Defence Command Paper Refresh

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for his service and dedication as Secretary of State, and I wish him well for the future. As a fellow infantryman, he will know there is sometimes no substitute for boots on the ground if one wants to command that ground. Given that the 1922 defence committee submitted a paper to the defence Command Paper refresh expressing concern about hollowing out, can he assure us that this hollowing out will stop and that cuts to the Army, in particular, will stop? What assurance can he give that not only will it stop but we will have scope to build on those numbers? Ultimately, an Army of 72,000 and falling is simply not large enough, given our commitments.

[Mr Wallace]

We can argue about size, but we have to make sure that whatever we put in the field is properly equipped and enabled, and is effectively 360°. That is really important. We therefore have to be honest about the size of our defence budget envelope. There is no point pretending that we can have huge numbers without a defence budget to match. I have been determined throughout my tenure that this is not purely a numbers game, and I know my hon. Friend gets that. Many of his suggestions were incorporated into this Command Paper, because the lessons of Ukraine show that, yes, we need infantry and tanks, but also that we can sometimes dominate the ground without even being there.

The proliferation of cheap drones and the use of highly accurate artillery allow fewer people to cover or dominate more area. I went to see a frontline corps commander in Ukraine, and he had nearly 1,000 cheap unmanned aircraft systems at his disposal every day. At any one time, he might have 80 or 90 up in the air, which gives him the ability to dominate ground without necessarily having mass. I get that, ultimately, the ground has to be taken, but let us make sure the people who take the ground are properly protected and equipped so they can hold it, otherwise Russian forces will take the ground and kill them.