Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Let me give my hon. Friend that assurance. I am proud that British forces have trained nearly 40,000 Iraqi and Kurdish troops over the past couple of years. Much of that training has been devoted to reducing the number of casualties that those troops are likely to have to face in operations in the Euphrates river valley and operations to liberate Mosul, and is exactly along the lines that he suggests.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

We have obviously seen significant success in Mosul in recent months, and I am sure that the whole House joins me in sending our prayers and gratitude to those serving in our forces, but can you tell us what lessons we are learning from our success in Mosul, so that we can apply them effectively to the battle in Raqqa?

[Mr Speaker]

I cannot, but hopefully the Secretary of State can.

Trident: Test Firing

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I wholeheartedly endorse what my hon. Friend says, and I hope that that at least would be common ground. The nuclear deterrent has played its part in keeping this country safe through a series of continuous at-sea patrols seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. I join him in paying tribute to the crews of all four of our nuclear submarines.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

There is now a question about the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent—[Interruption.] There is in terms of what is in the papers. That in itself undermines our national security. We need to send a clear message that our deterrent is still able to do its job. I urge the Secretary of State to accept the invitation of the Chair of the Defence Committee and appear before it to reassure us and the House that our deterrent is fit for purpose.

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Let me reassure the hon. Lady, who follows these matters extremely closely and is on the Defence Committee, that there is absolutely no doubt about the effectiveness of our deterrent. Again, had the Government any doubts about the continuing capability or effectiveness of the deterrent, we would not have brought the motion before the House last July.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Of course we recognise that bids are coming in. As soon as the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), who is responsible for defence procurement, has the ability to make that announcement, I am sure she will do so. We are looking forward to the new frigates, not least because, as I said earlier, we can sell off the Type 23s to countries that particularly want them.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Today I received my first Christmas present: a Royal Navy calendar. [Interruption.] A calendar showing platforms, obviously. January features HMS Ocean. Can the Minister inform us how its decommissioning in the next 18 months, after years of impressive service, adds to the strength and power of our Royal Navy?

[Mike Penning]

While procurement does not fall within my bailiwick, I am reliably informed that HMS Ocean was always due to go out of service in 2018, and at the same time the new Elizabeth class carriers will come into force. She has done fantastic work, and we must praise the work the ship and, most importantly, her crew have done over the years, but her time is coming towards its end and she will go in 2018.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Reports at the weekend suggest that the deployment and moves into Raqqa are imminent. Can the Secretary of State give us any update on what is going to happen and what support we will be providing to the efforts against Daesh in Raqqa?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Yes, I can tell the House that we expect operations to first isolate, then encircle and then liberate Raqqa to begin shortly. Our forces—the RAF—will be involved in a similar role there, providing intelligence and reconnaissance from the air, but they will also be providing close air support to troops on the ground.

Defence Expenditure

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. It is always a challenge to follow my informed colleagues in these debates, so I apologise for any repetition.

The first duty of any Government is the defence of the realm and security of their citizens, so I welcome this opportunity to discuss the Government’s ongoing defence commitments. We are living through a period of global turmoil and national uncertainty. Though Britain is preparing to exit the European Union, we must remain an outward-looking nation, committed to fulfilling our role in the world and supporting the efforts for peace and international stability across the globe.

The threats to that peace are many and varied: an emboldened Russian Federation, continuing instability in the middle east, a Europe struggling to come to terms with the historic migrant crisis, ever-adapting terror networks, and modern technology that expands the potential threats to our country and that has revolutionised the theatre of war. In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever that the UK is committed to maintaining a military that is capable of dealing with whatever threats the future may hold and that meets the capacity and capability needs identified by the strategic defence and security review. That can be achieved only by ensuring sufficient year-on-year funding to maintain and expand our armed forces capability. That is why I and my colleagues on the Defence Committee welcome the Government’s continued commitment to the 2% pledge on defence spending, to ensure our NATO compliance. That commitment sends an important message to our allies in NATO and beyond that the UK remains committed to fulfilling our role in the world, and to defending and supporting our friends, wherever and whenever that need arises.

As we have heard, the UK has the largest defence budget in the EU, the second largest in NATO and the fifth largest in the world, but money alone will not solve these issues. I hope that the 2% pledge is a commitment to maintaining our military strength in the long term. It is important that we do not simply take the figure of 2% as an arbitrary one or as the final word on Britain’s spending and procurement in the years ahead. In charting the future of the UK’s military capacity, we must always endeavour to work from first principles. What is required to keep our country safe?

In our Committee’s report, we raised a number of initial points in response to the Government’s spending plans. We noted that while the Government met their 2% commitment to defence spending last year, they did so with the aid of what appeared to be a measure of creative accounting, albeit creative accounting that was accepted by NATO, as was outlined by the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). By revising the criteria by which defence expenditure is calculated, the predicted Government spend for 2015-16 rises from £36.8 billion, or 1.97% of GDP, to £39 billion, equivalent to 2.08%. That was achieved by including expenditure from other funds, such as the conflict, stability and security fund, which is controlled jointly by the MOD and the Department for International Development.

I have no doubt that the Government’s commitment to defence spending and recognition of the challenges our country faces is sincere. However, our troops deserve more than financial wizardry. I hope that, in future years, the Government work to ensure that the necessary resources are put into defence, and ensure that we are spending a minimum of 2% annually in real terms, so that we have sufficient resources to fund our capabilities as well as to invest in our future.

I also welcome the Government’s commitment to maintaining the size of our armed forces, with plans to grow the size of the Royal Navy to 30,600 in 2025—an increase of 400 personnel and an uplift of 1,600 over the position initially laid out by the previous Government in 2010. However, as we have discussed today, with the planned retirement of HMS Ocean, even those numbers are insufficient to fully man our current capabilities. I have significant concerns about proposed cuts to our Royal Marines in terms of absolute numbers, which I hope our Committee will continue to investigate.

Considering the ongoing active deployments of our RAF forces, plans to expand the strength of RAF regular personnel to a baseline of 31,750 are welcome. However, with the imminent arrival of not enough F-35s, we will have to review that number. I remain sceptical of the Government’s suggestion that an integrated Army of 112,000 personnel is sufficient to deliver the Army’s contribution to joint force 2025, but time will tell, and I am sure we will revisit that.

There is much in the Government’s response to our report that is welcome, but I wish to stress the importance of ensuring that capacity is met and that our defence spending is sufficient to meet our needs, even when that may necessitate a spending increase over and above the 2%, which, despite what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) said, many Members on the Labour Benches would support. We must understand that the 2% pledge represents a minimum annual spend, and we should never seek to curtail or compromise our military capacity in order to stay within that amount. Our report stated that

“the Government must be clear that 2% is a minimum—not a target—and be prepared to increase defence expenditure further, in order to reflect the increasing threats faced by both the UK and our Allies.”

We must also take into account the UK’s situation in the wake of the EU referendum and the role that the current uncertainty may play in our economic outlook. With the additional financial and geopolitical challenges that Brexit may pose in the short to medium term, it is vital that the Government recognise those concerns and act to ensure that our military remains on solid financial and operational ground in the years ahead. A report from the Resolution Foundation suggested that the economic upheaval thrown up by uncertainty around Brexit could cost the UK economy up to £84 billion over the next five years, which would have a significant impact on the 2%. The real value of the Government’s 2% pledge ebbs and flows with the country’s economic fortunes. As outlined by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, the commensurate drop in GDP resulting from that would be reflected in a drop in the value of the 2% set aside for annual defence expenditure, which could have a devastating effect on our capability, especially if the 2% comes to be seen as a spending cap rather than a minimum.

A further concern is the declining value of sterling and the impact that it may have on overseas procurement. One particular issue is the purchase of military equipment bought in US dollars, at prices that could greatly exceed initial estimates. For instance, the MOD recently announced the purchase of nine P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft from Boeing via a foreign military sale. The predicted cost, including training, infrastructure and the necessary support at RAF Lossiemouth, was recently estimated to be £3 billion over the next decade. However, with the pound slumping to its lowest value against the dollar in some time, the initial costs of purchase could greatly exceed initial predictions unless appropriate—

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mike Penning)]

I apologise for interrupting, but as former Ministers in the room and the Chair of the Defence Committee will know, these sorts of contract are offset, and predictions are put in—the Treasury has that capability. If we build a road project, we put in the project cost and the inflation cost. That risk is built into the project, which former Ministers in the Chamber know.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I thank the Minister for that. The end of my sentence was, “unless appropriate hedging is put in the contract.”

[Mike Penning]

It always is.

[Ruth Smeeth]

While I appreciate that it probably is, I do not think anyone could have anticipated the likely devaluation of the pound in recent days. I hope very much that that is the case, but we will see what happens in the long term when we get the full figures.

[Mr Spellar]

Is it not even more significant that, in giving this order directly to Boeing, the MOD did not seek to get any offset in other programmes in order to create work back in the UK?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Smeeth]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend. With the P-8A and even the F-35, we get only 20% of the build in the UK.

[Mr Spellar]

And the Apache.

[Ruth Smeeth]

And the Apache. There are significant concerns about British manufacturing capabilities within the current procurement programme.

As the UK comes to terms with our future outside the European Union, it is more important than ever that we maintain a strong independent military presence. I believe the Government recognise that. I again welcome their response to the Defence Committee’s report and their ongoing commitment to supporting a robust UK military. I for one believe these issues to be above party politics.

Lariam

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Johnny Mercer]

I absolutely agree that the single point of failure was that we had a drug that, like any drug—even paracetamol or Anadin—should be used within the guidelines set down by the manufacturer, but instead of people being given it carefully, in a medical fashion, with individual risk assessments as stipulated by Roche, Lariam was just handed out on parade. Clearly, that is not the way to do business. The hon. Lady is right. I am glad that we have identified that practice, and I believe that we have put a stop to it. That is a good thing to have come out of the report.

We now need to ensure that we look after those who come forward. There are conversations about compensation and things like that—I understand that that is the way of the world—but that is never the intent behind inquiries such as this. I am interested in looking after those who are going through the process. We must get those who come forward some sort of treatment. We must provide some point of contact that is not just known by me, other MPs and those within Main Building. Everybody should know where they can go to get help if they feel they have been affected, and we need to show them a clear pathway.

Ultimately, we need to pay people an interest and accept that something has gone wrong. There is a slight issue within the Department—I know that everybody, including the Minister, knows this—with accepting evidence of a problem. If I have seen that in my experience as a lowly Member of Parliament, I can only imagine what it is like for families who have an issue with the Ministry of Defence to come forward. I bring that point to people’s attention and ask that we never ignore evidence of problems. We all know what soldiers are like. They are fantastic people, although if they are not moaning, something is not right, but we need to be slightly smarter and understand what they are saying so that we can identify problems before they become as big a problem as Lariam.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I am loth to interrupt the hon. Gentleman when he is in such impressive flow, but I would suggest that the chain of command is a problem. Although soldiers may moan to one another—the hon. Gentleman will have more experience of that than I do—they are unlikely, at any point, to want to challenge. When soldiers are brave enough to say that there is a problem, that should be our priority and we should listen to them.

[Johnny Mercer]

The hon. Lady is right. That is a generic function of leadership, not one that is particular to this cause. Having that intimate relationship with our soldiers, or with those under our command, is something we work hard on at a junior level. At a senior level, it is desired. Whether the time is taken to do that is another matter. Across the military, we need to foster an environment where it is okay for a conversation to go both ways so that we can get on top of such problems.

I know that more Members want to speak, so I will finish soon. We need to change our view on having a softer side in the Ministry of Defence and understand how important it is to look after people. Whether we reconfigure what we do, or look into having a Minister for defence people or whatever as a No. 2 in the MOD, we need to bump that change up the priority list. I thank the Defence Committee and its Chair for letting us look into the issue. People talk about Parliament being so remote—that essentially, we just turn oxygen into carbon dioxide and no one really cares—but I hope that the people who have been affected by the issue see that Parliament does work for them and can take some comfort from that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is right that the first three speakers in this debate should be the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has campaigned on this subject for probably the longest time; my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who is an outstanding campaigner on behalf of anything to do with the welfare of veterans and current service personnel; and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose unparalleled experience of malaria—experience of an unfortunately all too personal nature as well as professional experience—we have just listened to with great attention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford asked whether the Committee had considered the question of mosquito nets impregnated with insecticide, and the answer is no. We were focused entirely on Lariam and our concern that it was being prescribed inappropriately. We said that the prescription of a drug known to have what were described as “neuro-psychiatric side effects” and to cause “vestibular disorders” without face-to-face interviews showed a lamentable weakness in the MOD’s duty of care towards service personnel. We are grateful that the Minister, who has an outstanding record of military service, made an apology to present and former service personnel when he appeared before the Committee on behalf of the MOD in relation to those who believe that they were prescribed this drug without the necessary individual risk assessments.

This is a slightly unusual case because, for once, nobody is pointing a finger of accusation at the drug manufacturer. Roche appears to have behaved responsibly in this matter from the outset. It always gave the clearest possible instructions that this particular drug, though it could be effective in some cases, could have dangerous side effects and therefore absolutely should not be prescribed without a face-to-face assessment of each individual first. It was good to receive a letter from the manufacturer, despite the Committee’s report being so critical of the drug itself and despite the adverse publicity that the drug inevitably received, stating:

“Your report has made a major contribution to highlighting the correct use of Lariam in the armed forces.”

That shows the strength of the arguments in the report and reinforces the importance of the MOD following Roche’s guidelines for use.

The hon. Member for Bridgend mentioned several of the people who gave evidence to the Committee. I would like to mention Mrs Ellen Duncan, who gave evidence on behalf of her husband, Major-General Alastair Duncan. Alastair Duncan was awarded the Distinguished Service Order while in command of the First Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, or 1 PWO. In May 1993, he took the battalion to Bosnia-Herzegovina under the UN mandate during the Balkans conflict. The Daily Telegraph described what he did in the following terms:

“The hostilities had escalated into a three-cornered fight between the Bosnian-Serbs, the Bosnian-Croats and the Muslims. In this dangerous environment, at great risk to himself, Duncan sought out the commanders of the belligerents in an attempt to broker a truce. In June, he was instrumental in the rescue of 200 Croats who had sought sanctuary from a violent attack in a monastery at Guca Gora. The citation for the award to Duncan of the DSO paid tribute to his courage, resolution and inspired leadership which, it stated, had saved many lives and had helped 1 PWO to win an outstanding reputation.”

He was subsequently awarded the CBE for his work in Sierra Leone.

Major-General Duncan suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of all that he had seen and done, but his wife was absolutely convinced that taking Lariam destroyed his mental stability. He was sectioned many times. Our report was published on 24 May 2016, and I was truly saddened to read in The Daily Telegraph that he had died on 24 July 2016. He was a year younger than I am. It is a case of someone at the highest end of the Army whose life was wrecked by the inappropriate prescription of the drug.

I will touch briefly on a number of the Committee’s recommendations and the Government’s response. As we have heard, the Committee recommended

“a single point of contact for all current and former Service personnel who have concerns about their experience of Lariam”,

and the Government announced that that would be done. I would like an update on that, as I have heard suggestions that the advice people get when they ring the relevant number is very basic indeed, even on a par with “Go and visit your GP.” If that is all they are getting, we still have some way to go on that recommendation. We also said that people should be offered an alternative to Lariam if they are concerned about the risks, that this should be explained to them and that a box should be ticked to show that it has. I believe that that is now happening.

One part of the Government’s response was strange. They have alleged that they need to keep Lariam on the books because there are certain geographical areas where no other drug will work. The report disputed the Government’s assertion that geography was a valid factor. We therefore asked the Ministry of Defence to set out which geographical areas, if any, it believed to be resistant to each antimalarial drug it uses, and give us any accompanying evidence to support that view.

The Government’s response was:

“The MOD relies on authoritative external advice on the global distribution of antimalarial resistance.”

They provided us with a link to guidance from Public Health England. That guidance, which is 109 pages long, includes a table where areas of malaria risk are listed alongside the recommended antimalarial drug for that area. The table shows a dozen countries or areas for which only chloroquine is recommended, but by contrast, we could see no instances where Lariam was the only recommended antimalarial drug in any single area. [Interruption.] I am interested to see my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford assent.

The report questioned the feasibility of providing face-to-face individual risk assessments before prescribing Lariam in the event of a significant deployment, so we asked the MOD to set out how it would be able to do so, alongside an estimation of how much time it would take to conduct face-to-face individual risk assessments at both company and battalion level. I will not go into all the details of the MOD’s response, but I found one aspect worrying. The MOD acknowledged that if the operational imperative meant that the timing of a deployment did not allow for specific face-to-face interviews,

“an appropriately trained and regulated healthcare professional will review individual electronic health records and confirm that there are no contraindications to the recommended anti-malaria drug. It is estimated that this will take up to five minutes per individual, or approximately eight hours for a company, or approximately 50 hours for a battalion.”

Can the Minister explain—or, if not, write to us—exactly what that means? Is it predicated on the fact that people will have had a face-to-face individual assessment at an earlier stage in their career? In that case, there might be some argument for it, but if it is meant to be a substitute for individual face-to-face assessments, I am sure the Chamber will agree that that would be wholly unacceptable.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Is not one of the problems with Lariam that if someone has had a mental illness before, they may be more vulnerable? A lot of servicemen and women would feel uncomfortable admitting that, would be unlikely to have told anyone within their chain of command and may well not have sought guidance, so the idea that the medication could be used even with those measures is almost impossible.

[Dr Lewis]

That is probably the single strongest point that one could make in the course of this entire debate. Particularly in the macho military environment—I use that term in a non-sexist way—people are unlikely to disclose mental troubles in their past, meaning that either they may take a drug that is inappropriate for them or they may throw it away, rendering themselves vulnerable to contracting malaria.

Veterans Care Sector: Government Role

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I agree. Some sort of education before people leave would be helpful, and I understand that some work has been done. I agree that any sort of direction through this pathway is strongly to be welcomed.

Why do we have to do this? I ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to put yourself in the shoes of the average user—a corporal who is two or three years out. He gave the best years of his life to the service of this country, willingly. Now, in a civilian job, he starts to find his past a challenge to deal with. We have all seen someone like him in our constituencies, up and down this land. He does not want sympathy; when the bell came, he was proud to serve this nation of ours. He just wants to know where to go. He does not want to have to re-tell his story all the time. His wife wants to know that the course he is doing is safe, that he will be looked after and that his treatment has a fair chance of working. She wants to know that someone will be managing his case, taking an interest and encouraging him through the process. Crucially, she wants to know that he will get that help in a timely manner before his condition deteriorates and becomes so much harder and so much more costly to treat.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing such an important debate. Does he agree that we should use the armed forces covenant as an opportunity, and that it should be more than just talk? In places such as Staffordshire, with the relocation of regiments from Germany to Stafford, that would allow us to think about how we can help veterans over the next 10, 20 or 30 years—both now and when they retire—so that they can build families and homes without having to worry about some of the issues that he is raising.

[Johnny Mercer]

My view on the armed forces covenant is that it is a great policy and, if implemented, it could work. The trouble is that, as I alluded to earlier, it is a complete lottery. I have seen it done well and I have seen it done appallingly, and there is no accountability at all. I hate to talk about it becoming meaningless but, ultimately, unless it means something, it is just another phrase. It can be a bit of a “get out of jail free” card for those who talk about the matter from the Dispatch Box, and that is what I want to change.

Ministry of Defence Future Accommodation Model

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One key reason why I ask the Minister to reconsider the FAM is that it is unlikely to save the MOD money, because of the national housing shortage, and is likely to create a massive retention risk to our already undermanned and overstretched armed forces. Will the Minister tell the House exactly what he believes the existing housing offer costs the MOD in total, after rents received?

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this wonderful debate, which is timely and important. Does she agree that one of the challenges is the inconsistency in the quality of accommodation? New accommodation in Stafford is extraordinary, but if it is made subject to a market rent, it will not be affordable to most service personnel.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising one of the key questions. One of the great anxieties that families come to me with is the fear that the realities of private rental markets will be too costly to cope with, both for the MOD and individual families.

Will the Minister tell us what ongoing saving he wants to see in order to justify the vast upheaval and risks that bringing in the FAM would cause? Failing to meet our armed forces covenant commitment on housing by inventing a set of proposals that military families are appalled by, rather than extending the existing imperfect but workable service family accommodation model, will result in a mass exodus of experienced and highly trained military personnel.

Liberation of Mosul

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I think my hon. Friend pays quite a lot of attention to most things, and I would not want to accuse him of inattention. I am not sure about the exact percentage that he quotes, but having visited Erbil recently and been out with the peshmerga and seen the training they receive, it is clear that they have sufficient equipment to participate in this operation, and have a well-defined role within it.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the comments in support of our armed forces, but also send our thoughts and prayers to the people of Mosul who will be living through the liberation. As the Secretary of State knows, what became clear after Ramadi was the industrial use of IEDs to undermine people’s lives as they tried to move back into their homes. There were huge human casualties associated with that within the Iraqi forces. We have very specialist expertise in this area. Given the scale of Mosul, with 1.7 million people, we can only imagine what they are doing. What additional support are we giving to the Iraqis in terms of training to deal with the counter-IED operation?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

This conflict has a much larger dimension than previous ones. We have seen industrial-scale use of IEDs in cities such as Ramadi and elsewhere, where IEDs have been built into the walls of houses, concealed in rubble, and put under desks in schools and colleges. We have had to help the Iraqi army learn how to deal with that. A huge part of the training effort that we have been putting in at the four building partner capacity centres across Iraq has been specifically dedicated to counter-IED training that helps troops to recognise different types of IED, to recognise the traps that may be laid within IED devices, and to clear the IED once they have identified it.

Select Committee on Defence

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to lay before the House the Defence Committee’s new report entitled, “Russia: Implications for UK defence and security”, which has been produced on the eve of the Warsaw NATO summit and which highlights the need for that major event to focus on defence and deterrence, but also on dialogue.

I am extremely grateful to all the members of the Defence Committee for their contributions to the genesis of this report. We held four oral evidence sessions and received 18 pieces of written evidence. A delegation from the Committee, ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), visited Moscow, where they attempted to engage with the Russian authorities. Because of the current state of relations, Russian Government authorities were reluctant to engage, but the delegation acquired much other useful information on that visit.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine have undermined the post-cold war assumption of a stable Europe in which the military threat to NATO is low. The north Atlantic alliance must therefore restore its defences, review its deterrence and reopen its dialogue with the Russian authorities. The fact that NATO and the UK were taken by surprise by the interventions in Ukraine shows a failure to comprehend President Putin’s determination to maintain a sphere of influence beyond Russia’s own borders and to do so by force if necessary. His stance directly contradicts the rules-based international order that western democracies seek to promote.

Russia has become increasingly active not only in conventional warfare, but in unconventional methods, often deniable, which are designed to fall below the threshold that would trigger NATO’s article 5 guarantee—the undertaking to consider an armed attack against one NATO member state as an attack against them all. The creation of the very high readiness joint taskforce—VJTF—among NATO member states and the enhanced forward presence on NATO’s contested eastern flank are steps in the right direction, but our report warns that the VJTF was formed only recently and that its capacity to deploy the necessary forces within the required timeframe is as yet unproven.

The report’s recommendations include the following. First, the MOD should recognise the extent of Russian remilitarisation and respond to it robustly. Secondly, it should review the effectiveness of current deterrence policy against nuclear, conventional and hybrid or multidimensional warfare. Thirdly, NATO should determine whether the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty is in need of repair or replacement in the light of allegations that Russia has breached its provisions. Fourthly, a timetable should be set out for the Trident Successor submarine debate and the decision in Parliament “without further delay”—indeed, that debate should be held before the summer recess. Fifthly, the renewal of EU-wide sanctions against Russia should be encouraged and possibly extended to a larger group among the Kremlin leadership. Sixthly, it should be accepted that

“it is perfectly possible to confront and constrain an adversary in a region where our interests clash, whilst cooperating with him, to some degree, in a region where they coincide.”

We regard the threat posed by Daesh, al-Qaeda and other international terrorists as a relevant example of the latter: the convergence, to a considerable extent, of NATO and Russian interests. I am glad to see the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), assenting to that proposition.

The Committee believes that Russian cyber-attacks across Europe and territorial seizures in Georgia and Ukraine may not be isolated actions and may be symptomatic of a wider ambition to restore Moscow’s global influence. However, because Russia is a global power, there remain opportunities for co-operation if we can but grasp them. Yet with relations at what the Russian ambassador to London has described as an “all time low”, our report concludes that the UK must urgently boost its cadre of Russian specialists. We must restore and maintain a high level of expertise for the foreseeable future. Given the current climate, the defence attaché’s office in Moscow, for example, must be properly staffed by the end of the year.

Since the end of the cold war, Russia has not been a UK priority and our expertise in this field has withered on the vine. The UK needs a vastly strengthened body of experts who can help provide an effective response to the challenges Russia now poses. We cannot hope to understand Russia without a forthright dialogue, and in the current conditions of mistrust we run the risk of blundering into conflicts that may be preventable through better communication. The cold war was characterised not only by military confrontation, but by the then Soviet Union’s promotion of Marxism-Leninism, with its formidable appeal to impressionable minds inside the Kremlin’s targeted countries. No such totalitarian doctrine applies to present-day Russia, which, for all its nationalist and expansionist tendencies, is itself under threat from revolutionary Islamism, the brutal successor to the equally brutal Nazi and communist creeds which blighted so much of the 20th century. Therein lies the basis for potential co-operation, provided that our dialogue with Russia is from a position of strength, based on sound defences and credible deterrence.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

May I say that it is a privilege to serve on the Defence Committee, which is so ably chaired by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)? I hope he will agree that one thing that is clear from our report is a lack of dialogue and understanding between our colleagues in Russia and ourselves, in terms of not only language, but shared history. Does he agree that, in the light of the upcoming NATO summit, we need to review that as part of our wider engagement with Russia, including how it perceives the threat from NATO, too?

[Dr Lewis]

Yes, indeed, and I thank the hon. Lady for that. She is a tremendously supportive member of the Committee; this is her first parliamentary term, but she has made a great start. I re-emphasise what I said about the importance of dialogue with Russia. The fact remains that different societies develop at different stages and go through different phases in their attitude to their relationships with the rest of the world. One mistake that the west clearly made after the downfall of communism was to evoke a degree of triumphalism at a time when magnanimity would have been more appropriate. Those in the west make a terrible mistake if they fail to recognise that Russia is and always has been a great power, and what we have to do is reach out the hand of friendship, while trying to discourage those aspects of the Russian tradition that seek to dominate lands beyond its own borders. Russia is a pretty large landmass and one would hope that the Russians could make a success of running their own country without feeling the need to impose their will on their neighbours.