit. Departments must be more resilient in peacetime, and must have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, including war, as was once the case, and these should be checked and should be exercised.
Lastly, there is defence working alongside society. In the quarter of a century in which our own national defence appeared to be assured, our ability to think holistically about the strategic interplay between all aspects of our society and how that can help keep us safe has atrophied. Defence cannot be put into a discrete box; we need to think clearly about long-term national plans and how they support our resilience.
I will name just a few examples. The skills agenda on nuclear is commendable. With no disrespect to our Liberal Democrat friends, these are very long-term commitments—we cannot play the hokey-cokey with nuclear. It is a long-term endeavour, so that skills agenda is incredibly important, but are we doing enough to set out exactly what cash will be invested in upgrading our scientific capability? Are our plans for small modular reactors being driven at the pace we require, not just to minimise costs but to appreciate swiftly all the implications that that new technology may unleash? Given the undoubted brilliance of UK research, are we doing everything we can to ensure we are spotting the crossover opportunities? We can be certain that our adversaries are using every possible avenue into that UK research. When ideas move from research to production, are we calling out those who make—often cavalierly and without proper consideration—trite judgments on what may be ethical or unethical investment, and in doing so are undermining our ability to live in a society where such a debate can even take place?
There has been some commentary in the press about peacetime conscription. While I welcome the honesty of sharing worst-case scenarios and the focus on increased investment in defence that that has brought, I personally view the idea as misplaced, but I would make an observation. In the coming decades, we risk skill pinch points in critical areas of defence. They are the very areas that are at the forefront of technology, and therefore at the forefront of demand in the private sector. Are we doing enough to identify brilliant young men and women, and setting out a specific and unique path for them to enter His Majesty’s armed forces for a limited period post university? Some may wish to stay longer term; others may join the reserves. That would require a different approach. The Government would have to consider a whole raft of inducements, including financial ones, but we should not overlook the willingness of young people to accept fascinating challenges and to serve if called on to do so. Done well, that cadre would be recognised by industry as having been hand-picked as the leading lights of their generation, and with among the most sought-after of skillsets, they may even provide the impetus to the zig-zag careers proposed by the Haythornthwaite review.
We need to invest: in innovation, in capital equipment, and in the men and women of our armed forces. I am pleased that the Government are doing just that. It is vital, it is timely, and every penny must be well spent.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before I call Mark Francois, I remind colleagues that there is a certain pressure on time, which I am sure will be borne in mind.
Defence Spending
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I am anxious to ensure that all colleagues get in, but I urge brief questions so that the Secretary of State can give brief answers.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I chair the 1922 defence committee, and the Secretary of State will know from Prime Minister’s questions that the whole Conservative party welcomes this announcement, but may I suggest that the message from the Government would carry so much greater resonance globally if the official Opposition also signed up to it? I am a former member of the armed forces, so I can assure him that the country speaking as a whole—the official Opposition and the Government together—carries much greater weight internationally for the good of the country.
Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I am getting concerned because although I do not have a problem with interventions, some of the speeches have been not 13 minutes but 16 minutes, and that means we then have pressure for the Front-Bench speeches to be shorter than we hope them to be. If colleagues take interventions, I ask them to please still try to keep within the limit. Another debate is due to start at 3 o’clock, and I must get as near to that as I possibly can.
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.
George Galloway
Pomposity, but not a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman said that we were careful to conceal some of our weakness, and then he adumbrated those weaknesses. If there are more that he concealed, we are in very big trouble. My point is this: we haven’t the men, we haven’t the ships and we haven’t the money, so why are we picking enemies? I have lost count, in the course of the debate, of the number that we are either already fighting or may have to get ready to fight. That is the absurd “Alice in Wonderland” nature of this debate.
We cannot retain even the low numbers of people we recruit. Why? We ought to know why: the lions do not much like the look of the donkeys who lead them into war after war, which they later disown and admit should never have been fought. You know to what I refer, Madam Deputy Speaker. I had a debate at the Oxford Union; the then Defence Secretary ran away and did not turn up. I had to deal with his subordinates, but I made the point there. I was a boy soldier: Royal Artillery Battery 2, Army Cadet Force. I trained with the Royal Marines for weeks in Poole, in Dorset. I am in no sense a pacifist. I want to defend our country. I want our soldiers to be properly paid, properly housed, properly clad, properly trained and properly armed.
I have picked up Tommy Atkins, stricken with addiction, from Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, just out of Strangeways, addicted to Spice and abandoned by the politicians who gayly sent him off to one needless, pointless, fruitless war after another. Don’t come here and say you’re standing up for Tommy Atkins. The donkeys who sent him to wars that even the donkeys now disavow are the reason that people do not join our armed forces. They do not trust those people over there not to send them to another Iraq or Afghanistan, and they are right not to trust them.
The truth is that our country is in very real danger of falling into the same trap as Mussolini: going around the world, threatening people with Germany’s army. Our politicians go around the world threatening people with America’s army, but there is a big change coming, and they do not like it on either side of the aisle. President Trump is coming back in November, and he does not much fancy their NATO. He does not intend to send American soldiers to die for Kupiansk or for the Zelensky regime in Kyiv. He has no intention whatever of continuing its war in Ukraine.
I heard a senior Member of the House say, “If America withdraws from NATO, we will have to increase our contribution to 5%, 6% or maybe 7% of GDP.” Do these people seriously imagine that they will continue in NATO without the United States of America? What kind of NATO would it be—it really would be Gilbert and Sullivan—unless we devote not £50 billion of our public treasure but hundreds of billions on defence? Have any of these people seen the state of the public realm in Britain? Have they seen the state of the national health service? Have they seen the state of our streets, public buildings and public transport? Have they seen the wage packets earned in this country? Have they seen pensioner poverty and fuel poverty in action? Have they met people who have to choose between eating and heating? These fools want to spend not £50 billion but hundreds of billions on weapons of war, which we will fight with an Army that could fit into Villa Park—70,000 soldiers can fit into a single football stadium.
For some time, I was the Member of Parliament for a naval shipbuilding yard, Yarrow’s on the Clyde—producers of excellence. I wrestled—not physically—with our late and lamented friend Alan Clark when he was the Procurement Minister, and I won. I got all five of the Type 23s procured at that time. I want us to have a good Navy, and a good Army, but not so we can sail it to bombard the natives in the Red sea or send a Gilbert and Sullivan squadron to the South China sea, like a peashooter firing at an elephant—or a whale in the case in the Chinese navy. I do not want us to send our 70,000 soldiers and our aircraft carriers that break down and have to be glued together, or our destroyers that crash into each other in the Solent.
I do not want us to pretend that we are a Rudyard Kipling-era imperial power. That is the key problem. Some of these people still think that we are in the 19th century and can send gunboats up the Yangtze and not have them sunk, and that the natives in Yemen are the natives we used to push around for a century or more. The empire strikes back, and the empire is bigger than us now. We owned India; now the Indians own us. Shall I take that metaphor further? There is an idea that those in this little country of ours—this dear green place, with all its problems and enfeeblement caused by our economic decline and the rapid and massive economic advance of others—are still in a position to stand in this Parliament making dispensations to this battleground or that, or that we can still slice our diminishing national wealth in a way that allows us to pretend to be an imperial power.
I have time only for one last point. I was startled by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, when she told us that £2 billion of our defence budget is going on foreign exchange costs, meaning that not only are we spending 50 billion of British taxpayers’ pounds, but that we are spending it in foreign countries. We are allowing foreign companies and yards to build our defence infrastructure in a way, as the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) pointed out, that France would never dream of doing. Whatever we are going to spend, spend it in Britain, spend it in British yards, spend it in British factories. You’ll save £2 billion in foreign exchange costs at the very least.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I genuinely will not take 13 minutes for my contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Our armed forces give it their all every single day for our protection. Their level of commitment and courage is, sadly, not matched by this Government. Worse, as our Defence Committee report and the reports from the Public Accounts Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) show, the Government have presided over reductions in personnel, depletion of kit and delays in new capabilities. When it comes to the biggest threat of all, war, there is not a single service that is fully ready. This did not happen overnight. This is a culmination of, to use the words of the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), the “hollowing out” of our forces over the last 14 years. The new Defence Secretary rightly said that we are in a pre-war world. But to acknowledge that and then do nothing about it is negligent.
The world is in turmoil: war in Ukraine, conflict in the middle east, fear of conflict in the Indo-Pacific, an aggressive Russia and an unpredictable China, as well as our armed forces responding to humanitarian missions and MACA—military aid to the civil authorities—requests, as they did throughout the pandemic. This all makes a pre-war footing all the more urgent. This is not an exhaustive list, but when it comes to our Royal Navy there are delays to the Type 26 frigates, issues with the availability of SSNs, delays to Dreadnought and an over-reliance on RFA Fort Victoria. Our Royal Air Force has a shortfall in fixed-wing transport aircraft numbers, insufficient numbers of maritime patrol aircraft and Wedgetail airborne early warning systems, a lack of air-to-air refuelling, and a lack of ground-based air defence systems or an anti-ballistic missile capability. Our Army lacks infantry fighting vehicles, multiple launch rocket systems, Challenger tanks and armoured fighting vehicles.
We have rightly committed ammunition to Ukraine, but the £1.95 billion announced to replenish stockpiles was not ringfenced. We have heard that the Ministry of Defence is potentially using it to help offset funding shortfalls, instead of using it to restore our warfighting ability. Our lack of industrial capacity is also causing problems with replenishment in particular, as many companies, both at prime and sub-prime level, are facing challenges in scaling up. A failure to address supply chain issues represents a significant risk to production. As the PAC report from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch on the MOD’s equipment plan found, there is no credible Government plan to deliver the desired military capabilities.
As for our personnel, the Haythornthwaite review in 2022 found a net outflow of 4,660 per year from our armed forces. There are significant pinch points in cyber, digital and AI skills. Those who serve in our forces are exceptional people, but they are constantly being asked to do more with less. The result has been significantly lower morale, with recruitment and retention issues across our services and across the reserves. Our Defence Committee report notes:
“Either the Ministry of Defence must be fully funded to engage in operations whilst also developing warfighting readiness; or the Government must reduce the operational burden on the Armed Forces.”
These are difficult decisions to make, but it is obvious that the Government are not going to make them as they are limping towards electoral oblivion. Frustratingly, the Government hindered our inquiry considerably by not sharing with us the information they hold on readiness—information that used to be available. Worse still, they were unable to explain to us why this information has become classified. Bearing in mind that our allies and countries at greater risk than us share theirs, it is fair to conclude that the reason the information is not being shared is because readiness levels are far worse than even we conclude in our report.
Our conclusion, bluntly speaking, is that we are not ready for war. The recent Budget saw no increase for defence, and that is after the cuts referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). Just this week, ex-defence and security chiefs said we must prepare genuinely for war. But we do not have the personnel or the kit to be ready for war. Far worse than that, we do not have the right Government in place to be ready for it either.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the SNP Front-Bench spokesperson, let me just say that the Front-Bench contributions in this debate are longer than normal, but we will be able to finish the debate by 3 o’clock as I had indicated. The SNP will have 10 minutes, the Opposition 15 minutes and the Government 15 minutes.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am glad that his party has joined mine—I think; I am not sure whether this is still a Labour manifesto commitment—in recommending the introduction of an armed forces representative body. However, a critical issue is how the skills that already exist can be utilised. I cannot believe that I am going to use the word “emulate” when speaking of the United States, but that flexibility is emulated by the United States and also by many of our other NATO allies.
When it comes to readiness and having people on the frontline in the physical armed forces, I am not going to play the numbers game, because this is a political and philosophical issue. It is about how we retain and recruit. I think that fundamental rights for members of the armed forces should be enshrined in law. They should not need to go to those very well-meaning charitable organisations to receive assistance with housing, with their mental health, and even with their physical health. Members of the Danish armed forces who have suffered an injury do not go to a special unit; they go to a Danish national hospital like every other Danish citizen, because there they will benefit from the delivery of a robust public service.
That, in turn, brings me to the way in which the armed forces and, critically, the Army in particular have been challenged during the pandemic. Some former members of the Defence Committee who are not present today kept going on about the need for the Army to step up to the plate in dealing with resilience. The right hon. Member for North Durham has heard me talk about resilience in Committee. It is not, in my view, the role of the Army to pick up civilian action. During the pandemic, the Army in England and Wales had to do that in respect of the Nightingale hospitals, not just in terms of logistics and design but in terms of the actual physical infrastructure. Why was that? It was because most parts of the NHS procurement processes to build the Nightingale hospitals had been privatised years ago. We had taken a very physical state ownership of that civil structure of resilience and readiness out of the hands of the Government and the NHS and given it to private contractors, who have made billions on the back of it.
Let me give a Scottish example, the Louisa Jordan Hospital. The Army stepped up to the plate in helping with the logistics, but they were not required to build the internal structure of the Louisa Jordan. Most of it was in the Scottish conference centre. That internal structure was built through NHS Scotland procurement, because it was fit for purpose and ready to play its part. When we are talking about people, we should bear in mind that readiness is not just about members of the armed forces; it is also about the larger civilian infrastructure.
The right hon. Member for Warley is not present now, but he and I—along with, I think, the right hon. Member for New Forest East—travelled to Washington some years ago with the Defence Committee. Part of our purpose was to understand where our infrastructure was. How, for example, do we transfer, through partnerships between states—critically, within the continent of Europe —a division, or tanks, across bridges and roads which, since the end of the cold war, are no longer equal in terms of weight or infrastructure? How difficult is it to move a tank from a port to, say, technically, the eastern front if that is required? Partnerships of that kind have been allowed to disappear in the post-cold war era.
However, there are other important partnerships, such as the United Nations with its peacekeeping role. It was disappointing that not only the United Kingdom but other countries have had to pull out of Mali, at the instigation of the Malian Government, in the last couple of years. That peacekeeping role is a crucial part of the infrastructure of maintaining international order grounded in the rule-based system. I was also disappointed by the Government’s decision to postpone, or put into abeyance, their investment and funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Palestine on the basis of a very small amount of information, or accusation, from the Government of the state of Israel in respect of the conflict in Gaza. I hope that the Government recognise the value and worth of that partnership in trying to quell some of the many big problems that are faced in that part of the world.
I think I have had my 10 minutes, but let me end by saying a little about the European Union in relation to partnership and position. I was glad to hear that the official Opposition may now be considering an improved relationship with the EU. We in the Scottish National party believe it is important to have a mutual defence agreement with the EU. As for the question of position, I am a Euro-Atlanticist, and I think it important for us to reposition ourselves, away from the issues of the Indo-Pacific.
I agree with the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) about the nuclear proposition. I think that the hon. Member for Rochdale and I are the only Members present who oppose nuclear weapons, but I think there is general agreement on the need to take the deterrent into another budget heading so that we have a full understanding of what that two-point-whatever percentage of GDP is. I hope that the Government will be able to respond to that in the debate today.
LGBT Veterans Independent Review
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Dr Murrison
My right hon. Friend is right that testimonies are vital. Those testimonies will ultimately be lodged in the National Archives and they will be part of our national story. I urge her to encourage her constituents to log on and provide their testimony—that is very important. I can confirm that the debate will be on the Floor of the House and not in Westminster Hall.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. In it he said:
“The treatment of those armed forces personnel perceived to be LGBT between 1967 and 2000 has long been a stain on the conscience of the nation.”
It has also been a stain on the conscience of this place, so I welcome his statement today and the work of Lord Etherton. The apologies the Minister spoke of are welcome, but they will never take away the hurt or the terrible impact on the lives of those affected by this institutional homophobia. We must remember that while homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967, the ban on LGBT people in the armed forces remained for 33 more years. That is three decades of additional harm. The reality is that all our veterans deserve respect and proper support, and all the more so those ostracised and shamed in that way.
I recognise what the Minister said on reparations, but what assessment has he made of the adequacy of the reparations cap? I wonder how that arbitrary cap on reparations payments will work, particularly when, as he said, we are asking people to come forward. How can he set a cap at this stage? He said he is throwing open the doors today, but that needs to be done in a way that is as easy as possible for people to navigate and that works for all those affected. No one must be left behind.
My colleague Keith Brown MSP, himself a veteran, is leading a Members’ business debate in the Scottish Parliament today on Fighting With Pride. I was pleased that the Minister spoke about Fighting With Pride and I would be keen to hear more about his reassurances that he will continue to work with that group and others to make sure that all LGBT veterans are properly and adequately supported in the way that is right for each of them individually.
Dr Murrison
I am certainly not aware of that. Lord Etherton is known for his independence, and his report was independent. Lord Etherton said £50 million, and I will leave it at that.
Ukraine
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Luke Pollard
The hon. Gentleman invites me to write Labour’s manifesto from the Dispatch Box, and I am sure that the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), would not be too keen on me doing that. Let me say clearly that Labour in power has always spent what is required on defence. When we left power we were spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, a figure never matched by Conservative Governments in 13 years. It is important that when it comes to defence, we not only have a reasonable budget for security, but that the money is well spent.
What we have seen recently, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is a huge amount of waste in MOD procurement. That is not only on wasted systems, but through money going to foreign contractors that in the Opposition’s mind should have gone to UK contractors, because we believe in building in Britain first and foremost. As we have seen from the recent Royal Fleet Auxiliary solid support ship contract, which was sent abroad rather than to a UK supplier in its first instance, we are seeping money out of our system when we allow such contracts to go abroad. We need to make sure that as we build new platforms, there is an adequate work share for all partners involved. There is a balance to be struck, but I take the challenge that the hon. Gentleman makes. I am afraid he will have to wait for our manifesto for those commitments.
The final thing I will do is to thank all the communities up and down the country that have been supporting our Ukrainian friends throughout the 564 days since Putin’s illegal invasion. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know you have been supporting people in your constituency in Doncaster and met some of them to thank them for their support. Members from both sides of the House have been supporting their communities over the summer recess, including in making sure that Ukrainians who have come to the United Kingdom can remain here. In particular, I pay tribute to some of the Ukrainian young people in Plymouth who have succeeded in achieving GCSEs and A-levels, despite the enormous pressure upon them and their families. In many cases, they were studying subjects in a new language and a new country while their friends and families are facing bombing and attack in Ukraine. It is an incredible achievement, and I put on record our thanks and, I am sure, those of the entire House to all those British families who have been making Ukrainians welcome here in Britain.
We still have a lot more work to do, and our commitment needs to be long term, not only in our military support for Ukraine, but in our support for Ukrainians for whom it is unsafe to go home. For as long as it is unsafe, we need to make sure there is a safe home for them here. Should there be a change of Government at the next general election, there will be no change in Britain’s support for Ukraine. We must rise to the same heights as our Ukrainian friends to ensure that Putin loses and Ukraine wins.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
The paralysis of the G20 statement reflects the difficulties of the geopolitics we face. The absence of a communiqué to confirm that it is Russia at fault here shows what leadership is still required in leaning in to what is happening in Ukraine. This remains the biggest war since world war two. Although it is dragging on—as the Minister for Armed Forces said, we are on day 564—we should not be desensitised to what is happening; we should be concerned that there continues to be economic and security disruption right across the continent. This is a test of our staying power and our ability to continue our support. To dry up our support for Ukraine is exactly what Putin wants us to do.
Since the last time we had a debate on this matter, dramatic events have taken place over the summer. They affect what is happening on the ground in Ukraine and in Russia, and they could be game-changing. It is worth remembering that Putin thought he could win this war because he saw a divided Ukraine. President Zelensky did not enjoy the command and support that he has today. If we go back to the Maidan in 2014, Viktor Yanukovych was pressed by Putin to lean his country to the east when it was clear that the nation—or at least half of it—wanted to face the west. Putin saw the west being risk-averse in wanting to support Ukraine in its hour of need. He then pressed further by taking on Crimea and the Donbas. Again, the west did little. He then invaded in 2021, as we know, hoping to repeat what happened in 1968, when the Soviets marched into Czechoslovakia with 50,000 troops and, I think, around 5,000 tanks. It was the courage of Ukraine that meant it stood up to the mark and stood up to the third largest army in the world.
This is where we can pay tribute to what the British Government have done, because there has been commendable engagement, even prior to the invasion itself. They have provided those important anti-tank weapon systems, training on Salisbury plain, those main battle tanks—the Challengers—as well as Storm Shadows and Brimstones. They have been leading in the Ramstein group, co-ordinating efforts with other allies to make sure that Ukraine has the necessary military assistance. We have learned and become less risk-averse as time has moved forward, conscious of the escalatory ladder and knowing we are dealing with a nuclear power that has invaded another state. The west has rekindled its cold war statecraft skills, but the fundamental issue is: if we want Ukraine to win and Russia to lose, we should not be half-hearted in giving what Ukraine requires. We need to be fully committed to giving Ukraine the tools to succeed for victory.
It has been clear and mentioned already in the Chamber today that the war has not gone well for President Putin. He expected a quick win and is now frustrated on the frontline. There is little to show for his efforts. He is using conscripts and prisoners and having to replace successive generals, because command and control is not what it was. He has spent the past 23 years coup d’état-proofing, as it were, the Kremlin, Moscow and Russia to make sure that he will not be removed, because that is the Russian way. Russian leaders remain in power because they exhibit strength and are infallible. As soon as they show any signs of weakness, that is when the oligarchs, the elites and so forth realise they can no longer have their back watched by the leader in charge, and they move to replace them. That is what we are seeing today because of the game-changing events involving the Wagner rebellion and Yevgeny Prigozhin. His removal by Putin was inevitable, for the very reason I have just raised: when a Russian leader is attacked in any way, it is the Russian way to crush one’s enemies—to remove them and to eliminate them in one form or another.
Prigozhin did something exceptional: not only did he challenge Putin and bury the myth that this war was going well, but he used his own forces to charge up through Rostov-on-Don towards Moscow. That illustrated that no Russian forces were able to take on the Wagner Group—the private army—to prevent a coup d’état and a mutiny. That weakness is now recognised across Russia; Putin’s time will eventually be up.
The other dynamic is that, of all the fighting forces in Ukraine, the most powerful, capable, potent and best equipped was the Wagner Group. It had the best equipment and was the most motivated. It has now been removed from the battlefield and that provides an opportunity for Ukraine.
Lots of western pressure has been placed on Ukraine, saying, “We have given you all this expensive, exceptional, ever-complex equipment. Why has the counter-offensive not advanced further?” Again, it is because—this happened in the second world war—various phases of operations need to be conducted. We have seen Ukraine probe the frontline across 1,000 km, and we are now seeing advances taking place as it penetrates through complex minefields and anti-tank defences, particularly in the Zaporizhzhia region. That is the progress we need to see, but we need to exhibit patience. This is not going to happen overnight—there will not be a quick phase of war, with this all being over by Christmas.
What Putin is now realising is that this could be the beginning of the end of his war in Ukraine, and it could be the beginning of the end of his existence as leader, too. I do not believe he will be replaced overnight, but I do believe that the weakness exhibited is enough to unrest and unnerve many of the leaders in Russia who will be looking for a replacement in the longer term. We therefore need to be cautious and perhaps stand up to those voices in the west who are saying, “Let’s draw a line. Let’s start negotiating. Let’s get round a table and draw a close to what is happening in Ukraine.”
We need to recognise the bigger picture and what Putin —indeed, even his successor—might be trying to do, and that is to expand Russian influence in the Slavic area of eastern Europe. Again, that is the Russia way. Let us go back hundreds of years; the view has been, “If we are not being attacked, the best way is to attack, otherwise, our defences will not be enough to hold the motherland together, so let’s take advantage of the west’s weakness or risk-averseness.” I am pleased to see that we are now starting to change that.
What is next for the west? Absolutely, we must keep up that military support—that is the tactical that has been talked about today—but I would advance two further areas where we could do more to support Ukrainians. First, we must recognise that more than $300 billion-worth of frozen assets belong to Russia. We need to develop a legal mechanism that would allow each month about $20 billion of that to be slid across the table to Ukraine to help in its reconstruction and development. That might focus minds in Russia—in Moscow, in the Kremlin and Putin himself—that the longer the war continues, the more Russian money it is costing.
Secondly, I would stress the grain shipments—I brought them up with the Prime Minister—which are critical for Ukraine as well as fundamental for our own economy, where food inflation remains in double figures. I would stress the symbiotic relationship between our economic security and our national security. I am pleased that the Government are organising and participating in a global food security summit. I hope that we will look towards creating some form of expeditionary force that can provide the necessary defence and support for a maritime taskforce to protect those ships and ensure they can depart from Odesa to feed the rest of the world.
I end simply by stressing what I think many colleagues will express: because our world is getting more dangerous, not less, our peacetime defence budget of just over 2% of GDP is simply not adequate. We had the 2021 integrated review, which introduced so many cuts across all three services. Because of Ukraine, we had another IR—IR ’23. Unfortunately, none of those cuts was reversed. I hope that the new Defence Secretary, who has the Prime Minister’s ear, will be able to persuade him on that and recognise that we have done so much in advancing our hard-power capabilities, but we need to go further because of where this very dangerous world is now headed.
Defence Command Paper Refresh
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I thank my right hon. Friend for his work on the report and for his campaigning. Let me also say, however, that procurement has started to improve. In 2009-10, the average time delay on a project was 28%; it is now 15%. The average cost overrun was 15% on a project in 2009-10; it is now 4%. The direction of travel is improving. The number of civil servants at DE&S went from 24,000 to 11,000, so we are cutting away the bureaucracy and the direction of travel is improving. In my time as Secretary of State for Defence, I was also determined to put to bed some of the problem projects that we were all inheriting. I am pleased to say that, as I speak, Ajax is back on track and starting to be delivered to the units. The units are starting to train in it now. We could all have a discussion about whether we would have chosen Ajax all those years ago, but fundamentally it has not cost the taxpayer any more money and it is being delivered to our frontline. I was determined to put that right, or take other steps to deal with it. That should always be the case.
The other thing that I have always tried to do, which is not in the document but which I recommend in defence procurement, is to never defer—either delete or deliver. If you defer, it costs hundreds of millions of pounds. Deferring the aircraft carrier cost £1 billion under the Labour Government. Deferring the F-35 cost £500 million. Deferrals create the black holes. Delete or deliver, but don’t defer.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I too thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of a draft statement, albeit that there were one or two additions on delivery. I also, perhaps pre-emptively, join in wishing him well in whatever comes next. Although I have not directly shadowed him, I certainly pass on those thoughts from my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Dave Doogan), who has worked closely with him over a period now.
I will start on a positive note. I welcome a number of the points made. I very much welcome the fact that people are put front and centre. That is absolutely critical in anything we do in defence. People are what make it work, and if we are not supporting the men and women of the forces, what are we doing at all? There is probably that more we can do, even beyond this. While it will not surprise Ministers to hear me say that we need to support those serving, we also need to continue to look at what we are doing to support our veterans. I know that the Minister is working on that, but it is an area in which we need to try to do more.
I also welcome the recognition of some of the accommodation conditions. I welcome the fact that steps are being taken and matters looked at, but that needs to be moved forward at a greater pace.
I note that the Secretary of State says we are going to spend over £50 billion for the first time next year. I wonder whether he can tell us how much of that is simply down to inflation created by this Government. I am not trying to be awkward, but that is clearly quite a significant factor.
We have also heard of the ongoing and long-lasting issues around procurement, with reports showing that roughly £2 billion is wasted each year in failed equipment programmes and cancelled procurement contracts. Is the Ministry of Defence making the necessary reforms to make its procedures better, and will they deliver value for money?
Recruitment and retention issues have been flagged up; the Haythornthwaite review clearly highlighted those. Is the right hon. Gentleman confident that the steps being taken now on the skills agenda will be the necessary actions to address recruitment and retention issues?
Finally, the Haythornthwaite review highlighted cyber capability as a major issue. Is the right hon. Gentleman confident that the steps being taken and outlined today will do enough to deliver that capability in the way that we all want to see?
Mr Wallace
The military could definitely take a leaf out of the civil service’s book. I look at how senior civil servants can flex, do step-ups and step-downs, take breaks or sabbaticals, and I think, “Why can’t we do that for our military?” Why can people, if their life circumstances change, not step up or step down? That is what we are trying to do with these changes in the Haythornthwaite regime. If we do that, we will match the demands of generation Z. The younger generation want more and more different things. It is not just whether they work in defence, but whether they work in the civil service or in the private sector. All employers face the challenge of how they will do that and keep people longer, so that they get investment both ways—into their businesses or whatever.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I believe that he said he might be returning here tomorrow. As I have a number of Ministers here, I wish to take the opportunity to say how important it is that no announcements are made in statements that have not previously been given to the Opposition.
Just in case I am not in the Chair tomorrow, I will take this opportunity to wish the Secretary of State well in whatever he decides to do next.
Armoured Cavalry Programme: Sheldon Review
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement to update the House on the review conducted by Clive Sheldon KC on the lessons to be learned from the armoured cavalry programme, which is the Army programme centred on the Ajax vehicles. The Defence Secretary has previously acknowledged that the programme was a troubled programme. Albeit that he has more recently announced that it has turned a corner, it is against the backdrop of concerns he had about the programme, and those of this House about what was known at the time of publishing the integrated review, that he commissioned an independent review by a senior legal figure to investigate the circumstances.
In May last year, Clive Sheldon KC was appointed to lead a lessons learned review into the armoured cavalry programme. The review’s terms of reference were to
“identify lessons and make recommendations to help Ministry of Defence (MOD) deliver major programmes more effectively in future, with a particular focus on how MOD shares and elevates issues across the Department.”
An earlier Ministry of Defence report, by David King, specifically relating to the health and safety concerns about noise and vibration, was published in December 2021. We continue to make good progress on implementing the recommendations from that report, some of which are echoed in Mr Sheldon’s review.
Mr Sheldon submitted his report to Ministers on 19 May, and I am today publishing that report, unredacted, on gov.uk, and placing a copy in the Library of the House. I wish to formally thank Mr Sheldon and his team for the painstaking work that they have undertaken to enable us to better understand how the MOD can improve the governance, culture and leadership of our major programmes. They interviewed some 70 people and considered tens of thousands of pages of evidence.
The resulting report makes for difficult reading, highlighting a number of systemic, cultural and institutional problems across several areas of the Department. These problems include: fragmented relationships and the conflicting priorities of the senior responsible owner role. It also points to a reticence to raise, and occasionally by seniors to listen to, genuine problems in a timely, evidenced manner.
We accept these findings and most of Mr Sheldon’s 24 formal recommendations, with 15 accepted and nine accepted in principle. Crucially, the review did not find that either Ministers or Parliament were misled. Equally, the review team did not see any evidence of misconduct by any individual, let alone gross misconduct, and nothing that would justify disciplinary action. It is, though, true that many of the behaviours highlighted in the report are far from ideal, but in many cases they have already been recognised and acted on, both specifically on the armoured cavalry programme as well as across the Department.
Where work is not already under way to implement a recommendation, we commit to making the necessary changes at pace. In the interest of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will address the recommendations in the themes set out by Mr Sheldon in his executive summary, rather than going through each of the recommendations.
A number of recommendations relate to MOD’s internal relationships, including with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Considerable effort has already been made to address these issues within and beyond the Ajax programme. This has resulted in much improved working and reporting arrangements, in particular with the Defence Equipment & Support organisation and also the newly established acquisition safety cell that advises the Investment Approvals Committee on equipment safety matters. Escalation routes also exist for DSTL through the chief science officer where concerns are not acted on.
Another area of focus is SROs. I know that many colleagues are interested in this point. We fully agree with the need to improve how senior responsible owners are supported and much work has gone into upskilling and supporting SROs, ensuring that they have the time and space to focus on delivering their programmes and can build skills through the Major Projects Leadership Academy.
Today, four in every five of our major project SROs are committing at least half their time to leading their programmes—half the Army’s 19 SROs dedicate 100% of their time. We also agree in principle with Mr Sheldon’s presumption for a minimum tenure, subject to compatibility with employment law.
Finally, the report comments extensively on a culture that led to issues not being escalated and makes recommendations to improve that and the flow of information. Transparency has improved since the period of this report. For Ajax, there are detailed updates through the SRO to Ministers that ensure the potential issues are exposed early should they arise in the future. Processes will be further strengthened through the defence acquisition operating model and guidance. Work is also under way to implement a project delivery data strategy to strengthen the use of data to both support performance reporting and assist in early identification of issues. Of course, the main aim of commissioning this review was to learn lessons to improve procurement—not just on Ajax, but across the MOD’s programmes.
Ultimately, the core of our intent is to ensure that the equipment we procure for the British armed forces is of the highest possible standard and, furthermore, that our service personnel have faith in the system and the taxpayer has faith in our spending of money from the public purse. Quite simply, we need to deliver change across the Department, turning widespread desire for acquisition reform into tangible reality, in particular driving increased pace and agility into acquisition, so that we can keep pace with technology and maintain our competitive edge.
Although I recognise the many challenges in this programme to date and the need to learn lessons, I would stress that there is already intense work under way in the Department—especially at DE&S—to improve performance, with encouraging signs. For example, between December 2020 to December 2022 we saw a reduction from 6.1 years to 5.1 years in the time that it takes to go from outline business case to delivering equipment into the hands of our armed forces.
In further positive news, I hope the House will welcome the significant progress made to recover the Ajax programme. I can confirm that, as of Tuesday afternoon, the Household Cavalry has been undergoing standard Army field training on Salisbury plain in a range of Ajax vehicles. Focused on individual and crew training, this step marks the restarting of British Army training on these sophisticated vehicles, and I hope underlines that this project really has turned the corner. Indeed, last Friday I had the great privilege of visiting Bovington to experience the Ajax vehicle at first hand.
I am pleased to report that the soldiers I met described the vehicle and its capabilities as “night and day”—a phrase used repeatedly—compared with their current equipment. In describing Ajax’s strengths, the soldiers I spoke to emphasised the platform’s high mobility, increased firepower from the new cannon and a highly sophisticated sensor suite that really helps them do their job, representing in totality a very real and positive step change in capability—all packaged in a vehicle with high levels of crew protection and survivability. As training increases across other field Army units on the 44 vehicles already delivered, in parallel General Dynamics’s personnel in Wales continue to run their production lines to build the operationally deployable vehicles, with the end goal of 589 fully operational vehicles by 2029.
To conclude, I reiterate my gratitude to Mr Sheldon and his team for their considerable efforts and for distilling his findings into clear lessons and recommendations for the future. Our focus now is on understanding and applying those lessons, ensuring that they are implemented in the armoured cavalry and other major defence programmes, as well as ensuring that we deliver the game-changing capability that Ajax will provide to the British Army as quickly as possible. I commend this statement to the House.
James Cartlidge
I begin by agreeing with the hon. Gentleman on Glenda Jackson; I do not think she was in the House when I was here, but she was an amazing actress and I join in his sentiments and echo them entirely.
I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is not just the shadow spokesman but has a clear constituency interest, and I respect that. He talks about fevered speculation and the impact on the workforce, and I totally understand that. We do not want to see that. He talks about coming to the House: I am here today to be absolutely clear with everyone about the latest position. In fact, my colleague the Paymaster General regularly updated the House on the position around Ajax when he was the Minister. My predecessor, now the Lord Chancellor, also issued a written statement earlier this year that was very detailed about the programme, so I think we have been consistent in updating the House.
On some of the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions, he asked about action on individuals. What we said when commissioning this review was that disciplinary action would be taken only if there was evidence of gross misconduct, and Mr Sheldon found no evidence of misconduct, let alone gross misconduct. That is the clear reason why individual action has not been taken.
In terms of action across programmes, I point the hon. Gentleman to the very significant investment by the Army of £70 million over the next 10 years in Army procurement programmes, including in the past two years a doubling in the number of SROs and a doubling of the amount of time that SROs spend on their responsible major projects. Those are significant investments.
I also point out to the hon. Gentleman some of the improvements we have seen. I accept that we need to go further but, if I may draw a contrast, this is not the first review of acquisition. Bernard Gray issued an independent “Review of Acquisition for the Secretary of State for Defence” in 2009, which described a poorly performing procurement system. That review found that
“the average programme overruns by 80% or c.5 years from the time specified at initial approval through to in service dates”,
and that was under a previous Government.
These problems have been around for some time and it is disappointing. I have pointed to the improvements we have seen, but let me be absolutely clear: the ultimate reason we have this report is to learn lessons and the way we respond to it is to deliver a fundamentally better acquisition system. I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman on that and I hope we can all work together to that end.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I would like to just take this opportunity to add my thoughts about Glenda Jackson, as I can see there are colleagues in the Chamber who were here in the House at the same time as her. She was a wonderful colleague and a great Minister, and I think we all want to send our condolences to her family. I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
May I immediately associate myself with your kind words about Glenda Jackson, Madam Deputy Speaker?
We now have in the Chamber not one, but three current or former procurement Ministers who bear the scars of this project. I am pleased that we are able to discuss the matter so openly and I commend the recent work that the MOD has done to get on top of the issue.
Ajax is now a case study that the MOD and DNS should use on how not to do procurement. This is all about the British Army’s recce vehicle. The current one being used, the Scimitar, was introduced in 1971. It is good to hear that the soldiers the Minister met said that the replacement is better than the last—that is brilliant, because it was built in 1971. Ajax’s journey has been miserable. It started in 2010 and the delivery date was 2017, yet it is not expected to enter service until 2030. Something very serious has gone wrong.
I absolutely welcome Clive Sheldon’s report. The Committee will look into that in more detail and, rather fortuitously, a Sub-Committee study on procurement, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), is currently under way. I am sure that he will have more words on how we will digest the report in more detail.
The Minister covered some of the issues. Concerns include the relationships between different entities within, or associated with, the MOD. The senior responsible officer has been criticised for not being a single point of contact or owning the actual project itself but having to have a number of projects going concurrently. Concerns got stuck because of people taking a rigid view of their remits. It is not just with Ajax that there is a problem; there is also with the land warfare capability. We have similar problems with the main battle tank and the armoured fighting vehicle. I hope that those problems will be addressed when the defence Command Paper comes out.
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee. Of course, we are absolutely committed to engaging with his Committee and, indeed, with the Sub-Committee, before which I will appear next week. I was born in 1974. He makes a striking point about the existing vehicle being from 1971—it is the same age as my elder brother. I take his point that one might therefore expect servicemen to say that it is night and day.
I put great store by meeting those on the frontline, and I will always continue to do that. It was a great privilege to go to Bovington. One of the soldiers I sat next to in the Ares version had been in a Challenger 2 when it was hit by an IED—I think it was in Iraq or Afghanistan; he did not say. He felt confidence in the protection. It is so important that we interact with the soldiers on the frontline. Ultimately, that is the point: we want to deliver a better acquisitions system for them and I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend’s Committee to that end.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Let me associate myself with the comments about the former Member for Hampstead and Kilburn—a great actor, but, I have to say to Labour colleagues, a great socialist, who will be deeply missed. I express my condolences to Labour group Members—a great loss to socialism.
I have sat on the Defence Select Committee for almost five years. I have sat through enough evidence sessions and seen enough gloss poured over the evident shortcomings of this programme by Ministers and officials alike to treat today’s statement with much scepticism. Despite the fact that we are seeing various cheaper competitor platforms to Ajax tested in the theatre in Ukraine before our very eyes, we continue with what I think is an absolute classic 24-carat bespoke option straight out of Main Building’s fevered imagination. Today’s news is telling us that Ajax will not be ready until the end of the decade—the Minister may correct me if I am wrong—meaning that a full 20 years will have passed between concept and deployment. That is, frankly, unforgivable.
Yet so many of us across the Chamber would tell us today that it does not have to be like this. To give just one allied example, Norway has recently terminated its contract for the NH90 helicopters after problems were found, and will return all those helicopters while demanding a full refund. What is stopping the MOD from doing the same with Ajax and General Dynamics?
As we have talked about Ukraine, if we eventually ever see any of these vehicles deployed in the field, would the Minister be happy for the UK to supply them to a country fighting for its survival against a technically advanced adversary?
Ukraine
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Is this relevant to the urgent question?
Stephanie Peacock
Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you advise me whether it is in order for Ministers to suggest that Opposition Members do not support our armed forces when we are doing our job in holding this Government to account? I take strong offence at the words the Minister stated. I am a member of the Royal College of Defence Studies, I completed two of the parliamentary armed forces schemes, and I have served on Labour’s Front Bench as part of the Defence team.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. It is up to the Minister if he wishes to respond to it; if he does not, I am sure he will consider the points she has made.
Dr Murrison
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) for articulating her support to the men and women of our armed forces. I am very pleased she has said that and put it on the record, and I am sure they will be extremely grateful to her.
AUKUS Defence Partnership
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Defence Procurement (Alex Chalk)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the AUKUS defence partnership. Yesterday, the Prime Minister, standing alongside the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Australia, announced that our three nations would be jointly developing a conventionally armed—I stress that—nuclear-powered submarine, the SSN-AUKUS, which will come into service in the late 2030s.
Before I provide the House with more details about this landmark announcement, it might be beneficial for colleagues if I provide a brief summary of how we got here. For more than 60 years, the UK and the US have successfully collaborated on the development of nuclear submarines. This unprecedented co-operation goes to the very core of our special relationship. Currently, with the support of the United States, we have a fleet of five Astute-class submarines, with a further two boats to be built. These world-class vessels are an essential component of our defence and security apparatus in a more contested world.
More recently, Australia has also recognised the need for a stealthier and more enduring underwater capability to deter threats to the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific. That is why back in September 2021, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), while Prime Minister, announced to the House a pivotal new defence partnership involving the United States, Australia and the UK, otherwise known as AUKUS. The partnership involves two pillars: first, the joint development of a nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarine capability for Australia; and secondly, the creation of a suite of complementary technologies, among them hypersonics and cyber. It is the first of those pillars that I wish to focus on today.
For the past 18 months, we have been working closely with our trilateral counterparts to understand Australia’s requirements, to make a detailed technical assessment and to set out the optimal pathway for delivering this unique platform. As the Prime Minister said last night, this scoping period has now concluded and a solution has been identified.
The SSN-AUKUS will be based on the design for the UK’s Astute-class submarine replacement, SSN(R), which has been under development for several years. SSN-AUKUS will build on these firm foundations by incorporating cutting-edge US submarine technology, including the propulsion plant, combat systems and conventional weapons, but this boat will not just be of benefit to the Royal Australian Navy. It is now clear to us that the SSN-AUKUS, which is an evolution of SSN(R), should now become the UK’s future platform as well, providing the future attack submarine requirement for the Royal Navy as well as the Royal Australian Navy.
As yesterday’s refreshed integrated review underlines, we are having to contend with an increasingly volatile and complex environment, with multiple adversaries seeking to undermine our rules-based international order. In response, the deepening of our defence partnership offers three distinct advantages. First, it bolsters our undersea capability. It will give us the ability to deter future threats in the underwater battlespace, to protect our nuclear deterrent and our vital sea lines of communication and to fulfil a range of military tasks, including anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, land attack and intelligence gathering.
Secondly, AUKUS will bring a truly global and interoperable capability for our nations that is not just capable of operating in the Indo-Pacific, but strengthens our contribution to NATO in Europe. It will enable us to operate in the high north, where the impact of climate change is opening new military and commercial shipping access to the north Atlantic, and it will ensure that three like-minded nations with shared interests on the global stage can work together even more closely.
Thirdly, and finally, AUKUS helps us share the burden of research and development costs, not just giving us access to some of the most advanced technology on the planet, but allowing us to integrate our supply chains and provide greater resilience at a time of growing resource costs and inflationary pressures. It will also open up further opportunities for technology sharing and interoperability across the defence context.
The first SSN-AUKUS for the Royal Navy will be built in the United Kingdom and delivered in the late 2030s, taking full advantage of our many decades of experience in building nuclear-powered submarines. To support SSN-AUKUS, Australia has committed to making a proportionate financial investment in our submarine industrial base. SSN-AUKUS will support thousands of new jobs at Barrow-in-Furness and Derby and throughout the national supply chain. These are truly centres of excellence, and I am proud to say that they stand ready to support Australia in this endeavour. It is particularly good news that Rolls-Royce UK will be building the nuclear reactors for all of Australia’s submarines.
We intend for the first SSN-AUKUS to come into service with the Royal Australian Navy in the 2040s, and Australia will receive substantial support to develop and operate these nuclear-powered submarines. Submariners from the Royal Australian Navy have already begun to train with the Royal Navy to gain the relevant experience and, alongside the US, the Royal Navy intends to increase the number of submarine deployments to Australia from 2026, building on the successful visit to Australia by HMS Astute in 2021. The United States has also signalled her intention to provide Virginia-class attack submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, with Australia planning to acquire three. Taken together, this plan is consistent with Australian sovereignty and international obligations. It systematically and carefully builds Australia’s ability to safely and securely operate, maintain and sustain SSNs.
It goes without saying that compliance with non-proliferation requirements is paramount, and I reassure the House that throughout this process we will remain fully committed to setting the highest non-proliferation standards. We are undertaking every step in a way that reflects our long-standing leadership in global non-proliferation and our steadfast support for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We have been clear that we will pursue this endeavour in a way that sets a strong precedent for states seeking to develop a naval nuclear propulsion capability. We have consulted, and we will continue to consult regularly and transparently with the International Atomic Energy Agency with respect to the development of a suitable nuclear safeguards approach. The IAEA director general has expressed his satisfaction with our engagement.
This is a momentous journey for us all. For maritime nations such as the UK, as well as Australia and the US, maintaining a capability advantage over potential adversaries is essential. For the UK, AUKUS represents an historic opportunity for a deep, enduring and mutually beneficial partnership with two of our closest allies—a partnership that will strengthen the resilience of our nuclear submarine enterprise and will bring with it investment and high-skilled, high-wage jobs, as well as an even stronger and more capable Royal Navy submarine force. The United Kingdom will now begin embarking on delivering SSN-AUKUS, along with our allies. I look forward to keeping the House updated on how it progresses. I commend this statement to the House.
Alex Chalk
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. He is absolutely right that this is an announcement of such moment that it will require cross-party and generational support. It is important to note precisely the scale of what is being proposed. As he rightly indicated, this is about not simply the sale of a weapons system, but the growth of a capability across continents and across generations. With scale comes opportunity: having that trinational approach builds the resilience of the supply chain and of the industrial capability, which benefits Australia, of course, and the United Kingdom.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about investment. I am pleased to note that, in the last financial year, £2 billion was invested into Barrow-in-Furness and Raynesway, as he will have seen, because I think he has had the opportunity to visit both recently. There will be further investment to come, partly as a result of what has been announced recently, and in the years to come, which echoes my point about it having to be sustained and continued. He is right, of course, to reference the fact that, in the document that accompanies the announcement, a copy of which I am sure he has seen, the Australians have indicated their agreement to make a proportionate investment in UK infrastructure.
The right hon. Gentleman is correct to ask about co-ordination, because this has to be co-ordinated. The way that happens is, first and foremost, to ensure that the Australian experts who need to develop that expertise, as they have candidly acknowledged, spend time in the UK—in Barrow and Raynesway. Indeed, this Thursday, I am looking forward to going to Barrow with the Premier of South Australia, where the first SSN-AUKUS for the Royal Australian Navy will be built.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of AUKUS pillar 2. I have had the opportunity to speak to my opposite number here in the UK to discuss precisely that. There are a number of aspects to it, as he indicated, such as hypersonics, AI and underwater technologies, and further detail will be explored in due course. To his point about other countries, I can say that, unlike pillar 1, which is not open for engagement beyond the three nations, we will of course consider the interest that other nations have expressed in pillar 2.
As is well expressed in the fact sheet that accompanies the announcement, AUKUS—whether pillar 1 or pillar 2—is designed to show:
“our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and an international system that respects the rule of law, sovereignty, human rights, and the peaceful resolution of disputes free from coercion.”
That is what our nations stand for, and that is what AUKUS will deliver.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
As somebody who is passionate about UK security and Britain’s place in the world, I could not hide my deep disappointment yesterday when the new integrated review spelled out a deteriorating global threat picture, but offered no new investment in our conventional forces. We are back here today, however, and I welcome this landmark announcement of ever greater collaboration between three trusted allies. Our political relationship with Washington experienced a bumpy patch post Brexit—I say that as a US-UK dual national—so it is good to see it back where it should be. Indeed, landing AUKUS, the Paris agreement and the Windsor framework shows that statecraft has returned to No. 10.
The procurement programme is for the long term and the first subs will not arrive for another couple of decades, yet the threat picture is deteriorating rapidly. If we are to commit to the Indo-Pacific tilt, does the Minister recognise the urgent need to increase the surface fleet, so that we can meet our responsibilities there?
Ukraine: Update
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
If you would indulge me, Mr Speaker, there were lots of questions and I will do my best to answer them all. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and his party for their support, which, as he said, has been ongoing and enduring throughout this process. That is what allows the UK to be prominent in standing tall for international human rights and defending Ukraine.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what scale of support Ukraine will need; I cannot be too specific, as I do not want to set out to the Russian Government the exact inadequacies or strengths of the Ukrainian armed forces. However, it is safe to say that the Ukrainians will require an ongoing commitment that grows to the size of divisions in its armed forces. Also, in the last year we have seen Ukraine grow its own army, to hundreds of thousands of men and women under arms, who are now equipped not only with western equipment but with captured or refurbished former Soviet or Russian equipment. The Polish Government have donated more than 200 T-72 tanks, for example.
The key for all of us in the next phase is to help Ukraine to train and to combine all those weapons systems in a way that can deliver a combined arms effect in a mobile manner to deliver the offensives required to achieve the goal of expelling, which the right hon. Gentleman also asked about. It is the UK Government’s position that Putin’s invasion fails and Ukraine restores its sovereign territory, and we will do all we can to help achieve that. This package is part of that. The Challengers should be viewed alongside the 50 Bradleys from the United States. Those are effectively the ingredients for a battlegroup with divisional level fires of either AS-90s or other 155 howitzers. The 14 tanks represent a squadron, and the 50 Bradleys would roughly form an armoured infantry battlegroup.
We are trying to take the Ukrainian military, with its history of Soviet methods, and provide it not only with western equipment but with western know-how. In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question, the training will be delivered almost immediately, starting with Ukrainians training in the UK and in the field, so to speak, either in neighbouring countries or in countries such as Germany, where we saw the artillery train with the Dutch, I think, at the beginning of this process. The training of these Ukrainian forces will be administered and supported in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, with the US being in the lead for much of that formation training. It is incredibly important and supportive of the United States to do that.
There will be no UK forces deployed in Ukraine in this process. As I have said, that is because our job is to help Ukraine to defend itself and we can do that from neighbouring or other countries. Yes, I know the training cycle. I was a trooper in the Scots Dragoon Guards in 1988 and I started my time in a Chieftain tank, which you would be lucky to see in a museum these days. The Ukrainians have shown us, in their basic and specialist training, that they are determined to go back and fight for their country, and their work ethos and the hours they put in are quite extraordinary. I am confident that, on one level, they will soon be showing us the way to fight with this equipment.
The right hon. Gentleman referenced the Army cuts. I have come to this Dispatch Box on numerous occasions and admitted how woeful our Army’s equipment programmes have been in the past and how behind and out of date they have been. That is why we have committed investment of more than £24 billion in Army equipment alone over the next 10 years. As I have said, I am bringing forward Deep Fire and Recce and getting Ajax back on track, as well as our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability, the Challenger 3 tanks, the Boxer fleet, plus many other investments in the Army. This is incredibly important. I take it seriously and I know that the right hon. Gentleman does too. We have to deliver an Army that can stand shoulder to shoulder with its peers, never mind its enemy, and it is important to say so.
On the Leopard coalition, as it is calling itself, it is being reported that Poland is keen to donate some Leopard tanks, as is Finland. All of this currently relies on the German Government’s decisions, not only on whether they will supply their own Leopards but whether they will give permissions for others to do so. I would urge my German colleagues to do that. These tanks are not offensive when they are used for defensive methods. There is a debate in Germany about whether a tank is an offensive or defensive weapon. It depends what people are using it for. I would wager that if they are using it to defend their country, it is a defensive weapon.
Also, we are not on our own. This is a joint international coalition. I know that there have been concerns in the German political body that it does not want to go it alone. Well, it is not alone, and I think that the conference in Ramstein will show that. I pay tribute to the commitment by the French to put in the tanks at Christmas time, and we are obviously joining alongside them. They are the key to unlocking the Leopard, and we will do all we can to help that.
The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question on the international fund is imminently: I will announce it in the next couple of weeks. We had $27 billion-worth of bids to a fund that has reached $500 million. I am very grateful for the recent Swedish donation to the fund, which we intend to keep growing, but I want to make sure that the fund is spent sustainably. It is not a petty cash or slush fund though which people can just go and buy something. I want it to be invested in things such as production and supply chains. Whether it is maintaining tanks or artillery supplies, an active production line is needed.
That goes to the right hon. Gentleman’s last point about being too slow to place orders. One of the reasons it has taken time to place orders, as he knows, is that there is sometimes no supply chain and we have to wait for a supply chain to be reinvested in, redeveloped or re-founded with new suppliers before we can get a price for the taxpayer or a contract delivered. That is what happened with NLAW. As much as we would have loved to have placed that order on the next day, some of the supply chain was 15 years old and we had to find new suppliers. Then we got a price and some partners. By placing an order with Sweden, we reinvigorated the supply chain and, hopefully, more jobs with it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chairman of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
This conflict will not end any time soon. Putin is moving his country to a war footing as he prepares for a spring offensive. Tactically speaking, it is very welcome that we are finally seeing some serious, NATO-standard tracked hardware gifted to Ukraine. It is another example of the UK leading and ever pushing the envelope of international support for Ukraine.
As other nations follow our lead, maintaining so many NATO variants of vehicles and equipment—tanks, armoured personnel carriers and artillery pieces—will not be practical in the long term. Will the UK consider leading again by establishing a western-funded, Ukrainian-operated weapons factory and assembly line in eastern Poland so that Ukraine can become self-sufficient in procuring and replenishing the military kit and munitions it needs for its long-term security, without fear of the facility being targeted by Russia?
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend’s suggestion is correct. He is right to say that, unless there is a supply chain or, indeed, a sustainability package behind all this gifting, these vehicles and artillery pieces will become junk on the battlefield when they run out or wear out, so it is important that we think in that way. That is why we will be putting in some recovery vehicles with the Challenger 2 donations. There is a lot of thought going on right now about the sustainability of supply chains, which ties into the international fund, as I am looking for intelligent application of the fund to stimulate just that.
Ukraine has shown itself to be incredibly successful either at reverse-engineering what it captures from Russia or at designing and developing its own equipment. It recently opened a production line for 155 mm or 152 mm shells, and it is now manufacturing within the country. We will get to where my right hon. Friend wants to be by using the international fund or Kindred to fund supply chains over the border. If Ukraine approaches us with ideas for transferring intellectual property so that we can make equipment for Ukraine, or so that Ukraine can make the equipment here or anywhere else, I would be very open to doing that.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I welcome the detail and the substance of the Secretary of State’s statement. Moreover, I believe the timing is very welcome as we close in on the first anniversary of the outrageous attack on Ukraine by Putin and his forces last February.
All of us, regardless of our political allegiances or differences in other areas, must stand up for the international rules-based system, the right of sovereignty and the value of self-determination where they are under attack, not simply at the outset of conflict, when hackles are raised and outrage piqued, but as we endure almost a year of the conflict’s effects on these shores, in our homes and on our industry and wider resources, and as we continue to witness Russia’s hybrid terror heaped upon the people of Ukraine. Now is the time to double down on the west’s support and commitment to Ukraine in defending itself against this aggression. It is time to leave Putin in no doubt that the west’s resolve, politically and in every other respect, is there for Ukraine to see.
I would like to know three things. The Secretary of State said on 12 December that he would not pursue sending redundant UK Warrior infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine because they are tracked vehicles weighing 28 tonnes and because of the logistical tail that comes with them. So what has changed in a month to allow him to now send a squadron of 68-tonne Challenger tanks, with the very much more complex logistics and support burden that go along with them? Can he also set out the duration of the period between this announcement and those Challengers 2s having operational effect within the Ukraine battlespace? And given that European NATO nations must doubtless follow this development with similar donations of Leopard 2 tanks, is he prepared to review not just the number of Challenger 3s, but whether the Challenger 3 will be the right solution for the UK going forward at all? When we see the Challengers and Leopard 2s going toe to toe with the same peer adversary, we will see much more clearly which is the better tank.
Mr Wallace
I or my officials will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. He will have noticed that in the statement, I announced £28 million for minefield breaching and bridging capabilities—combat engineering that is desperately needed.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement.