Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Danny Kruger

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.