Defence Programmes Developments

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

We have heard it all today. The Secretary of State claims that Labour is the party of defence, when barely an hour and a half ago, Prime Minister’s questions was taken by a Deputy Prime Minister who, along with the Foreign Secretary, voted against the renewal of Trident.

The Secretary of State talks about inheriting a financial black hole. I remind the House that in 2010, when the Conservative party last took office, the deficit was 10.3% of GDP and we were on the verge of bankruptcy. When Labour took office in July, the deficit was 4.4% of GDP. Had the deficit Labour inherited been the same as in 2010, it would have been £160 billion bigger—the same as the NHS budget in England last year—so we take no lectures on black holes. The fact is that Labour has refused to set a pathway to 2.5%, and now we see the consequences: cuts instead of a pathway. The Secretary of State says that his path to 2.5% will be fully funded, while describing our path to 2.5% as a gimmick. Our plan was funded by reducing the size of the civil service. That is not a gimmick; it is just something that Labour’s union paymasters will not allow them to do.

The Secretary of State says that defence reform was of little interest to recent Defence Secretaries. If he is talking about Ben Wallace, he was the Defence Secretary who took the massive decision to provide battlefield weapons to Ukraine before Russia invaded it, and to provide it with Storm Shadow and Challenger 2. If he is talking about Grant Shapps, he gave me his 100% backing in delivering the integrated procurement model, a fundamental reform of defence procurement that was all about modernisation, and that accelerated our procurement of anti-drone lasers.

Having delivered a 9.7% pay rise for the most junior personnel in 2023, we welcome the retention payments. However, given the cuts relating to the Royal Navy and its staffing pressures, will retention payments be offered to non-aircraft engineers, and will the RAF and Navy also receive the £8,000 four-year retention bonus? If not, why not?

The Secretary of State says that we “superficially” kept Bulwark and Albion on the books. Yes, we placed them in extended readiness, but to be clear, I personally sought and received assurances from the Navy’s leadership that in the event of a full-scale warfighting scenario in which the priority for the Navy was littoral capability, those ships could have been regenerated to a condition that enabled them to fight, and the crews could have been found. That is what the Navy’s leadership confirmed. Permanently scrapping the landing ships means removing that capability entirely. What impact will that have on the operational effectiveness of the Royal Marines? The multi-role support ship is intended to fill the gap, but it is at least eight to nine years away. Is the Secretary of State still committed to MRSS, and if so, how many will he procure?

Turning to rotary, what will be the operational impact in the immediate term of the Puma and Chinook decisions, and what will be the cost of the commercial solution that the Secretary of State will use to fill the capability gap in Brunei and Cyprus? As for the Conservatives’ record on rotary, the Secretary of State knows that we secured £320 million of savings by renegotiating the Chinook extended range procurement, and that I personally commenced the new medium helicopter competition. On the new medium helicopter, I insisted that the procurement should have strong scoring for maintaining skilled rotary work in the UK, and for exportability, to sustain that work. Can the Secretary of State confirm that he will not change the competition, and that he is still committed to procuring the new medium helicopter without delay? Will the NMH come into service before those Pumas are retired?

On Watchkeeper, as the Minister who launched the MOD’s first ever drone strategy, I appreciate that this is an area where we need to move fast and to have the capability to deliver in the modern battle space. Will the Secretary of State be gifting any of these capabilities to Ukraine, such as the older Chinooks or the Pumas, especially given what happened yesterday? Finally and most importantly, what on earth does all this mean for the strategic defence review, from the MRSS to future drones for the British armed forces? The Secretary of State will no doubt say that I should wait for the SDR, so why did he not wait for the SDR before making today’s decisions?

To conclude, whatever the Chancellor’s true grasp of economics, she has certainly been able to force her priorities on to the country, getting the MOD to scrap major capabilities before it has undertaken the Department’s much-vaunted strategic defence review. The Labour Government have killed off North sea oil, undermining our energy security. This week, they are killing off the family farm and threatening our food security, and today, they are scrapping key defence capabilities and weakening our national security. The Government have made their choices, and they own the consequences.