Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

After the Defence Command Paper is announced on Monday, a week today, the defence industrial strategy will be launched the following day, which will give us an opportunity to indicate investments not only in our more traditional industrial base, but in the new and future domains, such as digital, cyber, space and so on. This is incredibly important. Britain is one of the world leaders in both applying our cyber-technology and investing in it, and I predict that the strategy will have something to say about that.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

May I, on behalf of the official Opposition, offer my tribute to the service of Sergeant Gavin Hillier and say to his family, his friends and his comrades that our condolences are with them?

I certainly welcomed the weekend news that the integrated review will commit the UK to full-spectrum cyber, as the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) has just said, although I strongly feel that announcements of important Government policy such as that should be made in Parliament and not in the press. Is not the wider security lesson from cyber and other grey-zone threats that more civil and military planning, training and exercising is required? Given that some countries are well ahead of us, will the integrated review catch up with the need for full-spectrum society resilience?

[Mr Wallace]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I would take issue with it on one thing, and that is about us catching up. I was the cyber-security Minister—I was the Minister of State for Security—for a considerable period of time. Britain actually led the world both in NATO, where we were the first to offer cyber-offensive capability, but also through our programmes. The national cyber-security programme spent billions on enhancing capability right across not just military, but predominantly the civil sector. The National Cyber Security Centre is a first; there are almost none in Europe.

We are one of the first to have such a centre to be able to advise business, private individuals and the Government how to keep themselves strong and secure. There is always more to do and there are lessons to be learned around the world, but Britain has a lot of innovation and strengths in cyber-security. It is a dangerous world out there in cyber. I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that one of the ways to deliver this is to ensure that we constantly work with our friends and allies.

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[Mr Wallace]

I have listened to my right hon. Friend’s consistent messaging over the last few months. I think the thing that we can all agree with is that, as he said at the weekend,

“we must modernise—but first let’s agree the threat—& then design the right defence posture.”

That is exactly what we have been doing. Obviously, in the Ministry of Defence, we have made sure that we have been doing that in conjunction with our serving personnel, our allies and the threats. I think playing by the Ladybird book of defence design is not the way to progress.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Why are Britain’s full-time armed forces still 10,000 short of the numbers that the last defence review, in 2015, said were needed to meet the threats and keep the country safe, which the Defence Secretary’s Government pledged to meet?

[Mr Wallace]

I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman. We are 6,000 under. The strength is 76,500 from the 82,000 that was pledged. He will of course know—it is well documented—that under the previous coalition Government and Conservative Government there was not a satisfactory outcome by the recruiting process. That has now been fixed. Until the covid break, we were on target to fulfil the pipeline and target for that recruiting. We have to make sure we continue to invest in that. That is why we are investing in people. We will continue to invest throughout the process and next week there will be announcements that put people at the heart of our defence review.

[John Healey]

The Secretary of State may want to check the numbers. I was talking about the full-time armed forces, not the full-time Army numbers. He has rightly said before that our forces personnel will go to war alongside robots in the future, but robots do not seize and hold vital ground from the enemy. They do not keep the peace or rebuild broken societies, and they do not give covid jabs. Size matters and no Government can secure the nations with under-strength armed forces. Is it not the truth that over the past decade we have seen our armed forces run down—numbers down, pay down, morale down—and that all the indication from stories ahead of tomorrow’s integrated review is that Ministers are set to make the same mistakes as in the last reviews, with our servicemen and women paying the price for cuts and bad defence budgeting?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget that for the past three or four decades we have had that characteristic, where Government after Government have been over-ambitious and underfunded the defence policy. His Government did it. The Governments before mine have done the same things. I only have to point him, as I do during at every defence questions, to the National Audit Office report into the processes of his Government in 2010 and our previous Governments to show that the biggest problem is that we have been promising soldiers, men and women of the armed forces equipment they never got, or numbers gains when just tying them up alongside. That is not the way to confront an enemy. The way to confront the enemy is to invest in the people, give them the right equipment to take on the threat, and make sure they are active, busy and forward. As a soldier, being active, busy and forward is what keeps you engaged and in there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

I have received a large number of parliamentary questions from the right hon. Gentleman, and I believe that I have answered that question as part of them. If not, I will make certain that it is clear to him. It is 15% by value, and we are proud of the contribution that is being made by UK manufacturing to the F-35. I will make certain that that is covered again.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The ministerial code is clear that

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament.”

I know that you believe this principle to be fundamental to the proper role of Parliament and the accountability of Ministers. We look forward to the Prime Minister’s statement tomorrow on the integrated review, yet over the last week there have been a series of detailed media briefings about decisions in that integrated review. With the Defence Secretary in his place, can you offer guidance to the House, ahead of the follow-up Command Paper on Monday and the defence industrial strategy on Tuesday, so that we do not have the same serious disregard of the ministerial code and disrespect for Parliament?

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We have indeed seen a steady drumbeat of media stories promoting radical changes to our defence posture, but the Defence Committee has not received any of those briefings, despite frequent departmental requests. What troubles me the most is the MOD’s decision to share with the media the desire to increase our nuclear stockpile with the purchase of 200 W93 US-made warheads. I am a firm supporter of continuous at-sea deterrence, but changes to our non-proliferation policy deserve proper oversight in this House and should not be used a sweetener to overshadow dramatic cuts to our conventional defence posture. May I ask for your guidance on how we can encourage the MOD to brief the Defence Committee—perhaps in the Ladybird book form that the Defence Secretary likes to promote—and to ensure that any announcements on CASD are made in this Chamber first?