Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The only way that we will militarily defeat ISIL is to face it in battle on the ground. Will my right hon. Friend say which of our allies and friends in the middle east have committed themselves to providing forces such as infantry to close with the enemy and deal with them?
Michael Fallon
It is our view that the advance of ISIL can only be dealt with, and that it can only be driven back to the border by, a home army of Iraqi and Kurdish forces that other countries are ready, able and willing to support, help to train, and provide with arms and ammunition. We have made it clear that neither ourselves nor the Americans will deploy our combat troops on the ground.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
Turkey is a full member of the NATO alliance and benefits from the article 5 guarantee that the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), referred to a few moments ago, so Turkey can be assured that the alliance will stand behind it both militarily and, perhaps of more immediate importance, in providing assistance to it with the huge humanitarian challenge it is facing from this influx of refugees.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Given the insecurity in Ukraine and the middle east, is the MOD giving any thought to reconstituting the Allied Command Europe rapid reaction force?
Mr Hammond
Such a move would be a matter for SACEUR—Supreme Allied Commander Europe. I have not heard of any such ongoing consideration at the moment, but I am happy to check my facts and get back to my hon. Friend if I am wrong.
First World War (Commemoration)
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Dan Jarvis
I completely agree with that; there is a strength that comes from our diversity. As the Minister also said, it is incredibly important that we take this opportunity to commemorate the service and sacrifice of those people who had never come to Britain before but came here to support our efforts. We have a huge debt of gratitude to pay to them, and we will miss an opportunity if we do not reflect on that in these commemorations.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned Ireland and the troubles it was experiencing during the first world war. None the less, the Irish came across to support us, from north and south, in huge numbers. He also mentioned the Victoria Cross, so I would like to place on the record the fact that it has been won by more Irishmen than Englishmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen put together.
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful for that intervention as I did not know that. I am sure that the House will be extremely grateful for that contribution and I suspect that many of us will have learned something from it.
In that same spirit, I wish to reflect briefly for a moment on the significance of people such as Walter Tull, the first black officer in the British Army; that was just one small step on the road to affording ethnic minorities the recognition and respect they deserve.
We should also take the opportunity to reflect on the fact that the war left its mark on this place where we gather today. Of all the countries that went to war in 1914, Britain’s was the only Parliament to debate entry into the conflict. When the lamps went out that night on 4 August, it left more than just a shadow over this place; 251 existing and future MPs would serve in the first world war, and 19 from the Parliament of 1914 would not come back. Their shields mark this Chamber and watch over us today, and they were joined by 24 Members of the other place, as well as 20 parliamentary staff—clerks, waiters and cleaners—who were also killed in action.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I will be as quick as I can, and I would like to apologise for not being here for the entire debate; I was at Buckingham palace for the 95th anniversary of the Not Forgotten Association. I am glad to be back.
I want to say very quickly how very frightened those boys on the front lines must have been. None of us can understand how ghastly it must have been. I felt a little of that when in March 1993, my staff sergeant beside me was shot in the head by a sniper. That was on the front lines in Bosnia. I was determined to go, and I went. What was so awful was my tummy and my fear—the jitters. Overcoming that and trying to go forward was difficult; my feet felt like lead. That was just one little instance, so let us try to think what it must have been like for those men from Ulster and those other brave men on 1 July 1916 when they had to climb those ladders and go over the top in that dreadful row—with all that fear and all that kit and all that thinking of their mothers. Soldiers always think of their mothers. I think we would all totally understand that we can have no idea how bad it was for those boys who fought in the first world war; we just have a little glimmer from what they left behind and what they said. God bless the lot of them.
Defence Spending
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Baron
Yes, I completely agree. If anything, we need to spend more than 2%, but there have been quite authoritative reports, most notably in the Financial Times, suggesting that our defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP will fall below 2%. One of my questions to the Minister—if he cannot answer it in this debate, I am happy to take a written response—is what truth is there in the suggestion that our defence spending will fall well below 2% or, as some figures suggest, 1.8%?
Mr Baron
Or 1.7%, as my hon. Friend suggests.
I believe it is particularly incumbent on us to ensure that we have a strong defence policy—more incumbent on us than on other powers, perhaps—because in addition to our global interests and territories, we are highly dependent on maritime trade. The South China sea and the straits of Hormuz may seem far-away places, but I can assure the House that if those sea lanes ever became closed, we would certainly feel the pinch. A shock on the other side of the world, as we all know, can have reverberations here—a rise in the oil price is just one example.
There are many less tangible benefits to a strong defence policy. These include maintaining influence, supporting our defence engineering and industrial base, and global partnerships through defence diplomacy. Despite bruising deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain still rightly sees itself as a global power, at the forefront of diplomacy. It is impossible to do this without the options that strong defence gives us. Furthermore, there are many strands to the special relationship, but the ability to deploy force by land, sea and air is an essential component. If this is not present, we can expect a markedly different relationship, as former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently testified.
I hope we will continue to be close allies of the US. We share common interests and common values. However, we need to play our full part in being a good ally lest our influence and, ultimately, our interests suffer. We should not forget that we would be foolish to depend entirely on the US. Sometimes we may have to act alone. The Falklands is just one example of that. In the absence of US support, we need to ensure that Britain can face the world with confidence, and that will involve strong and credible defence.
Mr Baron
Nobody in the House would disagree. It is a sad fact that many of our NATO allies are not pulling their full weight. But that should not stop us accepting what we need to do, particularly given our reliance on maritime trade and our global interests, territories and possessions. If anything, it is more incumbent on us than on many of our NATO allies to wake up and realise that we need to spend more on defence, but I take my hon. Friend’s point on board.
Despite the need for a strong defence policy because of both the tangible and the intangible benefits, we continue to make cuts. The Royal Navy, for example, has been reduced to a mere 19 surface ships. Not so long ago, a strategic defence review suggested the figure should be closer to 30.
Mr Baron
I will take further bids. For the moment, though, I will stick with my figure of 30. Have the threats declined since that defence review? No, not since we were recommended to have 30 surface ships. Our aircraft carriers are being built, but there is no certainty that the second one will see service. There is talk about it perhaps being mothballed. The other carrier will have to await fighter jets.
The situation is not much better in the skies. The F-35 fighter is beset with problems. Britain without a maritime patrol aircraft—that is an extraordinary position for an island nation such as ours to be in. We need to try to put that right.
I speak with a vested interest here, I suppose, but it is the Army that has borne the brunt of our short-sightedness. Cost-cutting plans to replace 20,000 regulars with 30,000 reservists will create unacceptable capability gaps in the short term and, I believe, false economies in the long term. Unfortunately, my attempt to get the Government to think again during the passage of the Defence Reform Bill fell on deaf ears, although Members of all parties made their views well known. It was, to a certain extent at least, a close-run thing, given the strong three-line Whip.
These legitimate concerns were echoed—in fact, I suggest, amplified—by an authoritative and critical report from the National Audit Office. It provides a list of critical conclusions, so let me read some of them. It states, for example, that
“significant further risks…could significantly affect value for money”.
Another conclusion was:
“The Department”—
it means the Ministry of Defence—
“did not test whether increasing the trained strength of the Army Reserve to 30,000 was feasible.”
It added:
“The Department’s recruitment targets for reserves are not underpinned by robust planning data”
and:
“Reducing the size of the Army will not alone deliver the financial savings required.”
It goes on:
“The Department did not fully assess the value for money of its decision to reduce the size of the Army.”
These are pretty damning conclusions. Another is:
“There are significant risks to value for money which are currently not well understood by the Department or the Army.”
It then states:
“The Department should reassess its targets for recruiting reserves.”
As I say, this is all pretty damning stuff. I believe that the decision taken in 2012 to cut the Regular Army by a fifth before the replacement reservists were even recruited has not gone well; in fact, it has been a shambles. The NAO has said that it does not believe that the MOD will be able to replace those lost regulars until 2025—a full 10 years away.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Mr Stewart, are you standing? The reason I ask is that you are on my list as wishing to speak, but I have not seen you standing. I want to make sure you get the opportunity to speak.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Sigmund Freud suggested that denial can be a psychological defence mechanism by which a person, faced with facts too uncomfortable to accept, rejects them and instead suggests such matters are simply not true, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I saw such denial when, as United Nations Commander, I reported genocide in Bosnia during 1992-93. Many international politicians preferred to ignore the clear evidence given to them and avoid facing up to the fact that something had to be done.
I fear the dangers of denial are at play once more. We are consistently reassured that our armed forces are operationally fit for purpose. They are not, despite the fantastic bravery, quality and efforts of our service personnel in their various ships, units and squadrons. It is now clear that the 2010 strategic defence and security review is not working well enough. It has gone wrong in some parts at least, yet the Ministry of Defence persistently maintains that all is well when it is clearly not. I am not being personal here. Friends of mine run the Ministry of Defence and I know them to be deeply honourable, patriotic and decent. I understand when they say they must listen to current advisers, not voices from the past or people who are not involved in defence directly. I might say the same if I was in their situation. I have never held high office, but I wonder whether people in such positions can escape the shackling political requirements of their responsibilities. In the MOD, for both senior civil servants and generals, I suspect it could easily be career suicide to suggest that a plan is going wrong. In the battle of Whitehall bureaucratic politics, it is always safer to give the boss good, rather than bad, news. As a military commander, almost every single plan I carried out went wrong from the start. Is it not a well-known military truism that plans do not survive contact with the enemy, and need constant tinkering and revision from the moment they begin? Have such adjustments happened to the SDSR 2010? I do not think so, but I urge that such adjustment is necessary.
Let me end by talking about what I think is the direst manning situation in our armed forces—within the Royal Navy. The Navy’s manning overstretch is manifestly affecting its operational capability. For instance, highly trained and highly motivated people are simply leaving the service, because in their view they have no choice. The 2020 plan for our Navy is that it should be about 24,000 strong, with two aircraft carriers and about 19 frigates or destroyers. Admiral Jellicoe had 80 destroyers at Jutland! In the circumstances, I just cannot see how we are truly going to be able to man, equip, sustain, protect and fly from one aircraft carrier, let alone two.
Last year, HMS Bulwark, second of the Albion-class assault ships and currently flagship of the Royal Navy, was on operational deployment for 272 days out of 365. When she returns to her home port, many in her crew are required to stay on board to carry out essential maintenance. I recently spoke to two female petty officers, both highly qualified and trained engineers aboard the ship. They told me that even when they were given leave, the chances were that they would be recalled, sometimes to fill crewing gaps in ships other than their own. They said they had very little chance to have a social life, let alone get married and have a family, which they both wanted to do. As a consequence, they had no choice but to leave the Royal Navy.
The Royal Navy simply does not have enough sailors for the commitments it has to fulfil. My firm belief is that the Navy must increase its size by at least 6,000 service personnel, putting it back to roughly the same size it was before 2010. The undeniable truth is that we are simply not spending enough on defence, and our sailors, soldiers and airmen are suffering in consequence. As one defence attaché put it to the Select Committee on Defence two days ago, in defence terms the United Kingdom wants a champagne lifestyle but has a budget only for beer. We not only have to sustain spending on our armed forces at 2% of GDP; we should increase it, if we really wish to have the very best sailors, soldiers and airmen in the world.
Nuclear Submarines
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I am not sure about taking any lessons on stupidity. I am afraid that this is scaremongering of the worst kind. I have told the hon. Gentleman and the House that no safety issues are at stake, and all the scientific evidence supports the position that I have taken. Level zero events are not routinely made public; they are not routinely reported. That has been the practice of successive Governments, and it is the practice throughout the civil and military nuclear sector.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The refit for HMS Vanguard will take three and a half years, and that was planned. Does not that fact, and the requirement for us to have a permanent at-sea deterrent, support the plans for a fleet of four Successor SSBNs?
Mr Hammond
Indeed they do. If we are to maintain our posture of continuous at-sea deterrence, we will need to begin replacing the current fleet in the late 2020s. That is not primarily to do with the lives of the reactors or the cores; it is to do with the life expectancy of other components of the submarines that cannot effectively be replaced. The final decision to replace the Vanguard-class submarines with Successors will be made in 2016.
Defence and Cyber-security
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Jack Lopresti
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right. Within the chaos of a potential attack, I am not sure how the disparate groups would communicate with one another, how there would be a uniform chain of command and how it would work in practice. GCHQ seems to be in charge, but in other countries the matter would fall under the Ministry of Defence. It is fine that the MOD seems to be still developing its own basic cyber-security techniques with the armed forces setting up separate units, but it is the responsibly of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure to take the lead in co-ordinating a UK response to a major cyber-security incident.
An extremely clear command structure will be needed to deal with a cyber-attack, which may come from a political group such as the group that claimed that the Sochi games were being held on the graves of millions of people who had been murdered and that was, according to the US Government’s computer emergency readiness team, threatening companies financing or supporting the Sochi winter games with cyber-attacks.
The response would be different if an attack was state-sponsored, but it would be extremely difficult, especially in the first day or so, to determine where the threat came from and whether it came from an individual or a country. The internet is worldwide and even if we knew where the attack came from geographically, it would be difficult to identify who was behind it.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I am pleased to be able to give my hon. and gallant Friend a pause to think what he is going to say next. When Mandiant briefed us last week, we were told by Paul Dwyer that 66% of our companies take about 243 days to realise that they are subject to what he called an advanced persistent threat, and that some companies have no idea that they are being attacked and will never find out.
Jack Lopresti
I thank my hon. Friend for his helpfully timed intervention. He is absolutely right. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to determine that an attack has taken place.
On offensive cyber-capability and action, a recent article published by the Royal United Services Institute said that Stuxnet, the malware supposedly used to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, was not successful in delaying Iran’s technical progress. With hindsight, some have seen Stuxnet as a hindrance to diplomatic solutions. I am not sure I entirely agree with that analysis, but it is interesting. Cyber-space is being described as the fifth domain of warfare, so its defence and protection from attack are integral to the operation of our nation’s defence infrastructure.
My last point is whether we are spending enough, which is not an easy subject in a time of fiscal austerity. Last week, Chuck Hagel, the US Secretary of Defence, outlined a vision for a leaner US defence posture with reductions in the US army to a pre-1942 position. However, at the same time, he rightly proposed increased spending on cyber-defence.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The greatest threat of electronic attack continues to be posed by state actors. Russia and China are suspected of carrying out the majority of assaults, but other countries—North Korea, Iran and even Syria—run very effective attacks too. The targets are in Government as well as in industry.
Let me give an example of a cyber-attack. On 23 April 2013 the American stock market dropped 1%; it lost $136.5 billion in a matter of seconds because of a false tweet posted on the Associated Press Twitter account. That tweet apparently came from Syria.
Let me give another example of a possible danger to this country, and here I will use information from a paper written for the Defence Committee by the distinguished academic Chris Donnelly. Huawei, a Chinese company strongly suspected of having close links to the Chinese Communist party and Government, is now providing crucial equipment for our national telecommunications system. The company has been debarred from doing that in the United States because it could not prove that it did not have strong links to the Chinese leadership.
Chris Donnelly’s paper highlighted three areas where Huawei could present a security risk. First, the company could insert undetected malware into its equipment, either to disable the system at will or at least to monitor it. Secondly, there is a possible security risk from the Chinese managers and technicians who man the system. Thirdly, allowing Huawei to dominate the field takes away our sovereign ability to deal with matters ourselves. Recently, there has been growing concern that our national cyber-security systems might not be able to detect whether malware has been inserted into the system.
Mr Gray
My hon. Friend is right to be concerned about the possibility that companies of all sorts might act against the interests of this country, but it is also right to record that Huawei is a major employer in the United Kingdom and is a multi-billion-pound multinational company. The suggestion that it is, in some way or another, an agent or a foreign force in the way he describes may of course be true, but it is worth saying that there is no evidence that that is the case.
Bob Stewart
I thank my hon. Friend for that, but I am not sure that he is right. Huawei has been involved in setting up our cyber-security evaluation centre. It offered its services at knock-down prices—no western firm could match them, and our economy was and is in a poor position to resist the temptation of accepting what looked like a very good deal. So we could be setting a thief to catch that same thief. Of course the suspicions I voice may be erroneous and our cyber-security services could be totally on top of this one, but without access to classified information I have no way of checking. Members may recall that Huawei offered to provide a mobile phone system for the London underground during the 2012 Olympics—was it not free or close to being free? If I recall it correctly, that offer was turned down on security grounds.
As Chris Donnelly highlighted, state security requirements and gaining commercial advantage are two sides of the same coin in China. We should be under no illusion about the Chinese’s willingness to put huge efforts into understanding and, if necessary, harnessing all sorts of systems in the UK to advance the Chinese national interest. Already there is a mass English learning programme in existence, which Chris Donnelly suggests involves 300 million people in China, and a similar mass programme to teach computing. In 2012, China conducted what it called its first “digital technology exercise” in Inner Mongolia, when an entire division of hackers in the uniform of the Chinese liberation army was deployed. These cyber warriors went to war across the whole spectrum of western activity, not just against western military communications. We are wasting our time calling on China to stop hacking into our systems. Of course the Chinese will deny they are doing it until they are blue in the face—
Bob Stewart
Forgive me, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. He always stands up for the infantry, so he would use the word red, and I accept it; red is the colour of the infantry.
We had better wake up to the fact that systematic and state organised hacking is a massive Chinese industry. I am pretty sure that our security services are well aware of the threat, but the public must also be made aware of it. We need the funding to do what we can to counter the threat.
Let me be clear: hacking can be more deadly than a gun. Cyber-warfare, taken to its logical conclusion, could bring our society to its knees. Almost nothing works without electricity. I am talking about light, energy, traffic control—on the ground and in the air—hospitals, police and even sewerage. Undoubtedly, the national grid would be a No.1 priority target for someone wishing to reduce us to our knees. Von Clausewitz stated that war is an extension of politics by other means, but systematic hacking is also war, by new, subtle and probably very effective means.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
In a hands-free, wireless, bluetooth enabled world, how would any of us cope without access to our mobile phone or computer data for any duration of time? Our lives and livelihoods depend on those assets, and they would change fundamentally if they did not work. The recent flooding in Dorset affected electricity and caused some households to reach for the candles. What a new experience that was for a generation of people who perhaps take our world a little bit for granted. They believe that all these things that we enjoy are there and will not be challenged.
I welcome this debate, and I commend the Defence Committee and its Chair for their report. My concern is that we are debating something that is changing almost daily and yet the report was printed on 26 March 2012. In answer to my interventions at the start of the debate, the Minister made it clear that changes have been introduced, but even they will be out of date given the pace of change in this area.
As we move into an ever more digital and virtual world, we are increasingly exposed to attacks not just on personal data and intellectual property but on state operations, from air traffic control systems to electricity grids. Cyber-attacks are simpler and cheaper than a dirty bomb. We no longer see robbers running in to rob a bank; it is all done electronically. This is the world that we now need to recognise.
Two years ago, I attended a course at Harvard university on national and international security. A cyber-security expert borrowed a laptop. He then purchased and downloaded $16 of software, and managed to tap into Boston’s traffic light systems. Had he taken it one step further, he would have been traced and got into trouble. None the less, he showed how easy and quick it would have been, with just $16 of software, to cause huge disruption.
Let me place this issue in perspective. In the development of warfare, there are occasionally seismic leaps in capability as new systems are introduced, and they force all of us to adapt. Going back in history, the longbow changed the outcome of the battle of Agincourt. The introduction of the cannonball changed the way in which ships attacked one another, preventing the need to go on board. The introduction of the submarine, the tank, the plane and the aircraft carrier all changed the conduct of war. As has been said again and again in this Chamber, cyber-technology will provide a new dimension, which we all need to understand.
I am a little saddened that the Chamber is so empty. I hope that it is not because I am on my feet.
Mr Ellwood
Thank you! The fact is it is the usual suspects who are here today, by which I mean those who are interested in defence matters. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said, this issue does not affect just defence. It covers the business arena, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, yet we are not familiarising ourselves with the structures and processes so that we are at the front end of this capability. The speed of attack, if it happens, will be phenomenal. We have not yet seen anything on a scale that would fundamentally affect our lives, but there will be no build-up to such an attack. There will be no arms, tanks or ships mustering on the border; our lives will suddenly change when our computer systems no longer work.
The UK’s military equipment is increasingly vulnerable because of the complexity of its IT. What would happen if we lost the global positioning system? How would anything operate and could we cope? When I was at Sandhurst, we were taught how to use a compass. I am not sure whether that happens any more, but if the systems go down, that is what will be required.
Today’s statement on Ukraine reminds us of our involvement in the Crimean war and the charge of the Light Brigade. That infamous event took place because of a breakdown in communications, as by the time the orders reached Lord Cardigan, he had the wrong idea of what his mission was. Goodness knows what would happen today if we had insufficient resilience to communicate using our usual systems.
Knowing a little about Joint Forces Command, I understand the logic of placing cyber-security in that domain—it is wise that it is fed into the command—but cyber-security should have its own distinct command with its own expertise, as is advocated by some in the United States. Additionally, the relationship between the Global Operations Security Control Centre and the defence cyber operations group needs to be clarified for those of us who were unable to participate in the Committee’s inquiry. Will the Minister update us on bringing together disparate groupings and organisations within various Ministries through the GOSCC?
I support the call for the use of reservists. Banks and other financial services businesses are at the high end of ensuring that they protect their capabilities, so we need to determine how we attract people with the skill sets to do that job to work in the Ministry of Defence as well. Will the Minister tell us what is being done to encourage our NATO allies to improve joint capabilities? That subject might be suitable for discussion at the 2014 NATO summit, which will take place in this country. Given the damage and disruption that a cyber-attack might inflict, would a full-scale attack on another country be subject to article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty? Have rules of engagement been determined for offensive and defence cyber-operations?
I welcome this debate and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) that we should have defence debates more regularly. The House needs to understand this emerging threat that faces us all, as it is only a matter of time before a major strike takes place. I welcome the huge progress that the Government are making, but there is clearly much more to do.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Labour Members welcome the increased focus that cyber-defence is receiving. The report by the Defence Committee is evidence of that focus, so I congratulate its members on their excellent work. Cyber-attacks are at last properly acknowledged as a serious threat to our national security and are rightly prioritised as a tier 1 risk in the Government’s 2010 national security document. As the Committee’s report says, the threat is liable to grow and evolve at “almost unimaginable speed”. Indeed, the pace of technological change is faster than traditional Government structures and time lines can cope with. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said, five years is a long time in the cyber-world and the threat from cyber-attack is rising exponentially. The number of global web users in 1995 was 16 million; it is estimated that by 2015, there will be more interconnected devices on the planet than there are human beings.
As communications technologies spread and as the UK critical infrastructure networks become even more heavily based on IT networks, cyber-defence becomes an increasingly pressing security concern. There will be even more attacks. According to the Government’s own national security strategy document, the UK faces up to 1,000 cyber-attacks every hour, which is estimated to cost the UK £27 billion a year. Cyber-attacks are now a constant reality, with the Government, the private sector and private citizens all under sustained cyber-attack from both hostile states and criminals, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) articulated so well.
I have no doubt that the Government take the threat of cyber-attack seriously, although perhaps not seriously enough. The report makes it clear that Ministers have not yet put in place the infrastructure to deal with that real threat properly, or approached the problem with vigour or sufficient robustness. As the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said, the problem is agile and many-layered—I think it has been likened to an onion, and the Opposition would agree with that.
Bob Stewart
It is not an onion, because that implies that one peels away a layer to get at it; actually, it is an attack on all institutions—every single part of our society—simultaneously. I therefore disagree with the onion analogy.
Yvonne Fovargue
I will not be tempted to go further into vegetable analogies. I think the multi-layered approach is the one we are dealing with here.
The Government have committed £650 million over four years to the cyber-security programme, which seems like a significant sum, but only 14% of that was allocated to the Ministry of Defence, while the total investment equates to only 0.6% of the £27 billion that the UK loses through cybercrime every year. In its report, the Defence Committee questioned whether enough was being done to secure the supply chain and the industrial base. We know that supplies of armed forces’ equipment are increasingly being targeted, and are especially vulnerable to cyber-attack. In their response, the Government say they are working closely with industry on matters such as information sharing and incident reporting, but give precious little detail. The Government need to go further, and Labour is calling on them to ensure that every company working with the Ministry of Defence, regardless of its size or the scale of its work, signs up to a cyber-security charter. That will ensure that hackers cannot use the small suppliers to get into the systems of the major defence companies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) said, the risks from cyber-attacks are huge and growing; we need to do everything we can to protect against them, and the MOD and its contractors should lead by example.
The Government also refer to progress on the joint cyber reserve—an initiative to involve reservists in the delivery of cyber-security—but give little detail. Will the Minister say what progress has been made in that important matter? I would particularly like to hear his thoughts on recruitment. The cyber reserves are not likely to be a traditional military outfit: the skills are entirely different. Is it essential that those reservists meet the usual fitness standards of the armed forces? A senior US officer said it was not essential that they were able to march 3 miles with a pack on their back, and I think most people would agree. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s thoughts on the requirements for the new force and how its personnel will fit into the military model.
What is the Minister doing to attract recruits? We have heard that a lot of the top universities are running cyber programmes with top computing graduates. Is the Minister attending those events or approaching careers fairs? Is there a career path that will be attractive to young graduates—we need not only to recruit but to retain those graduates. A recent study by the Army Families Federation shows that large numbers of married Army personnel want to leave the service. That will be all the more problematic with cyber personnel, as there are many lucrative private sector jobs tempting them away. But of course many of the skills and experiences required for this are prevalent in the defence industry. What steps is the Minister taking to encourage firms involved in Government contract work—not just in the defence but throughout Government—to encourage their staff to become reservists? What responses are there from such firms?
The new joint cyber-force is described by the Secretary of State in terms of its offensive rather than defensive capabilities, enhancing our ability to strike back in cyberspace against enemies who attack us. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) said, what are the rules of engagement? Land, sea and air have been the traditional theatres of war. Cyberspace is new and untested. What constitutes a cyber act of war and, equally important, what would be a proportionate response to an act of aggression? For example, if all London’s systems were knocked out by an electromagnetic pulse device, would that be an act of war? What would we do about it? As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend said, how would we know who did it? In short, what are the rules of engagement?
It would also be interesting to hear whether the Minister believes that the concept of deterrence applies to cyber-defence as it does to conventional defence as perhaps those with the most ability to attack our cyber-capabilities have the least reliance on their own cyber-capabilities. What role does he envisage offensive cyber-capabilities playing in this? Do we work alone or in concert with others? The Secretary of State has made much of cyber-security being a sovereign capability but we have been working with other nations in supranational bodies for some time; for example we are a member of the “Five Eyes” group, which includes the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and we have also been working with NATO. The report cites the important work of the NATO cyber-defence centre of excellence. Of course this is based in Estonia and was created as a direct consequence of the cyber-attacks on that country in 2007. There is excellent work undertaken there and I am glad that the Government are committed to participation in the centre, although some may doubt whether the contribution of £20,000 per annum will have much impact. But the lesson to be learned here is that we cannot afford to wait until an attack happens before we act. We have to be proactive.
Since the publication of the report, we have seen developments within the EU’s common security and defence policy. The European Council meeting on 19 and 20 December last year led to a call for the development of an EU cyber-defence policy framework in 2014. I would be interested to hear what talks have been taking place about this. Working with, and within, bodies such as the “Five Eyes”, NATO and the EU is vital, not only for intelligence sharing but for developing common rules of engagement. We must be aware of the threat and how best to counter it. That is why we need all the organisations to work together.
A further point is public trust. The public have to have trust in what we are doing to protect them and that is why accountability is so important. The USA has FISMA, the Federal Information Security Management Act, of course. What research has been done into how this might translate into our own system? We must also ask what role Parliament and the Intelligence and Security Oversight Committee should have in this new era of cyber-defence.
Currently we are accustomed to thinking of security in terms of three forces; army, navy and air force. But in many ways cyber does add a fourth strand. Just as the creation of the RAF in 1918 demanded a whole new way of thinking about defence and war, the increasing cyber threat means that we need to do some fresh thinking now. We have to think seriously about how we can combat this new threat because one thing is certain; it can only grow. Conventional borders will have less and less impact but the impact on civilians and the military will be greater and greater.
When the internet and electronic communications were first devised it was thought that they would impact only on academics in ivory towers. They have developed in ways that were never imagined then and have become an everyday part of our lives. Imagine a world without banking, power, communications systems, computers, control of our weapons. It absolutely does not bear thinking about, which is why we have to think about it and ensure that the MOD and the military are ready to take on this threat, and that they know their part, and play their part, in protecting our country and its citizens from this new and fast-evolving threat.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Dr Murrison
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that Wales has provided a disproportionate part of our Army, and I pay tribute to it for that. As he will know, St Athan is of great interest to the Welsh Government, who want to develop an aerospace business park there. The MOD is working closely to reconcile our continuing MOD defence needs for that site with the need to advance the prosperity agenda and the Welsh Government’s requirement to ensure that jobs are sustained and supported there in the long term.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
In my view, possibly the best infantry training area in the United Kingdom is Sennybridge. Is there any possibility of infantry battalions being positioned around Sennybridge, where they would have ease of access for training, perhaps in Crickhowell?
Dr Murrison
I agree with my hon. Friend that Sennybridge is a first-rate training area—I have had casual experience of it myself. I am more than happy to consider and discuss his precise proposition, but we have no plans to do that at the moment.
Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty
I shall explain very clearly. The publican’s argument is that these personnel will cause trouble, which is an absurd argument to put forward. I am sure that the Minister and I will agree that there is no reason to expect that men and women who are proud to be wearing their uniform at a civic event will cause trouble. The Bill is narrowly drawn—I am grateful to the redoubtable Kate Emms for her assistance, as ever, in drafting it—and very clear: it would amend existing legislation. Under the Equality Act 2010, a publican can still turn down somebody if they are drunk or if they have a genuine reason to believe they are likely to cause disruption. I stress, again, that this is not a debate about whether there should be exemptions under the 2010 Act, but whether those exemptions should be extended to cover members of the armed forces.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I thank my friend—he is my friend—for giving way. I support him totally. When soldiers, sailors or airmen go out in uniform, particularly dress uniform, they are under a remit to behave in an exemplary way. By wearing the uniform, those boys and girls go out knowing that they are representing their unit, and there is no way, normally, that they would get drunk.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman—who, of course, gave his service to the country for 30 or 40 years —has made a compelling point, on which I hope the House will reflect. As a member of the Defence Committee, he has taken a close interest in this issue, and has championed me and supported my aims. He is entirely right: as the Minister would surely agree, it is ridiculous for a publican to say, “These young men and women in dress uniform are going to cause trouble.” As I have said, the Bill amends an existing Act. Safeguards already exist to enable a shop owner, publican or restaurateur to turn down someone’s custom if there is a genuine fear of trouble. All that we seek to do is extend the umbrella of protection to members of the armed forces.
Rory Stewart
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is not exactly the point I am making. I do not deny that members of the armed forces can be treated unfairly, nor do I deny that because they are going somewhere in uniform they are likely to be identified as a special category and treated unfairly as such. My argument is based not on the notion that there are no examples of unfair treatment but on the general assumption that expanding discrimination legislation is a very dangerous thing for this House to do. It is not simply that as a Conservative I feel that we already produce too much legislation and that we feel the effects of excessive legislation, but that extending discrimination legislation, in particular, should be done only in the most extreme situations.
Bob Stewart
On that point, and in support of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), did the landlord in this particular case act illegally by discriminating against a group of people who went in to his pub to have a drink? Did he break the law by saying no?
Rory Stewart
A whole body of case law exists exactly to resolve such issues of discrimination of any sort that we have not to date felt a need to resolve. Discrimination can already happen in the United Kingdom against people who are not in protected categories. It is possible, for example, to take legal redress as a white male former member of the armed forces. My hon. Friend himself would be able to seek legal redress in many situations in which he felt that he had been unfairly treated. The particular question of the rights of publicans to admit or not admit people into their establishments is another area of case law.
This is a question for the Edinburgh courts; it is not for me to determine what the publican did. My sense, as regards the publican’s right to do what he did, is that in this case the publican’s argument was not the argument that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife has suggested; the publican’s argument was not that he believed that the people in uniform were going to cause trouble, but that he had had a lot of experience of the other people in the pub causing trouble and attacking people in uniform when they came in. In other words, he believed that it was an exacerbating factor and he was in no way criticising the people in uniform. He was trying to protect against violence breaking out in his pub on the basis of experience of that happening in the past. Unless the hon. Gentleman has a deep understanding of exactly how much violence has happened in that pub and why the publican, who would have an interest in trying to generate income from alcohol sales, excluded those people, it would be difficult to judge in this case.
Vernon Coaker
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The Minister has heard his and my remarks, so will she reflect on whether in next year’s annual report, or in the interim, a more detailed assessment can be made?
There is evidence that progress has been made on the military covenant. To go back to the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, I think that a cultural change is taking place. One thing that has happened is that there are more soldiers on the streets, which is good to see. I am interested in whether the hon. Member for Beckenham agrees. More soldiers as well as Air Force and Navy personnel—armed forces personnel—feel able, in many circumstances, to wear their uniforms in public. That is a positive thing of which we should all be proud.
Bob Stewart
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for saying that. I absolutely agree: I want to see many more people in uniform. I listened very carefully to the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who is right and wrong. He is wrong because, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) suggested, this House should send a signal that we do not in any way still support the misconceptions produced by poems such as “If” and
“For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ Chuck him out, the brute!”
Despite the difficulties, which I accept exist, of legislating in some form, this House should say clearly to the nation, “Have respect for our armed forces.” That should be written into law, and I totally support the shadow Secretary of State’s position.
Vernon Coaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. It is good that more members of our armed forces feel able to wear their uniform, and that they are proud to do so and are accepted. That is part of the important cultural change that has taken place.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend is making a consensual speech. On the point about signals, the MOD has previously said that service chiefs have indicated no desire for this measure, but during my time on the Defence Committee and in my many visits to military establishments, and indeed when members of the armed forces come to this place, I am constantly being thanked by personnel who say, “You’re the MP bringing in that Bill. It’s great that someone’s doing it.” My hon. Friend is right to say that the Bill has been hugely welcomed by members of the armed forces who no longer wish to be discriminated against.
Philip Davies
We seem to be going round in circles, and I am trying to resist doing that, because I am sure we all want to hear from the Minister.
I have not yet heard anyone—including my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border—deny that people may well, on occasion, feel that they have been discriminated against or abused simply because of their membership of the armed forces. I have heard no one disagree with that premise as yet. The fact is, however—and this is what the hon. Gentleman does not seem to accept—that the same thing happens to plenty of other people simply as a consequence of their jobs. Staff in jobcentres, people who work in accident and emergency departments, and other public sector workers who do a fantastic job for the country should not suffer assaults and abuse either, and yet they do.
I do not want to start trying to decide which jobs are more important than others, because I do not think that would be particularly healthy. They are all crucial jobs. We all rely on the people who do those jobs, and, in my view, they all deserve equal protection before the law. For instance, I cannot think of anything that the hon. Gentleman has said that would not apply to police officers. They get terrible abuse simply for being police officers. I hear them being called all sorts of names that are totally unacceptable. The police do a fantastic job.
Where the law does apply specifically to the police is the special offence for an assault on a police constable in execution of his duty. I might be reasonably sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s case if he came along and said, “I think that what happens for the armed forces should mirror what happens for the police,” but he is not trying to bring in an equivalent measure. He is trying to bring in something completely different which has nothing to do with the execution of duties. It simply relates to the occupation of members of our armed forces.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border touched on the point that there is a slight irony in the Bill and I want to highlight it. Clause 2, on the prohibition of discrimination, is designed to ensure that members of the armed forces are treated equally with everybody else in the country. It is a perfectly laudable aim that people should be treated equally. It is one that I agree with. However, clause 1 tries to ensure that members of the armed forces are not treated equally compared with everybody else, but that in some respects they should be treated differently from other people in the eyes of the law. I have always thought that an essential tenet of the law is that everybody is equal in the face of it. I think that should apply to victims as well as people who commit crimes. We should not be trying to separate out different categories of people. We should look at the offence committed and prosecute people based on the seriousness of the offence, and the victim should be treated equally whoever the victim happens to be, based on what happened to them. When we start trying to pick and choose and say attacks on one category of people are more serious than those on another, we are going down a dangerous road.
There are some exceptions; my hon. Friend touched on them. I particularly feel that attacks on people who have a disability are especially abhorrent for all sorts of reasons, but the main one is that they are often vulnerable people who are in no position to defend themselves. Cruelty to children can be put in a similar category. But these are all matters of individual viewpoint and down to our own values.
Beyond that, however, it becomes very difficult to decide which person is more important and which offence is more suitable simply based on the fact of who has been attacked as opposed to the nature of the offence.
Bob Stewart
But Members of our armed forces are different. They are treated differently. They are subject to civil law and on top of that they have to answer to military law. In that respect, they are different to everyone else.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend says that, but, of course, police officers would say their terms and conditions are very different from the situation of people in everyday life; they do not have the same protections. Also, what he does not refer to in making that point is that this Bill’s reach goes way beyond people who are currently in service. It talks about people who have been in service. It also talks about relatives of people who are in service, and the Bill’s definition of a relative specifies that it “shall mean any relative.” We are not even talking about parents or siblings, therefore; we are talking about any relative no matter how distant they may be. I am not entirely sure on what basis my hon. Friend thinks they should be protected compared with everybody else. I see absolutely no justification for that, yet there it is on the face of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman has made a special case for any relative, which I think goes way beyond what even my hon. Friend believes is reasonable. It worries me that what the hon. Gentleman is doing is trying to send a signal—make a political point—rather than provide a serious basis for what the law of the land should be.
I want to make a couple of other brief points, explaining how I think the hon. Gentleman would be better served. First, offences against people in the public sector and in public service is already an aggravating factor in the law. Given the Minister’s background, she will know all about that. The sentencing guidelines on assault, for example, have as an aggravating factor an offence committed
“against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public.”
Given that that is already in the sentencing guidelines, I am not entirely sure why we need a new law. Judges can take that into account as an aggravating factor when it comes to passing sentence. On that basis alone, the Bill is unnecessary.
There is a great irony. Although it is not like me to get party political about such matters, I have to say that the hon. Gentleman represents a party which, when it was in government, introduced a law that insisted that people who were sent to prison had to be released—not had to be eligible for release—halfway through their sentence irrespective of the crime they had committed. The shadow Minister was part of that Government and so is more culpable in that matter.
If the Bill is aimed at people who commit assaults and attacks on members of the armed forces, it would be far better and more productive if the hon. Gentleman were to work to scrap that law passed under the previous Labour Government, to ensure that when people are sent to prison they serve in full the sentence handed down by the courts. That would ensure that those people whom he wants to see spend longer in prison actually do spend longer in prison. If he wants to go down that line, it would be far more productive if we ensured that everybody served their sentence in full.
Everyone in the country was absolutely horrified at what happened to Drummer Lee Rigby. I am not sure whether that was what prompted the hon. Gentleman to introduce this Bill. The Government have already changed the law in relation to those who are convicted of the murder of transsexuals and people with disability. The starting point for their life sentence and the minimum sentence they should serve has gone up. If that is what he wanted to do—to make the starting point for a conviction for the murder of a member of the armed forces 30 years as it is for those other hate crimes where a murder is involved—he should have tried to ensure that we rejected the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights on life sentences and followed the line that if someone is sentenced to life in prison for murder, they serve the rest of their life in prison.
If the hon. Gentleman really wants people who are committing those particular offences to serve the time in prison that we all want them to serve, it would be far better to ensure that life means life and that prisoners serve their sentences in full. That would achieve what both he and I want, which is for serious offenders to be treated properly no matter who the victim is. That would suit the people in the armed forces who are victims of these crimes; they would see that justice had been done.
Although we can all agree with the sentiment behind the Bill—that we should support our armed forces and that we think any attack on them or discrimination against them is unjustifiable and unnecessary—I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, think that passing a Bill to send a signal is not what this House should do. On that basis, I cannot support it. I hope that the Minister will come down on the side of my hon. Friend and me, and not think that this Bill is the right vehicle with which to proceed.
Armed Forces Restructuring
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Some people suggest that there will not be much support for expeditionary warfare among the public again. In my experience, the public can be very fickle, especially when events and horrors happen. With this tranche of redundancies, we now have the smallest armed forces we have had for a long time. May I ask the Secretary of State to say what everyone in this House feels—that our armed forces will now be up to any challenge that they are asked to meet within their small numbers, and that our people should rest assured that they will do that extremely well when called on to do it?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend observes that we shall have the smallest Army for a number of years when we have completed this restructuring, but we might also remind ourselves that we still have the fourth largest defence budget in the world and, on any fair and objective assessment, the second most capable expeditionary armed force capability in the world after the United States. The public can rest assured that our armed forces will do their duty and protect this country wherever, whenever and however called upon to do so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
They will indeed; the arrangements we have made embrace the NHS. The NHS is establishing nine centres of excellence specialising in advanced prosthetics across the UK, and as service personnel and veterans pass out of military care at Headley Court, they will be able to choose whether they want to go to a local centre or to one of the nine regional specialist centres, where we expect that over time standards of skill and expertise will match those currently delivered at Headley Court.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I assume, therefore, that someone either in the military or outside the military fitted with a Genium limb will have the latest version fitted to them throughout their life.
Mr Hammond
They will continue to be supported as clinically appropriate, and the phrase “clinically appropriate” is very important. The Genium limb is very beneficial for somebody who is in an active phase of their life and we hope many of these veterans and service people will remain active for long periods of their lives. It would not be appropriate for an older person who was less mobile and wished to be less mobile, however. The point of making the money available is so that the clinicians have the scope to prescribe whatever is most clinically appropriate, even when it is the very costly microprocessor knee solution.