Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) [V]]

I am pleased that we are having this debate and that there will be a review of foreign and defence policy that includes foreign affairs, defence and international aid. But it is a great shame—in fact, it is more than a shame; it is terrible—that on 19 November 2020, the Prime Minister announced that defence expenditure would rise to 2.2% of GDP and that an extra £24.1 billion would be spent over the next four years, and at almost the same time he announced a reduction in the aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP and the closure of the Department for International Development, which was subsumed back into the Foreign Office, where the Government always wanted it to be. That is a great shame and a terrible message to the rest of the world.

This review needs to concentrate on the issues that face the world as a whole. The covid pandemic has shown just how dangerous this world is and just how dangerous the threat of another pandemic is, which is now seen as a tier 1 threat. The Government were advised in 2008 of the need to prioritise preparations for dealing with a global pandemic. The shortages of personal protective equipment and everything else show that they absolutely did not do that. The introduction to that report quite rightly says, on page 3, that we should look at the “drivers” of conflict. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Yemen have led to an unprecedented number of refugees around the world. Some 65 million people—fellow citizens of this planet—have no home of their own and no secure place to live. They want to contribute to the world’s future.

If we are to have a rational review of what we are to achieve in the future, we must surely look at the issues facing the security of the planet, which obviously means our own security at the same time. One of those issues is global inequality. The gap between the richest and the poorest was, at the best times, beginning to close, but because of the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus, it is likely to get wider and wider. More people will be short of food, and more people will be leading insecure lives, and that will be the driver of the terrorists and threats of tomorrow.

Later this year, COP26 will meet in Glasgow, where I hope we will come to an agreement that we will get to net zero by 2030. That means that the priority for all of us should be looking at the issues that face the world—refugees, global poverty, environmental disaster and, of course, trade supplies and food chains for the future; we are a trading nation, and we need to be sure that we can still trade and buy things from elsewhere. We have a very big job on our hands, and I hope the review takes all those issues on board.

The last thing I would like to say in the few seconds I have left is quite simply this. The threat of a nuclear war has now been downgraded to tier 2. The treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons—the global ban—has been supported and signed by 86 nations and ratified by 52. Opinion polls show 59% support in this country for signing it. The global network of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament shows the importance of it. When the non-proliferation treaty comes up for review, let us make a positive contribution and a real effort to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons in the future. Let us concentrate on human rights, poverty and the issues that face us, because that will ultimately make us more secure.