UK Nuclear Deterrent

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

As a Government, we are seeking to renew the contract between the nation and those who serve. In particular, for those submariners who are involved with our nuclear patrols, reducing the length of those patrols is a key part of what we have to do. One aspect that I can tell my hon. Friend about in this House is the investment going into our nuclear submarine refits. Ensuring that we can refit the submarines in time, on schedule and on budget is essential to rotating between the four boats. Previous Governments delayed renewing our nuclear boats; we are taking the decision to support the Dreadnought renewal, which will provide the cutting-edge capabilities necessary for our nuclear deterrent to continue in the future. I commend all those involved in our nuclear enterprise, from engineers to the submariners who serve on our submarines, for keeping our country safe.

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

Does the Minister agree that any party that aspires to government in this country should be wholeheartedly and unambiguously committed to our independent nuclear deterrent? I am afraid that that was not always the case when we had a coalition under the Conservatives because of our coalition partners, but I am very pleased that they have repented now. Is it not absolutely extraordinary that a party that now presents itself as some kind of alternative Government cannot even send a single Member of Parliament to sit in this House while we are debating this existential issue for the security of our country?

[Luke Pollard]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that any party aspiring to government must not just understand how dangerous our world is, how the threats are increasing and how our nuclear deterrent is the backbone of our national security, but must also be part of those conversations. I note that Members from the party he refers to are absent from today’s debate.

Strategic Defence Review

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The facility in my hon. Friend’s constituency plays an essential role in our national security, and I welcome her support. She will recognise that the decision to set up a cyber and electromagnetic command is part of what the SDR does, drawing lessons from what we can see about the way the nature of warfare is changing week by week in Ukraine.

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

The document says that

“this will allow us to grow our nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet to up to 12.”

Is not the truth—and let’s speak the truth—that that is the ask to the Treasury, and the spending review has yet to decide what the defence programme will be? I hear what the Secretary of State says, when he says with his full force and sincerity that “we will fund this defence review”, but how will he achieve that without much more significant cuts to other budgets? No Government can afford to spend and borrow much more, if anything at all, so how will he get the necessary cuts through to fund this big increase in defence spending, beyond 3.5% because we all know we will need more than that?

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman asks me about the attack subs: our investment is in production capacity, so that we can build at a faster rate and have a double production line in Barrow, which will allow us to build the number of new subs that we will need to deter future threats and meet our NATO commitments. I am glad that he welcomes that.

Diego Garcia Military Base

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I do indeed. This is a base that has saved British lives for over 50 years. It has saved the lives of people at home in this country, because it has been the launchpad from which we have defeated terrorist attacks. It has also been the launchpad for protecting and saving the lives of British forces when they have been deployed to war zones around the world. This deal, which we signed today, means we can continue to exercise the full control necessary to continue to do that for the century to come.

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

May I, in all candour, suggest to the Government that having now introduced this new element—the UN convention on the law of the sea and, I presume, the associated International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea—as the decisive factor that might have created a binding ruling, it really is incumbent on the Government to set out in a statement exactly how it would have affected the electromagnetic spectrum or our ability to use it in Diego—[Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary might just calm down for a minute. I just want a proper explanation.

I make this forecast. To cut personal independence payments and winter fuel allowances to pay billions of pounds for something that was already British sovereign territory—how is the Secretary of State going to explain that on the doorstep to all his party’s voters? I promise you, we will make sure that they never hear the end of it.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman might just like to remember this and make the comparison: the total cost over the 99 years of the deal we have struck to protect this space and British control over it is less than the value of the personal protective equipment that was unusable and that was burned because the last Government bought it in the first year of the covid pandemic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

The UK and the EU will use this opportunity to explore closer collaboration across defence industrial initiatives in a way that will support economic growth and jobs on both sides, and help to prevent fragmentation across our shared industrial base. We can now go on to discuss a bilateral agreement to facilitate participation in EU schemes such as ReArm and SAFE—Security Action for Europe.

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

What financial commitment will the UK have to make to participate in the fund?

[Maria Eagle]

Any financial commitment that has to be made will be subject to the further discussions that I have just set out. Today’s agreement enables us to discuss bilaterally what arrangements we can make to have access to those programmes.

Ukraine Update

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I agree. The UK does indeed have a unique leadership role, as my hon. Friend says, alongside the French in the coalition of the willing. In my discussions and involvement with military planners, Defence Ministers and others on this matter, I have been struck by how other nations recognise the unique role and responsibility of the UK and the French—they welcome it. In each case, every nation has a contribution to make, and that is what we are trying to marshal through the military planning detail and the reinforcement of the coalition of the willing.

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

To what extent does the 39-member coalition accept that the United States is still the indispensable partner in any so-called peacekeeping operation? Unless a peacekeeping force in Ukraine is ready and prepared to fight and defeat the Russian armed forces, there is no point in it being there. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said earlier, it would be just a victim of another tragedy. On that point, to what extent would the primacy of NATO be recognised in any proposed EU-UK defence agreement? Again, we do not want inadvertently to send a message to the United States that NATO is over, we no longer need the Americans and we are going off on our own, because we will not be capable of doing that for decades.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is right: NATO is the cornerstone of our European security. That is fundamental and the starting point for any future planning. The potential for the EU and the UK to strike some sort of defence and security pact or agreement is a recognition that the EU and the Commission also have a role to play, and indicates their recognition that the UK needs to be involved in those programmes, and industry procurements, and potentially—as the commissioner responsible for this has acknowledged—have access to the schemes and funding that may be available to underpin that.

On the US role, fundamentally what will secure Ukraine’s long-term future and a lasting peace is the strength of its own deterrent capacity—the strength of Ukraine, which it has shown in the past three years, to deter any future Russian attacks. That is one of the principal purposes of the planning for a reassurance force. However, as I and the Prime Minister have argued, and as we have said in the House, there is an indispensable role for the US in trying to foster and bring that negotiated peace, as well as in helping to secure it for the long term.

Ukraine

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I have had the pleasure of visiting her constituency on several occasions, and when it was her predecessor’s constituency as well, so I am well aware of the strength of its defence industrial base. We need to strengthen that base across our nations and regions, and we are doing that. That has the additional importance of providing deterrence for our nation as well as supporting Ukraine.

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

Will the Minister agree that this clarifies what the benchmark of success for the defence review must be? As some of the defence chiefs have been expressing, we must be ready, if necessary, to fight a war with Russia if we are to deter it and if we are to be in any position to guarantee the security of an independent and sovereign Ukraine after whatever is agreed between President Trump and President Putin.

[Maria Eagle]

I agree—we all agree—with the hon. Gentleman that defence spending needs to increase. That must be done in the context of us setting out in the SDR precisely where we see the threats. It is important to spend money correctly and in the best possible way, and I do not think that there is any real disagreement across the Chamber about that. We will see in due course whether those challenges are met when the strategic defence review is published and we set out the path to 2.5%—

Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

Today is a day when we remember not just all those who were killed in the Holocaust, but those killed in genocides since. It is a day when there is unity and cross-party support for tackling hate, in whatever form and wherever it comes from. It underlines why we must stand with our friends in these difficult times, why we need strong defence, and why we need to root out hate wherever it rears its ugly head.

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

Let me reiterate what the Minister is not quite saying: we are looking forward to a defence review that will set out what we need. It will not then be circumscribed as a percentage of GDP by some artificial ceiling; the Government will spend whatever is necessary arising from the defence review, and his Department will send a defence review to the Treasury untrammelled by any spending constraint. We need to address the desperate threat situation that the country is in.

[Luke Pollard]

Lord Robertson is conducting the externally led strategic defence review based on the terms of reference that were agreed with the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister. Lord Robertson will publish it in the spring. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is looking forward to it as much as I am.

Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s voice from landlocked North East Derbyshire recognising the fact that this is not simply a concern of maritime communities or islands, but of the whole country and for all of us in our everyday lives. High up, and with specific focus, the strategic defence review’s terms of reference, point to the need to review and reinforce the defence of our British homeland. Central to that consideration, in the light of our experience in recent months, will be the rising Russian aggression and the increase in such incidents.

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

I thank the Secretary of State for his profoundly important statement, which is immensely reassuring, but may I ask about pre-emption? We all know that Russia is no respecter of international law, and an over-zealous and overcautious interpretation of the legal constraints on the UK armed forces could be very destructive. Are the Government refusing to rule out pre-emptive action against a hostile ship threatening critical national infrastructure, albeit if it lies under international waters, and will he agree that an open mind on pre-emption is a stronger deterrent than ruling it out?

[John Healey]

The right hon. Gentleman has huge experience in this field, so he will recognise that I simply will not and cannot get into responding to hypotheticals. He urges me not to allow undue constraint of perhaps established practices or rules where there is a good case for flexibility. I hope he will take as a signal of the serious intent that I will bring, with the approach and return of the Yantar to UK waters, my readiness, as I have reported, to alter the permissions that the Royal Navy was using so that, should the captains of the warships that we deployed to watch and track the Yantar require it, they could go closer, see better and determine more carefully what exactly the Yantar was up to. Like the surfacing of the submarine in November, that was a move to deter and discourage the sort of activity that we simply do not want to see in our waters.

Ukraine

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I join my hon. Friend in thanking all those families across the country—those in his constituency, those of everyone here, and those in Plymouth—who have supported the Homes for Ukraine scheme and those Ukrainians getting to safety. As of 16 December, 218,600 Ukrainians have arrived in the UK, including just under 160,000 via the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Our new Ukraine permission extension scheme will open on 4 February 2025, as announced at the end of October. That will provide an additional 18-month permission, and access to the same rights and entitlements as the current Ukraine schemes. It is really important that as well as lending support to Ukrainians in Ukraine, we support those Ukrainians in the United Kingdom. I thank all the people who are working so hard in particular to ensure support for those families in the United Kingdom today.

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

Could we be completely realistic? The outcome of the conflict is likely to be determined by President Trump and what he chooses to do. Therefore, it is essential that the British Government engage as positively as possible with President Trump and resist the temptation that somehow his arrival is an invitation for we Europeans to withdraw into ourselves, with our limited defence capability, our diverse political and foreign policy objectives and varying degrees of willpower to sustain the effort. Can we take the arrival of President Trump as an opportunity to leverage change in whatever field, never underestimating how much the United Kingdom has to offer the United States and how joined up and integrated so many of our defence capabilities are?

Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

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

First, may I ask, what is the rush? Why is the Minister in such a hurry to get this done? May I suggest that it would be to the Government’s advantage, if their case is so strong, to allow this House to debate the agreed text in public before it is signed? May I also suggest that it stretches incredulity for him to tell the House that there have been no discussions at all with the incoming American Administration? Can he at least tell the House what informal dialogue there is with the incoming Administration about what their view really is? Can he report that to the House, please?

[Luke Pollard]

As a long-standing Member of this House, the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with how treaties are debated and agreed by this House. After signature, they come forward for ratification. This process was started a number of years ago by the Government that he supported. Eleven rounds of negotiation have taken place. We have secured a deal that is in support of the UK and US base on Diego Garcia, which will continue to operate well into the next century. When he and others see the detail of the deal, I am sure they will back it.