Global Human Security

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. My heartiest congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate. As is typical, she has covered most of the points that I intended to make, including the one about the number of nuclear weapons that this country proposes to have in future.

My hon. Friend made the point that human security is not just about armed forces, but about what has happened recently. She pointed out that the huge number of deaths in this country has been due to the virus, and that has led, we think, to a 20% drop in our GDP. As my party’s defence spokesman, I want to pay real tribute to our armed forces and the role that they have played in recent times. I have on several occasions pressed the Secretary of State for Defence on their deployment in terms of testing and the roll-out of the vaccine, and I give credit where it is due. I have had straight answers from him and have seen with my own eyes the good work that has been done.

Having served, not with any particular honour, as a private soldier in the Territorial Army, I know that the armed forces, once they have been trained and are ready, spend a lot of time waiting when nothing much happens. From the conversations that I have had, I know that the armed forces personnel who took part in testing the vaccination actually enjoyed the work. They saw it as something different and felt proud that they were playing a role in defeating the deadly virus.

As I represent a constituency that is subject to more extreme weather than many other parts of the United Kingdom, I know all about global warming, which has already been mentioned. The armed forces also have a big role to play when we have a landslip. God forbid that we do, but, alas, when we do and something goes wrong—when a railway line is blocked or a road goes over the edge—they too can help out, and indeed they do. Again, as in fighting the deadly virus, they actually enjoy the work, and it gives them experience of using their machinery to see what they can do with it.

For that reason, I am bound to make this one political point: I deplore the proposed cut in the number of military personnel. Yes, we can do things very cleverly with computers, to which I will turn in a minute, but at the end of the day we need the human bodies and the skills out there to fight and defend our human security in the widest possible sense, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bath has outlined.

I turn now to cyber-security. As I have mentioned before, during the armed forces parliamentary scheme the year before last, when I joined the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment in Estonia, it was made clear to me by a colour sergeant that it would be extremely dangerous for me to turn on my iPhone that close to the Russian border. He said, “Quite simply, they will triangulate in on you right away and in no time at all hack into your iPhone”. We were told in almost blood-curdling terms, “Do not use social media. If you take a picture, don’t send it anywhere at all”. Despite my TA experience a long time ago, this shook me and showed that the threat to this country via cyber-attack is very real indeed.

I want to take this point one step further. It is easy to think of Russia attacking us in this way, but let us remember other enemies are out there—China, North Korea and others have been mentioned several times. Alas, we live in a dangerous world and we have to defend ourselves.

This is not just about an attack on an institution, such as the House of Commons and our own defence systems. It can, sadly, be on an individual. We have seen the spread of antisemitism and all sorts of unfortunate messages being pushed, possibly from Russian bots, possibly from other countries, we know not, but it is done with malevolent intent, make no mistake of that.

I close with two small examples of the connected-up nature of this. It is no accident that RT—Russian Television—uses its services to try to undermine some of the things that we hold most dear in the United Kingdom. I want to put on record today that I absolutely deplore Mr Alex Salmond’s refusal to accept the disgraceful, horrific nature of the murder and attack in Salisbury. I do not think this man realises that he is the unwitting pawn of Russia’s chess game to undermine the United Kingdom. I know that the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), has lived in Northern Ireland. As we see events unroll in Northern Ireland right now, how do we know that the hand of cyber-security is not in some way linked to this? Perhaps I am scaremongering, but I am also realistic as to the threat that this nation and the world face.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply with great interest. What does he feel about the connected nature of cyber-defence, not just in defending our institutions such as the House of Commons, the banks and defence systems, but also at the lower, individual level where somebody could be taken out via a nasty cyber-attack? How can we manage with fewer armed forces personnel?

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of formal and informal faith groups, and the huge role that they play around the world in alleviating poverty and addressing difficulties and harm. The Government absolutely recognise the important role that they play. We work through a number of partners around the world, some faith-based, others secular, to try and deliver on that “force for good” agenda. He is absolutely right: faith organisations play a huge and important role in delivering humanitarian policy.

To help us deliver the agenda that we set out in the integrated review, we have brought together our diplomatic network of 281 posts in 178 countries with our aid budget and development policy to create the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. That joined-up approach is helping to build partnerships and secure the opportunities that we need to tackle global challenges as part of the global community. We are making good progress against many of these challenges. The UK has been at the forefront of the international response to covid: helping to protect others and, in doing so, helping to protect ourselves. UK scientists developed the first effective and widely affordable vaccine. Our Prime Minister, Ministers and diplomats have consistently pushed for equitable global access to vaccines and therapeutics, and we have pledged £548 million of our aid budget to help to distribute 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine to 92 developing countries. To support the fastest route to national and global recovery, we have committed £1.3 billion of UK aid to help cushion the health and economic impacts of the pandemic around the world. We must learn the lessons of covid-19. Last year, the Prime Minister outlined his five-point plan for preventing future pandemics.

[Jamie Stone]

The Minister is absolutely correct that the roll-out of the vaccines is good news and is a success story. As I said in my contribution, our armed forces played a role in that. The point I want to make is a money point: the help with testing and vaccination provided by our armed forces takes the pressure off health professionals. It means that the money spent on the armed forces actually helps to relieve a budget in other parts of Government. I intend to explore that argument in the future, with regard to my unhappiness about the number of armed forces personnel being cut. If they are maintained and deployed properly on other things, that can help other budgets.

[James Cleverly]

I hear and understand the point made by the hon. Gentleman. While it goes beyond the remit of this speech, I draw his attention to the Defence paper that was published and its focus on the greater agility, adaptability and deployability of the armed forces that we have. I hope that that goes some way towards addressing the concerns that he has expressed.

In March, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister joined leaders from more than 20 countries who, alongside the World Health Organisation, called for a treaty on pandemic preparedness and response. That would be an important step towards increasing global co-operation and strengthening global health security. We will use our G7 presidency to work with other Governments, with industry and with international organisations to cut the target for developing and deploying new vaccines to just 100 days, addressing the point made by the hon. Member for Bath about working in co-operation, not in competition, with other countries.

I would also like to address the claim that the hon. Lady made about short-termism, which I have to reject. Climate change is a much longer-established existential threat than the pandemic to which we are currently responding. I remind her that in 1990, at the second world climate conference, Margaret Thatcher said:

“The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.”

I remind the hon. Lady that the Conservatives have a multi-decade track record of thinking about future generations. We are using our presidency—