Ukraine

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

Last night the Secretary of State and I had to leave during the Prime Minister’s statement to return to the MOD for another briefing. To the surprise of the Prime Minister’s protection officers, we decided to walk back through the protest that was happening on Whitehall. I was struck not by the anger and the screaming and shouting that normally accompany protests in Westminster, but by the incredible sombreness and resolve, but also the fearfulness, shown by so many in that protest. They, as my hon. Friend said, will have family and friends back home in Ukraine. These were not people protesting over a political cause; these were people protesting for help with the safety of their loved ones.

The United Kingdom is not regarded by Ukraine as one of its best friends in the world by accident. For the last 10 years we have been training the Ukrainian armed forces through Operation Orbital. We were one of the first movers in providing lethal aid, and we sent troops to Ukraine only two or three weeks ago, when the build-up of Russian troops was well under way, to deliver the training that was required to allow those highly successful anti-tank weapons to be employed in battle, as they have now been. We will continue to do all that we possibly can, and I know that the excellent Minister for Europe and North America, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), is driving hard to ensure that all the necessary consular support is in place so that people who have connections with Ukrainians who are still in Ukraine can be supported through the excellent work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Minister, and indeed to his colleague in the Foreign Office, for the work that they are doing and the updates that they have been ensuring Opposition Members have. Like the Minister and other Members, I wish only to heap praise on the Ukrainian armed forces, who ensured that Russia did not get the opening gambit that it thought it would. But, as the Minister says, we are seeing Russian men being sent to die for one man’s hubris—and my goodness, what courage was shown on the streets of Russia last night by people protesting against the aggression from the Kremlin, and we commend them for it.

The Minister rightly spoke of supporting Ukraine with military equipment, and we back the Government in that. It is obviously, in some cases, easier said than done—it requires training, logistics and all the rest—but the Ukraine Government need it. I am not going to ask the Minister for an assurance that he has already given, but I want to press him in saying that we on these Benches want to see Ukraine get all the equipment it needs. I know that the Minister does not want to go into specific areas of equipment, but satellite phones are badly needed. That issue has arisen quite often during the various conversations that I have had with Government and parliamentary officials in Ukraine, and even came up at the protest outside Downing Street last night.

May I ask whether consideration has been given by the Government, and by G7 allies, to cyber-support, particularly cyber-offensive support? I can see the expression on the Minister’s face, but would that constitute an article 5 scenario or not? What do the Government understand it to be? May I also ask the Government to ensure that they provide the appropriate level of humanitarian and medical equipment support that the Ukraine Government need?

Finally—I hope the Minister will forgive me, but I have not heard him mention this yet; it is not necessarily an MOD issue—may I ask for an update on where we are with SWIFT? Members had hoped that progress would have been made with that by now. I know that the Foreign Office has been pressing hard on it, but an update would be useful.

[James Heappey]

Everything that the hon. Gentleman said about lethal aid has been well heard. We are working on it at our best pace, and we will do as much as we physically can at this stage, as will the United States and other allies. We are just looking at how it would be practically done.

The hon. Gentleman was right to refer to a range of items, most obviously satellite phones, that provide resilience for the functioning of the Ukrainian Government—military and perhaps, in time, for resistance purposes—when they are operating in an electronically denied environment, and with all the probability of cyber-attacks and everything else that will make their functioning ever harder. We are very aware of that requirement, and of the requirement for medical supplies and other things that we are working on. The hon. Gentleman saw me wince; I am afraid that the Government’s legal position on cyber-operations is very much a matter for the Attorney General and the Prime Minister, and is not something on which I will comment at the Dispatch Box.

The hon. Gentleman asked about removing Russia from the SWIFT system. He will perhaps have heard my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary on the news this morning saying that Her Majesty’s Government are keen that that sanction is imposed. It is not in our gift to do that unilaterally, or even multilaterally among the countries that have thus far agreed to do it. Our colleagues in the Foreign Office are hard at work on that, and I hope we can win the argument. It feels like a sanction that Russia would properly sit up and take notice of.

Ukraine

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I was her Security Minister, it was her support that allowed us sometimes to overrule the Treasury and to get some of that legislation through to deal with criminal finances. She is absolutely right. In 2014, after the invasion of Crimea, President Putin got exactly the opposite of what he wanted: more forces in the east of Europe and more defence spending across NATO. If he continues down this line, I suspect he will continue to get more forces on his border and greater defence spending across NATO—the very opposite of what he intends. I hope he learns the lesson of 2014. At the moment, it is not looking good.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement and for the updates he has given Opposition parties over the previous weeks. I underline the fact that we on the SNP Benches are friends of Ukraine and supporters of international law, and we support absolutely Ukraine’s right and ability to organise its security affairs as it sees fit. However, as can be seen from the Russian security council meeting that has been happening as we have sat in the Chamber this afternoon, we have reached a dangerous moment.

The Secretary of State mentioned the new sanctions package announced by the Government just before the recess, which stated that it would give the Government the ability to sanction entities and individuals of economic and strategic interest to Russia, but only if there is a further escalation. Well, that escalation has started, as could be seen by anyone following events in the Donbas region yesterday, on Saturday and on Friday. Is it not now time to start sanctioning individuals and entities of strategic interest, including those in this country? Furthermore, given the importance of disinformation and the entire architecture that the Russian Government have to spread disinformation about the conflict they are perpetrating against Ukraine, should that not start with some of the disinformation rackets here—the likes of RT, Sputnik and others?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and the leader of the Alba party may like to reflect on his celebrity status on some of those channels.

The Government already have some considerable powers, and Magnitsky sanctions have been used against a number of Russian individuals after Salisbury. In fact, some of the people I met in the Russian Ministry of Defence were sanctioned under such measures. We continue to deliver on that.

More widely, the whole of Government will produce a response for this House in due course. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about using sanctions now rather than waiting for something to happen. The key point here is that we must be in a position to threaten to deliver sanctions against Russia if it does something. Were we to unilaterally deliver them now, but America and the European Union did not, there is a danger that would play into President Putin’s attempted divide and rule narrative.

There are plenty of measures that we could take, and we are planning a serious set of sanctions. The question to President Putin is: “Do you actually care what is going to happen to your people, because it will be they who suffer the most as a result of the sanctions?” It will be interesting, as a responsible leader, whether he will listen to that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Stuart Malcolm McDonald.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

On behalf of the Scottish National party, I welcome Speaker Pelosi and the American delegation to the Chamber. I also congratulate Team GB and yes, in particular, that fantastic curling team that so many of us have been enjoying in recent days.

As the Defence Secretary knows, we have supported the Government’s actions in helping Ukraine to defend itself against its neighbouring aggressor. Indeed, the Government’s actions in giving military support are an act against war. However, during my visit to the Ukrainian capital a couple of weeks ago, I heard concerns at Government and parliamentary level about them still missing some support that I understand they had discussed with his Department. Will he assure us that those discussions are ongoing or give us an update?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. On his comments about the winter Olympics, I have one of only two English curling rinks at Barton Grange in my constituency. I look forward to a Scots abroad event.

We are open to all sorts of suggestions. I speak regularly to my defence counterpart in Ukraine, and it is incredibly important that, should we get through this with a diplomatic solution, we continue to help support Ukraine’s resilience both in capacity building and training and in nation building to ensure that it is a strong and secure state.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am grateful for that answer. I may be jumping the gun slightly—I suspect the Secretary of State might come to this in his statement after questions—but one thing we were asked about a lot there was the new grouping between Ukraine, Poland and the United Kingdom. The detail on that is not quite out there just yet. Will he update the House on exactly what the new grouping hopes to achieve? Can he give an assurance that it will complement the work of other allies, rather than overlapping it?

[Mr Wallace]

We are working through those details right now and, as soon as I can, I will update the hon. Gentleman and the House. It is incredibly important we recognise that Ukraine borders a number of major NATO countries that will feel the direct consequence of an invasion. It is also important that President Putin’s view of many of those countries, which he himself has written down in previous essays, could continue should he be successful in Ukraine. It is therefore really important that the UK plays a strong role in reassurance not only of NATO countries, but of other friends such as Sweden and Finland.

Data Breach: ARAP Applicants in Afghanistan

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend will know that I cannot talk about the broader means, but all means will be explored.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his apology. I do not doubt the sincerity of it, and I do not doubt for a second the anger that he will have felt when he got the news of this unacceptable and quite dangerous leak yesterday. However, I have a few questions to follow on from those asked by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), and the Chair of the Select Committee on Defence, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood).

Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the Taliban have the capability to monitor these people’s emails? I do not want to know if they are monitoring them—I suspect that he would not tell the House even if he did know—but do they have the capability to do so? How long will the investigation take? Who will carry out the investigation? Is the person who has been suspended an employee of the Ministry of Defence or of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office?

Will the Secretary of State outline in a bit more detail, if he is able to, the additional resources that he intends to commit to ensure that people are not exposed to any more danger than they already are as a result of the leak? I understand entirely the point that he makes about using mass email as a communications method, but who signed off on that as an okay way to make that communication?

The shadow Secretary of State is right that when these breaches happen, we get these apologies and then there tends to be silence, so more broadly, what is being done to arrest this worrying trend of data leaks from the Secretary of State’s Department? Is he going to order a broader investigation? I think the House would welcome that.

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his series of questions. First, the investigation will be carried out by Admiral Sir Ben Key, the commander of joint operations at PJHQ—permanent joint headquarters—who also led the planning and the evacuation from Kabul.

On data leaks, the hon. Member is right that these are a concern. The previous leak obviously involved a senior official who deliberately broke the regulation, in so far as he took something out the Department. If the regulation had been followed, that would not have been the case. However, although I cannot say too much, I have instigated changes to improve information security within the Department, and I am happy to brief the hon. Member on that.

The “Manual of Protective Security”, the modern rules that govern information security, is, I believe, fit for purpose; it is really the training and the adherence to it that must be improved. I am graduate of something called the classified documents handling course from the early ’90s—I think I am the only saddo who actually knows what type of lock should be on what type of cabinet that links to different types of security classifications. Nevertheless, information security is not something that western Governments are good at, which is why our adversaries seem to be. We have to improve it, and we have to stand by it.

The Taliban, or obviously any Government that control a country, have control of the telephone network. I cannot say too much about what they can and cannot do; suffice it to say that the method we used to communicate with those people is a way of minimising that risk. One of the reasons we involve emails rather than telephone calls is to try to do that, which is important.

On resource, right from the beginning of this process, way back in August, or in July, I was very clear with my senior military commanders and civil servants that they would have whatever resource they needed to process emails and carry people out, for example. We will fly these people back from third countries out of the MOD budget. It is my view that we should continue to stand by them, including using married quarters, for example, in military establishments to look after them if they cannot get places elsewhere. There has not been a resource problem; the challenge is whether people have been asking for the resource within the system to do this.

The individual concerned was a member of the Ministry of Defence, but I am very keen that it is not just the poor person who drafts the email who is held to account, but the chain upwards, to ensure that this does not happen again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Stewart Malcolm McDonald.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to see you back from “Coronation Street” in such fine form, and to see the defence team still in its place.

When the Government presented the integrated review to the House, we were told that this Indo-Pacific tilt would not undermine interests in the Euro-Atlantic area. Can the Minister tell the House exactly how engaging in secret diplomacy against the mutual security and against the trust interests with one of our closest European allies helps our interests in the Euro-Atlantic area?

[Jeremy Quin]

I think that that would be an accidental misunderstanding of the situation on the part of the hon. Gentleman. The reality is that a close friend and a close ally decided that they had a different strategic need and wanted to do something differently, and approached us. It would have been very strange not to have engaged in very constructive talks with Australia in those circumstances. That is not being seen to be going behind people’s backs; it is responding to a request.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

But that was exactly what it was. Let us not muddy the words here: Paris was deceived, was it not? Are common challenges not better faced when liberal democracies trust each other and understand each other’s mutual interests? Whether it is on the rise of authoritarianism or on issues of climate change, terrorism or migration, we must be aligned with our Euro-Atlantic allies first. Has the fallout from AUKUS not taught us all that we need to pursue a comprehensive defence and security treaty with the European Union? Can the Minister tell us why France was excluded right from the start?

[Jeremy Quin]

We have a number of close relationships, including through the Five Eyes, that we pursue on a global basis. We have an extremely close relationship with France, with whom we are doing so much around the world and with whom we enjoy extremely close relationships on equipment and support, as well as actively in the field. The bedrock of our relationships inside western Europe is of course NATO, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree with. That is absolutely vital, and it is the cornerstone of our defence. It is an area in which we work closely with our European allies, including France.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

It is my mission that they get the accommodation that they deserve. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation has recently awarded contracts up to the value of £2.1 billion to a number of market-leading suppliers to provide maintenance services across the UK estate for the next seven years. Those contracts will benefit from the increased investment announced in the integrated review to address the legacy of underinvestment across the estate, enabling improvements for our armed forces and their families.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

May I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) on her election? This is the first Defence questions we have had since Armed Forces Day, when we normally thank not only the personnel but their families. As the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) mentioned, the families really are the backbone of serving personnel across the UK. We know that the Government provide £2,000 for the childcare subsidy, but families are often spending three times as much as that and sometimes even more, so I have a very simple question: will the Secretary of State increase the childcare subsidy available to personnel and their families?

[Mr Wallace]

First, we are going to increase spending on wraparound childcare to over £165 million a year for families with children up to 11 in primary school. That reflects the fact that most service personnel do not have a nine-to-five job, and it will help them considerably. In fact, where we have run the pilots, this has been incredibly popular. On the continuity allowance, one way to manage the disruption that families suffer is not necessarily by increasing that allowance but by increasing forces’ families ability to find a place they want to live, so that they can be settled and their children can attend the same school. That is a growing trend from when I served, and the 24,000 benefiting from Help to Buy is a really positive number. It shows that a number of people have now made the choice that when they deploy, they will go on their own, and their families and children will stay stable in one place.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

It is good to hear that there is going to be increased support, and we know from surveys that childcare costs, in particular, can be crippling for service families. May I move on to employment issues for the families of service personnel? At the minute, in the UK, helping the spouses of those who serve in the armed forces is largely left to the third sector. Canada, a fellow NATO country, has a thing called the spousal employment network, which is a very successful model, run in-house by the Government, to help the spouses of those who serve to find good-quality work that suits them. Will our Government look to bring this type of thing in-house, rather than leaving it to the third sector? Although that sector does a good job, the state should be taking on more of that responsibility.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we are working on a families’ strategy, and his suggestion is in exactly an area we are working on in that strategy. He is right; when I was serving in Germany in the BAOR—the British Army of the Rhine—where there was a much more settled, huge Army, there were lots of those organisations around, and I think they need some reinvigorating. Whether that is done entirely through the state or through a blend of non-governmental organisations, charities, volunteers and the state is something I would welcome being looked at, and I think there will be some solutions. What he says is totally in line with our policy and view that we have to do more for spouses to help them with their jobs if they move around.

UK Defence Spending

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), my colleague on the Defence Committee. I am pleased to see not one, but two Defence Ministers on the Front Bench who have come to listen to our thoughts today.

The debate is particularly relevant because this is Armed Forces Week. I hope that both Ministers will join me in using it as an opportunity to recognise and celebrate what our services do for the nation. It is a chance to give thanks to all our forces for what they do in keeping our nation safe and working with allies to protect our interests and defend our values.

When we speak of the armed forces, we mean not just our regular and reserve forces, but the cadets, our veterans and, importantly, the families and loved ones who support those who wear the uniform. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

This week is important because the bond between the armed forces and society is critical. Our volunteer forces are drawn from society. If the general public are less aware of what our forces do and the role they play in keeping us safe, fewer people will step forward and consider joining the services. As we have discussed today, we are more likely to get an increase in defence spending if the nation understands the threats. People will support our call for increased spending if we take the nation with us.

It has been said many times in this Chamber that we have arguably the most professional armed forces in the world—highly trained, well equipped, extremely professional and, consequently, revered by our allies and feared by our adversaries. As a former regular soldier and now a reservist, I have no hesitation in recommending to any school leaver a career in the armed forces. To them, I say: “You will learn things about yourself you never knew, go places you never expected, and develop skills and build confidence that will help you for the rest of your life. The first time you march off the parade square, having completed your training, you will make your mum and dad so proud.” We thank all those in the armed forces who serve and continue to serve.

Today’s debate is about defence spending. I think the Government’s integrated review paints the changing threat picture very fairly. By anybody’s calculation, the world is becoming more insecure. Authoritarianism is on the rise; extremism is active not just in the middle east, but increasingly in Africa; both Russia and China are presenting fresh security challenges that we have yet to fully address; and our international organisations are less able to uphold international standards. I would argue that our threat picture, collectively, is greater than during the cold war when defence spending was at 4%, yet today it remains at just above 2%.

Quite rightly, the integrated review calls for new capabilities to counter emerging threats, particularly from cyber and space, but it is clear that without extra funding, that has come at the expense of our conventional forces. The emergence of new threats does not mean that the old ones have disappeared, yet here we are, cutting back the Army by 10,000 troops and reducing the number of tanks and armoured fighting vehicles, as well as our Typhoon and F-35 fleets and our Hercules heavy-lift aircraft.

We will also lose two Type 23 frigates. We have frigates and destroyers in the surface fleet that are global leaders in their class, but we simply do not have enough of them. Our Royal Navy is now overstretched and we need to increase its size. I certainly praise the efforts of HMS Defender in ignoring the intimidation of the Russians in the Black sea yesterday, but if we are to step forward with our allies as we should to defend and protect international waters and show a presence in the Caribbean, the Gulf, east Africa, the Mediterranean, the North sea and now the Arctic, as well as a tilt to the Indo-Pacific, as commanded in the integrated review, we will need a bigger Navy.

The Government put forward the counter-argument that we can lean on autonomous and unmanned assets. New technologies can certainly help, but they should be seen as enablers rather than as replacing manpower. We cannot replace boots on the ground.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about leaning further into autonomous weapons. As that happens more and more, does he share my concern that we are not as far advanced on the rules surrounding their use? Do we not need greater collaboration with allied countries to set the standards and rules globally?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is correct in the sense that we are advancing into new terrain: even when it comes to a cyber-attack, it is unclear whether or not it is an article 5 breach. We are building resilience and capabilities, but the rules-based order, international institutions and legislation have yet to keep up. That should not prevent us from making sure—as the MOD is rightly doing—that our mission is protected as we become increasingly vulnerable and ever more reliant on the movement of data.

To go back to the point about reducing our armed forces and the footprint of our manpower, the ability to seize and hold ground, separate warring factions, deliver humanitarian aid, assist civil authorities with tasks such as tackling covid-19, win over hearts and minds, restore law and order, respond to natural disasters and carry out countless other diverse tasks—that requires people. It requires professionals—it requires our soldiers, sailors and air personnel. It is wrong to reduce those numbers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend nodding his assent. Therefore, when we talk about the 2% guideline, we should bear in mind that it is not a ceiling nor a target; it is merely a floor or a minimum. Now we face a similar task regarding the increase in the cap on the size of our nuclear stockpile recently announced in the integrated review. That should be described as a ceiling, not a floor. In other words, it is a maximum and not a target for the number of warheads we will retain.

The integrated review states:

“In 2010 the Government stated an intent to reduce our overall nuclear warhead stockpile ceiling from not more than 225 to not more than 180 by the mid-2020s. However, in recognition of the evolving security environment, including the developing range of technological and doctrinal threats, this is no longer possible, and the UK will move to an overall nuclear weapon stockpile of no more than 260 warheads.”

Predictably, this is being denounced as a more than 40% increase in the stockpile, on the basis that increasing a total of 180 to 260 would be an uplift of 44.4%. However, the cancellation of a reduction that has not yet been completed—if indeed it ever began—means that, at most, the total might rise from the previously declared maximum of 225 to a new maximum of 260. Were those the actual present and future totals, the increase would be only about 15.5%, a perfectly reasonable increment to ensure that advances in anti-ballistic missile technology over the 40-plus years of our next generation of Trident warheads cannot undermine our policy of minimum strategic deterrence.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The right hon. Gentleman does not have to wait for the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). He knows that we disagree on this—he mentioned at the start of his speech the last vote on the nuclear deterrent, and I seem to recall that we were in agreement that there should be a vote on the nuclear deterrent. However, when the integrated review was published—he has just mentioned the change in threat and doctrines as a reason for the expansion of the new nuclear policy—it was said that this was somehow to do with things such as cyber-threats, so which computer are we aiming these nuclear weapons at? Does he agree that to say that we would use nuclear weapons in response to a cyber-attack or threat is wholly absurd?

[Dr Lewis]

If the hon. Gentleman, whom I regard as a friend, waits for the next part of my analysis, I hope that all will become clear. However, it is absolutely the case that nuclear weapons, as a deterrent, do not deter every sort of threat that could be ranged against us. If they did, we could abolish all the other armed forces. The truth of the matter is that they deter other weapons of mass destruction. Unless there were a development in the cyber world that could inflict destruction on a mass level comparable with a nuclear exchange, it is entirely incredible to think that nuclear weapons would be used in retaliation to an attack of that sort. I hope that satisfies him on the main point that he was making.

Minimum deterrence relies on the fact that possession of a last-resort strategic nuclear system that can be guaranteed to inflict unacceptable and unavoidable devastation in response to nuclear aggression does not require any ability to match the aggressor missile for missile or warhead for warhead. Nuclear superpowers have huge overkill capabilities that offer zero extra protection against countries with much smaller weapons of mass destruction arsenals, as long as the latter can retaliate with an unstoppable and unbearable counter-strike against any nuclear aggressor who is seeking to wipe them out. Overkill capabilities may have symbolic political value, but in the dread event of a nuclear exchange, all they can do, as was famously said, is to “make the rubble bounce”.

There may exist more up-to-date estimates, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s inventory totals for world nuclear stockpiles, published at the beginning of last year, are sufficiently instructive. China, France and the UK, with estimated totals of 320, 290 and 215 respectively, fall into the camp of minimum strategic nuclear deterrence. By contrast, the estimated totals of 5,800 for the United States and 6,375 for Russia go way beyond anything needed to pursue such a policy. The notion that, at some stage in the future, the United Kingdom might end up with 35 more warheads than its previously declared theoretical maximum does not change the fact that we are currently, and shall probably remain, fifth out of five in the size of the nuclear stockpiles held by the permanent member states of the UN Security Council. So why have the Government chosen to take the controversial step of cancelling the reduction in the ceiling of our warhead total from 225 to 180 and raising it to a new ceiling of 260 instead?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Can I answer?

[Dr Lewis]

I was just going to say that this is the analysis that the hon. Gentleman was waiting for, but if he really wishes to come in, he can.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

It is a shame that the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), is no longer here, but I was with him when he said that it is to cover for the fact that we are cutting the Army by 10,000 as a sweetener to the Americans. That is what it is.

[Dr Lewis]

Let us see if the hon. Gentleman was right in anticipating what I have to say.

In the absence, at present at any rate, of any briefing on the issue, classified or otherwise, from my parliamentary colleagues on the Defence ministerial team, here are the four possible explanations that occur to me. Explanation 1—most probably, as already stated—is that it is an insurance policy to prevent a potential aggressor from calculating that advances in anti-ballistic missile systems have reduced our retaliatory capability to a point where our response to an attack becomes bearable or even avoidable. Explanation 2—quite probably—is that it is to give more headroom for the time, in the late 2030s or early 2040s, when we are due to exchange our current stockpile of warheads for next-generation nuclear warheads, while at the same time preventing disruption of our continuous at-sea deterrent patrols. Explanation 3— possibly—is that it is to send a signal internationally that the UK is determined to keep nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them and remains committed to doing whatever is required to maintain their invulnerability. And—here it comes—explanation 4, conceivably, is that it is also tailored for a domestic audience worried about cuts in the size of the Army, in order to offer reassurance, or at least to divert some attention from those reductions.

What seems most unlikely is an intention to invest in additional warheads of the existing design. We are certainly cancelling their reduction from a theoretical maximum of 225 to one of only 180 for any or all of the four reasons listed, particularly the first explanation. Raising the maximum from 225 to 260 to provide extra headroom for the eventual transition from current warheads to their replacements is a sensible explanation, though not a conclusive one, given that the changeover is not due to happen for well over a decade.

Despite the imposition of a dedicated supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as the Leader of the Opposition in 2015, hon. and right hon. Labour Members ensured that their party’s policy remained multilateralist. Previously, on 14 March 2007, Parliament had voted by 409 to 161 in favour of proceeding with the initial gate for renewal of the Trident submarine fleet. Even that huge majority was eclipsed on 18 July 2016, when it rose to 355 after MPs voted for the decisive main gate stage to proceed by 472 to only 117.

There is nothing in article VI of the non-proliferation treaty that requires any country already in possession of a recognised nuclear arsenal to get rid of it and to achieve a nuclear-free world prior to a state of grace when general and complete conventional disarmament—also referred to in the non-proliferation treaty, but seldom cited by those who quote it selectively—can be guaranteed. There is a very good reason for this, because if we were to abandon all nuclear weapons in an unreformed world, that would be a recipe for disaster. In a conventional war taking place in a nuclear-free world, the former nuclear powers would immediately race to reacquire the bomb. The first to succeed would then use its monopoly, as occurred in 1945. If the treaty’s vision of general and complete conventional disarmament ever becomes reality, then nuclear weapons can indeed also safely be declared redundant; but, until that day dawns, the United Kingdom is perfectly capable of changing the size of its warhead stockpile without breaching the non-proliferation treaty in order to maintain indefinitely the credibility of its strategic minimum deterrence policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is good to have you join us in the Chair this afternoon.

It has been a good debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing it. He opened it and intervened several times, with the customary authority and knowledge that we have all become used to. It is good to see the Minister for the Armed Forces in his place. He is a good Minister, a conscientious Minister, but those of us in the Chamber who have been taking part in these defence spending debates for the past few years—indeed, I think you might have, Mr Deputy Speaker, before you went back into the Chair—will note that this is another such debate in which we have failed to get a Treasury Minister to come to the Dispatch Box. I am hopeful that when we inevitably have the next one, we will be able to use our collective imagination to force that to happen.

Like other hon. Members, I too, on behalf of the Scottish National party, want to put on the record our thanks to the men and women of the armed forces, particularly for the past year, as has been mentioned several times. I particularly want to thank them for the job that they have done in Glasgow, with the setting up of the NHS Louisa Jordan, but also the job that they have done in many other areas of the pandemic and beyond. As has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who is no longer with us, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), the pandemic has shown us that the debate on security and the role of the armed forces is way wider than perhaps we would have thought pre-covid. That is something that requires debate, discussion and, yes, public consent and buy-in.

It is also important—I am sure that the Minister will do this in his remarks—to refer to yesterday’s events in the Black sea. The Scottish National party stands four-square behind international law. International law, challenging and challenged though it is, is important to defend, is important to protect. In that, the crew members of HMS Defender have our support. We recognise that that is not easy, and I back the assessment of others: we understand that the Royal Navy was there not to pick a fight, but to make a point. Those are international waters and, indeed, there are no Russian waters there; they are Ukrainian sovereign waters—to reinforce that point, you will have noticed the Ukrainian national colours on my tie, Mr Deputy Speaker.

That, however, is where our consensus may start to come to an end, I am afraid. This is a debate on spending, and spending has never been the Ministry of Defence’s strongest suit, no matter how much money it may throw at the problem. Indeed, when the announcements were made when the defence Command Paper and the integrated review were published earlier this year, we welcomed many things, but let us not forget—we could be forgiven for forgetting, could we not—that that was about capital spending. Day-to-day spending has not changed, and the pay and the terms and conditions of the members of the armed forces—whom we have all praised this afternoon—have not changed. But I will come back to that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) spoke with authority and knowledge on many issues of procurement, which he knows all about, having worked in that field for many years. He correctly set out the disparity in spending not just between Scotland and the south-west of England, but in other parts of the UK as well. It is not parochial, as the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) seemed to suggest, to point that out. Those are just facts that I would have thought any Unionist Member of Parliament would wish to see changed.

We also have to come to the black hole that exists in the Ministry of Defence procurement plan, which the right hon. Member for North Durham mentioned several times when he opened the debate. The multi-year defence agreements, long called for by those on the SNP Benches and others, are welcome, but there is still some way to go. All we have to look at is the National Audit Office report, which came out only this morning, and all those big projects where waste is the fashion of the day—we might almost think that money is going out of fashion in the Ministry of Defence.

The amazing thing, in all the many years of waste under Conservative or Labour Governments, is that nobody has ever lost their job over any of this stuff. Is it not fantastically amazing that hundreds of millions of pounds—into the billions—of public money can be wasted over all those years, and nobody gets so much as a demotion? What is that all about? That is where we need to see greater transparency and accountability on how the money is spent or, rather, how the money is misspent.

What do we get in return? Housing that I would not put a dangerous dog into, housing where hundreds and hundreds of complaints are about the basic things that we all take for granted—the heating does not work, the water does not run, or the hot water does not work. Those are basic repairs that, if we really valued members of the armed forces, would not go unanswered but would be fixed and invested in with a sense of urgency. Is it any wonder that the satisfaction or, rather, the dissatisfaction levels are where they are? Is it any wonder that the retention issues are what they are?

I value the work that those in the armed forces do—I believe we all value it—but the political choices being made are the wrong ones. We need to invest heavily in accommodation services, in getting the armed forces personnel good equipment and in ensuring that they are not having to go to Amazon to supplement the equipment that they have got for themselves. You understand this, Mr Deputy Speaker—I do not think that that is all that much to ask.

We then come to an issue that has been mentioned several times: fleet solid support ships. There is nothing new for me to say on this, other than to support Opposition and Government Members when they say that those ships should be made here. Let us not fall for the canard advanced by the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland)—sadly, no longer with us in the Chamber—when he said that, somehow, the European Union was the bogeyman holding us back. That is, of course, false. It was interesting that, following the many interventions from the right hon. Member for North Durham and the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), who is just scurrying back into the Chamber now, he was unable to rebut that when it was put to him.

I have to come to the issue of the cut in the size of the Army—a cut of 10,000. I will sound like a broken record here, but I make no apologies for revisiting the promises made to voters in Scotland about the size of the armed forces during the 2014 independence referendum campaign. A commitment was given to voters by this Government that 12,500 regulars would be stationed in Scotland. Even if we overlook the fact that they have never come close to that target, the Government have still not been able to tell us, given that they are now going to cut the size of the Army by 10,000, what the new footprint will eventually look like and when they will get to that point. That is before we come to the other issue of the frigate factory that was promised. Quite often, we hear Members say, “Oh, we’re building more ships and there is the frigate factory.” I rather suspect that they know that they are being slightly casual with the facts. The frigate factory that was promised was never built.

In the context of all of this—I thought the Chairman of the Defence Committee opened on this rather well—we need to think about where the threats of the future lie. My party does not believe in the need to raise the nuclear stockpile. We do not believe in that project at all, but where we can get some consensus is on the threats of the future. However, the debate is lacking here. I have mentioned this to the Chair of the Defence Committee and to the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and discussed it previously. As we move into artificial intelligence, crypto currencies and all this new autonomous weaponry that we will be able to deploy, where are the rules surrounding this? This goes to the heart of ensuring that, when we engage our forces or our equipment in whatever form, we do so properly and with maximum transparency, in as much as one would be able to expect. What is important is that we answer the question: who gets to write these rules? As these challenges are presented to countries such as the UK, G7 or NATO countries, they also become opportunities for those who would rather write the rules on their terms, which might not be favourable to open and liberal societies. That is where this House needs to whip itself into shape and have this discussion. I accept that all these new challenges, and perhaps new opportunities, will not go away—indeed, they will increase —so we need to have a discussion about transparency and the rules around them.

I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire was absolutely right when he made the point that national security is not just about the hard equipment we have or the defence budget—the pandemic has shown us exactly that. But what is crucial is that the public understand this so that, when the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee achieves the 7% of GDP target on defence spending, which he often wants—[Interruption.] Oh, 3%. He has downgraded it somewhat. If we are to achieve that, and I am not saying that I necessarily agree with him there, that needs to have not just public understanding, but public buy-in.

When I took on this role as defence spokesman for my party four years ago, a Labour colleague—I will not say who it was—said to me, “The thing you must understand is that defence will never win you any votes, but it can lose you votes if you are seen to not get it right.” We all have differing views on what getting it right means, but I have found that, when we engage the public on it, they are quite keen to have that conversation. As new threats and new challenges present themselves in different ways, if we do not have the public onside, there will be an amazing opportunity for a hostile disinformation campaign, as we saw just yesterday in the Black sea. Imagine if it happened to be about a Russian warship off the north coast of Scotland, for example, or any of the other challenges to sea and air that we often see from the Russian Federation. There is a challenge for us all to better explain the threat picture and why we do what we do—why we believe what we believe. Fundamental to all that—how we meet that threat—is the money that we spend.

We have had a good debate and I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham on securing it, but let us not lull ourselves into a false sense of security. There is still some way to go in keeping the public on board and in ensuring that we have good, robust rules and treaties for the new technologies and threats that we will face. I am up for that debate and I know that the Minister is, too. Let us make sure that it happens robustly.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Heappey]

As we heard at length when I was answering the urgent question yesterday, and as my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary said in the Select Committee meeting thereafter, when we made the case to my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary for jabs for missions that we felt could not be administered in line with age priorities, we were given them without question and we are grateful for that support. However, the judgment was made that we should not be prioritising fit, healthy young men and women in the armed forces at the expense of more elderly and vulnerable people and communities across the country. As I said many times yesterday, and as the Secretary of State said, we in the ministerial team stand behind that decision.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The challenge that the Minister is setting is that he will get things right for the people, as opposed to focusing just on the platforms. That is good. There is currently a £1.5 billion backlog of repairs in armed forces accommodation. Will he commit to a quarterly update on where that figure stands, to give a level of transparency that we do not currently have and to ensure that he delivers on the promises he is making at the Dispatch Box?

[James Heappey]

There is a term popular among those of us who have served in the military: volunteering a mucker for the guardroom. The Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) will, I am certain, have heard that request and he will no doubt write to the hon. Gentleman in due course to agree with him a mechanism for ensuring that progress is reported to him.

It is not enough to spend money wisely now; we must manage our money for the long term. In the past, over-ambitious and underfunded reviews led to successive years of short-term settlements, followed by short-term savings measures, funding pressures deferred and poor value for money for the taxpayer. However, by agreeing to a long-term multi-year settlement, we are redressing the balance. We are carving out space to deliver capability and drive commercial outcomes, commit investment in cash, fund transmissional activities and set a clear headmark for policy. We can at last tackle the root causes of some of the endemic and systemic problems faced by Defence, such as unwieldy procurement, and we can start to develop a sustainable plan for equipment.

Spending on defence is no different from any other large organisation. We must learn to live within our means. That is why the Department has taken the hard decisions to balance our spending plans, rationalise the estate and reduce operating costs as we modernise our equipment. That is also why we have been busy strengthening our financial capabilities. We are currently three years into a five-year programme to enhance the skills of our finance staff, improve cost forecasting and adopt a more realistic approach to risk. But our plan is not just about what we do internally. It is also about augmenting our relationship with industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the threat from climate change is indeed one of the major priorities of my colleagues in the Foreign, Development and Commonwealth Office. It is also a priority of ours. As I have said, the document we published back in March sets out how we are planning for the increase in the HADR, or humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and MACA, or military assistance to civilian authorities, roles that the armed forces are going to have to take on. I know we are all proud to see the work of our armed forces as they rise to those challenges and help some of the poorest people in the world to meet the challenges of their daily lives. We will continue to support them in doing so.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

I, too, welcome the new Minister for Defence People and Veterans, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), to his place on the Government Front Bench. I also thank the outgoing Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for all the work he did at the veterans office.

Climate change is altering the threat picture across the globe, and not for the better. It is happening in our own back yard and on our own doorstep in the high north and in the Arctic, where we have seen a build-up of military tension because of Russia’s actions. Russia has, of course, just taken over the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Can the Minister outline to the House exactly what the Ministry of Defence is doing with regard to the threat picture in the Arctic and the high north, and explain to the House why that area of the world should get less attention than the Indo-Pacific tilt?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I know that, being the person he is, he will have read the Command Paper in depth. He will have seen the copious references to the high north strategy and to our joint expeditionary force partners—it is good to see Iceland coming on board with that. We are acutely aware of the need to have a forward understanding and presence and to work with our allies in the high north. The First Sea Lord and ourselves have mentioned on many occasions the impact of changing ice presence in the far north and how we need to rise to that threat. We are always alive to these threats and we are always working to ensure that we are prepared for them, but I would also gently remind the hon. Gentleman that, ultimately, our defence is a combination of all the assets we have, including our commitment to a strategic nuclear deterrent.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The Minister rightly mentions the defence Command Paper, which comes on the back of the integrated review. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) has just outlined, there is a lack of joined-up Government thinking on that. If the Government were serious about the impact that climate change is having on the threat picture, the foreign aid budget would not be getting cut and, yes, greater attention would be paid to the high north and the Arctic, so can the Minister just answer a simple question? What does the Ministry of Defence specifically want to get out of COP26?

[Jeremy Quin]

COP26 is an entire-Government piece of work, and we are working with all nations around the Earth to get a whole load of deliverables out of COP26, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. Our commitment in terms of defence to meeting and addressing the needs of climate change was, I am pleased to say, recognised on President Biden’s Earth Day earlier this year, which my right hon. Friend addressed, where the US Defence Secretary referred to the UK as having “raised the bar” in terms of Defence’s work in this country on climate change. We are alert to the need, and I would recommend to the hon. Gentleman the document we published earlier this year on our climate change and sustainability strategic approach. He will find a lot of his thinking in that document.

Carrier Strike Group Deployment

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his points about sense of purpose, and I think that is right. The carrier is an amazing thing in that it convenes a lot of different levels—it convenes hard power, soft power, political will and intent. The mission for the Royal Navy, however, is like the mission for most of the armed forces, which is to strengthen our alliances. That is really important as we go forward.

I agree with my right hon. Friend, that the world is more anxious, more unstable, more insecure and less predictable. That is hard for all policy makers around the globe and for people who have lived by the international rules—for example, maritime law. It is a challenge for us all. The real issue is how to strengthen our alliances, because that is our unique and single point of strength against some very large adversaries.

On this deployment, therefore, we will meet US carrier groups and exercise together in the Pacific. There is no shortage of contested sea lanes in the Pacific. It is not just the strait of Taiwan; there are plenty of contested areas of sea. We will absolutely be making sure that we are confident in our sailing and that we stand up for our values, along the way making friends or strengthening our friendships with a whole range of partners, some traditional and some less traditional. We are here—a role that Britain has always played—to stand up for people who cannot stand up for themselves or to join with them to ensure that we stand strong. Do I think we will need more in the future? Our investment in our defence budget and in seeking to spend our money both on hard ships and power and on cyber and all sorts of other technology is a strong indication that this Government take seriously the rising threat. We will continue to keep it under review, but in the meantime we will go to the Pacific, demonstrate our capability, return, take our watch at NATO and continue on that cycle.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

I thank the Defence Secretary for advance sight of his statement and I, too, pass on my condolences and those of my party to the Indonesian navy. We all watched what happened over the past few days with horror and they are very much in our thoughts.

Of course, I wish all of those involved in this new venture well. This will undoubtedly be an exciting time for them. The Defence Secretary rightly pays tribute to those involved in building HMS Queen Elizabeth and I join him in that, not least in paying tribute to those in Scotland who were part of that effort. He knows, because we have discussed it before, that my party and I are yet to be convinced of this whole Indo-Pacific tilt, especially as it is about chasing commerce rather than countering threats, and it sounds like there is a fair bit of that going on. The Defence Secretary has said to me in the past that there is no point chasing one threat only to leave oneself exposed to another closer to home. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the threat we have here in our own backyard. The Defence Secretary knows that that is the kind of tilt that I and my party want to see. What assurances can he give us that we will not be left open closer to home?

May I press the Defence Secretary on the Black sea element of the trip, in particular? His statement mentions that the strike group will support NATO missions in the Black sea region. What exactly will the support look like while the strike group is there? As we know from Russia’s recent actions, that is something we should be focused on.

Lastly, on fleet solid support ships, can the Defence Secretary talk us a bit through the timeline we can expect for the competition? Like the shadow Secretary of State and many on the Defence Secretary’s own Benches, we want to see that announced soon and to ensure that it is the yards closer to home that benefit from it.

[Mr Wallace]

First and foremost, we cannot separate trade from security. We need to secure our trade. The hon. Gentleman’s party’s whole economic basis used to be about exporting oil around the world. If a country cannot export its oil, it cannot run its economy, according to some of the Scottish National party’s previous manifestoes. It is really important that we secure our trade and do not let the values in the rules-based system be undermined far away until it is too late and it gets close to our shores. That is really important.

I am not ashamed at all that this deployment will also be linked to trade. I am proud of standing on British-made equipment, made by Scottish hands, and English, Welsh and Northern Irish hands, and I am proud that there is equipment on those ships that can be used for a whole range of things—humanitarian and non-military-method means, and all sorts of things. We should be really proud that we will be showing that off to the world.

We will not leave Britain undefended. We will still have our Type 23s, our Type 45s and our P-8s, which are based in Lossiemouth, as excellent maritime patrol vessels. We will still have a number of capabilities. Our submarines will be on watch based out of Faslane. I pay tribute to those submariners who will be departing from Faslane to join and escort the carrier group. They do an amazing job, and it is something special to understand what submariners do.

We have had long-scheduled deployments into the Black sea. This is not new. It is not an increase or decrease. We have taken a view that we should stick to our planned exercises and deployment. I think that is the right thing to do—to say that we will not be intimidated from it and that we will stick up for our friends in the Black sea—Romania, Turkey and all those other nations that we work alongside. We will be doing that, as we had planned long before the recent friction we saw up in Ukraine. I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that we are not off to go around picking a fight; we are there to stand up for our values and I think the Royal Navy will do a great job.

Fundamentally, this comes back to the point that we rely on each other. The security of Europe is incredibly important to the United Kingdom and to the continent of Europe. Even last year, in December, when the Russians appeared with a number of ships, the French, the British and the Dutch all set about that issue. We will continue to do so. As I said, the greatest thing about our friends and allies is that we are all in a partnership with solidarity, and that is the best way to defeat or push back our adversaries.

Afghanistan

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I share my hon. Friend’s assessment of the requirement for regional partners not only to step up and take a stake in Afghanistan’s peace, but to behave responsibly in the way they go about their diplomatic affairs in the region. His characterisation of what remains of the coalition is, if he does not mind my saying so, somewhat out of date. We have been down to a residual counter-terrorism mission for some time. For five years or more, the coalition has not extended its writ across the whole country. Actually, the Afghan national security forces have done a good job of maintaining security within the borders of Afghanistan since the NATO mission stepped back towards the current CT mission. I am full of optimism for what the Afghan national security forces could achieve. It depends, of course, on their being empowered to do so by a future Government in Kabul.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

Like the Minister and the shadow Secretary of State, I pay tribute on behalf of the Scottish National party to all those who served, and of course, we remember all those who sadly lost their lives in Afghanistan.

All of us want the Government to get this right. I accept that there are no easy, clearcut, black and white ways forward, but I share some of the concern at the somewhat over-optimistic assessment that the Minister comes to the House with today. There is no absolute victory, of course—there is victory of sorts—but the peace is unstable. Governance is better, but it is still unstable, and the Taliban are not the outfit they once were, but they still pose a threat. The Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), made some excellent points on how lessons are learned about what went wrong, because some things did. I return to the question he asked, which the Minister was not quite clear on: what is the Government’s view of a Chilcot-style inquiry? If we are all committed to getting this right, that is the kind of thing that surely needs to happen.

This might be the end of one of America’s forever wars, as it is sometimes known, but for Afghanistan, it remains immensely uncertain. What does the post-September relationship look like with the Afghan Government? I say this to the Minister on foreign aid. We can either have peace and stability in countries such as Afghanistan, or we can have foreign aid cuts; we cannot have both. If the Government are committed to a stable future for Afghanistan—which, in fairness, I believe they are—they need to reverse not just the cut that the shadow Secretary of State mentioned but the cut in its entirety across the foreign aid field.

[Mr Speaker]

May I remind the SNP spokesperson that he has one minute, not the more than two minutes that he has taken?