Ukraine: Update

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Yes. First of all, we and the international community are providing generators—I am happy to write to the hon. Lady with the exact numbers—to mitigate the effect of those strikes. At the same time, as I said in response to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), we have helped with co-ordination and prioritisation. A number of international partners are helping with the training and support of the brave men and women who go out there to fix that infrastructure almost immediately once it is hit and taken down, ensuring that more and more people are able to look after the electricity infrastructure. That is incredibly important. Of course, Putin knows that the weather will improve, hopefully, in the spring, and then some of his impacts will be lessened. I think that is one of the other reasons why we are seeing an increase in strikes.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

How many defence reviews can my right hon. Friend recall that were preceded by fashionable commentators decrying the idea that main battle tanks had any utility in modern warfare? Now that that has been disproved and my right hon. Friend has made a hugely significant move this week by agreeing to send main battle tanks in support of Ukraine’s defence, will he consider sending more if those tanks prove to be effective and can be effectively supported? Can we use this as an opportunity to bolster and strengthen the supply chain and manufacture of our next generation of tanks now that he has proved to the Treasury that they are not a waste of money?

[Mr Wallace]

First, the good thing about the Challenger 3 supply chain is that we are doing the work in Stockport and Telford, and I am delighted that we are also doing the Boxers near there. We are reinvigorating the land systems supply chain. On my hon. Friend’s point about tanks, no one was ever writing that we should get rid of tanks. Hopefully my defence review was a bit better than the defence review that said there was no use for a machine gun after the Japanese-Russian war, or indeed the brave admiral who said that submarines had absolutely no utility in the lead-up to being sunk in the Firth of Forth by a German U-boat. I do not think we have said tanks should be got rid of, but Ukraine has shown that armour is important, and not just for the basic protection from hand grenades dropped by UAVs.

Ukraine also shows that without armour properly protected in a 360° way, forces are incredibly vulnerable to handheld anti-tank weapons. The House may have noticed that the British NLAW and the US Javelin are successfully remodelling hundreds and hundreds of T-72s from very short distance. We have to have proper protection, both electronically but also in the layered defence that we need on the modern battlefield.