Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment
Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and James Cartlidge(8 months, 1 week ago)
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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.
UK Armed Forces
Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and James Cartlidge(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend put that eloquently, and he speaks with great passion and expertise on the cold war and our recent history. As he knows, in the cold war era we had the working assumption that an invasion—or certainly a confrontation—could be launched on the border in Germany very quickly. We had a huge number of forces deployed, and given that threat we spent, understandably, a higher percentage of GDP on defence. Since then, we thought we had a more peaceful era. Those illusions have been shattered by Putin, and we have all had to wake up to that. That is why we have done so much to support Ukraine and, yes, why we will do everything possible to support our armed forces.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Secretary of State said he wanted to ensure that
“our entire defence ecosystem is ready”
to defend, but here is the reality of our armed forces under this Government: capability delays and shortfalls, stockpile shortages, losing personnel, woeful recruitment levels, a £29 billion black hole in finances, and, as of last week, no real boost to the MOD’s budget. The Secretary of State is failing, isn’t he?
James Cartlidge
When the hon. Lady talks about procurement and delays, I would have thought she could at least recognise the support we have given to Ukraine, where we have procured an extraordinary amount of ordnance into the country to help Ukrainians to defend themselves. Much of that has been at great pace, not least from gifting, for example, our AS-90s, a whole range of munitions, and 300,000 artillery shells. Had it not been this country’s role, I think we can safely say that Russia would have been successful.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and James Cartlidge(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point—of course, he speaks with great experience. As we have been stressing, the whole point of acquisition reform is, instead of seeking exquisite platforms, to go for 80% to get them into service faster and then to have spiral development. We think that that is the future of procurement.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)