Defence

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I have been quite generous; I will make a little bit of progress.

That is why this Conservative Government will act now. We are going to deliver the greatest strengthening of our national defence since the cold war. Some will argue that the threats we face are perhaps not imminent or existential. They may claim that increased defence spending is not a good use of money, which perhaps should go on other commitments—there are many to discuss—but I argue that we have seen the consequences up and down the country of the more dangerous world that I described in that Lancaster House speech.

In recent years, we have suffered terror attacks. We have also suffered cyber-attacks on business, on Government, as we were just talking about, and on critical national infrastructure. They were mostly not successful, but the amount that it costs to get around them increases all the time none the less. We have suffered intellectual property theft. We have seen Hong Kong protesters dragged into the Chinese consulate in Manchester and beaten. We have seen Iranian journalists threatened and stabbed in London. We have seen former Russian military officers assassinated in hotels in Mayfair and poisoned in suburban homes in Salisbury and, just last month, British citizens charged with setting fire to Ukrainian-linked business units in east London, apparently on the instructions of Russian intelligence.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has compellingly described the current situation as moving from post-war to pre-war. Does he share my concern that the people of this country, as a whole, are not yet in a place to understand the seriousness of the problem, that there is in some sense, therefore, the beginnings of an issue of consent, and that it is harder than it should be for young people to get excited about joining some of our big contractors and supporting the work we are doing for our armed forces on diverse fronts around the country? If that is true, does he think that there is a specific role for the Ministry of Defence to lead the process of building consent across the UK?

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One issue we face is that if you are not Iranian or Russian and living in the UK, you may believe that this does not affect you too much. My entire argument—indeed, the argument I made at Lancaster House—is that this is not just something that impacts on foreign nationals in the distance; we are all, in effect, under attack. For evidence of that, we can see up and down the land the direct impact on every single family as Putin drove into Ukraine. Every single household budget in Britain was under attack. Remember, the winter before last we were paying up to half of the average family’s energy bill. This really does matter back home. It is again why I stress that defence is the cheapest version of looking after ourselves, not the most expensive one. That is why it is so important that, with Putin inflicting that inflation on British households and British business, we wake up to that fact and understand it. I actually think the British people do understand. They do want us to do more. It is popular to make sure that we properly defend these isles and defend our interests overseas. That is why this party has been proud to bring forward this big boost to our national defence.

As was mentioned earlier, this year I have—because this battle is so very important for all of us, not least our Ukrainian friends—provided another half a billion pounds of aid to Ukraine. That will take our total 2024 military package to a record £3 billion, which is the most we have provided in any year. Previously, it was £2.3 billion and £2.3 billion. It brings our total support overall to £12.5 billion, in addition to other aid. In addition, to help Ukraine repel Russia’s mounting attacks, we gave, a couple of weeks ago, the largest tranche of military gifting assistance to date.

It is worth reiterating the size and scale of that, because I fear that with the announcement of the 2.5% and the trajectory—I think all Members believe that Ukraine’s win is absolutely existential and important—the scale of the gifting was perhaps not noticed. It included 4 million rounds of ammunition, 1,600 key munitions, including air defence and precision long-range missiles, all our remaining AS-90 artillery platforms, 60 combat boats, 400 armour-protected and all-terrain vehicles, and hundreds of bombs for Ukraine’s new fleet of F-16 combat aircraft. Just as we initially provided our Ukrainian friends with trained troops, anti-tank missiles, main battle tanks, missiles and so many other firsts, we will now ensure that the aircraft we cannot provide for them—we do not fly F-16s—are properly provided with munitions.