Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. There are plenty of people on all sides of the community who recognise what this is about: a pandemic, and fighting that pandemic.

Even during the troubles, when I was there, there were many people in nationalist west Belfast, for example, who recognised the difference between security and other operations, and just getting on and helping people. I fully expect the Northern Ireland Executive to come forward with a request. We have some inbound. We will support them, whoever they come from—from whatever Minister they come from and whatever Ministry. If they require it and they need our help, they can have it.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con) [V]]

Just as an example of some of the military activity in England, we have seen the military rapid reaction vaccination teams working. In Wales, military personnel are supporting health trusts and driving ambulances. In Scotland, they are supporting testing and vaccination. In Northern Ireland, I understand the defence estate has been loaned to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and that they are facilitating medevac.

Would the Secretary of State agree with me that this, more than ever, shows the security, strength and benefit of our four nations being part of the United Kingdom, rather than a separatist agenda which would weaken the whole country, and could have fragmented this valuable and essential response?

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. When I send helicopters to the highlands and islands of Scotland with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine—a British developed vaccine, using all the skills of both the international community and the United Kingdom community—I am incredibly conscious that this is a whole-of-nation effort to attack the virus and rid it from these shores.

We cannot help but note that the British forces are truly that: British. People in my office and my Department—indeed, people in all regiments—come from all four corners. When this is over and we are judged, one of the questions will be, “Did we reach the fingertips of the United Kingdom?” The armed forces make that happen.

Afghanistan

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

As soon as I complete this statement, I will be going to Brussels to have numerous bilateral meetings with our many NATO allies. We need to hammer home the message that, for NATO to work, we all have to invest in it. We cannot expect one country to carry the burden all the time. We all have to show that willingness to invest. The Prime Minister will be sending that message, and the United States will also be sending that message. I think that the message is starting to get through.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for delaying his arrival at NATO to make this important announcement himself from the Dispatch Box. I believe this is the largest deployment he has authorised since becoming Defence Secretary.

I share with everybody in the Chamber a great respect for the Welsh Guards, in particular—they will be playing a significant role. Does my right hon. Friend recognise the role that UK aid has played over the past few years, particularly in the education and training of young women and teachers? Do not the role of UK aid and that of our services personnel complement each other in helping to make Afghanistan a more stable country?

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend is correct to say that UK aid and our security forces have to work hand in glove in order to build a viable future for Afghanistan. We have to promote prosperity and education, and we have to support the Afghan Government in delivering an exciting and hopeful future for their people in order to have stability there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

What we see is a Conservative Government who this year committed an extra £800 million over the budget that was going to go to the Ministry of Defence to support our armed forces. We are undertaking the modernising defence programme to look at the threats this nation faces and to make sure we have the best equipped and best trained armed forces to deal with those threats. The Government have committed money to our armed forces; we have a rising defence budget. We are a very proud nation in the sense that we can see we have been hitting 2% in the past and will continue to do so going forward.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

5. What support his Department provides to former service personnel who have had limbs amputated as a result of their military service.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

I am sure you will be familiar, Mr Speaker, with the significance of the battle of Solferino in 1859 when it comes to looking after our casualties. Tens of thousands of casualties were left for dead there and that was observed by Jean-Henri Dunant, who went on to form the international Red Cross. Today, we do provide support for those who are injured on the battlefield, but even faster we move them into state-of-the-art hospitals, such as we saw in Helmand province. Some of them end up losing a limb or more, and we need to make sure that we look after these brave veterans for the rest of their lives.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

In 2011, Paul lost his left arm when injured by an improvised explosive device. He wrote about how he did not know how to go forward and did not want to leave the house, but he got everything back that the military offered him: confidence, camaraderie, teamwork and the chance to compete through an inspirational golfing charity, the On Course Foundation. Will the Minister agree to visit that charity and accept an invitation to see the American and British ex-servicemen compete for the Simpson cup, which is named after the founder John Simpson and will be played next year at the Royal & Ancient golf club between 19 and 22 May?

[Mr Ellwood]

I endorse absolutely the On Course Foundation and what it does. Such organisations and the Invictus games have shown us that there is a new chapter to be had and a new direction for those who have been injured in terms of what they can do through sport. Prince Harry is very involved in that. I would be more than delighted to accept my right hon. Friend’s invitation and I pay tribute to the work that has been done by John Simpson.

Galileo Programme

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his very clear statement on the comments made about the UK being a security risk. I think that that is appreciated by all Members. Is there a concern about UK industry leaving as a result of this decision? Of course there would be concern, but the key point is to respond to those concerns. That is why various Government Departments, including the Ministry of Defence, have been in constant communication with the defence sector. Indeed, if it were not for this urgent question I would be on my way to meet companies involved in the space tech sector in Oxford at this very moment. I will still be visiting them, but after this urgent question. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the prospect of developing our own initiative is very much to ensure that the skills that are so crucial for the future economic prosperity of the United Kingdom are retained in the United Kingdom.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

The Chancellor is reported to have said that if we fail to continue in the Galileo programme we will build our own GPS system. Does the Minister have any idea of the cost and the timescale?

[Guto Bebb]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her very pertinent question. It is the case that the Chancellor has been very clear and across Government we have been very clear on this, but it would be too early for us to highlight the actual cost involved. She should have no doubt about the fact that the cost involved would be no greater than our current contribution to the Galileo project, and I think the benefits to the UK could be even greater. I assure my right hon. Friend that the Chancellor’s support on this issue should be taken as a clear sign.

Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Friday 23rd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for two reasons—first, he reinforces my argument, and, secondly, he puts on the record an institution of phenomenal value to this country, Roke Manor Research, formerly owned by a German company and now very much in British hands. As I am sure the Minister knows, Roke Manor is doing outstanding work. It is an example of the leading-edge technology that is available to defence in this country and that it is so important we maintain.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this Bill for discussion in the House today. Does he agree that the situation is even more alarming when we look at the size of Chinese defence spending, which was recently announced to be $144.2 billion—a 10% year-on-year increase, approximately?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for independently adding to the case on what we face around the world. Russia is engaged in about the same ramping up of its defence spending and, accordingly, its capability. I am very grateful to her for making that point.

Significantly, the message for those engaged in drawing up defence planning assumptions is that in the space of barely three years the assumptions on which we worked in 2010 were blown apart. None of the events I listed earlier was remotely foreseen. For those of us brought up in the shadow of the iron curtain, over which two massive superpowers pivoted in an uneasy equilibrium—I was brought up in Germany—today’s outlook seems decidedly more complex and more dangerous. It is against that backdrop of a seriously turbulent world that we need to judge the priority we accord to defence of the realm.

There is no doubt that Europe’s security and peace for the past 70 years has been largely delivered by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—NATO. The north Atlantic treaty was signed on 4 April 1949 as a means of establishing enduring stability and peace in Europe. Under article 5, the new allies agreed

“that an armed attack against one or more of them…shall be considered an attack against them all”

and that were such an attack to take place, each ally would take

“such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force”

in response. Understandably, much has been made of article 5 as the foundation stone of north Atlantic peace, and the onus it places on all alliance members, but it is also worth considering article 3, which states that

“the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”

Arguably, this set the precedent for the 2% target long before it was first mooted in 2006, and it has subsequently become the target for alliance members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am rather shocked, but delighted, to be called so early.

Twenty-five years ago, the 14 European NATO members spent $314 billion annually on defence; this year, European NATO members spent $227 billion on defence. Those figures, taken from the global think-tank Carnegie Europe, show that there has been a 28% reduction in real defence spending by European NATO members since 1990. Yet since 1990, European membership of NATO has almost doubled, from 14 members to 26 partners, so in truth the reduction in collective defence finances in Europe has been much starker.

Since 2008, the UK has reduced its defence spending by over 9%. We are not alone: Germany has reduced her defence spending over the same period by over 4% and Italy by a whopping 21%. That reduction has made the contribution made to NATO by the United States even more cock-eyed than it was before. From 1995 to 1999, European NATO allies spent about 2% of GNP on defence, but now that average is down to 1.5%. That was at a time when US defence spending had increased from about 3.1% to 3.4% today. In 1995, US defence spending made up 59% of the NATO budget, and today it is expected to be over 70%. Since the formation of NATO in 1949, the United States has always dominated NATO spending, and European members of the alliance have never really paid their fair share of its costs.

Although the United States spends 3.4% of its GNP on defence, we Europeans prefer to use our money for softer priorities. Europeans effectively put far more of their resources into social rather than military security. There are 0.9 billion people living in all NATO countries and just over 300 million of them are US citizens. Yet each American pays $1,900 a year for his or her defence, while no other NATO member, including ourselves, comes anywhere near that. Let me give the House some examples from the figures I have got—mainly from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute—of how much some of the newer members of the north Atlantic alliance are contributing to their collective defence as new NATO members. I will do so based on what each person in their population might be expected to contribute. Each Albanian contributes $42 a year. A Bulgarian gives $116 a year. Croats provide $204 and Czechs pay $189. Estonians supply more—$392. Hungarians also devote $392 and Latvians $150. Romanians pay $118, Slovakians $180 and Slovenians $233 for their defence. Joining NATO was clearly a cheap way to buy military security for many European countries, many of which are deeply worried about Russian intentions close to their borders, although they hardly show that by way of their defence budgets.

[Mrs Gillan]

Will my hon. and gallant Friend give way?

[Bob Stewart]

With delight.

[Mrs Gillan]

It is worth noting that, despite the smaller amounts paid by the newer members of NATO that my hon. and gallant Friend has laid out for us, in the wake of Russian aggression, the biggest increases are coming from the Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles and even the Estonians, because their minds are now concentrated on the immediate threat on their borders.

[Bob Stewart]

I understand and accept that, and in a way that is good. Some good things are coming out of it.

As my right hon. Friend has just demonstrated, many countries are clearly deeply worried about Russian intentions close to their borders. No wonder NATO membership is so attractive now. It is a great deal. For those countries, the NATO guarantee is cheap security and insurance. Far too many of the new members of NATO have simply got to pay more. Only Estonia, France, Greece, Poland, Turkey and the UK will come near the NATO minimum target of 2% in 2015. Some NATO members will spend far less than that. According to the IMF, some—such as Albania, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain—spent 1% or less of their GNP on defence last year.

I am sorry for spending so much of my speech on statistics, but I hope that I have made the point about the huge importance of NATO’s minimum target of 2%. Achieving it and keeping above it shows commitment, and is also a symbolic gesture of genuine support for the alliance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this excellent debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for the powerful case he made for ensuring that we have an adequate defence budget for our country. The Bill is vital. I also commend my hon. Friend for his lifelong dedication to supporting Her Majesty’s armed forces and to the defence of Queen and country; there is no greater champion of the defence of the realm than my hon. Friend.

I hope that hon. Members will agree with me that, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has just said, the first priority of Her Majesty’s Government, regardless of their political persuasion, is the defence of the realm and the protection of British people from threat, both internal and external. Protecting Britons from harm, defending our democratic way of life and upholding our freedom must surely be our first duty in this place. That is why our membership of NATO has been so vital and must be protected.

To maintain a 2% minimum spending target is a wise allocation of public funds and a necessary investment in the defence of our nation. We can ring-fence other budgets, but surely the defence of the realm should be uppermost in our priorities. Securing our freedom is worth every £1 we spend. In my view, defence should certainly take precedence over our commitments on international aid.

The Bill will enable the Government of the day to carry out their solemn duties to this country in the confidence that those who wish to subvert our way of life will not succeed. Some would argue that, in the post-cold war era, such investment in our national defence is no longer necessary, but if the actions of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and Syria have taught us anything it is that we can no longer take for granted the notion that the cold war is well and truly behind us. Our nation faces powerful enemies—nations, and terrorist organisations and cells—just as we did in the 1980s. They pose significant threats to our national interests and security. Even if we accept the highly dubious argument that we live in a post-cold war world, we must conclude only that the new era makes continuing to invest adequately in our armed forces more imperative than ever.

[Mrs Gillan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that NATO has had to adapt, and that we are looking for NATO responses to be more mobile and agile? It also needs to respond on shorter timelines, particularly in countering irregular operations and other new forms of threat, some of which were well laid out in the TalkTalk cyber-attack earlier this week.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The truth is that we live in a very different world from the one of the 1980s. We have to adapt to modern-day threats, including people who use technology against the interests of our country and our NATO allies. Therefore, we cannot take it for granted that defence spending should be on a downward slide. We must think about the importance of dealing with today’s threats. My right hon. Friend makes that point eloquently.

The enemies we face today no longer occupy clear territory or fight conventionally, as my right hon. Friend stated. Today’s threats come from groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL. They have no clear borders and fight unconventional wars. In many respects, they pose a greater challenge to our armed forces and national defence.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)—my good friend—has made clear, defence spending as a proportion of GDP has declined. NATO figures suggest that, for 2015-16, the Government will spend 2.1% of GDP on defence. However, that figure includes previously excluded expenditure such as war pensions and other items, as many hon. Members have said. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot referred to the Royal United Service Institute, which says that, without those added expenditures, defence spending will be 1.97% of GDP. I am sorry to say to the Minister that, under the old measurement, the Government will this year fail to meet their 2% spending commitment. Perhaps he will clarify that. It is imperative that my hon. Friend’s Bill becomes the law of this country so that the Government, of whichever political party, will be duty bound to honour the commitment and make the necessary investment to the defence of our United Kingdom.

Continuous decades of cuts to our defence budget have caused despair among many leading members of our defence staff. In 2012, General Sir Michael Jackson warned that, if Argentina were to launch another invasion of the British overseas territory of the Falklands Islands, retaking them would be “impossible”—I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, are very passionate about the defence of the Falkland Islands. In stating that, General Sir Michael Jackson pointed out that he feared that we could not adequately defend British citizens in our overseas territories. At that time, defence spending was, at 2.2%, higher than it is today.

The need for a much stronger Royal Navy presence in the British sovereign waters around Gibraltar is now paramount. More resources are needed to counter the illegal and aggressive incursions by Spanish vessels, which are shamefully supported and excused by the Spanish Government. Those extra resources should be combined with a more robust approach to the defence of Gibraltar from the Government, which is long overdue.

It seems perverse to me that, at a time when we ask our armed forces to undertake ever more demanding work in far-flung regions of the world, we have been so short-sighted in reducing the resources they desperately need. As hon. Members know, in the last Parliament, a Bill was passed that requires the Government to spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid. Failing to pass a similar Bill—it applies the same principle—that legally commits the Government to spend 2% of GDP on defence would send a very negative message to the servicemen and women who put their lives on the line for our wellbeing every single day of their lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important question. Just because someone is not deployed to a desert and is not in front of the people whom they are confronting directly, it does not mean that they are invulnerable to the things they see or to what we ask them to do. Our support for those people is very similar to that of conventional deployments. They have decompression and a pre-deployment build-up. Embedded in those teams are mental health specialists who can advise, support and assess the individuals.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

19. The Department is currently involved in the Taranis unmanned combat aerial vehicle technology demonstrator project, which is a joint Anglo-French operation led by BAE Systems. Will the Minister tell us how many people in the UK are currently employed on that project and what the implications are for the UK workforce and supply chain as this welcome area develops?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the right hon. Lady for raising that matter. A number of initiatives and reviews are taking place as part of the strategic defence and security review. I can write to her with the numbers of individuals and partners with whom we are involved on those projects, including the ones she mentions.

Service Personnel (Ukraine)

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

So far as the 1994 agreement is concerned, it is for all parties to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but that has not happened in this Russian-backed aggression and the movement of heavy weapons and artillery from Russia across the border into eastern Ukraine. So far as the nuclear deterrent is concerned, the House debated the matter a few weeks ago and recorded one of the largest majorities in recent years in favour of building the successor submarines.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

It is clearly correct to support the effectiveness of the Ukrainian army and its capacity to protect the country from Russian aggression, but back in 2013 when we undertook the training of the Libyan troops, the Libyan Government paid for that training. Will the Secretary of State tell us who is to bear the cost of the proposed training in Ukraine, and whether there is any financial limit on the UK’s assistance to that country?

[Michael Fallon]

At the moment, we are bearing the cost of the training, and the costs involved in gifting any non-lethal equipment will be borne by my budget. So far as the Libyan training is concerned, I am afraid that I have to tell my right hon. Friend that although the Libyan Government had committed to pay for it, they have not quite paid for it all yet.