Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we look forward to the Minister trying to give an explanation for that. My right hon. Friend mentions EU regulations. The reality was that no other country in Europe behaved like that, but that was one of the drivers for the British public thinking that the EU was not working in their interests. Had we actually behaved like every other European country, there would have been less anger in this country. Now the Government are claiming that they are bound by World Trade Organisation regulations, but the United States is a long-standing member—indeed, a founder—of the WTO, and it has a “buy American” policy. There is a deep ideology in the civil service, and unfortunately Ministers are afraid to confront it.

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

The right hon. Gentleman is making a most interesting speech. He refers to countries that are thinking about joining NATO, such as Finland and Sweden, and there has been a sea change, as he says, in those countries and in Germany. I am a great believer in the British public, and I bet that every single Member here today is getting the same message that I have been getting way up at the top of the UK, which is that we need to defend ourselves against the bear, and against the threat. I believe that the public would warmly support us if we decided to reverse the dreadful cut in the size of the British Army. I think that that would give a great deal of strength to the Government’s elbow.

[John Spellar]

The hon. Gentleman will see that come through in my speech.

I hope this will, if not eliminate, at least reduce the facile attacks on our defence industry and its skilled, unionised workforce. Can we have no more ill-informed pressure on the City and pension funds to disinvest in defence firms, and no more blockades of their factories?

Likewise, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence cannot be mere observers. They have to engage, and the Treasury has to provide the funding to enable that engagement to be meaningful. They should follow the example of the great Ernie Bevin, who coincidentally was born on this day in 1881. He had the strategic genius to create not only the biggest trade union in the country, if not the world, but the NATO alliance. Furthermore, when American Secretary of State George Marshall gave his speech at Harvard in 1947, Bevin seized on a single sentence:

“The initiative, I think, must come from Europe.”

Through his energy and persuasion, Bevin generated a European response of sufficient weight and urgency to Marshall’s implied offer of American support, and the reconstruction of Europe followed thereafter.

Incidentally, Bevin also saw the need to create the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department to engage in the battle of ideas and the battle to counter disinformation—that is a crucial part of the spectrum—not only in the UK but across Europe. Also engaged in that struggle of democracy versus totalitarianism were leading Labour figures in the IRD Denis Healey and Richard Crossman, who had of course also played a prominent role in the wartime Political Warfare Executive. This cause is currently being championed in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly by its president, US Congressman Gerry Connolly, to put at its heart the democratic values on which NATO was founded.

Now we have to make our defence and security architecture fit for purpose for this existential struggle. Some of that is about recreating past capability and restoring our vandalised capacity for watching and understanding the dynamics of the Russian regime and, indeed, of Ukraine —the neglect of that after the fall of the Berlin wall was a scandal—and some of it is about recognising the relentless political nature of this struggle and funding organisations with multiple skills to wage it, while fully integrating our capacity.

I find it unusual, if not extraordinary, that the Chief of the Defence Staff and the heads of the intelligence agencies attend the National Security Council only as and when. Resources are crucial—that is what this debate is about—but mindset and doctrine are also vital.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I shall try to be helpful and keep my contribution relatively brief. Typically of such debates, it is very good in some ways and not so good in others. It is very good in that I sense that on all sides of the House we are singing from the same sheet. That is good for our armed forces personnel, because they are hearing a message supportive to them. It is bad in that most of my speech has been covered.

However, I have read the December 2021 House of Commons Defence Committee report “We’re going to need a bigger Navy” with the very greatest of interest, and I congratulate the right hon. and hon. Members on the Committee on putting it together. It is sobering reading, and I will draw just two facts out of it. I will do this because my grandfather served with the Royal Navy at a time when the Royal Navy really did rule the waves: it was the biggest navy in the world. For the interest of the House, I will point out that my grandfather trained at “Britannia”, as it was known, in the very same two years as somebody called the honourable Reginald Drax, who is in a photograph with my grandfather—our ancestors were there together.

I would pull two things out of the report. The Type 45 destroyers having their engines repaired, which meant that so few of them were at sea, is a disgrace. We cannot have that happen. They are now projected to be re-engined or repaired by 2028. That is not good enough. We need these state-of-the-art warships at sea as soon as possible—right away—and if that takes extra money, so be it.

The report also contains a reference to the Type 31 frigates, and an eloquent argument is put forward that we will probably need more than the five that are planned. The national flagship idea has its attractions, but—I have made this point before—if we are to build the ship at roughly the same cost as a Type 31, would it not be better as a Type 31? We could have internal alterations to accommodate Her Majesty, civic leaders, or whatever we want to do with it, but we should have it as a warship, rather than as a national flagship that will, in turn, have to be escorted, I fear, by another warship.

I will end where I began: the size of the British Army. I cannot compete with the august gentlemen on all sides of the Chamber who have served in the armed forces, but many years ago I was Private Stone in the mortar platoon of C company of the Second 51st Highland Volunteers. That battalion was set up in such a way that if—perish the thought—something happened in Europe and the bear began to growl, I would give up my day job and be whizzed right off to Germany. That was what we were intended to do. We knew that and we knew it was part of the job spec. I am also bound to say that Russia—the USSR as it then was—knew that that was how those battalions of the British Territorial Army would be deployed in the event of a deteriorating national situation.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the size of the British Army and the need to return to the numbers we have lost over the past few years—the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) referred to that. In Northern Ireland, we are able to recruit above the norm of what we are allocated. The Minister will be aware of that. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that extra numbers of recruits should be set aside for Northern Ireland for full time, but also for the Territorial Army and the reserves?

[Jamie Stone]

I would, of course, endorse what the hon. Gentleman has said, and having had two brothers-in-law who served in the Ulster Defence Regiment, I know a little about it.

I do not want to mislead the Chamber. I do not want the impression to be abroad that Private Stone, doubling forward by half section with his Carl Gustaf, made a huge contribution to the defence of the realm. But what I am saying is that I knew a bit about how things were done back then, and it was about credibility and our potential opponents seeing that we were serious about defending this country. Finally—then I will sit down, Madam Deputy Speaker—the point is well made about having numbers of armed forces personnel to train our friends, such as has been happening in Ukraine. I have said this many times before and I say it one last time: if we take the British Army below a certain size, it will not be such an attractive career choice for the brightest and best who we need to employ to defend our nation.