UK Air and Missile Defences

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. My strong congratulations to the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on an extremely timely debate. He spoke very well—in fact, all colleagues have contributed very thoughtful speeches on this important subject. Because of what is happening in Ukraine and what we have seen in the Red sea and Israel, many now say we should adopt some form of Iron Dome. This debate is very timely and I am grateful for it.

I echo the comments of my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) and the hon. Member for North Durham in asking the Minister to update us on the overnight story of drones flying over United States Visiting Forces bases in Suffolk and Norfolk, and the apparent deployment of the negation of improvised non-state joint aerial, or NINJA, and ORCUS systems—which is different from the AUKUS defence pact with our partners. It would be good to have an update on how that was used.

The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) made a key point. I launched the integrated procurement model in February, and he is right that one should not look at missile defence in silos—no pun—because there has to be a joined-up multi-domain approach, particularly for space. I strongly agree with him that that will be a decisive factor in the early stages of something we hope will never happen: existential war. We need to be interoperable with allies, and the systems we procure need to be integrated across all the domains of our defence posture.

We do still need to consider these issues at domain level. My last visit to an army base, a week before the election was called, was to Thorney Island on the south coast to the 7th Air Defence Group. It used to be regarded as quite obscure but, because it is a ground-based air defence unit, it found itself at the heart of the debate on future defence. When I visited, I was clear that we would be ordering significant new levels of GBAD, including lightweight multi-role missiles for short-range, but also Land Ceptor units. I hope the Minister can confirm that those orders are continuing under the new Government and will be scaled up. As colleagues have said, we need more scale than we currently have because of the changing threat.

In the air domain, we currently rely on the Typhoon as our backbone. The hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) made a good point that GCAP, which I support, is way off in the future, in the 2030s. What is going to happen to boost lethality in the near term? It would be good if the Minister could update us on E-Scan radar with Typhoon, which will significantly increase its capability. It has been intercepting drones and missiles in the middle east and remains the backbone of our air defence. We must ensure that it is operating at the most capable level it can achieve.

I am particularly concerned about the maritime threat. We are supporting Ukraine, not in the theatre, but through the supply of ordnance. In the naval situation, our own ships were threatened, along with our own British sailors. It is in the public domain that the Houthis have obtained ballistic missiles from Iran and possibly other actors. That is a very serious threat. They may not yet have the fullest capability, but there was a worrying report this week that they are sending troops to support Russia in exchange for targeting information. That is a very serious development.

Given the ballistic threat, and given that Sea Ceptor cannot currently intercept in the terminal phase, we need rapidly to accelerate the Evolution upgrade, as far as we are able. That would give us an anti-ballistic capability. We may have to consider an urgent operational requirement for the standard missile 3—a US missile on the USS Arleigh Burke—that can intercept ballistic threats. I believe that could go in our Mark 41 launchers when our Type 26 and Type 31 start entering the sea. We will have to think like that because the threat is evolving so fast.

I strongly feel that technology is where we can enhance our forces. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), Chair of the Defence Committee, spoke about laser. When I was presented with DragonFire, I thought, “Wow!” If we can get this capability into service as fast as possible, crucially—although is obviously experimental up to a point—there may be a way to intercept drones without denuding our missile stockpile. That is incredibly significant. The other directed-energy weapon we looked at was the radio frequency one, which I saw at Thorney Island. That is not an electronic warfare system; it is a kinetic strike from sound waves that can take out multiple drones at once, for something like 10p a shot. At the moment, it has a relatively limited range.

I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government will be pursuing those directed-energy weapons. If we go at them hard and fast, and deliver them into the arms of our forces quicker than other nations, we will boost not only our lethality and capability, but our defence industry. It is not just the link with industry, but the link with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and our brilliant scientists that matters, as well as creating the integrated procurement system that I wanted. I was pleased that the hon. Member for North Durham talked about that system, which enables us to develop really quickly and remain at the cutting edge.

Obviously, as I think all colleagues have said, there is one key issue: procuring these weapons, systems and capabilities costs money. We need to commit to 2.5%, and the Conservative position was to achieve that by 2030. Now, we can go back to the 2010s, as the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) did. He knows that I am a great fan of his; he showed me around the cockpit of an A400 and I was very grateful. He has huge expertise from his time in service, but I have to be clear that the Labour party would have cut defence spending by 25% in 2010 had they won the election. The financial position then was incredibly bleak. We now have to put the past behind us. It was a long-term decline—[Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering, but the fact is that defence spending fell under both the Conservatives and Labour, as it had around the world since the end of the cold war, because we all thought peace was upon us. In defence, we all have to adjust to the threat picture as we see it.

This is the crucial point: when we announced our funding pathway to 2.5% in April, which the Prime Minister announced in Germany, it would have included reducing the civil service to its pre-pandemic size to pay for it. That is not a particularly ambitious target, but the No. 1 priority of that extra spending would have been replenishment and rearmament. By replenishment, we mean replacing the arms we have given to Ukraine, and by rearmament, we mean replacing our technological warfighting capabilities—for example, making the evolution system for Sea Viper an absolute priority.

If we have a multi-year funding path in the MOD, we can procure at scale and at pace. If we have one-off, one-year adjustments—even if it is £2.9 billion—they will not enable procurement at the scale and pace that we require, and that is a fact. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) actually made the very good point that, if we go back to the Select Committee appearance by the Secretary of State, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan of military capability said that we need “always on” production. That is what a multi-year settlement gives us. Ultimately, wars are fought on industrial capability.

I will make two more points. On our allies, an excellent point was made about DIAMOND—delivering integrated air and missile operational networked defences, an initiative that I launched—which is about having tests for missile defence, like those we have in the Outer Hebrides for cruise missiles with the Navy. We need to train to be interoperable as NATO in Europe in those capabilities. We also have to look at multilateral procurement so that we as a continent are buying together to leverage economies of scale.

My final point, which I think is absolutely crucial, is about the deterrent. The hon. Member for North Durham said at the beginning that this is about conventional air defence. We have to be absolutely clear that, when Putin starts talking about an intercontinental ballistic missile being used, he is not going to not use it because we have missile defence; the thing that will stop him using it is fear of second strike from our ballistic missiles. We hope that would never happen—it is the extreme response to the extreme threat—but, while people talk about neglecting homeland security, we have had a submarine continuously at sea since 1969 with the most extraordinary lethality aboard. The scale of what it can do is quite unimaginable, and it is still absolutely at the technological cutting edge.

My point is this: we must not take that for granted. It must still be the cornerstone of the SDR; it is our No. 1 defence and it is ultimately the reason why countries will not, I believe, be tempted to launch conventional missile attacks. After all, if they attacked London with conventional missiles, that is a declaration of war under article 5, and a country doing that would ultimately have to be prepared to risk a nuclear response—that is what would be at stake.

That is not to say for one moment that we should not be considering how we upgrade our air defence— I totally agree with everyone who has spoken about the importance of that—but in the SDR, the nuclear deterrent should still be the No. 1 priority because it is the fundamental way in which we defend ourselves. Again, that means a multi-year funding settlement so that we can invest in infrastructure and the expensive capabilities that come with it.

We have heard some excellent speeches. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) spoke about the need to get to 2.5% as soon as possible. The Conservatives strongly agree with him, and we hope the Minister will still be pushing for that.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry (Maria Eagle)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on obtaining this debate and making such a superb contribution—very knowledgeable and incisive. I agree with the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) on one thing: the quality of this debate has been superb, with excellent, knowledgeable contributions from all sides. I want to answer some of the questions that I was specifically asked before getting on to the meat of what I want to say.

The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) made an important point about concerns in his constituency, which contains Lakenheath and Mildenhall. He also referred to a nearby site at which developments are worrying local people. As far as I am aware, we do not have concerns in the MOD about that development, but I fully acknowledge that his constituents do. I am more than happy to offer him the meeting he seeks, so I can understand more fully the concerns that have been raised with him and so we can engage to make sure that he is reassured, to the extent that that is an accurate thing for him to be.

Hon. Members across the Chamber have spoken about the commitment to 2.5%. I make it clear that that is our commitment. The hon. Member for South Suffolk tried to make sure that I do not resort to saying that the last time the country spent 2.5% on defence was at the time of the last Labour Government, but I will disappoint him: that is, in fact, accurate. I can understand why the party that has just left office after 14 years does not necessarily want to talk about all aspects of its record. None the less, the record is there.

We are committed to setting a path to 2.5% in the spring. As Members across the House know, the strategic defence review will report in the spring. When we have a full strategic sense of what we ought to be spending the money on that we are going to be committing in order to meet the current threat, rather than operating on the basis of an industrial strategy and a defence and security review that, even with its refresh, did not take into account—

[James Cartlidge]

Will the Minister give way?

[Maria Eagle]

I will when I finish my sentence. Even with its refresh, the review did not take into account what was happening with Ukraine. At that point, we will be in a position to know very clearly what we ought to be spending those increased resources on.

[James Cartlidge]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I will just say this: last week the Government announced very significant cuts to defence capability without waiting for the SDR, so why do they have to wait for the SDR to realise that we need to go to 2.5% to replenish our munitions as a matter of urgency? They must know that, no matter how many SDRs they undertake.

[Maria Eagle]

Last week, the Secretary of State made a statement that dealt with withdrawing six capabilities. It would, in fact, save some money—£150 million over two years and £500 million over five years—but the primary purpose is to ensure that we do not continue to spend money on capability that will not actually provide modern defence. It is a rationalisation. It is fairly clear that with some of those announcements, it was just necessary to get on and make the decision. As the hon. Gentleman will see in the new year, a path will be set out to 2.5% in the spring, along with the SDR, which I think is the right way of doing it. We are committed to it and we will get there. That, I think, answers the point that the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who is no longer in his place, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made about getting to 2.5%.

This has been a timely and excellent debate across the Chamber. If the aim of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham was to show that there is support across the House, he has succeeded. It will be clear to anyone who reads the debate that there is no real distinction between the concerns that we all have across the parties. As we were reminded last week by Russia’s reckless and escalatory use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which my hon. Friend and others mentioned, the global air and missile threat is advancing, proliferating and converging.

Given the increasingly volatile and contested threat environment, we must ensure that we have the capability and capacity to counter threats in the most appropriate way. In this uncertain future, as the hon. Member for South Suffolk said, deterrence—not only of the nuclear kind—will form the main line of defence. We have to ensure that we provide the right level of deterrence through the joint effort of land, sea and air power. To do so, we must properly consider the range of threats, from the low-cost drones that we see affecting the UK today to the strategic long-range weapons that Russia threatens to use.

This might be an opportune moment to deal with the points that hon. Members made about the drone situation. Obviously we are aware of recent reports of drones flying in the constituency of the hon. Member for West Suffolk and elsewhere. Protection of our personnel and bases is our highest priority. We employ multi-layered and credible force protection measures. I will not say here precisely what has been employed and where; for security reasons, I will not go into specifics, but the Chamber can be assured that we are taking steps. We are aware of what is going on and are doing our best to deal with it.

The House will be aware that through the Civil Aviation Authority, aerodromes in the UK are protected under the Air Navigation Order 2016 by uncrewed air system flight restriction zones. We will be making sure that anybody we manage to catch engaging in such behaviour is shown the full force of the law for their illegal activities. That is about all that I can say at present. Obviously, the Chamber would not expect me to go into too many details, but we are fully dealing with the matter.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham says, our geography makes the threats facing the UK different from those facing many of our allies. Solutions preferred by some will therefore not necessarily be suitable for us. However, our geography should not and does not make us complacent. We have to continue to look at how the UK can meet her own NATO commitments, provide defence and deterrence and protect the UK homeland, but we must also ensure that we become increasingly interoperable with our NATO allies.

Let me be clear that although the threat is evolving, the UK is not defenceless. We have a very broad range of capabilities contributing towards our integrated air and missile defence approach. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham and the hon. Member for West Suffolk said, we have Typhoon aircraft on alert 24 hours a day. The Navy has proved the effectiveness of the Type 45 against various air threats. Although it is right that we do not predetermine the outcome of the strategic defence review, the Chamber can be clear that a key part of it will be to look at how we can deal with preparedness against air and missile threats.

It would be wrong to suggest, however, that the Government are therefore not taking any action. We have recognised the vital importance of integrated air and missile defence, which is why we are not just passively reviewing our own capabilities but actively leading the way internationally with initiatives such as DIAMOND, which the hon. Member for West Suffolk did indeed initiate during his time in office. It aims to improve air defence integration across Europe, boost interoperability and strengthen NATO integrated air and missile defence. It is all very well for us all to procure different missiles, but if we do not work together, one ends up with holes and gaps. There is a good argument for ensuring that we can join up whatever systems there are to boost overall defence for Europe. That is what DIAMOND seeks to do.

That is all going on now, and it should put us in a better position to understand how to go forward and spend the money wisely on the right things, not the wrong things. The Secretary of State announced at the meeting of NATO Defence Ministers last month that the UK will lead on some of that work. The UK has also launched the NATO multinational procurement initiative on defensive and offensive missile capabilities to mobilise the Euro-Atlantic defence industry in support of Ukraine. We still have to double down on supporting Ukraine and ensure that we boost it as best we can to defend it against the appalling aggression that it faces.

Boosting industrial capacity is another key part of the debate. It is a certainty in our strategic way forward. We have boosted the money that we will be spending. Members present will recall that at the recent Budget we got an extra £2.9 billion for defence over the next year. There is no way that all Government Departments are as happy with their settlement from the Treasury as the Ministry of Defence is. That is a down payment on the support that we need.

We have to do more to improve co-operation in Europe. We are boosting bilateral engagement, for example. Last month, the UK and Germany signed the landmark Trinity House agreement. We committed to improve and enhance bilateral defence co-operation with a shared objective of sustaining effective deterrence against would-be aggressors by sharing plans on integration of capabilities, taking more steps together to procure the right kind of equipment, supporting implementation of NATO-agreed common standards, and ultimately working towards the vision of a peaceful and stable Euro-Atlantic area by having sufficient deterrence to prevent any aggression.

We also work closely with France. Co-operation in the field of defence capability and equipment is a vital pillar of the Lancaster House treaty. We intend to ensure that that gets a boost and works better and faster towards improving our defence co-operation in areas such as integrated air and missile defence. We have a substantial range of equipment and capabilities across all domains, and we continue to work closely with the French and the Germans.

One of my hon. Friends—I cannot quite recall which—suggested that we need to focus much more on boosting our relationship with Europe and with the EU. We are also doing that—