Foreign Affairs and Defence

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. We are slightly running out of time now, so I am going to ensure that our two remaining maiden speakers get in. There will obviously be no time limit on them, but I urge them to think of other colleagues. I will try to get in as many people as possible, but I am afraid we are slightly running out of time because there have been some quite long speeches. I call Martin McCluskey to make his maiden speech.

[Martin McCluskey (Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns), who spoke with such passion, and the many other hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon.

Like many in this Chamber, I am a Member for a new constituency. Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West stretches along the Clyde coast and takes in the coastal communities of Inverkip, Wemyss Bay, Gourock, Greenock and Port Glasgow, before moving inland to the villages of Kilmacolm, Quarrier’s, Bridge of Weir, and Houston, as well as Crosslee and Craigends. My constituency has a proud history of looking outward around the world, from producing the ships that contributed to our maritime defence to providing the base for the free French navy during world war two. More recently, it has continued with the idea of giving people refuge by contributing to the Ukrainian refugee and resettlement programme.

It is also—people will not be surprised to hear me say this—a beautiful part of the world. I know it is a bit of a tradition for Members to say that their constituency is the most beautiful in the country, and I do not intend to disappoint this afternoon, so Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West is the most beautiful constituency in the country. But it is not the beauty of our surroundings that I am most proud of; it is the resilience, the kindness and the determination of our people.

I have the privilege of representing the place where I was born and raised, and where I continue to live. I see every day what people achieve together for the benefit of the community. In Gourock, which I also have the pleasure of representing on Inverclyde council, the “Bowl and a Blether” group at St John’s church grew out of the cost of living crisis, but is now a regular event where people from all walks of life can come together for a chat and a warm meal. In Port Glasgow, Parklea Branching Out provides opportunities for people to develop their skills and talents through horticulture. It has gone from strength to strength since it opened in 1997, and earlier this year I had the pleasure of seeing how it was investing to expand its work. In Greenock, the Inverclyde Shed has redeveloped an old industrial building to create a space for people, in its words, to meet, make, grow and share. In Bridge of Weir just last weekend, I visited the Bridge community centre. It was set up with the simple purpose of providing a post office for the village, but now provides a shop and a community space right on the high street.

Our people bring our communities to life. They look out for each other, and they rarely ask for anything in return. The Prime Minister has spoken about a Government of service, and it is the people of my constituency who I look to as the best example of what service really means.

In the last Parliament, these wonderful people and places were represented by two Members: Ronnie Cowan for Inverclyde and Gavin Newlands for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, which covered the villages of Bridge of Weir and Houston. Both of them served their constituents with distinction. I want to pay particular tribute to Ronnie Cowan, who was my opponent in three elections. He will be remembered fondly in Inverclyde for his important campaigning in the last Parliament to improve treatment and support for people affected by drug addiction—a problem that emerges from the hopelessness that so many people feel today.

That hopelessness has its roots in decisions made decades ago that still scar many of our communities. Today, we live with the consequences of the loss of much of our shipbuilding industry and the failure to find a sustainable replacement for those jobs. In his maiden speech in 1983, one of my predecessors, Norman Godman, described shipbuilding and engineering as

“the economic backbone of Greenock and Port Glasgow.”—[Official Report, 24 June 1983; Vol. 44, c. 283.]

But today, only about 7% of those at work in my constituency are employed in a manufacturing business. That issue was raised by another of my predecessors, Iain McKenzie, who led a debate on manufacturing in this place almost a decade ago. It is therefore disappointing that under the last Government we did not see the progress that was called for.

The measures announced yesterday will begin the work of changing that. GB Energy and the Government’s plans for a national wealth fund are as important for reducing our dependence on foreign energy reserves as they are for providing opportunities here at home. I welcome the ambition of the Government’s plans. They are putting the brakes on the approach that says that decline is inevitable. For my constituency, Government working in partnership with energy companies, with shipyards and with advanced manufacturers, including in the defence sector, can bring prosperity back to the Clyde. I was encouraged to hear the Secretary of State laying out how defence and the defence industries will be central to the Government’s agenda for growth.

Industries such as shipbuilding did not just provide people with a source of employment and income. They gave them strong relationships, dignity, pride and a sense that the future offered promise and opportunity rather than decline and despair. As a boy, I learned this from my grandfather, who was the union treasurer at Scotts shipyard in Greenock. Work and the trade union movement provided him with a route out of poverty, the ability to provide for his family and the chance to ensure that his children and grandchildren could see their living standards increase, generation after generation. That is what good work does for people and for communities, and that is why investing in the jobs of the future must go hand in hand with ensuring people’s rights at work. The new deal for working people will provide the certainty of well-paid work, underpinned by strong rights and protections.

Across Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West, there are already examples of manufacturing businesses, trading internationally, that are offering high-quality, unionised jobs. Bridge of Weir Leather, which produces the leather for these Benches, is a family-run business that trades around the world from my constituency. James Walker Devol, an engineering firm with a decades-long history in Inverclyde, produces advanced plastics for the oil and gas industry and the renewables sector from its factory in Gourock.

The Chancellor has set out her ambition for sustainable growth that includes every part of the country. She knows what every Labour Chancellor and every Labour Government have understood, which is that economic growth in every part of Britain and a strong economy allow us to pay for the services that our communities so desperately need.

I spoke earlier about my family, and about my grandparents’ ambition that their children should do better than they did. I close by saying something about the people who taught me the values that led me here, and about those who encouraged me to put those values in the service of my community through politics.

My grandmother was born in 1914, and in the early 1930s she made her first trip to London to enter domestic service for the man who then owned Tottenham Hotspur football club. She sent the money she made back home to help her mother raise 12 children in a two-room flat on Rue End Street in Greenock. Within two generations, her grandson has found his own way to London to sit in the House of Commons.

Like all new Members, I did not achieve this alone. My family and community taught me the values that led me into public service. Unfortunately, neither of my parents lived long enough to see this, but they gave me the start in life that I want to see for every child. And I was lucky to know two Members of this House who demonstrated to me the best of what public service has to offer.

The first was the former Member for Glasgow East, Margaret Curran, who has had a lifelong commitment to public service and taught me the cut and thrust of Scottish politics—for anyone who has not realised, there is a lot of cut and thrust in Scottish politics. The second was the former Member for Inverclyde, David Cairns, who I know was loved by many in this House. David was a model MP who worked hard for all his constituents and who built his reputation on delivering for people in our community. As a gay man in politics 20 years ago, he showed me that who you love should not be a barrier to holding elected office. It is often said that, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” If not for David Cairns and the model he set, I know I would not be standing here today with my soon-to-be husband watching from the Gallery above.

In everything I do in this place, I will work to live up to their example and to the values of the people and community that raised me.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

I call John Cooper to make his maiden speech.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey) on his excellent maiden speech, which is difficult to follow. I gently say that it is marred only by the fact that he did not reference two of his most famous constituents: William Kidd, the pirate, and my mother, who was born in Houston.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to take part in this important debate at the dawn of this new Parliament. I also thank my colleagues for their wise counsel and help as I take my first steps here in the cockpit of democracy.

Defence is the No. 1 task of any Government, as we have heard, and I am proud that my constituency, Dumfries and Galloway, has many fine young men and women currently in our armed forces, and many gallant veterans who have served on air, sea and land. Of course, like every constituency, Dumfries and Galloway has many people working in the UK’s world-class defence industry, which deserves our support.

I worry about using the expression “punching above our weight” in relation to our armed forces. A British major general who served with distinction in Afghanistan, and who knows a lot more about conflict and boxing than I do, told me, “That’s a recipe for getting knocked out as soon as the bell rings.”

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Alister Jack. I make it clear that, although such praise is customary on these occasions, I offer tribute not out of duty but out of genuine respect and admiration. As a special adviser, I had a front-row seat for Alister’s tour-de-force performance as Secretary of State for Scotland. Under his leadership, the Scotland Office, small but perfectly formed—not unlike myself—was a bantamweight bazooka, bang on target for the people of Scotland on issues including equality, the independence debate and the benighted A75 and A77 roads that are so crucial to Dumfries and Galloway. I hope I can apply the lessons learned at the feet of the master for the betterment of Dumfries and Galloway. I got the finest start possible there and I want to make sure others get the same chances.

Only through marrying the talent and aspiration that abound in the south-west of Scotland with opportunities can we defeat that blight on all rural areas: depopulation. We need the three J’s: jobs, jobs, jobs. We have much work to do to make ours a go-to destination, not a go-through destination. Blessed with a balmy climate, we are home to some of the country’s finest dairy herds. Our unspoiled landscape is a tourism dream. The terrain, for instance around Newton Stewart and Minnigaff, is ideal for cycling. The Merrick, the Cairnsmore of Fleet and the Galloway hills are a delight for hikers. Stroll on the beach at Killantringan—I will help Hansard with the spelling later—on the rugged Rhins peninsula, and you will probably have the golden strand all to yourself, and you will see our Northern Irish friends in this great Union just 14 miles distant.

Dumfries itself, astride the mighty Nith, is rightly lauded as the “Queen of the South”. Erudite Wigtown is Scotland’s national book town, and there I picked up a copy of “If”, arguably the finest work by Rudyard Kipling. His lines,

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same”,

resonate now on the Government Benches, where Labour Members are having a moment in the sun, but also on the Opposition Benches, where the blue flame of Conservativism gutters in the storm, burns low, but does not go out.

Many suppose “If” to be about Kipling’s son, John, who was tragically killed serving with the Irish Guards in the great war. In fact, it was inspired by Leander Starr Jameson, who grew up in my home town of Stranraer, after his father took editorship of the Wigtownshire Free Press. That venerable newspaper is still in circulation, and I got my first and last journalism jobs there, as a trainee reporter and latterly as editor. Jameson led a daring raid against the South African Republic in 1896.

Perhaps there is something in the pristine waters of south-west Scotland that instils a resilience and self-reliance in its people, for John Paul Jones, father of the United States navy, was also a native Gallovidian. Jones unfortunately went pirate on us in the American revolution. Locked in mortal combat with the Royal Navy off Flamborough Head in 1779, he is reputed to have said:

“Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!”

I am proud, then, to have been elected to represent the redoubtable people of Dumfries and Galloway, inheritors of Jameson’s alacrity and Jones’s never-say-die attitude, both vital in today’s febrile times. In conclusion, Bonnie Gallowa’ has a storied past and, I am determined, a bright future. I shall endeavour, as Kipling didn’t quite put it, to keep the heid.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

I intend to call the wind-ups shortly after 4.30 pm, so there should be some very short speeches now to try to get everybody in. Remember, the short speeches are the best—the Gettysburg address was only four minutes. Richard Burgon, I know, will set an example.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

I join many others in congratulating Members on their maiden speeches—they were so much better than my own—but as we are short of time, let me move back to the topic of this debate, which is defence and foreign affairs. While I congratulate the incoming Government on their success, and we wish them well in the spirit of national service, there are serious concerns arising already from the Gracious Speech, and the disconnect between the words of the Government and their actions, particularly in relation to defence and foreign affairs.

Let us look first at the defence budget. We are told by the Government that the world is more dangerous than it has been in living memory. We are told that there is cast-iron support for increasing the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP, but where are the actions? Stability in terms of the defence budget would be to increase it to 2.5%. That was the decision already communicated by the Conservative Government. That means £75 billion of increased defence spending between now and 2031. Where is the stability, in a more dangerous world, in effectively reducing defence spending between now and 2030—particularly in an environment where defence procurement needs long-term reliability from which to plan? There seems to be a disconnect there.

The second area is veterans. We are told by the Labour Government that they are focused on the defence family, and that the defence process should be about people. Quite right too, but what about the veterans Minister? Under the last Government, the veterans Minister was a Cabinet member. He had the ability to look right across Government. What was said in the debate down in Plymouth Moor View a few weeks ago between the two gallant candidates? Did Labour stand on a programme that said, “We’re going to reduce the importance of the veterans Minister. We’re going to make them a junior Minister who will be subsumed within the Ministry of Defence”? I doubt that was the message that the residents of Plymouth voted on, but that is what the Government are planning to do. I ask the Government to think again about that.

Finally, let us look at the overseas development aid budget. Back in the dark days of 2021, when our economy was struggling from the fallout from covid—this massive global pandemic—the Conservative Government took the very difficult decision to reduce ODA from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%, with an ambition to reverse that as the economic conditions allowed. At the time, Labour was furious and outraged by that, saying that even in the economic situation that existed in 2021 it was the wrong decision. The then shadow Minister for International Development, the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), said:

“Britain and the world deserve better than a Foreign Secretary who has allowed the aid budget to be slashed, leaving our global reputation lying in tatters”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 1021.]

The now Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that

“to choose to break this promise to the world’s poorest people is unforgivable”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 1028.]

But what is Labour doing now? The economy has improved significantly since those dark days, yet Labour’s action is to keep the figure at 0.5%.

Labour tells us that we need to increase trust in politicians, and that trust must be restored. Well, the way to do that is to act in government in the way that they said they would act when in opposition. I intend to hold this new Government to account.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have sat through this important debate and it has been an absolute pleasure. What a galaxy of maiden speeches we have heard all around us—and that, of course, is democracy. Everyone can take great encouragement from what they have seen today.

The only problem is that I do not know all these new faces, so can I issue a blanket apology in advance to all those on the Labour Benches if I come up to them and say, “I’m so pleased you are a new Lib Dem MP”? I do not mean anything by it. If I say to Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches, “Well done on getting elected on a Labour ticket”, I am terribly sorry about that. You can take comfort, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the fact that I visited an old folks’ home recently and a lovely old lady thought I was Jeremy Thorpe. At least it was the right party.

I am on my feet today because my party’s defence spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), is ill with covid. I am sure we all wish him a speedy recovery. However, I did five years as my party’s defence spokesperson. That leads me to my main theme, which I will touch on by simply saying that we will build relationships with those on the Government Front Bench and the shadow Front Bench—that is how we work.

I will always remember Ben Wallace arranging for me and the present Secretary of State to be helicoptered to Belvoir castle for a meeting of the joint expeditionary force Foreign Ministers. I have never forgotten that, because it was just two days before Putin’s tanks rolled across the border. I remember going in the car from the MOD to board our military helicopter, and the civil servant asking me and the present Secretary of State, “What do you think will happen?” I think we both said, “He’ll probably invade.”

I also remember Ben Wallace saying, during the dinner with the Foreign Secretaries, “I am doing this because Governments change and it’s as well you are prepared, although you may belong to other parties, and that you know as much as you can about the defence brief.” I want to go on the record as thanking Ben Wallace for his very generous attitude to keeping me briefed on intelligence, and I thank the present Secretary of State for his generous offer to see that my colleague, my party’s defence spokesperson, is similarly briefed. That is very good news indeed.

I want to congratulate, through reasons of friendship, those on the Government Front Bench on their appointments; it is very good to see them in their places—and indeed, I am bound to say, it is good to see those on the Opposition Front Bench in their places. The shadow Foreign Secretary was quite correct to remind us of what is going on in Sudan. It is not just about Russia and Ukraine or the middle east; there are all sorts of terrible things happening in the world. I liked too the Secretary of State’s saying that Britain is “democracy’s most reliable ally”. We ought to remember that on a day like today, when all these new faces exemplify democracy in its good, healthy, working form.

I do not have much time, but I want to touch on two points, one of which I think those on both Front Benches know I care passionately about. I served for a short spell of time as a private soldier in the Territorial Army, and one of my children served in the forces until recently. The size of our forces matters an enormous amount to my party, and I think we all understand that we are very far stretched at the moment—hence my intervention earlier in the debate about the present size of the British Army being not exactly helpful to recruitment.

One other thing that I think is desperately important, based on when we met with the joint expeditionary force Foreign Ministers, is that—as all hon. Members have said—we must work across borders, we must work with the European community, and we must work with friends. Only by co-operation, by standing together, can we take on the Russian bear and see it off. As has quite correctly been said, if Ukraine falls, what is next?

Finally, in defence debates during my years in this place, I have always thought the atmosphere of consensus across party boundaries very important. I know from my own family that it was encouraging to our servicewomen and servicemen to know that politicians were speaking as one. From what I have heard this afternoon, I have no reason to worry that that will not go on in future. I think that we can work together for the defence of our nation, which we love so well.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

I call the Opposition spokesperson.