Former Afghan Special Forces: Deportation

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I do not have the number, and I am not sure how I would obtain it, but I will inquire within the Department whether I can. If I can, I will write to the hon. Gentleman, and if I cannot, I will write to him to say that I cannot.

To those of us who have served, the term that the hon. Gentleman used in the first part of his question has a particular meaning. I suspect that he meant it in that way, but that is not what has happened here. The offer that the UK has made in comparison with that of every other country, given our size and the size of our military commitment, is one of the most, if not the most, generous. We have worked incredibly hard to bring people out in very difficult circumstances, and it breaks the heart of all those who had anything to do with operations in Afghanistan—on the military side, in the intelligence community or in a diplomatic context—not to be able to bring everyone here, but that is simply an unrealistic aim. ARAP was set up to be what it is, likewise the ACRS, and the hon. Gentleman, while disappointed in the Government’s policy, will need to accept from me that we are working as hard as we can to bring both those schemes to a resolution as quickly as we can.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for the helpful clarity that he has provided today, in particular on the eligibility of members of Afghan special forces for the ARAP scheme. That having been said, however, I would suggest that whether, and wherever, people are fighting alongside UK or other NATO troops in Afghanistan, they are still fighting the Taliban. They are still causing them attrition and losses and pressure, on whichever front that might be. I should have thought, at the very least, that under the ACRS, members of special forces have assisted in standing up for values such as free speech, women’s rights and the rule of law. Given that they have done that, would not discretion be the better part of valour, especially when we are speaking about people who potentially fought with great valour? The Minister has talked about getting to the bottom of the list. That is great, but it is not the target; the target is to get everyone we possibly can back to safety in the UK and free from the clutches of the Taliban. Is that still the Minister’s position?

[James Heappey]

I think I have answered that question, in different forms, over the past half-hour. It is the case, sadly, that not everyone who served alongside the British forces within an Afghan unit will be eligible. It is also impossible, I think, to verify the service of those who did not serve directly alongside the British armed forces, in circumstances in which there is someone within the British system who can vouch for the closeness of that service.

The sad reality is that there are tens of thousands of desperate people in Afghanistan who are wrongly applying to the ARAP scheme out of desperation—the same is happening with the ACRS—and showing evidence that is not real. We have done our absolute best over the last two years to find the people we are looking for and to verify the service of those who are not on employment lists. Our efforts in those regards across the UK special forces intelligence community and the military have been extensive, but it would be impossible to just say that everyone who had served in one unit could come, because we would have no way of knowing who had and who had not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She has been a long-running champion of the steel sector and its importance to her constituents. Of course, we want a smooth transition between blast furnace and electronic arc steel making technology. Steel remains incredibly important to the defence sector. Take the Type 26: almost 50% of that is British steel. That is 1,400 tonnes per ship. That underlines why it is so important that, in constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s, we continue to support the steel sector.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State and his predecessors rightly called out the wanton and unlawful destruction of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine—homes, hospitals and schools. Why can they not show equal uproar at what is happening to civilians in Gaza?

[Grant Shapps]

There is a principle in international law that a country can defend itself. Ukraine was attacked for absolutely no reason whatsoever. While we call on Israel, both privately and publicly, to protect civilians in whatever way it can, Hamas are using civilians as human shields, and deliberately using the infrastructure on top of them to hide behind. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman could see the difference.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I have complete confidence that quick reaction alert will be resourced. The highest priority of the air force is to defend the homeland. I also have complete confidence that the combat air force, as currently structured, is capable of performing a very wide range of duties around the world. I pay tribute to the work of the Air and Space Commander and his team, who, through work on agile deployment, are finding that we can deploy Typhoon and F-35 ever more quickly to ever more austere operating environments. That drives the productivity of the force even further.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

There is, of course, no question over the quality of combat aircrews, but there is a big question mark over the quantity of aircraft that they can fly. I want to challenge the Minister on the confidence he has just articulated, because there are serious concerns that our combat aircrew are engaged almost universally in transit and air policing, and have very little aircraft availability to practise proper combat air. What is his assessment of that concern?

[James Heappey]

We take very seriously the work that the Defence Committee does; we enjoy reading the Committee’s reports and, as I hope members of the Committee and of the House recognise, often take the findings into policy. I do push back gently, however, because in addition to the incredible work of QRA and the support the Royal Air Force has given to NATO missions over the last 18 months, since the start of the war in Ukraine, they have also been able to support carrier strike deployments, deployment on Exercise Red Flag, and indeed the deployment of a below squadron in strength, all the way across to Australia. That gets to exactly what I told my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts): that this ability to deploy air force with greater agility, further from home, in more austere settings, is a step change for the Royal Air Force, allowing it to operate from more austere environments rather than solely from its home bases.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson .

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

The previous Minister for Defence Procurement impressed many by hitting the ground running. He developed a forensic grip on the manifold issues within this dysfunctional area of defence and he worked up a plan to try to deal with that. Sadly, he moved on before he could implement that plan, so can I ask this latest Minister for Defence Procurement, does he have a plan? What will be the first evidence of that plan that our weary service personnel and taxpayers might see?

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his praise for my brilliant colleague, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is now Secretary of State for Justice and the Lord Chancellor, no less. Absolutely, we have a plan, and that plan must take into account the lessons from the Sheldon review. In taking on this job, I recognise that there has been huge focus on Ajax, but I hope the fact that Ajax is now with the Household Cavalry for regular field training is a symbolic moment that shows we are turning the corner. We are going to engage right across defence to develop a better procurement system, and I want to ensure that delivers better outcomes. As I said at the Defence Committee, that is why we have tasked the permanent secretary to undertake an end-to-end review of the whole defence operating model.

[Dave Doogan]

That response could be loosely regarded as a stab at the previous question, but it was certainly not an attempt to answer my question. Let me try to probe a little further and give the Minister some examples that he may wish to bombast us with about the progress he is making. How has he challenged the pedestrian progress towards the next phase of the new medium-lift helicopter tender? What is the delay with the Type 32 or Type 31 successor announcements? Why does his element of defence not procure ground-based anti-aircraft missile systems to protect these islands in a more responsible way?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman has ranged a long way, from air to ground. The key element is to strengthen our speed and agility, whatever the platform in question. Some of the platforms he refers to are at a conceptual phase. I am committed to driving pace because, although times are improving overall, ultimately we do not want to have the delays we have had in some notable programmes. We need pace because that is how we maintain our competitive edge against our international adversaries.

Global Military Operations

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Scottish National party in this important debate on defence, and the role that the people and professionals in defence play in keeping us safe. I listened intently to the Minister as he set out the interventions, support and donations that the United Kingdom has played a key role in delivering to the Ukrainian defence forces. Today, as they always have had, the UK Government have the full support of the SNP. I pay tribute to some of the key decisions that have been made by the United Kingdom Government, not least of which was the decision on main battle tanks. That support continues and endures.

Yesterday I was pleased to have the opportunity, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), to meet the Ukrainian ambassador to underline that support, at both a political level and on behalf of the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland. The unanimity that exists in this place over Ukraine is a welcome respite. Similarly, the United Kingdom does a lot of outstanding defence work in support of the overseas territories, which is a benign activity and welcome for those territories that benefit from it. There is not much to argue with in any of that.

However, when we go a little bit further afield, the Indo-Pacific tilt has played a key role in the Government’s defence ambitions in my four years in this place, and it is one with which I take some issue. It is easy to caricature it as slipping back into an imperial mindset of power mirroring trade, and how without power there can be no trade, but trade has been inexorably globalising for the last 50 years—even back as far as the second world war—and nothing will stop that. If we look at the evidence from other European manufacturing and large economies such as Germany, we see that there are many more Mercedes than Jaguars in China, south-east Asia and Australia, but I do not see the Kriegsmarine getting deployed in an Indo-Pacific tilt as the Royal Navy is.

It seems to me—I would be happy to be corrected—that this is a rebound from Brexit. It is about getting as far away from the European continent as possible. Obviously, I do not judge senior officers for that—they are reacting to their political masters’ ambitions. Indeed, to echo the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), as Armed Forces Day approaches, it is important that we all acknowledge the sacrifice and service that people in uniform make to protect us.

In terms of protection and the Indo-Pacific tilt, I am not certain what or whom will be protected in that theatre, and I do not understand what incumbency there is on the United Kingdom to play that role, other than an ambition towards arresting a decrease in relevance. I do not see India or Australia patrolling off the coast of Scotland—that said, neither do I see the Royal Navy patrolling off the coast of Scotland very often. Of course, Canada and the United States have a Pacific coast, so they have a relevance and a role

How is this going to be done? Let us take a look at the assets. As we would expect, the United Kingdom is a very senior member of the F-35 club—it would be a scandal if it was not playing a role within that—and a significant part of every one of those aircraft is manufactured in the United Kingdom. The people working in that facility should be tremendously proud of that. The problem is, it is not the 138 F-35s that were originally vaunted but an order of 48 as yet not fully fulfilled, with a further 26 to come. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you wanted to see a strained defence procurement budget, that would be it. The F-35s are the B-variant, so they will happily operate off a carrier—unlike Typhoon, which cannot. France figured out that conundrum much more successfully. So those F-35s will not have the mass they require as an APEX theatre weapons instrument to direct fire elsewhere.

We have nuclear-powered attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines—SSN and SSBN—which are of course part of what the UK is very keen on; I will get to that later. The Queen Elizabeth carriers are both excellent Scottish-built ships, and I look forward to HMS Prince of Wales being back on active service just as soon as possible. On support ships to support carrier strike, the Type 23s are way past their sell-by date, for want of investment. If the Type 45s have not been through the power improvement project, they will not be going to the Indo-Pacific any time soon, because they cannot make it past the Mediterranean. On fleet solid support, my goodness: we have Royal Navy warships designed by the Spanish and largely built in Spain. What on earth would Sir Francis Drake make of that?

On SSN-AUKUS, I wonder whether the Royal Navy has explained to the Australians about the 14 rotting submarines in Devonport and the seven in Rosyth, and the inability to either fund or prosecute their recycling. There is the cost of that and the scandalous cost of the refit of HMS Vanguard. Government Members are very excited about the nuclear enterprise and the SSN and SSBN, but I think they are less enthusiastic about the steel for those submarines coming from France. It is literally beyond comprehension. In terms of further defence of carrier strike, they will not have Crowsnest any time soon. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be surprised to hear that fully 10 years after it was supposed to be available, it is still not available, costs are out of control and there is no idea when it will be in a position to protect the carrier strike. So, in essence, it is a pretty patchy picture.

On the cost of nuclear, there are eye-watering costs for: the long overhaul period and refuel, as we have touched on; keeping Vanguard boats in service for want of replacing them in time; and the delays and cost overruns to Astute. Given the through-life costs of hundreds of billions of pounds, nuclear waste disposal, rising sea levels potentially affecting all seven nuclear sites in the United Kingdom, and Scotland forced to host nuclear submarines, it is quite clear that of all the peoples of the world, Scotland’s have the most to fear from the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

The cost of nuclear is an opportunity cost, as well as in cash terms. What many will not know is how stretched the United Kingdom defence enterprise is. If you want evidence of that, it is manifest in the fabric of the defence estate. I encourage anybody to go to a local defence establishment in their constituency, if they have one, and see that some of them look like they were abandoned at the end of the cold war. That is because, in terms of maintenance and repair, they were abandoned at the end of the cold war. Our accommodation offer for our service personnel is risible. We have talked about ageing platforms of Type 23 and Vanguard. Vanguard’s unplanned maintenance means it has gone beyond its 2024 retirement date, beyond 2028 and is now into the early 2030s at extraordinary extra cost. There are four Dreadnought boats at a cost of £31 billion, plus £100 billion for through-life support. That £131 billion is 6% of the defence budget for 30 years of service. It is simply eye-watering. And of course, of the paltry £5 billion extra for defence this year squeezed out of the Chancellor, £3 billion has to go on nuclear.

UK defence policy is in crisis. We can see that from the dropping of orders for F-35s and E-7 Wedgetails. We can see it in the recruitment crisis, with poor pay, poor retention and unacceptable conditions. We can see it in the damning results of the armed forces personnel attitudes surveys; the unaffordable obsession with nuclear; conventional capabilities pared to the bone; no armoured fighting vehicles; geriatric main battle tanks, combat air pilots who only do air policing; cutting corners; fitting for but not with; 10 years to train fast jet pilots; binning perfectly good C-130Js; losing fast jet pilots after two tours, at extraordinary cost to the taxpayer; and in the budget of 2.5% of GDP

“as fiscal and economic circumstances allow”,—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 837.]

That is fooling nobody.

Then there is the big one: Germany. Germany’s 2% commitment, notwithstanding its extra €100 billion, means that its defence budget will outstrip the United Kingdom’s defence budget. The UK will be reduced to playing second fiddle on the defence stage within the European arena. If it is not careful, without serious investment in defence, France will overtake the United Kingdom too.

The title of the debate is “Global Military Operations.” My contention is that it is difficult to be taken seriously as a global military power when you can no longer command primacy in your own region of the world.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Continuity, focus and a relentless grip on detail are the hallmarks of a competent defence procurement Minister. In less than a year, we are on our fourth defence procurement Minister, so we do not have the continuity bit nailed down. Will the new Minister reassure the House of his competence by enlightening us of the most challenging defence procurement issue on his desk this week?

[James Cartlidge]

I look to my left and my right and I see continuity. I am grateful to follow in the steps of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who did a sterling job. To give one example, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) mentioned the issue of replenishment. I recently had the privilege of visiting British troops training Ukrainian forces, as referred to by the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). We have to remember, it is not just that we are training 15,000 personnel to go back out to Ukraine and defend their homeland; every time they go we are giving them high-quality kit. There are lessons to learn from what has happened in Ukraine, but we should be incredibly proud of that effort. We have procured at pace, gifted in kind and ensured that Ukraine has been able to sustain its fight to this day.

[Dave Doogan]

Well, that’s crystal clear. One of the things the Minister said when talking about Ukraine, in answer to my question about procurement, was about replenishment. He will know, even in his short tenure in the job, that small and medium-sized enterprises are the lifeblood of any military-industrial complex. Can he explain why, in answer to my parliamentary question a couple of weeks ago asking if the Ministry of Defence would attend a public sector meet-the-buyer event in Edinburgh, which is attended by other UK Government Departments, the MOD—a £50 billion-resourced organisation—cited a lack of resource as the reason it could not attend? Is that a special kind of indifference that is reserved for Scotland?

[James Cartlidge]

Of course not. I am happy to look into that. I want to assure the hon. Gentleman that the latest figures show that the proportion that the MOD spends with SMEs has increased from 19.3% in 2018-19 to 23% in 2021. I ran an SME before coming to this place—it was not a defence SME but I know how important they are. They give us creativity and innovation, and I want to work with them and the primes in delivering the British defence industry, because we see that as a key part of our own defence capability.

AUKUS Defence Partnership

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is assiduous in his attention to the issue of the deterrent and the nuclear submarine capability in general. His point about the surface fleet is absolutely right. As a relatively new Minister coming into the Department, it has been encouraging to see the approach taken on Type 31—in other words, the choice of a platform that is deliverable, affordable and configurable to a mission. We have to move beyond a situation where exquisite and highly expensive capabilities are not necessarily operating on a particular mission to their full specification, so Type 31s can be reconfigured for anti-piracy missions, war-fighting missions or humanitarian missions. The British people want to see British warships and frigates acting in the national interest abroad in a sustainable and affordable way, and that is the approach we are taking.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I am not a huge advocate of nuclear submarines, but I recognise their dynamic advantages over air-independent propulsion, in terms of range, speed and duration. Moreover, as the SNP’s lead on defence, I spend my time engaged on the defence posture and resources that an independent Scotland will require to defend our national interests and those of our allies collectively, in a way that is consistent with Scotland’s defence and security priorities, so I will not lecture Australia or the United Kingdom on what is right for them. I encourage the Defence Procurement Minister to acknowledge the outstanding engineering prowess that supports attack submarines at Thales in Glasgow and MacTaggart Scott in Loanhead. Nevertheless, I wish everybody in Barrow-in-Furness every success with the work and I hope it generates great prosperity there.

I note the challenges in delivering Astute-class SSN in the UK, with boats one to three being delivered five years late and 53% over budget. What assurances has the UK given to the Australians that that contagion will not affect SSN-AUKUS? What about refit—will the UK be helping Australia with technology transfer and how to refit the boats? Presumably not, given that, due to the Ministry of Defence’s dithering and short-termism, HMS Vanguard required seven years to overhaul and refuel, rather than the planned two, with an attendant cost explosion.

Of the 21 submarines languishing at end of life—seven at Rosyth and a further 14 at Devonport in England—only seven have been defuelled. This scandal sees the previous HMS Vanguard, which went out of service in 1980 and has a 62-year-old hull, still sitting there waiting for the Government to put the money in to safely dispose of it. We have the industrial expertise in the United Kingdom to do that work, so why are the Government not funding their responsibilities? Has the UK cautioned the Australians that it is not enough simply to fund the build, commission and operation of these nuclear submarines, because states must also allocate the budget for disposal? Has the MOD had that conversation, and if so, how did it manage the hypocrisy of it all?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his sunny observations, which were hugely appreciated. If I can begin at the end, I was disappointed to hear him asking questions about whether the Australians have been reminded about decommissioning, because it is in the very document that I would have thought he had read. This document, at page 41, talks about radioactive waste management and Australia’s plans to do precisely that, so I am pleased to have been able to deal with that.

On the issue the hon. Gentleman raised about the expertise in Scotland, let me join him, in the spirit of unity across the House, in commending the excellence in Scotland. I am delighted that it is the Ministry of Defence in a British Government that has ensured that those brilliant experts in Scotland have got the ships to work on. That simply would not happen in the event of independence, and he needs to be straight with the Scottish people about that.

On the second issue about refitting, let me say that one advantage of co-operating across the three nations is that we have not only the broader industrial capability to build these boats in the first place, but the capability to develop them over time. One thing he will well understand, as others in the House also recognise, is that it is not enough to think about the capability of the platform on day one; we have to consider how it will develop through the years. Our ability to do that and to ensure that it remains at the cutting edge is immeasurably enhanced by the fact that we are operating across the three nations.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about dismantling, I hope I can reassure him. Swiftsure, one of the boats he referred to, is being dismantled as the demonstrator—that will be completed by 2026—and low-level radioactive waste has been removed already from Swiftsure, Resolution and Revenge. The matters are in hand, and they will continue at pace.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

On military personnel, what is the Secretary of State’s understanding of the recruitment crisis in defence, with the Army in particular and especially in the Royal Regiment of Scotland? The 4th Battalion the Highlanders satisfies almost 20% of its vacancies from the Commonwealth. Is it the poor service accommodation, mediocre pay, lack of career opportunities or substandard equipment that is driving young Scots away from a career in the British Army?

[Mr Wallace]

As an officer in a Scottish regiment, I remember distinctly not being allowed to recruit in towns or schools where SNP councillors ran those schools. I distinctly remember that the SNP was so unwelcoming to members of the armed forces it was having a detrimental effect on recruitment. I would be very interested to know if the SNP has now changed its tone. It certainly has on NATO membership. We remember that it used to not want to be part of NATO; it now does. I do not see the Army categorised as the hon. Member has just described it. If he carries on talking the armed forces down like that, no wonder people are not that keen to join. There has been a recruitment challenge for the infantry for as long as I was serving in the Army. That is over many, many years under both Labour and Conservative Governments. We have to ensure that the offer is improved. That is one reason why we did wraparound childcare to reflect how people live, and why we are investing in both married and single accommodation.

[Dave Doogan]

The Secretary of State says that he does not recognise the characterisation, but it is based in fact. Sticking to reality, where Germany allocates an extra €100 billion in response to Ukraine, the UK allocates an extra £5 billion. The United States is frustrated that the British Army is no longer a top-level fighting force. The RAF takes 10 years to train a pilot in combat, Army procurement could not order a pizza and get it delivered on time and on budget, and the Navy barely has enough F-35s for one aircraft carrier much less two. Is it not the case, to the great frustration of men and women in uniform, that this Tory Government over the last 13 years have created an ornamental defence force—nice to look at; don’t ask it to do very much or sustain it for very long?

[Mr Wallace]

I am getting lessons from the SNP on procurement, when Ferguson shipyard is clinging on by its fingernails. When push comes to shove, Scotland buys its ferries from Turkey, not from Scotland, when it has a perfectly good Clyde in which to build them. The hon. Gentleman goes on about all the things that he thinks are wrong with the armed forces, yet he will campaign to break Scotland away from the UK, reduce the Scottish armed forces to a rubber dinghy and tell everyone else that it is all the fault of the English. The reality is that Scotland is a proud contributor to our armed forces—it has been in history and is today. Also, the accommodation, the experience and the equipment that the soldiers have today are far better than many of us had in the early ’90s. It would be nice if, once in a while, the SNP in Scotland did more than stand in front of ceremonial troops, and instead got out there and helped to recruit soldiers and helped the schools to talk about what is important about defence, rather than always talk it down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Multiple major procurement projects for which the Submarine Delivery Agency is responsible are late or over budget, or often both. Taxpayers are used to the concept of bonuses, but in the real world these bonuses are linked to performance. Those same taxpayers are haemorrhaging billions of their hard-earned taxes on the demonstrable failures of the MOD, not least those of the SDA. How can the Secretary of State justify giving six-figure bonuses to executives of failing MOD agencies? On the eminently reasonable supposition that he cannot defend the indefensible, what will he do to rectify those incoherent remuneration packages going forward?

[Mr Wallace]

The payments represent a number of new appointments that we have made and that we are turning around the Submarine Delivery Agency to improve availability. One area of deep concern has been the consequences of the hollowing out over the decades of maintenance and the availability of dry docks and other things in places such as Devonport which allow us to make sure that submarines are maintained in time to achieve better availability. The work is going well. It is important sometimes to change the workforce and ensure that we get the best, capable people possible to turn things around. I am confident that the new team are able to do that, and I am looking forward to seeing the results.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Much of the international support that is going to Ukraine will be deployed to defend Ukrainians against the barbarity of the Wagner Group private militia. Will the Minister explain to the UK’s allies why the UK Government made available the frozen assets of Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in order that he could take out a case against a British journalist? Given this inexplicable accommodation, will the Minister confirm whether this Tory Government roll out the red carpet exclusively for Russian warlords? Or is it an inclusive UK service, available to war criminals everywhere?

[James Heappey]

The presence of Wagner on the frontline in the Donbas is clearly a reflection of just how bad things have got for Putin and the Russian armed forces—so bad that a mercenary group that recruits from prisons is required. As for the substantive part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, it sounds like that might be a question for my Treasury colleagues; I will make sure that they write to him with an answer.

Ukraine: Update

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I welcome the detail and the substance of the Secretary of State’s statement. Moreover, I believe the timing is very welcome as we close in on the first anniversary of the outrageous attack on Ukraine by Putin and his forces last February.

All of us, regardless of our political allegiances or differences in other areas, must stand up for the international rules-based system, the right of sovereignty and the value of self-determination where they are under attack, not simply at the outset of conflict, when hackles are raised and outrage piqued, but as we endure almost a year of the conflict’s effects on these shores, in our homes and on our industry and wider resources, and as we continue to witness Russia’s hybrid terror heaped upon the people of Ukraine. Now is the time to double down on the west’s support and commitment to Ukraine in defending itself against this aggression. It is time to leave Putin in no doubt that the west’s resolve, politically and in every other respect, is there for Ukraine to see.

I would like to know three things. The Secretary of State said on 12 December that he would not pursue sending redundant UK Warrior infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine because they are tracked vehicles weighing 28 tonnes and because of the logistical tail that comes with them. So what has changed in a month to allow him to now send a squadron of 68-tonne Challenger tanks, with the very much more complex logistics and support burden that go along with them? Can he also set out the duration of the period between this announcement and those Challengers 2s having operational effect within the Ukraine battlespace? And given that European NATO nations must doubtless follow this development with similar donations of Leopard 2 tanks, is he prepared to review not just the number of Challenger 3s, but whether the Challenger 3 will be the right solution for the UK going forward at all? When we see the Challengers and Leopard 2s going toe to toe with the same peer adversary, we will see much more clearly which is the better tank.

[Mr Wallace]

I am always happy to keep under review the number of tanks and what we have. One lesson of Ukraine, however, is that, whether it is a modern or not-so-modern tank, unless it is properly protected and supported, by counter-drone capability, electronic warfare or a proper wrap, it can become incredibly vulnerable, going from being the lion on the savannah to being a very vulnerable thing. When we look at the finite amount of money we all have in government, how much do we commit to make a perfectly formed battle group, or how much do we take a risk? The Russians took a risk on the road to Kyiv and that is where we are.

The Warrior and the Challenger are obviously different vehicles, but as I referenced earlier the 50 Bradleys—the United States vehicles—are probably in better condition than our Warriors and these Challengers are designed to complement those. Hopefully, we will be training together, with the Challenger and the Bradley interoperating. In addition, there are issues with the Warrior fleet. Obviously, I am happy to constantly look at that and I will not rule it out but, for now, on taking 12 tanks as opposed to what would probably have to be 40-odd Warriors to make it a company-sized level, I would prefer to focus on the AS-90s and the Challenger tanks to make that difference.