Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

I genuinely will not take 13 minutes for my contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Our armed forces give it their all every single day for our protection. Their level of commitment and courage is, sadly, not matched by this Government. Worse, as our Defence Committee report and the reports from the Public Accounts Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) show, the Government have presided over reductions in personnel, depletion of kit and delays in new capabilities. When it comes to the biggest threat of all, war, there is not a single service that is fully ready. This did not happen overnight. This is a culmination of, to use the words of the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), the “hollowing out” of our forces over the last 14 years. The new Defence Secretary rightly said that we are in a pre-war world. But to acknowledge that and then do nothing about it is negligent.

The world is in turmoil: war in Ukraine, conflict in the middle east, fear of conflict in the Indo-Pacific, an aggressive Russia and an unpredictable China, as well as our armed forces responding to humanitarian missions and MACA—military aid to the civil authorities—requests, as they did throughout the pandemic. This all makes a pre-war footing all the more urgent. This is not an exhaustive list, but when it comes to our Royal Navy there are delays to the Type 26 frigates, issues with the availability of SSNs, delays to Dreadnought and an over-reliance on RFA Fort Victoria. Our Royal Air Force has a shortfall in fixed-wing transport aircraft numbers, insufficient numbers of maritime patrol aircraft and Wedgetail airborne early warning systems, a lack of air-to-air refuelling, and a lack of ground-based air defence systems or an anti-ballistic missile capability. Our Army lacks infantry fighting vehicles, multiple launch rocket systems, Challenger tanks and armoured fighting vehicles.

We have rightly committed ammunition to Ukraine, but the £1.95 billion announced to replenish stockpiles was not ringfenced. We have heard that the Ministry of Defence is potentially using it to help offset funding shortfalls, instead of using it to restore our warfighting ability. Our lack of industrial capacity is also causing problems with replenishment in particular, as many companies, both at prime and sub-prime level, are facing challenges in scaling up. A failure to address supply chain issues represents a significant risk to production. As the PAC report from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch on the MOD’s equipment plan found, there is no credible Government plan to deliver the desired military capabilities.

As for our personnel, the Haythornthwaite review in 2022 found a net outflow of 4,660 per year from our armed forces. There are significant pinch points in cyber, digital and AI skills. Those who serve in our forces are exceptional people, but they are constantly being asked to do more with less. The result has been significantly lower morale, with recruitment and retention issues across our services and across the reserves. Our Defence Committee report notes:

“Either the Ministry of Defence must be fully funded to engage in operations whilst also developing warfighting readiness; or the Government must reduce the operational burden on the Armed Forces.”

These are difficult decisions to make, but it is obvious that the Government are not going to make them as they are limping towards electoral oblivion. Frustratingly, the Government hindered our inquiry considerably by not sharing with us the information they hold on readiness—information that used to be available. Worse still, they were unable to explain to us why this information has become classified. Bearing in mind that our allies and countries at greater risk than us share theirs, it is fair to conclude that the reason the information is not being shared is because readiness levels are far worse than even we conclude in our report.

Our conclusion, bluntly speaking, is that we are not ready for war. The recent Budget saw no increase for defence, and that is after the cuts referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). Just this week, ex-defence and security chiefs said we must prepare genuinely for war. But we do not have the personnel or the kit to be ready for war. Far worse than that, we do not have the right Government in place to be ready for it either.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the SNP Front-Bench spokesperson, let me just say that the Front-Bench contributions in this debate are longer than normal, but we will be able to finish the debate by 3 o’clock as I had indicated. The SNP will have 10 minutes, the Opposition 15 minutes and the Government 15 minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman did not give way to anyone so, if he will forgive me, I will continue.

My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) made an excellent point that we have heard a change of tone from Donald Trump in recent days.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

The Minister says it is important to understand how ready our forces are, so can he tell us why key information on readiness is no longer published and why none of it was shared with our Committee?

[James Cartlidge]

I am happy to engage with the Committee, as I did during the week on artificial intelligence. There will always be a balance to be struck between what we can share and where we have to recognise the sensitivity of defence.

From the High North to the Mediterranean, we are deploying 20,000 service personnel from our Navy, Army and Air Force on the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender, which is one of the alliance’s largest ever training exercises. It is a valuable opportunity to strengthen interoperability between us and our allies.

I am happy to report that, as the right hon. Members for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and for Warley (John Spellar) said, overnight we have had confirmation that a new defence and security co-operation agreement has been signed with Australia, which will make it easier for our armed forces to operate together in each other’s country. It will also help facilitate UK submarine crews to visit Australia as part of AUKUS.

A large number of points have been made in this debate, and I will try to take as many as I can. The Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin), and several others, particularly the right hon. Member for Warley, talked about the importance of industrial resilience, and I totally agree.

The right hon. Member for Warley made an important point about finance. We must not forget the private sector’s role in investing in defence. We have seen commentary on environmental, social and governance, on which he wants to see cross-Government work. I am pleased to confirm that, with my Treasury colleagues, we held a meeting at Rothschild’s in the City to see what more we can do, and I am confident that we will be saying more on this important point about how we make the case for investing in defence as a way of investing in peace.