Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I paid tribute to the previous Government when they put in place Team Barrow, in recognition of the fact that the future of its shipyard and submarine building programme was not just a matter for the Ministry of Defence. I would say the same thing to my hon. Friend, and I would be pleased to meet him to discuss it further.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

In light of the latest Hezbollah attack on Israel, will the Secretary of State assure the House that we will continue to supply defensive equipment to Israel to help it defend itself against Iranian proxies?

[John Healey]

We have an unshakeable commitment to the right of Israel to defend itself and we have demonstrated in the past a willingness to stand with Israel, particularly when it has been under direct under attack from Iran.

Ukraine

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

It was my first time at the Ramstein meeting on Friday last week—the 24th such meeting of that coalition, led by the US. Senior representatives of 50 other countries participated, and all pledged both more military support for Ukraine and to reinforce the unity with which we stand with Ukraine. I hope that that is not just reassurance for Ukrainians, but a signal to President Putin that we remain united, we remain resolute and, in the end, he will not prevail.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. He is quite right to outline the threats that Russia now poses to NATO territory. Last week, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly was in Alaska, looking at the missile intercept system, part of which is done through RAF Fylingdales. However, the UK and most of Europe is not protected by the missile intercept system. In relation to the comments he has made on the threat Russia poses, may I ask that, as we move into the strategic defence review, a NATO-led missile intercept system is something that he discusses? It is quite a hole in the defence of Europe at this moment in time.

[John Healey]

I grew up and went to school near RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire. Those big golf balls, when they were up, were a feature of the landscape for many years. I can say to the right hon. Gentleman that the strategic defence review, led externally but with the Department supporting it, has set out propositions that pose some of the questions he is interested in. I can confirm that this defence review will welcome and invite contributions from all parties, including not just those on the Front Bench but those on the Back Benches who are well informed and play roles in the wider defence and security world. I invite him to consider the propositions the review has published and to consider the sort of submission he might make as part of its deliberations; if he can do that, we will certainly welcome him.

Foreign Affairs and Defence

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

But may I say how great it is to see you in the Chair for this debate, albeit in a temporary role? And may I say, through you, that the Foreign Secretary wanted to be here for the debate, but he and the Prime Minister are hosting the leaders of over 40 European countries at the European Political Community meeting at Blenheim palace today—it is an important day for our country. He will look forward to following the debate as soon as he returns.

I congratulate all 315 re-elected and returning Members of this House, and welcome in particular all Members who were elected for the first time. Savour that special feeling when you first walk into this Chamber and sit on these green Benches. Remember it; respect it. Our constituents have given each of us their confidence; they have given us the mandate to serve them and the country.

Two week ago, I stood at my local constituency election count in a sports hall in Rotherham. It is the honour of my life to stand at this Dispatch Box today as the Defence Secretary—as part of the new Government at the start of this new era for Britain. The last time that I spoke at this Dispatch Box was a week before the election in 2010, as a housing Minister dealing with planning reform. Even then, I warned that

“there are fundamental flaws in the Conservatives’ proposed planning regime”.

However, my main argument on that day focused on accountability. I said:

“accountability is a central tenet”—[Official Report, 29 March 2010; Vol. 503, c. 611.]

of public life, serious decisions and good government. Having re-entered Government, I feel that just as fiercely as I did 14 years ago. What we do, what we say and how we conduct ourselves in Government matters. We must always be accountable in this House, to the public and to Parliament. By doing that, we will help to regain trust in Government and return politics to public service.

I pay tribute to my predecessors, Grant Shapps and Ben Wallace, whom I shadowed for over four years from the Opposition Benches. The House will now miss them both in differing ways. They served as Defence Secretaries during what the Chief of the Defence Staff has described as the most extraordinary time for defence in his career. That responsibility now passes to me. I am grateful to have the support of such a stand-out ministerial team: the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle); the Minister for the Armed Forces, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard); the Minister for Veterans and People, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns); and Lord Coaker in the other place.

The first duty of any Government is to defend the country and keep our citizens safe. That is why I pay tribute, on behalf of the House, to the men and women who serve in Britain’s armed forces, many of whom are overseas on deployment right now. They are rightly respected worldwide for their bravery and their professionalism. We thank them for what they do to keep us all safe, as we thank those out of uniform in UK defence. They will have this new Government’s fullest support to do their job in defending this country

That is why at the NATO summit in Washington last week, the Prime Minister confirmed the Government’s unshakeable commitment to NATO, and our total commitment to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. It is why the Prime Minister launched this week a first-of-its-kind strategic defence review. And it is why we announced in the King’s Speech legislation to create a new armed forces commissioner to improve service life.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I wish the right hon. Gentleman, who was a committed parliamentarian in his shadow role, all the best in his new role, to which he brings great depth and seriousness. He has just described the strategic review and outlined the ambition to get to 2.5% of GDP. If that strategic review recommends more than 2.5%, will the Government still enact it in full?

[John Healey]

We have launched the strategic defence review, which was a manifesto commitment. It will be conducted within the framework set out in our manifesto, with the determination to complete it within the first year and to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP as soon as we can. The country has not spent at that level since I last stood at the Dispatch Box back in 2010 under the then Labour Government.

I welcome to their roles the new shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on defence, the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), who cannot be here for the debate—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) is ably standing in for him, and we look forward to hearing what he has to say. I also welcome the SNP spokesperson on defence, the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan). As Defence Secretary, I want to take the politics out of national security. I say to the House: I will always look to work with you—putting country first, party second. I have offered the shadow Defence Secretary access to intelligence briefings, and will do so for other relevant Members. The new strategic defence review will brief and welcome submissions from other parties across this House.

I want us to forge a British defence strategy for the future, not just a defence strategy for the new Labour Government. No party has a monopoly on defence or on pride in our military. We in the Labour party have deep roots in defending this country. Throughout the last century, it was working men and women who served, and sometimes died, on the frontline fighting for Britain. It was Labour that established NATO and the nuclear deterrent. As his Majesty the King said yesterday, our commitment to both is “unshakeable.” We are a party with deep pride in forging international law and security: the Geneva conventions, the universal declaration of human rights, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty were all signed by Labour Prime Ministers. We are a party with deep respect for the serving men and women of our armed forces. Theirs is the ultimate public service: they defend the country and are essential to our resilience at home. I know they will inspire me in the weeks, months and years ahead in this job.

As the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), said yesterday in the debate on the Address:

“Every month in my previous job, I became more concerned about the threats to our country’s security.”—[Official Report, 17 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 51.]

We know that these are serious times, with war in Europe, conflict in the middle east, growing Russian aggression and increasing global threats. We know, too, that there are serious problems. It was Ben Wallace who said to me in this Chamber last year that our armed forces had been “hollowed out and underfunded” over the past 14 years. Morale is at record lows, alongside dreadful military housing and a defence procurement system that the Public Accounts Committee has described as “broken” and wasting taxpayers’ money.

Less than two weeks into this Government, we now see that those problems are much worse than we thought. Just today, new official figures that we have been able to release as scheduled show that forces families’ satisfaction has fallen to the lowest level ever reported. We cannot solve those problems all at once, but we are determined to fix them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher). It is also a great pleasure to have another Yorkshire Hammer in the House, but let me give him some friendly advice: he might not want to have my neighbour, the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), sitting behind him next time. If the hon. Gentleman does give him any trouble, he should just ask to compare their teams’ European cabinets.

As the current leader of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I want to say something about defence in an ever-changing world. I hope there is not too much of a pause in the defence reviews that have already taken place, and there has been some debate about that. I understand why a new defence review is taking place under a new Government, but I think it worth noting that we have moved to a 360° view of NATO and the threats that it faces.

We may well see a change of Administration in the United States, and with any change of Administration it takes time to work out the direction that the new Administration want to take. I do not feel as fearful as some about President Trump returning to the White House, because during his last tenure he invested heavily in NATO and did not undermine it. We know that while his habit is to create great upset and make big statements, the reality turns out to be somewhat different, and he works towards building on that. Nevertheless, this is something that will have to be considered. What Trump did succeed in doing was getting European allies to build their defence strategies and budgets, and we cannot escape the fact that the demands on the defence of Europe are growing and growing, not just on land but at sea.

We know that Russia has mapped the bed of the North sea. It has mapped the fuel pipelines and the data cables, and obviously the surface platforms are at risk. We know that the Royal Navy and our allies spend a great deal of time counteracting that, and I am proud that the Conservative Government established a huge shipbuilding programme the likes of which had not been seen for very many years. It provides long-term contracts that allow the shipyards and the companies to invest, and, crucially, allow the Royal Navy to be the capable force that it needs to be. That must be key not just to the maintaining of a maritime nation, but to where the maritime interests lie in the world.

Climate change has already been mentioned today. An undeniable fact in that connection is the opening up of the High North and the north-east passage. Another undeniable fact is that the Russians have been rebuilding and revamping bases along their northern shoreline, and yet another undeniable fact is that the Ukraine war that Vladimir Putin illegally started, thinking he would be able to walk in and dominate that country in a very short space of time, has decimated his economy in the long run. Going to war will always decimate an economy, but this war has decimated Russia’s military, costing it a huge number of military personnel, and has made Putin reliant on other countries, such as China. It is notable that before the Ukraine war Chinese vessels never really went into the High North, but they do now because Russia lets them in.

Tension will build in the High North, and we have to be ready for it. I think we are ready for it—we have taken part in vital exercises in the area—but that just goes to show how vital the Royal Navy is. It is, of course, also vital that we have a functioning air force, and that we continue with the procurement of F-35s. Russian jets try to violate our airspace—certainly NATO airspace—on, I think, a daily basis, and they need to be met with confrontation. NATO is a deterrent rather than an aggressive force, but deterrence can only happen if those concerned feel the consequences of the balance of power. I believe that NATO is strong enough at the moment. No other combined maritime force in the world constantly has at least 36 ships patrolling the sea; that is what NATO is able to bring together. However, it is vital that when we carry out the strategic defence review, we analyse not just what we need in maritime terms today, but what will come in the future; not just how we patrol the airspace today, but what will come in the future.

We must also address the position of the Army, which has been under discussion for decades. It is all very well to talk about hollowing out the armed forces and going for the lowest number of personnel. This was, in many ways, the post-cold war dividend, and that dividend has gone, as a number of us warned that it would before the conflict in Ukraine, and it will not come back. That leads to some tough choices. There has to be honesty in the conversation about how much of our GDP we should be spending, because it will add up to 100%, and that means that the budget must be cut somewhere else. I am proud that we have the track to get to 2.5%, but, as I was trying to ask in my intervention on the Secretary of State, if this review adds up to more than 2.5%—if it says, “This is what we need to be able to defend a changing arena”—will the Government spend that money? We cannot on one the hand say that we aim to get to 2.5%, rather than giving a specific date, and on the other hand say, “We are going to have a strategic defence review, but what if it costs 3%?” Will this actually be achieved? That is an important question.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The right hon. Member is making a most interesting speech. Does he agree that the present size of the British Army is militating against recruitment? A great many people who might be good in the Army and have considered it as a career option are saying, “Actually, if I could get another job I might do better,” and that is very, very dangerous.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

Recruitment has become a big problem in the armed forces, especially now that unemployment is at historically low levels. One of my colleagues said to me recently that it was not officers but the ranks who were difficult to recruit. I do not have an immediate answer on how we can change that, but I can say this. In my short tenure as the procurement Minister at the MOD, it became blatantly obvious within 24 hours from looking at the letters and written questions on my desk that accommodation is one of the biggest issues facing the services. I make no criticism of any of my successors or predecessors in that role for trying to handle the issue of accommodation, because I quickly discovered just how difficult it is. I wanted to make front-loading the capital expenditure budget a priority in order to sort out accommodation, but there are so many legal hurdles in the deals that have been done in the past that it becomes difficult.

I want to put on the record that I see service accommodation as a defence capability, and it should be treated like all other defence capabilities. If we are asking our service personnel to go to war, do we want the last thing they hear before they go on to the battlefield to be that their family are moving out and going somewhere else because they cannot live in such conditions any more? Do we want the last thing our personnel on Trident hear before disappearing for four months to be, “I’m leaving; I’m going back to my family home with the kids. We can’t live like this”? That means it has become an issue of operational capability. We need our highly trained and highly professional personnel to know that they are being looked after, which starts with accommodation.

I wish the Government all success in trying to grasp this issue and take it forward, because it is exceptionally complex. I am looking at the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who was one of my successors. I know that he personally tried very hard to sort this issue out and carry it forward. I know there is a body of work taking place, but this is a priority and needs to be sorted. I hope that the new Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), makes good on the 50 written questions he submitted on 23 and 24 May this year about accommodation, and on the several questions tabled by the now Secretary of State. They obviously recognise that it is a huge concern, and we look forward to finding out how they will approach that as soon as possible.

I will move on to foreign affairs. Without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most contentious issues in the previous Parliament, as well as outside and during the general election, was the war between Israel and Gaza, which has inflamed passions on all sides. I fear that the general election campaign showed that some of the militant pro-Palestinian protesters are stepping over the mark. That does not apply to all pro-Palestinian protesters—there are very different sets of people—but I am talking about the militant pro-Palestinian protesters who seek to use fear and intimidation to try to achieve their objectives.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have not given notice to the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) about what I am about to say, but it is not a criticism, so I hope she will accept it. As she pointed out in her acceptance speech, it was one of the most horrific campaigns she had ever been through. Nobody putting themselves forward in a democracy, let alone for public service, should have to experience what not just she but several other people experienced. Do you know what most of them had in common, Mr Deputy Speaker? They were women. Female candidates in the election, especially Labour female candidates, had the most horrific, misogynistic abuse hurled at them over the issue of Gaza and Israel, and we have to call that out.

Everybody elected to this place is here as a parliamentarian to speak up for the things they passionately believe in, and no one should ever dismiss someone’s passionate views about a particular subject, even if we ferociously disagree with them. However, it is incumbent on all of us to call it out when we see, in what should be a fair democracy, people having their tyres slashed, being screamed at and being intimidated, which happens to women especially. If we want to have a strong democracy, we have to make sure that this House says with one voice that everybody who wants to stand for Parliament, whatever their views, has the right to campaign safely and put their views across. As a country, we have fallen a long way behind that. Whatever anybody’s view, we have to call that out.

I am a strong defender and supporter of Israel. I believe that Israel has a right to exist, and a right to defend itself. I believe that a close eye must be kept on whether international humanitarian law is being broken. If it is, the people who are responsible must be brought before the courts and prosecuted.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) made a very powerful speech, and I listened intently to every word she said. Her personal experiences bring value to this House, as she is able to talk about what the Israel-Gaza conflict means to her, given that her family are on the ground. Who in this House does not want to see a ceasefire? We all want to see a ceasefire, but there are two sides to the coin. It is still Hamas’s objective to wipe out the state of Israel, which we have to address. We have to keep a balance. As the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), said, a pogrom was launched on 7 October, and we must make absolutely sure that what happened on that day cannot happen again.

This House has always pushed for a two-state solution, but it cannot be down to Israel alone to make the ceasefire happen. I will carry on defending Israel’s right to defend itself and maintain its security. I will also carry on defending international law and making sure it is abided by. If it is not, I will hold people to account. But the call for a ceasefire cannot just be on one side. Hamas have to release the hostages and give up their objective of wiping out Israel, and then we may be able to move things forward.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Christopher Chope)]

I call Joe Powell to make his maiden speech.

Defence Spending

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

We have already laid out the fact that this plan is fully costed and funded. As I have mentioned to the House, we have said that we will reduce the size of the civil service by 72,000. That is not a one-off cut; it is money that is not being paid each year, and will help to fund defence. There are also some other things that the Chancellor will no doubt wish to get into. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has taken a look at page 20 and the annexe, but he will see that this is all set out.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I absolutely welcome this very important investment in defence. As my right hon. Friend says, the world is a changed place, and I am sure that he would agree that defence is indeed a public service. On the extra funding and the projects that he has announced, may I ask him to make sure that he says to the Treasury that the programmes should be fully funded? This should not just be capital investment. The Treasury has a habit of saying, “The capital investment is fine, but let’s not worry about revenue.” The projects will need revenue, so will he make sure to have those conversations with the Treasury?

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend makes a very clear point, based on his experience of the Department. We have to make sure not just that we fund the capital, but that we have the resource to run the equipment. He raises a very important matter, and this budget enables us to ensure that this is done properly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

On the important question of steel, we do not expect the closure of Port Talbot to have a significant impact on defence, but obviously we will continue to monitor that situation. I would just gently point out that in 2022-23, the last year for which we have figures available, 89% of spend by the MOD with industry was with British industry. It will be an awful lot harder to make that level of spend if Labour is unable to commit to matching our spending commitments. If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned, perhaps he will join other colleagues on the Labour Benches in insisting that the shadow Secretary of State confirms whether he will match 2.3% of GDP now and our target of 2.5% as soon as the economy supports it.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

May I take this opportunity to also place on record my thanks to the Minister for Armed Forces, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) for all the work he has done? It was a joy to work with him when I was in the Department.

I thank the Minister for Defence Procurement for his procurement review. It is an excellent document, moving forward in a pragmatic way. As part of that review, will he reassess where potential gaps might occur between old platforms being retired and new platforms being delayed? Does he agree that housing procurement—accommodation for our armed forces—is as much an operational capability as a tank?

Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeremy Quin]

I said we would hear from my right hon. Friend, and indeed we shall. He is absolutely right. We are incredibly careful as a Committee to keep to the right the side of the line. There are a lot of facts in our report that make for very, very unpleasant reading. I do not have time to list them all today, with the clock whirring as it is, but I commend the report. It goes through some of the problems we face in great detail. As my right hon. Friend says, they will be well known to our adversaries. If we do not front up to those problems, we will be fooling no one but ourselves.

Obviously, I have a personal interest in this matter, but I believe that over the past five years we have seen a real determination from the MOD to get better, and there are structural changes that will embed improvement. The defence and security industrial strategy moved the MOD away from competition by default and towards viewing our defence sector as a critical strategic asset. That has proved a timely intervention, placing more emphasis on building sovereign capacity and greater reassurance of our supply chains. DSIS has marked an improvement in the relationship with industry. Companies large and small are more engaged than they have ever been in the early thought processes around capability requirements and specifications. There is better investment in senior responsible owners to exercise control and authority over projects.

When the Department and industry work together—for example, on Poland’s defence expansion or on novel technologies for Ukraine—it is a formidable combination. Baking exports and industrial co-operation into procurement at the earliest stage works for industry and for the UK. Above all, achieving minimum deployable platforms early and allowing for spiral development, if properly invested against, will generate not only routinely upgraded state-of-the-art platforms, but industrial partners that are able to retain and invest in their workforce and their research and development. It means going beyond feast and famine, and towards long-term co-development.

I believe that the Minister’s recently announced reforms are excellent. They institutionalise reforms that really will improve our procurement, but for them to work as they deserve, there needs to be cultural change. Uniformed SROs need to recognise the profoundly different skillset that applies to procurement. They need to be encouraged to seek commercial and legal advice early in order to escalate problems. Above all, they need to be willing to recognise that when a project will not work, they should take the learning and call it a day. If we are focused, as we must be, on cutting-edge solutions, we must recognise that some will not work. For any commercial entity, that is not a sign of failure; it is a recognition that, in a portfolio, some risks will be taken that do not succeed.

In Defence Equipment & Support there are many good people doing a difficult and demanding job, but I believe it is absolutely possible, as part of the current reforms, to instil and reward greater entrepreneurialism and productivity. DE&S has the pay freedoms to do so. With cultural change and proper investment, the reforms will move us from peacetime lethargy, influenced by staccato funding, closer to the urgency and realism that the threats demand.

It is clear that no one on either side of the House should think that we can get to where we need to be against the current threat simply by being a bit better at procurement. As our report makes clear, significant improvements are required in everything from stockpiles to housing simply to retain and maintain the size of our current force structure, let alone increase it, as we should.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend has mentioned accommodation, on which I focused after succeeding him as Minister for Defence Procurement. Does he agree that accommodation is as much a part of operational capability as hardware in the battlefield?

[Sir Jeremy Quin]

I support my right hon. Friend’s point. We had “fix on failure” for too long, although it has changed in recent years. More investment is being put into our housing, but it is needed because we have a crisis in retention and recruitment. As the report sets out in vivid and very scary detail, we are losing far more experienced personnel than we are able to recruit. Housing is part of the offer to our brilliant defence personnel that we need to get right.

While addressing all the issues I have mentioned, we must also increase our fundamental defence production capability. We underwrote commercial military expansion in the 1930s, and we should be prepared to do the same. It is absolutely clear that, although better buying will of course help, it should be alongside, not instead of, sustained, effective and increased investment.

Investment horizons on priority projects must stretch well beyond annual commitments to allow proper planning. We will make savings if the services do not gamble all their chips on the delivery of a perfect platform when it is “their turn,” and they will not do that if they know funding will be there for upgrades. Industry will invest alongside that, will work with small and medium-sized enterprises and will train the workforce we need if it knows that we are marching together for the long term rather than being marched over the edge of a cliff at the end of every order.

The need for increased defence investment would be true in any circumstances when faced by the threats we face. It is all the more vital when the United States’ commitment to Europe is being questioned. Since 2015, this Government have shown themselves to be ready to make difficult decisions, have shown leadership in the early days on Ukraine and have increased investment. In my personal opinion, the Government must now set out their timetable for reaching and sustaining 2.5%.

Although decisions should be taken “capability up” rather than “numbers down”, it is also my view that we are unlikely to be able to meet and deter expanding threats in the longer term for less than 3%, which remains a low level of annual insurance compared with the relatively recent past. However, the sooner the Government commit and invest, the lower the ultimate price likely to fall on this country. By doing so, we might be able to help save all of Europe by our example. Failure to invest could result in a very high price indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point, and we could almost have a whole debate about that. We do not have time to go into the full detail today, but I will touch on our defence industrial strategy. That is what a lot of this comes down to; if we are buying things off the shelf, it can sometimes be more cost-effective, but we need to be careful and cautious, because the longer those projects are for, the greater the risk of foreign exchange challenges. There is also sometimes a risk to our own sovereign capability and the longevity of some of our defence industries.

We recognise that, with our allies, we work in an international world on this. So there is no straightforward answer, but defence industrial strategy is an area that not only the MOD but the whole of Government should be looking at, as it is vital. Both the Chancellor and shadow Chancellor talk about growing the economy, and our defence industries are based in areas where, if we could up the skills and jobs available, it could provide a major boost to the economy. So there are a lot of opportunities there.

The MOD has not credibly demonstrated how it will manage its funding to deliver the military capabilities the Government want. Our latest report says that they need to get “firmer control of defence procurement” because of this very large deficit in respect of the capability requirements needed. The budget has increased, and I am sure the Minister will stand up to tell us how much extra money is going into defence, but this is about not just the money, but how it is managed. The budget has increased by £46.3 billion over the next 10-year period compared with what was set out in last year’s equipment plan. As I said, the PAC has warned that the deficit is even bigger than expected, so that extra budget will be taken up by the deficit if it is not managed down. Part of the reason for that deficit is inflation, but another major impact on it is the costs of the Defence Nuclear Organisation, which is responsible for the vital nuclear deterrent. Those costs have increased by £38.2 billion since last year’s plan.

One of our Committee’s other concerns is that the MOD has been putting off making decisions about cancelling or reprofiling programmes. Reprofiling is not always a good thing, but sometimes we have to trim according to what is necessary. If the MOD cannot afford the plan, it should take a hard decision, but it has optimistically assumed that the plan would be affordable if the Government fulfilled their long-term aspiration to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence each year, despite there being no guarantee that that will happen. Of course, in an election year there is not even a guarantee as to which party will be in government to consider that. We know, and the Defence Committee will know even more than the PAC, how much the MOD is increasingly reliant on the UK’s allies to protect our national interests. That means that we also have to play our part by making sure that we are delivering that.

For all the time that I have served on the PAC— 13 years this year—the MOD has been led by optimism bias, and it is now pressing on based on not optimism but the sniff of optimism, as there is so little left in that approach that will deliver. We must call that out and call a spade a spade, by saying that the MOD can deliver only what is affordable. So either the money goes in or the MOD trims what it is trying to do, because the approach of trying to do everything all at once and not being able to afford it is just not going to work.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. I have not cast my eye over the report she is speaking about. She talks about the Government or the MOD trimming projects. The lessons of George Osborne slashing the number of Type 45s in half have had a huge impact on naval capability, and of course we have more than 530 Ajax tanks to come. When we say that we must make savings, are we talking about a false economy? In the long run, it is far better to increase the GDP spend than to slash projects and totally undermine how the defence programme was originally laid out.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I am tempted by the right hon. Gentleman to go into all sorts of long discussion about how the PAC looks at these issues. Resetting projects and programmes can certainly be problematic, and sometimes stopping something part way through can be expensive. Equally, however, altering the requirements part way through can add on costs. When I talk to the commands or the centre, one problem I find is that people sometimes want to gold-plate what they are procuring, and we sometimes need to look at doing those things in a different way. Brutally, let me say that the current situation is not affordable, which means we must make hard decisions about whether something is stopped or no longer procured, or more money is made available. As I have said, and as the PAC repeats ad infinitum, if more money is made available, we need better project management.

The MOD is also saying very clearly that it will not make any decisions until the next spending review. As everybody in the Chamber knows, that is supposed to be in November, but a general election is looming. A spending review is usually six months after the first Budget of a new Government, so we could be floating on the fumes of the current spending settlement until the summer of next year. In certain cases, we will still be pouring good money after bad; the Ministry of Defence needs to tighten up on that, because it cannot live on hope alone.

I touched on industry in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). Industry needs a consistent and certain supply of business to keep the supply chain going, both for resilience and to ensure there is proper investment in the necessary infrastructure. We have seen some of our private sector industries leave equipment and buildings to crumble because they have not had continuity of supply. Some blame lies with them, not just with the Ministry of Defence, but consistency of supply is vital and getting that right provides a potential boon to the economy.

The Committee looks at procurement a lot. For the last decade or more, we have been saying that senior responsible owners need to be in place for far longer. They need to be where their expertise is needed for the right period of time, and then be moved on for the next phase of the project. We need to reward people who stay in those jobs, rather than expecting civil servants or military attachés to roll over on a three-year basis, thinking they just need to keep things ticking over. They need proper ownership and proper reward when they get things right. The MOD is beginning to move in the right direction on senior responsible owners’ skills and longevity, but it still has a lot of work to do to catch up to where it needs to be.

I touched on funding timeframes. The Treasury needs to seriously consider properly controlled longer-term budgets, as it is beginning to do in certain areas with the defence equipment plan. That does not mean giving carte blanche to the MOD; those budgets need to be tightly controlled, as the Public Accounts Committee has made clear. However, controlled longer-term budgets are vital.

Finally, the Public Accounts Committee has access to many areas of Government and all areas of spending, if we choose to look at them. I pay tribute to my fellow Committee members who have never leaked a single piece of information, of whatever sensitivity, in the last nine years. However, the Committee looks at certain issues through opaque glass and it is now time to have full transparency. I want as much information as possible to be in the public domain, but the mechanisms of open, public committees are not always appropriate for certain sensitive areas, including defence.

In our latest report, the Committee recommended that there needs to be a new mechanism and approach that allows Parliament to properly examine such issues in the right, secure context. That might be along the lines of the Intelligence and Security Committee, although we would certainly not be looking at information in that area and not in exactly the same way, because the Public Accounts Committee needs to be more fleet of foot on certain day-to-day spending issues. It is time we had transparency so the British taxpayer knows that every tax pound that is spent, whether on defence or on sensitive matters in other Departments, is being seen and scrutinised by senior parliamentarians who know what they are doing. It is an early thought of the Committee, but important to raise. We need full transparency so that officials and Ministers who are spending taxpayer money in this area of vast expense are properly scrutinised on their work.

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[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

It is an honour to take part in this debate. I pay tribute to the Defence Committee and the Public Accounts Committee for what I agree are exceptionally good reports. I echo my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on that point.

This is possibly the most important speech I will give as an MP, and I do so on behalf of the military in my constituency of Devizes. I have the honour to represent the garrison towns of Tidworth, Bulford, Larkhill and others. I went up on Salisbury plain recently with Colonel Matt Palmer, the commander of the Army in the south-west, who showed me with the sweep of his arm where 20,000 of our armed forces live and work. As my right hon. Friend said, we are not here just as ambassadors for our constituencies; I am going to speak in my role as an MP about the essential imperative of national security.

I will, however, first make another local point. In the Devizes constituency is the site of the battle of Roundway Down, which was the most successful battle in the royalist cause in the English civil war, in that it gave the south-west to the King for the next two years. I mention the battle of Roundway Down, because it was that defeat of the parliamentary forces that spurred the reform of the parliamentary army. That led to the creation of the new model army, which of course went on to win the civil war, and transformed the way in which the military in this country and across Europe was organised for decades to come. The lesson of the new model army and the reforms that happened in short order in the 1640s was not about a major new doctrine of warfighting, but about the imperative of having a well equipped, well trained, well led army that is innovative, agile, professional and with high morale. We need that again.

I mention that because it is on my mind, having yesterday had the pleasure of attending a session at the Royal United Services Institute organised by the New Bletchley foundation led by Brigadier Nigel Hall. It is issuing a report with input from a galaxy of distinguished former generals and other experts. Sir Richard Barrons was on the panel, as were Professor Michael Clark and others. They put forward a short report that Members can find online on a proposal for a reconfigured Army. The point the panel made—it has been made repeatedly in this debate—is simple: we have to be ready to fight the war we wish to deter. That means really ready, not just ready on paper or ready plausibly in a way that might convince someone on a doorstep that we are making sufficient investment in the Army. We need to know that we are ready, and crucially our enemy needs to know that. I echo the points made by the Chair of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) that our enemies know what our capabilities are. They will not be deceived by spin from a press officer in Whitehall. It is essential that we are ready to fight the war.

The sad fact—there is no point sugar-coating it, given the point I have just made—is that we are not ready to fight the war we wish to deter. The reports make that plain. I have great respect for Ministers on the Front Bench, and I recognise the genuine investments going into parts of our armed forces, which are extremely welcome in my constituency, but the fact is, as General Barrons said yesterday,

“we are back in a moment of existential risk in an era of great power confrontation”.

Laying aside the fantasies of the post-cold war world of our being somehow beyond war and in an era of minor peacekeeping operations, we are back in a sense in the mid-20th century, with the crucial difference of the high-tech domains with which we are now coming to terms. Unlike the mid-20th century, we have hollowed out our Army over the past 30 years, and I echo the powerful points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford made drawing a comparison with the 1930s—that “low dishonest decade”, as it has famously been called. We now have three decades where we have suffered disinvestment.

While I acknowledge the major funding commitments being made to the armed forces, I highlight that they are insufficient at the moment. I recognise that abstract percentages of GDP are in a sense secondary to the real question of how we spend money and where it goes, but those figures are important, and the basic fact is that we need to be spending more than 2% or 2.5%, and at least 3%. If we consider the worst coming to the worst, and the US withdrawing its NATO commitments, as we hear threatened from time to time, across the NATO alliance we would all be needing to reach at least 4% just to maintain NATO’s current strength.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

A recent meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly that I attended assessed that it would need to be an increase of 5% of GDP on top of current spend, were the Americans to pull out.

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. These figures seem extraordinarily large to us, but if we consider the worst coming to the worst, and our being in a hot war in Europe, we would be back to spending significantly more. It was 50% of GDP in world war two, so the figures we are talking about are essentially marginal in light of the potential.

The point has been made—it cannot be made enough—that before defence gets more money, it needs to spend its own money better. I echo the points made about the importance of procurement reform. The Public Accounts Committee report is damning. There is a £17 billion deficit between the MOD’s budget and its official capability requirements, which is perhaps an underestimate, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford said, given how these numbers are calculated. I am concerned about that.

To make a quick point in passing, I would be interested in the Minister’s thoughts when he winds up about the nuclear budget. There is real concern about how Trident’s replacement will be accounted for. There is a danger that if that is just part of general MOD capital expenditure, it could end up cannibalising conventional weapons. It is important, given the long-standing tradition, that we keep nuclear separate from conventional weapons budgets.

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[Danny Kruger]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. If we managed to get the genuine increase in defence spending that is needed, the question then arises of how to spend that and where the money should go. I say this not just on behalf of the 20,000 or so defence personnel in Wiltshire, but because it is the right thing to do: we need to put people first. I recognise that there has been a significant step change in the doctrine of defence policy in recent years towards the recognition that an army is fundamentally about its people, and I respect that. The fact is, probably because of the many decades of disinvestment, that we have problems of low morale, low pay, often poor housing and a shoestring training budget, all of which contribute to the recruitment crisis we have in the armed forces that my right hon. Friend mentioned.

The PAC report makes clear that we are losing people faster than we can recruit them, and that is entirely unacceptable. We have to improve recruitment. The Public Accounts Committee heard that for every five people recruited to the armed services, eight are leaving. That is a national security crisis. It is not just a problem for recruitment, but a profound security risk.

I recognise the point that the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) made that we have had too many reviews, so I hesitate to use the word—if I could think of another word, I would use it—but we need a quick total review of the people issue in our armed forces. It could be done quickly and all it probably entails is an amalgamation of all the work done by others, but I would like to see that with a great degree of urgency. It should look at recruitment, terms and conditions, families—crucially—and onward progression in all three services, so that we can with the urgency required turn around the recruitment crisis.

Having made the general point about the importance of investment in people, I come quickly to the major services of the armed forces, and first is the Navy. It is important that we invest in all five domains, including in the grey zone and sub-threshold activity, which are so important. Our principal specialism in the United Kingdom historically and now remains our sea power. It is a good thing we are moving towards a maritime strategy. I recognise that is the Government’s priority, and I say that as a representative of a land-locked county with all these soldiers in it. Nevertheless, we need significant investment in the Navy. We would all like to see these things, but let us actually do it and have more submarines, more escorts and more minesweepers. We need seabed warfare vessels. On that point, I call the House’s attention to a report from Policy Exchange a month or so ago talking about western approaches and the significant threat we face in these islands and across Europe to undersea infrastructure. It is fundamentally our responsibility on behalf of Europe to protect that.

I have mentioned the new model army and the New Bletchley report, and I would like to see a real commitment to a reformed and modernised Army. We have to recognise the point made by the former Chief of the Defence Staff Nick Carter when he said that the Army is the weakest of the three services. That is a sad state of affairs. I suppose one has to be the weakest; I am sorry it is the Army. There are big questions over our ability to field a division in Europe, as promised to NATO. According to a senior US officer, the UK cannot even be called a tier 1 power. I understand that the Committees were told by a former commander of joint forces command that our Army will not be ready to fulfil its NATO commitments until the early 1930s. Indeed, that was the assumption of the integrated review, so in a we are sense back to the 10-year rule, which is not how things should be. [Interruption.] Did I say 1930s?

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

You did.

[Danny Kruger]

I think we are up to speed on that— the 2030s.

The case for investment in the Army is obvious, and the good news is that it is easier, quicker and cheaper to refit and upscale the Army than it is the Navy, because kit is smaller and cheaper. However, we do not just need the same Army but a bigger one. We need a medium-sized Army that is bespoke for the job that will be done—the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made the right point about the sort of Army we need. The Army needs, in a resonant phrase, to defend these islands, but it also needs to act in partnership with other services and with our allies in the west. We do not need another great new major continental army such as the one the Poles are building. We need a rapid reaction joint expeditionary force that is agile, mobile, and able to do the job that is required, in partnership with our allies.

On the sphere of operations, ultimately our commitments need to reflect the threats we face. In a sense, those are classified, and I recognise the challenge that the Committees have had in identifying what our capabilities are, and the tasks that Ministers set for them, because we cannot always know exactly what those threats are, with defence planning assumptions now classified. Nevertheless, I echo a point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham: I am delighted about AUKUS, which is a tremendous step forward in our international role and a great thing for British security. I am not averse to those global arrangements—they are absolutely right. I loved the deployment of the Queen Elizabeth and the carrier strike group to Japan.

Fundamentally, however, we are, and should be, committed to the defence of the Euro-Atlantic area, and for that purpose we must restore the mass of our own armed forces and Army. That means growing our capabilities here at home. We need more regulars, and to get back towards having 80,000 or 90,000 regular forces. We must significantly grow the reserve force because 30,000 is not enough, even if that figure of 30,000 is real, which I do not believe it is. The campaign to grow our reserves is necessary not just for its own sake, but as a great exercise in communication to the public about the imperative for us all to step up and play our role in the defence of our country.

There is a great deal of concern, which I think is misplaced, about the attitude of the British people to fighting. We had that in the 1930s, with lots of people saying that the British would not fight, but of course they would, of course they did, and of course they will if they have to answer their country’s call. That is young people in particular. They will do it with irony, and certainly with memes, but they will do it and sign up if they need to. This is not an abstraction. We have already seen in the past year or two what war in our region means. It means inflation—imagine that tenfold if a war breaks out in which our country is directly involved—and cyber-attacks on a terrible scale.

We are now at a turning point, as so many Members have said, and it is time for all of us as a country to step up. There is an opportunity and an imperative for us to strengthen our nation. It is about industrial resilience and our own food supply; it is about our supply chains, and our steel and manufacturing capacity. There is a huge opportunity, as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) said, in the importance of the industrial supply chain. This is a time for us all to do what is needed.

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[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin) for leading the debate with his report. On the first Thursday back in January 2022, six weeks before Russia further invaded Ukraine, many hon. Members currently in the Chamber were here for a debate about the need to increase defence spending. There was an argument about whether we were in a cold war scenario, which came back to the same thing: it is all very well talking about increasing spending, but where do the threats lie?

The mea culpa from my point of view is that, right up to 22 February 2022, I was saying that I did not believe Putin was going to invade Ukraine. I thought he was testing the borders and seeing where the strengths were. That day, I learned the important lesson that politicians often use the word “think” when they should be using “hope”. Much of the debate is based around what we want to see happen and what we hope will happen.

We may say, “I think perhaps we don’t need to expand the military as much as that. Perhaps the money is better off being spent elsewhere. Are we really going to go nuclear? Is he really going to do that?” We talk about development in the High North and maritime. Perhaps we need more Navy, because that will become a much more critical area in our security, our trade and our defence, but we hear the same thing: it is highly unlikely that there will be a surface warfare battle. Well, nobody thought there would be a tank battle in Europe. Since the second world war, nobody thought there would be an armoured vehicle and troop battle with trench warfare in Europe again, but that has happened.

I have been asked recently, “Are we going to have world war three?” It is an interesting question. How do we define world war three in the 21st century? Will it be the nuclear armageddon that people think? I do not believe that—I will come back to that. Will it be several instances of wars and armed conflicts in several areas that affect our country directly? Yes, and I believe that is where the world is moving to, especially when we look at the supply chains around the world. That affects not just this country, and it will lead to other investments having to be made.

There is a famine taking place in Sudan because of what is happening in the Red sea, where there is a reduction in supplies getting through. When these events take place, they have consequences in many areas of the world. We can talk about whether there is a world war and whether we will be involved, but we are—we are in the Red sea and we are giving support to Ukraine and other areas, which is building up.

We should not look at Ukraine as an individual thing that Putin is talking about and that ridiculous interview he did with Tucker Carlson in which he said, “Well, I haven’t got any intentions to invade anywhere else.” He literally wrote it down in July 2021. It takes about half an hour to read, and he lays it out line by line—“Not only do we need to rebuild the Russian Empire, but we need to reunite the historic Russian-speaking people”. We heard all of this in another book 100 years earlier, and we all know where that led, so we all know the consequences of us not preparing for it.

Something about NATO has been forgotten and overlooked. Everybody talks about article 5—that an attack on one is an attack on another, and we come to the rescue—but everybody forgets article 3, which says that members must be able to defend their borders first and foremost. There are only 14 articles in the actually very well-written Washington treaty, and article 3 makes it clear that members have to be able to defend their borders and that article 5 is a reinforcement that can take up to three weeks to arrive.

Do we believe that if Putin invades the Baltic states, that is where the effect on NATO will be? That would be tactically daft of Putin. It is more likely, if he decides to invade NATO territory, that he will want to tie all the NATO allies up to start with. There is good news and bad news. There is good news in what China has said to Putin because of their trade with India, South America and southern Africa. The Chinese especially have made it crystal clear that if Putin was even to demonstrate his ability to use a nuclear weapon—say, in the middle of the Black sea—they would say, “That’s it, we’re gone; we are not dealing with you.” That has probably taken the nuclear weapon issue off the table, especially with strategic nuclear weapons.

By the way, I do not want the House to get excited and think I am saying that we do not need to renew Trident, because there are still plenty of places around the world that are pushing that territory. As we always come back to, Trident is a deterrent weapon; it is not a weapon to be used. If it were to be launched, quite frankly we would not be arguing about it anyway. This does mean that we are in a far weaker position if nuclear is off the table, because we know, and Putin knows—he is doing it right now—that he can outproduce us in shells, tanks and people. Russia is paying €2,000 a month to people coming in from the far-flung areas of the country. People from some of these places do not earn that in a year. They have no shortage of personnel or cash.

Therefore, we have to start being honest with our questions. Do we need to build more capital equipment? Do we need more personnel? Yes, we do need more capital equipment, and we are going down that route, but we also need the revenue budgets to run that. To follow the fiscal rules and say “Look how much money we are putting into defence” is great, but it has to be capital, because they have not given the revenue. It is a case of: “Let’s line up all our shiny ships, but we can’t fuel them, maintain them or crew them.” It is the same in the Army and the Air Force. There must be a fundamental change at the Treasury in how the money is spent.

As the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, let us have some honesty in this Chamber. We can sit here and say, “We need to go to 2.5% or 3%, or maybe 4% or 5%.” What Government and which politician will stand up in this House and say, “That 3% reduction in GDP since the end of the cold war has gone into the health service and the Department for Work and Pensions, so we will cut the health service and DWP by 3% to invest in defence”? Who will stand up here and say that? Who will put that in their manifesto? Let us not pretend that that will happen, but the money does need to be spent more efficiently.

My hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement has done an excellent job with the integrated procurement model, which talks about things that he has worked on for a long time, I believe—for example, spiral development. We are very fond of talking about where we were in the 1920s and 1930s, but I want to take us back even further, to the 1910s, when the Dreadnought model was brought out. HMS Dreadnought was the most incredible ship ever built in terms of firepower, but it hit the reset button by making every other ship irrelevant. It could sink all of them, so there was an arms race. Within eight years, HMS Dreadnought was useless. HMS Iron Duke, which was still a Dreadnought class, was a totally different ship, but it had been part of the design process as it went on. Bear in mind that we were still only producing four Dreadnought battleships a year when we were chucking all our efforts in leading up to 1914 and beyond.

I recently spoke at a dinner, and a young person in their early 20s asked me, “What do you think about this comment from General Sanders about conscription? Because there’s no way I would be conscripted to go and fight for this country. Why should I bother? I am not going out to get killed. It’s not worth it. You spend all this money and waste money there. What are you offering me? It’s not worth it.” I said, “Well the problem is that you are looking at this in the society you live in today. If you are going to get conscripted, it is because our cities will lay in rubble. You only have to look at Kyiv. Forget wanting to sit at home and watch Netflix or play Xbox or do whatever you want, there is no electricity. There’s no water. There’s no gas or heating. There is starvation.” That is happening in Europe today.

How does one stop that happening? The word is deterrent. I have never met senior military personnel who are not at heart pacifists. They understand what warfare means. They understand the death and destruction that it brings and the decades it takes to recover. They do not want to go to war. I have never met anybody in the military who wants to go to war. This all takes investment. The honest fact that we are not going to cut health services or the DWP—some of our biggest spending budgets—and spend the money on defence means that we have to work with what we have. Yes, we can grow the economy and take more tax revenue. We can do all that, but that has not really happened in the 21st century. The 21st century has roughly been 50/50 between the Government and the Opposition. Even when the economy has grown, it has been around the margins. There has to be an honest conversation.

The procurement strategy my hon. Friend the Minister has produced is the right way forward. We are aware of the costs. I will say one more thing, almost directly contradicting myself. The war in Ukraine has shattered its economy. Forget the spending to fight the war; the loss in GDP of being able run an economy and export when at war is significantly bigger than an increase of 2% or 3%. Be under no illusion: if Putin wants to invade NATO territory, it will not be tanks rolling over the line up in the Baltics or maybe in east Poland, and we will have to go out there; it will be a full-scale NATO attack, and we will have to work out what we do.

The best way we can stop that is to make sure we have the deterrent. Our nuclear deterrent has always been valuable because they have no idea when or where we would strike back from. That has made it a useless weapon to use, but we have to have that weapon. If we say that is cancelled out, because of the attitude of China and Russian allies towards Russia were it to use one, then we have to accept that our conventional weapons are not going to counterbalance Russia and what is happening.

Nobody in this Chamber, in the military, at the MOD or in Europe, and probably anywhere in the western world, wants to go to war and see death and destruction on the scale we are seeing in too many areas of the world. We see famine and humanitarian crises taking place. Yes, we are going to have to spend more money, but we need to spend it more efficiently, and we need to make sure that when the increases come they will be used effectively. We need to remember that this is an investment so that we do not have to use the deterrent. If we do not have it, we will have to end up using something we do not actually have.

Ukraine: Military Equipment

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I refer to the previous answer I gave, where I was clear that we placed that order last July, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly said; that is for our own armed forces and it is an eightfold increase. But we have provided 300,000 artillery shells into Ukraine. We have procured them, Sir. We have done that not just from this country; we have done it through rapid procurement, through Defence Equipment and Support. All I can say is that I pay tribute to that effort. We all know that we need to go further. The other point is that this is not just about what we have procured; this country has played a leading role in ensuring that other nations join us and provide more munitions. That is as much a key part of the role that we have played.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Last week, in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly joint session in Brussels, top military leaders described to us their concern that the EU ethical banking laws are going to stop investment in arms companies. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the UK will always ensure that the money needed to invest in making sure that Europe can protect itself against Russian aggression will be there and that the arms can be manufactured?

[James Cartlidge]

My right hon. Friend asks about an excellent point. Both the Secretary of State and I have commented on that. I have held meetings at the Treasury and with defence companies about the ESG—environmental, social and governance—issue, as well as with financial institutions, at Rothschild in the City, because it is extraordinary that anyone should think we should not invest in core munitions when we see now that the cause they support is peace, freedom and democracy. If we do not fund our defence sector, we simply will not be able to defend those fine principles.

Situation in the Red Sea

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

As the hon. Gentleman says, that is one, but today that ship has been replaced by HMS Richmond, which now takes on that mantle. We have 16 ships under construction or on order. I wonder how many we would get from the SNP, with its approach to defence.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his in-depth statement, but there is concern about stretching the Royal Navy. It is a leading, world-class Navy, but it is suffering from personnel issues in crewing the ships, and responsibility for that lies back at the Treasury providing the revenue streams needed to make sure the capital equipment we have got can be used most effectively. What representations is my right hon. Friend making to ensure that the growth in maritime concerns around the world will be met by a commitment from the Treasury?

[Grant Shapps]

On a wider armed forces and MOD note, we have £288.6 billion for equipment over the next 10 years. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that that has to be matched with the sailors, the airmen and women and the Army able to resource that equipment, and I have some good news for him. Since we have been talking very actively about these issues, we have seen an eight-year high in applications to the Royal Navy, a six-year high in applications to the Army and a 42% increase between this January and last January in applications to join the Royal Air Force. I predict we are making progress.

Ukraine

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

These are not conversations to which I am directly privy, so I am loth to offer detail that I do not have. Suffice it to say that the debate is more nuanced than the hon. Gentleman implies in his question, but I suspect he knows that. When we proscribe an organisation such as the IRGC, which is so integral to the Iranian state, we can make it quite hard to have any sort of communication with the Iranian state, but those are matters for colleagues in the Foreign Office. I will bring his question to their attention, and encourage them to write to him or seek to respond in some other way.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments about insurance for shipping in the Black sea to encourage grain exports. Can I ask him if the British Government intend to carry on doing everything they can to make sure that those exports happen? He will be aware that Lebanon relies on those grain exports, and with the current situation in that region, we must ensure that starvation does not become another factor in an already exceptionally tense situation.

[James Heappey]

There is lots in my right hon. Friend’s question—on all of which he is entirely right. First, many countries around the world are dependent on grain exports from Ukraine. It is a source of constant frustration to me and Government colleagues who go overseas on diplomatic missions to find that the Russians try to claim that somehow Ukraine is using food as a weapon of war, when it is they who are seeking to limit those crucial exports. Secondly, the more that Ukraine is able to export, the more that the Ukrainian economy survives and, potentially, grows. One consequence of the insurance initiative, alongside the military success or the naval success that the Ukrainians have had in the western Black sea, is that shipping from Odesa is growing, which is encouraging. It is a sign that the new front in the Black sea is succeeding not only militarily but economically.

War in Ukraine

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s words about the despicable attack from Hamas and the absolute right of Israel to defend itself. As I said, I believe strongly that it is important that Putin does not see this as a moment of opportunity to sow more chaos, and does not think that the western donor community is distracted or has a preference for supporting Israel over Ukraine. He must know that our resolve is to support both.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly noted that the Secretary of State will be in the Gulf later this week. I am sure that he will want to talk about what he hears there, but I suspect that he will also want to keep some of that counsel private, as we seek to calibrate how we posture ourselves in the region in order to reassure our allies and deter those who might seek to make a bad situation even worse. The Secretary of State was in Washington last week, and has had a number of calls with other partners around the region. So too have the Chief of the Defence Staff and I, as part of a Ministry of Defence-wide effort to ensure that we constantly calibrate our response alongside that of those who we traditionally work with in the region, and we make sure that nothing we do is misinterpreted.

The right hon. Gentleman and I are, I think, friends, so there is some dismay that he dismisses all my efforts at the Dispatch Box to keep the House updated on the war in Ukraine. I stood here as recently as 11 September to lead an excellent debate on the subject, and have given a number of statements on behalf of the Secretary of State. I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman is so rank-conscious as to deem my efforts unworthy, but I have done my best.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to point to the fact that the excellent financial contribution made over the two previous financial years is, as yet, unconfirmed for the next financial year. It will not surprise him to know that that has already been the subject of conversation across Government. It is not for me to make that announcement in an urgent question today, but a major fiscal event is forthcoming, and I know that he will not have to wait too long. That does not mean that our plans are uncertain. In fact, I push back strongly on the suggestion that they are. For a long time over the past two years, there has been a sort of misunderstanding that the UK’s capacity to gift is entirely either from our own stockpiles or from our indigenous industrial capacity. The vast majority of what the UK gifts is what we are able to buy internationally, often from countries that Putin would prefer were not providing us with that stuff. However, we have been able to get our hands on it and get it to the Ukrainians with some haste. That is exactly the sort of thing that the right hon. Gentleman asked about.

It is about the small but necessary things, such as winterisation equipment, small arms ammunition, artillery ammunition and air defence ammunition, and our ability to buy that while in parallel stimulating UK industry. I reject what the right hon. Gentleman said about contracts having not been placed; substantial contracts have been placed directly to replenish UK stockpiles of NLAWs, Starstreak, lightweight multi-role missiles, Javelin, Brimstone, 155 mm shells and 5.56 mm rifle rounds. As far as I can see, there is a steady state contribution to the Ukrainians that amounts to tens of thousands of rounds per month, plus air defence missiles, plus all the small stuff, alongside the replenishment of our own stockpiles, which can only happen at the pace at which industry can generate it, but none the less it is happening.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be well aware of the situation in the Black sea with sea mines and how they are breaking loose. Our allies in Turkey are doing an incredible job in maintaining the Montreux convention and trying to keep those sea lanes safe. Is he having any conversations with our Turkish allies about any support they may need in no matter what way to try to ensure that those sea lanes are safe—if we can get the grain deal up and running again and get grain out through maritime? We are aware that sea mines are breaking free.

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend is an expert on these matters, and I commend him for the work that he and colleagues across the House do as part of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to ensure that Parliaments across NATO stand united in our support for Ukraine. He rightly notes the importance of the Montreux convention in keeping non-home ported ships out of the Black sea, and the Turks have applied that scrupulously. Turkey is entirely confident and comfortable in its ability to continue to enforce the convention. Clearly, for other Black sea nations, such as Romania and Bulgaria, de-mining is already a concern and they are getting on with that. I met my Romanian counterpart at the Warsaw security forum only two weeks ago to discuss exactly that.