UK Amphibious Capability

Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK amphibious capability.

It is genuinely a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Let us be clear why we are here today. In recent months, there has been simply too much speculation on the future of our amphibious capabilities, from reports of staggering cuts to the numerical strength of our Royal Marines to the apparent proposed sale of HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion to the Chileans or the Brazilians. All of that is seemingly without any consideration of why we have those capabilities or what our current commitments are.

It is clear, not only from the number of Members here on a Tuesday morning but from the growing concerns that emerged in the media over the weekend, just how important this issue is to people right across the House, across our forces and across the country, and why cuts to our amphibious capabilities are not only strategically bizarre but politically unwise.

I had planned to start the debate with an unusual comment for an Opposition MP. I wanted to welcome the statement of the Secretary of State for Defence, as reported in The Sun, that he was seeking an additional £2 billion for our armed forces from the Treasury rather than see our defences undermined. However, after yesterday’s reports in the Mail, I find myself a little confused as to whether the Secretary of State thinks we need more resource or not, and whether the Government recognise that our security may cost more money and that if we are going to operate on a global stage, we may need a proper military. Perhaps the Minister would clarify the current thinking of her new boss for us.

As we prepare to leave the European Union, we find ourselves looking towards an uncertain future in an increasingly turbulent world. The global order is facing a period of rapid and unprecedented change, and it seems that the post-cold-war consensus is disintegrating in front of us. In the last week alone, we have seen coalition talks fail in Germany and witnessed the long-awaited, if slow-motion, collapse of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. In the middle east, the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran has reached terrifying new depths in Yemen, with knock-on consequences in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. That is only in the last seven days.

There are other threats we need to ensure we can militate against, from our counter-Daesh efforts to, most importantly of all and most directly applicable to today’s debate, a resurgent Russian Federation, which—as you know better than anyone, Mr Gray—poses a renewed threat to our friends and allies in the High North as well as across eastern Europe. Old certainties are disappearing and new threats are coming to the fore. The world is changing, and so is our place in it.

That is why the timing of this mini defence capability review—which increasingly seems an excuse to cut our military, if the media reports are anything to go by—is so perverse. At this moment we should be looking to broaden our capability, not to narrow it; to invest in our armed forces, not to run them down; and to expand our horizons and our influence, not to retreat from our commitments.

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

In support of what the hon. Lady just said, may I remind her that when the former Secretary of State for Defence came before the Defence Committee, he said that the reason for the review was an intensification of the threats? We would therefore expect to have more resources put into defence, rather than fewer.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I could not agree more. At this point, we need to agree what capabilities we need, and then what the budget should be—not the other way around. That is what the former Secretary of State said to us, and that is what we need to do.