Situation in the Red Sea

Debate between James Gray and John Healey

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Today the House was set to debate the full sweep of defence and international affairs until the change of business yesterday, which gave this debate its focus on the Red sea. I know that Members on all sides will welcome the opportunity to debate and to question the Government on the UK’s presence and the tensions in this part of the middle east, and I look forward to the contributions from all sides to the debate. Nevertheless, I hope Ministers will ensure that we get the opportunity soon to debate the broader aspects of defence, especially on Ukraine, as the Defence Secretary indicated in his remarks he is keen to do.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

In the old days—I have been here a long time—we had debates in Government time on defence, as we do this afternoon, but in recent times we have not done so and the debates have been down to the Backbench Business Committee. I very much welcome the Committee, which is a great organisation, but none the less we ought to have defence debates in Government time on a Tuesday or Wednesday, set by the Government. I hope the Secretary of State will ensure that that happens in future.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman has great experience and he is right to say that Government time signals the importance that the Government give to the business they bring to this House. While the Backbench Business Committee does an important and useful job, it is Government time that matters. Since the Defence Secretary has been in post, we have not had that general debate on defence, and we should. We have not had a debate on Ukraine for four months, and we should, certainly ahead of the bloody two-year anniversary next month of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Global Military Operations

Debate between James Gray and John Healey

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

That is welcome indeed and noted on our side, not least because the new defence Command Paper will be a really important publication. No country comes out of a war in the same way as it went in. Ukraine will, and must, have a serious impact on how our future global military operations and our homeland defence is conducted.

Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began last year, 26 NATO nations have rebooted defence plans and budgets. Chancellor Scholz discarded decades-long German policy and boosted defence by €100 billion. President Macron has promised the same budget increase in France. Poland will spend 4% of GDP this year. Finland and Sweden have set aside decades of non-alignment to apply for NATO membership. However, there has still been strategic inertia from British Ministers over any deep rethink of international and domestic planning.

[James Gray]

I am interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s vision of the future. He believes that there will be a Labour Government in a year’s time—although I personally do not agree with him—so when there is, what commitment will he make to defence spending under a Labour Government?

[John Healey]

I take nothing for granted—I have been around too long for that—and we will fight hard every day to make sure that we do get a Labour Government. The hon. Gentleman will also appreciate that it is right to judge Ministers by their actions, not their words. I say to him that in the last year of the last Labour Government, in 2010, Britain was spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. That level has never been matched in any of the 13 years since under Conservative Ministers.

[James Gray]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am so sorry to intervene twice. The figure was indeed slightly more than 2%, if not quite 2.5%, but of course, GDP was very much smaller. The amount that the Labour Government were spending when they lost power in 2010 was significantly less—billions of pounds less—than we are spending today.

[John Healey]

The point about the measure—counts in terms of GDP—is that it demonstrates the priority that the Government of the day give to a particular area of necessary spend. It was 2.5% of GDP in 2010. We have got nowhere near that in any of the 13 years after 2010 under the hon. Gentleman’s Governments.

On the question of a necessary rethink in domestic and international strategy, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there were indeed some welcome changes in the 2023 integrated review: a new commitment to reinvigorating important bilateral ties across Europe; a declaration that the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt has been delivered; and a recommitment to NATO as our overriding priority. However, that was a rebalancing of defence plans, not a reboot. While NATO is increasing the strength of its high readiness force to 300,000, the Government are cutting the Army still further, to its smallest size since Napoleon. While Germany boosts its defence budget by over €100 billion, the Government continue with real cuts in day-to-day defence spending. While Poland is buying an extra 1,000 tanks, the Government are cutting back our UK Challengers from 227 to 148—all this in direct breach of the promise the then Prime Minister made to the British people at the 2019 election, when he said that

“We will not be cutting our armed services in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed services.”

All this is part of the pattern of the 13 years since 2010. There are now 45,000 fewer full-time forces personnel, one in five Navy ships has been axed, and over 200 RAF planes have been taken out of service. Satisfaction with forces life has hit a new low, and our ammunition supply has been run down to just eight days. The Defence Secretary summed it up in January when he told the House that

“I am happy to say that we have hollowed out and underfunded”—[Official Report, 30 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 18.]

our armed forces. While threats increase, our hollowed-out forces are working with fewer numbers and less training, and without the long-promised new kit that they need to fight and to fulfil our NATO obligations, such as Ajax.