Integrated Review Refresh

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)]

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the 2023 integrated review refresh. I smile because it is a genuine delight to see you back in this House and back in your place.

Two years ago, the Government’s integrated review set out a clear strategy on how the UK would continue to thrive in a far more competitive age. Our approach is the most comprehensive since the end of the cold war. It laid out how we would bring together the combined might of every part of Government to ensure that our country remains safe, prosperous and influential into the 2030s. The conclusions of that review have run as a golden strategic thread through all of our activities across defence and deterrence, diplomacy, trade and investment, intelligence, security, international development, and science and technology over the past two years.

Our overall analysis was right, and our strategic ambition is on track. On every continent of the world, the United Kingdom walks taller today than it has done for many years. We are meeting our obligations as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and as a leading European ally within an expanding NATO. We have strong relationships with our neighbours in Europe, and we will build on the Windsor framework to invigorate those relationships even further. We are deeply engaged in the Indo-Pacific and active in Africa, and enjoy thriving relationships with countries in the middle east and the Gulf.

As I am sure this House recalls, today is Commonwealth Day, and I will be meeting my fellow Commonwealth Foreign Ministers in London over the course of the week.

We have maintained our position as a global leader on international development by pursuing patient, long-term partnerships tailored to the needs of our partner countries, and we succeed because those partnerships draw on the full range of UK strengths and expertise, in addition to our official development assistance. As this House will of course be aware, the severe global turbulence forecast in the 2021 integrated review has indeed come to pass, but events have moved at an even quicker pace than anyone could have imagined just two years ago. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and attempts to annex part of its sovereign territory challenge the entire international order. Across the world, state threats have grown and systematic competition has intensified. There is a growing prospect of further deterioration in the coming years.

Due to the far-reaching consequences for the security and prosperity of the British people that these changes have brought, it is right that I update the House on what the Government are doing to respond. In our “Integrated Review Refresh 2023”, we set out how we respond to an even more contested and volatile world. Rightly, our approach is an evolution, not a revolution. I know that the House will agree that our most pressing foreign policy priority is the threat that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine poses for European security.

The UK has provided huge quantities of military support for Ukraine’s defence. We led the G7 response on Ukraine, co-ordinating diplomatic activity and working with our allies to impose the toughest ever sanctions on Putin’s Government. Thanks to the wisdom of this Government’s original integrated review, we have intensified our training for thousands of brave Ukrainian troops, who repelled Russia’s initial onslaught. That momentum must be maintained until Ukraine prevails and the wider threat that Russia and other states, such as Iran or North Korea, pose to the international order with their aggression or potential aggression is contained.

The 2023 integrated review refresh also sets out how the Government will approach the challenges presented by China. China’s size and significance connect it to almost every global issue, but we cannot be blind to the increasingly aggressive military and economic behaviour of the Chinese Communist party, including stoking tensions across the Taiwan strait and attempts to strong-arm partners, most recently Lithuania. We will increase our national security protections and ensure alignment with our core allies and a wider set of international partners. We must build on our own and our allies’ resilience to cyber-threats, manipulation of information, economic instability and energy shocks so that we remain at the front of the race for technologies such as fusion power, which will define not only the next decade, but the rest of this century.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will say more on Government spending commitments in his Budget statement on Wednesday, but today I can set out a number of immediate and longer-term measures that will help us to deliver on our priorities. We will increase defence spending by a further £5 billion over the next two years. That will bring us to around 2.25% of national income and represents significant progress in meeting our long-term minimum defence spending target of 2.5% of GDP. Today’s announcement of £5 billion comes on top of the commitments made by the Chancellor in his autumn statement, on top of the £560 million of new investments last year, and on top of the record £20 billion uplift announced in 2020.

Later today, the Prime Minister will announce, alongside President Biden and Prime Minister Albanese, the next steps for AUKUS, including how we will deliver multibillion-pound conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine capabilities to the Royal Australian Navy while setting the highest proliferation standards.

We will provide an additional £20 million uplift to the BBC World Service over the next two years, protecting all 42 World Service language services.

We have established a new directorate in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, incorporating the Government information cell, to increase our capacity to assess and counter hostile information manipulation by actors, including Russia and China, where it affects UK interests overseas.

We will double funding for Chinese expertise and capacities in government so that we have more Mandarin speakers and China experts. We will create a new £1 billion integrated security fund to deliver critical programmes at home and overseas on key priorities such as economic and cyber-security, counter-terrorism, and the battle to uphold and defend human rights.

We will establish a new national protective services authority located within MI5. It will provide UK businesses and other organisations with immediate access to expert security advice. A new £50 million economic deterrence initiative will strengthen sanctions enforcement and impact, and will give us new tools to respond to hostile acts. We will publish the UK’s first semiconductor strategy, which will grow our domestic industry for that vital technology, as well as an updated critical minerals strategy.

The 2023 integrated review reconfirms that the UK will play a leading role in upholding stability, security and the prosperity of our continent and the Euro-Atlantic as a whole. It underlines that this Government’s investment in our Indo-Pacific strategy is yielding significant results across defence, diplomacy and trade. Through those initiatives and many others that we have set out over the past two years, the United Kingdom will out-compete those who seek to destabilise the international order and undermine global stability. Our approach is imbued with a spirit of international co-operation and a pragmatic willingness to work with any country that does not seek to undermine our way of life.

We live in a competitive age, and the security challenges that the British people face today are the most serious in at least a generation. Time and again in our history, we have seen off the competition from countries that wish to do us no good. We were able to do so because the United Kingdom has always had more allies, and better allies, than any of our rivals or competitors. It will always be the policy of this Government to ensure that that remains the case. I commend the statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cleverly]

I am not a religious man, but I understand that there is a phrase in the Bible about how there is more joy in heaven over a sinner who repents, and it is really good to hear—[Interruption.] As I say, I am not a religious man, but I am joyful that those on the Labour Front Bench have finally, perhaps kicking and screaming, come to such a realisation.

Let us take official development assistance. At its lowest point, this Government are still spending a larger proportion of GDP on ODA than at the highest point under the Labour party when it was in government. I remember when the Russian state was instrumental in poisoning British citizens and the leader of the Labour party at the time was saying that we should share our intelligence with the very state that was poisoning British people. I am now glad, finally, to hear a commitment from the Labour Front Bench about maintaining the nuclear deterrent and about support for NATO. It is interesting that we are being criticised for getting defence spending to 2.25% of GDP with a commitment to 2.5% of GDP, because I hear no such commitment formally from the shadow Defence team.

The simple truth of the matter is that the right hon. Gentleman made a number of points about what Labour would do differently, and then said that, broadly, he agrees with this strategy. I am glad that he agrees with the strategy, because we have been working on this, we have been implementing the 2021 integrated review and we have seen the positive impact it has had on our relations in the Indo-Pacific. The signing of the FCAS—future combat air systems—agreement between Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom is testament to that, as is the fact that the carrier strike group’s maiden voyage was to that region. The fact that we are seen absolutely at the forefront of the international support to Ukraine in its self-defence against Russia’s invasion is also testament to that.

This Government will always be an internationally focused Government. We will always make sure that we act in close concert with our international partners and we will build greater partnerships around the world. That is what this refresh is about. It builds on the work of the original integrated review, and I am very proud that we have put it in the public domain.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

It is a joy to see you back in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I welcome much of this pragmatic refresh, and it is good to see recommendations by the Foreign Affairs Committee embraced, such as making resilience a key pillar, the Mandarin capability, the criticality of critical minerals, deterrence diplomacy, and the importance of science and technology. However, the threat of China cannot be seen primarily as an economic one, because that is to fail to recognise that it is trying to undermine our security and sovereignty. The asks are: greater resolve when dealing with transnational repression. That means shutting down illegal Chinese police stations, and closing down the Iranian regime’s cut-outs that are operating in London and across our country.

I welcome the creation of the National Protective Security Authority to tackle techno-authoritarianism, but that is support for the private sector. I hope, therefore, that the Government will accept my amendment on support for public sector procurement when the Procurement Bill comes forward in a couple of weeks. Finally, the Government rightly talk about the reconstruction of Ukraine in the refresh. Will the Foreign Secretary commit to using frozen central bank funds? The Government seem to claim that we do not have the law in place to do that, or that it is not legally tested. Tell us what law change is needed, we will make it, and let us test it in the courts.