Global Military Operations

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

The Minister has indeed made a powerful case for another defence policy debate in short order, as the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), said at the start. This House always welcomes a debate on defence policy, and I look forward to the contributions that we are set to hear from all parts of the House.

As the Minister recognised, this is also an important opportunity for us to reaffirm UK unity in support of Ukraine, which he did. As the Ukrainians mount their counter-offensive, they arguably need UK solidarity, NATO unity and international support more now than at any time in the 473 days since Putin first launched his brutal illegal invasion of their country. Remarkably, they have already taken back more than half the territory that Putin seized in the early days of his war, but as the Minister quite rightly said, these are early days in the counter-offensive, and although there are early signs of Ukrainian gains, they now face Russian forces that have dug in defences and have superior air power and drone technology.

There is also no sign of Putin’s strategic aims having changed, and the Russian military is, despite the damage done by the Ukrainian resistance in their courageous fighting, far from a spent force. Putin is expanding his war effort and massing his troops and firepower, and his Russian industry is on 24/7 wartime production. Again, as the Minister noted, this is long term: Ukraine has now been fighting Russia for over nine years, not one year.

There may be a change in Government next year, but there will be no change in Britain’s resolve to stand with Ukraine, confront Russian aggression and pursue Putin for his war crimes. Let me pay personal tribute to the Minister for his efforts on this. I am proud of Britain’s leadership on Ukraine, and I want to feel the same in six months’ time, so what new support is the UK sending to Ukraine now that the offensive has begun? What are the Government’s aims for next week’s Ukraine recovery conference in London? How have Ministers stepped up production in the UK defence industry, and what use has been made of urgent operational requirements to speed that up?

This debate is also an opportunity, four days from the start of Armed Forces Week, to celebrate the service of our forces personnel. At home or on global military operations, our forces personnel are essential to our national defence, our national resilience and our national obligations to allies. Theirs is the ultimate public service. On behalf of the Labour party, I thank the serving men and women in our armed forces for all they do to keep us safe. I also want to recognise the unsung work and essential expertise of the non-uniformed staff in defence.

However, after the Minister’s speech, we have to ask: what is the Government’s purpose in this debate? Why is this happening now, before and not after the defence Command Paper is published? Where is the Defence Secretary? Where is his vision for UK leadership and contribution to NATO? Where is his apology for the failure to honour this nation’s pledge under the ARAP—Afghan relocations and assistance policy—scheme to those brave Afghans who put their lives at risk to work alongside our forces? Where is the action that he is taking to fix MOD procurement, which the Public Accounts Committee say is “broken” and “repeatedly wasting taxpayers’ money”? Where is the 2023 action plan for Ukraine that he first promised back in August last year? What has he been doing for the last six months? Part of the answer, of course, is leaning very heavily on his No. 2, the Minister for Armed Forces, as he is today.

Given that the Minister commands such respect across both sides of the House, we look to him to provide us with the reassurance that the new Command Paper, due this month, will be reported first to the House and not briefed beforehand to the media or to policy institutes. If he wants to intervene to give the House that reassurance, he would be very welcome to do so.

[James Heappey]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that the Secretary of State and I have the highest regard for Mr Speaker, who has been very clear on these matters. We will ensure that both Mr Speaker’s instructions and the right hon. Gentleman’s exhortations are noted.

[John Healey]

That is welcome indeed and noted on our side, not least because the new defence Command Paper will be a really important publication. No country comes out of a war in the same way as it went in. Ukraine will, and must, have a serious impact on how our future global military operations and our homeland defence is conducted.

Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began last year, 26 NATO nations have rebooted defence plans and budgets. Chancellor Scholz discarded decades-long German policy and boosted defence by €100 billion. President Macron has promised the same budget increase in France. Poland will spend 4% of GDP this year. Finland and Sweden have set aside decades of non-alignment to apply for NATO membership. However, there has still been strategic inertia from British Ministers over any deep rethink of international and domestic planning.

[James Gray]

I am interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s vision of the future. He believes that there will be a Labour Government in a year’s time—although I personally do not agree with him—so when there is, what commitment will he make to defence spending under a Labour Government?

[John Healey]

I take nothing for granted—I have been around too long for that—and we will fight hard every day to make sure that we do get a Labour Government. The hon. Gentleman will also appreciate that it is right to judge Ministers by their actions, not their words. I say to him that in the last year of the last Labour Government, in 2010, Britain was spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. That level has never been matched in any of the 13 years since under Conservative Ministers.

[James Gray]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am so sorry to intervene twice. The figure was indeed slightly more than 2%, if not quite 2.5%, but of course, GDP was very much smaller. The amount that the Labour Government were spending when they lost power in 2010 was significantly less—billions of pounds less—than we are spending today.

[John Healey]

The point about the measure—counts in terms of GDP—is that it demonstrates the priority that the Government of the day give to a particular area of necessary spend. It was 2.5% of GDP in 2010. We have got nowhere near that in any of the 13 years after 2010 under the hon. Gentleman’s Governments.

On the question of a necessary rethink in domestic and international strategy, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there were indeed some welcome changes in the 2023 integrated review: a new commitment to reinvigorating important bilateral ties across Europe; a declaration that the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt has been delivered; and a recommitment to NATO as our overriding priority. However, that was a rebalancing of defence plans, not a reboot. While NATO is increasing the strength of its high readiness force to 300,000, the Government are cutting the Army still further, to its smallest size since Napoleon. While Germany boosts its defence budget by over €100 billion, the Government continue with real cuts in day-to-day defence spending. While Poland is buying an extra 1,000 tanks, the Government are cutting back our UK Challengers from 227 to 148—all this in direct breach of the promise the then Prime Minister made to the British people at the 2019 election, when he said that

“We will not be cutting our armed services in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed services.”

All this is part of the pattern of the 13 years since 2010. There are now 45,000 fewer full-time forces personnel, one in five Navy ships has been axed, and over 200 RAF planes have been taken out of service. Satisfaction with forces life has hit a new low, and our ammunition supply has been run down to just eight days. The Defence Secretary summed it up in January when he told the House that

“I am happy to say that we have hollowed out and underfunded”—[Official Report, 30 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 18.]

our armed forces. While threats increase, our hollowed-out forces are working with fewer numbers and less training, and without the long-promised new kit that they need to fight and to fulfil our NATO obligations, such as Ajax.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the lack of investment over many years. Does he agree that today, it is particularly worth mentioning the potential capability gap with the retirement of the Hercules fleet? Given that we have quite rightly paid tribute to our armed forces, including the RAF, perhaps my right hon. Friend wants to say something about the looming capability gap—for up to two years, as I understand it—with those wonderful aircraft having been retired recently.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right to pick up that point, and he is not the first on either side of the House to raise those questions. They have still not been satisfactorily answered by Ministers, particularly if the Government’s strategy is to have our forces persistently forwardly deployed. When the Minister responds to the debate, he might like to try again to reassure those who are still not satisfied that the A400 provides the capabilities in very specialist areas that the Hercules had been able to provide for so long.

I am conscious of the time and the number of people who want to speak, but I want to pick up where the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), who so ably chairs the armed forces parliamentary scheme—a scheme that is so highly valued on both sides of the House—set out, with the budget that defence requires. We left government in 2010 spending 2.5% of GDP. In November, the Defence Secretary told this House that

“the inflationary pressure on my budget for the next two years is about £8 billion”,

but the Chancellor announced just £5 billion in the spring Budget, earmarked only for stockpiles and nuclear. That means no new money for pressures on the core defence budget or capability gaps, or indeed to deal with inflation.

It is not just how much we spend on defence: it is how well we spend it. Since 2010, we have seen Ministers waste at least £15 billion of taxpayers’ money through MOD mismanagement in procurement, with £5 billion wasted since 2019 when the Defence Secretary took up his post. Those failures have implications for the defence Command Paper: it risks being a defence plan driven by costs, not threats, framed by the Defence Secretary’s failure to win the funding that he has said is needed.

In the face of threats that the Government confirm are growing and intensifying, I ask the Minister these questions: will the defence Command Paper put an end to the Defence Secretary’s hollowing out of our armed forces? Will it halt deeper Army cuts? Will it pick up Labour’s plans to conduct a NATO test of major defence programmes to ensure that we meet our NATO obligations? Will it pick up our plans to establish a stockpile strategy to replenish UK supplies and sustain our support for Ukraine? Will it pick up our plan to renew the nation’s moral contract with those who serve in our forces?

In the end, the country is best served when defence can be bipartisan. We want this defence Command Paper to be a sound defence plan for the country, not just the plan of current Conservative Ministers. If the Government are willing to take these steps, Ministers will have Labour support. If not, the big decisions will have to be taken after the next election, I hope by a Labour Government.