Defence

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have given a lot of leeway to the hon. Gentleman who moved the motion, and to the Chairman of the Select Committee, both of whom took a lot of interventions, and that is good for rounded debate. It will be obvious to the House that a great many people wish to speak this afternoon. We have plenty of time, but that time will run out, and it will not be fair to everyone if individual members speak for much more than 10 minutes. So, as an advisory amount, 10 minutes would be just about right. If people speak for much more than that, I will have to impose a time limit, which stunts the debate. It is much better if everybody behaves in an honourable fashion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

Almost.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

For the avoidance of doubt, there is still one hon. Member to come and I have not forgotten him.

[John Woodcock]

Who could ever forget him? I say to my hon. Friend that I am terribly sorry—I had not seen him back there.

Let me just add a few thoughts on the threat we face, the budget constraints and personnel issues to the many cogent points that have been made in this debate. First, let me say that it is truly extraordinary that this country is in a position where the Ministry of Defence is locked in a battle with the Treasury and we are talking about desperately trying to save vital capabilities such as our amphibious capabilities, the size of the armed forces and so many others. We are scrapping merely to maintain things at their existing level, when we have heard so often and it is so obvious that the threats we are facing are expanding.

Russia has been mentioned many times in this debate. The scale of the threat posed by President Putin’s expansionist regime is not spoken about nearly enough. It is not mentioned nearly enough that, for the first time since the second world war, part of a European nation has been annexed by another European nation by force. That has almost fallen off the public and political agendas, yet it has happened and it will happen again, unless countries such as the UK can wake up to the scale of the threat we face. The values that we all hold dear are potentially in mortal danger. In an act of terrible complacency, we seemed to believe that the post-cold war consensus had settled those values for good, but they are being eroded. Even now, we are not prepared to understand the scale of the peril they are in.

We have an expansionist Russia, and we have, potentially, a similar mortal threat to our country and our values from the evil ideology of which the latest encapsulation has been Daesh. Although that organisation is crumbling, that ideology will certainly resurface in other forms. Part of the investment that this country makes to combat that ideology will extend far beyond the MOD’s capabilities, but we have seen its capacity to cohere around a capability that can control a state for a certain amount of time.

If we look just beyond Daesh’s first foothold in Iraq, we can see how in Syria our complacency about tackling Daesh and the perversion of Islam that it represents has mingled with our complacency about the threat posed by Russia. As has been well articulated not only today but in a Conservative Member’s question in Prime Minister’s questions this week, that has gravely diminished the UK’s standing and put a question mark not only over our capability to intervene if we wish, but over our willingness ever to do so, despite the fact that our values are threatened.

We have those two weaknesses coming together, as epitomised in Syria. We do not know what the future of the European Union will be after the UK leaves, but we have drawn a red line in respect of areas of future co-operation, so we must have our own capability outside the EU. America is retreating into itself. Aside from the monstrosities of President Trump’s regime, we simply cannot rely on America coming to the aid of our values in Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to correct the record, as it appears I may have inadvertently misled the House this morning. During business questions, I spoke of the Scottish Government sending two letters to the outgoing Culture Secretary without reply. Hansard did not record the words “without reply”, but the Minister responded to that specific point in his response. It has since come to my attention that the Scottish Government have recently received a response from the Secretary of State, and I did not want the day to end without correcting the record. I thank you for the opportunity to do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The record requires to be corrected and he has adequately done so.