Defence

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome this defence debate in Government time. The defence and security of Britain is an increasing public concern in this country. You said that 13 Members had put in to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to each and every one of those contributions. We have pulled in some of the very best in this House on defence for this debate.

I start by paying tribute to our UK armed forces, who are in action defending international shipping in the Red sea, reinforcing NATO allies on the Russian border and protecting all of us in Britain 24/7. Our forces are respected for their total professionalism worldwide. They have a right to expect our full support, on both sides of this House, and in this defence debate they will get it.

This is an era of increasing threats to our UK security, our prosperity and our values. To deal with this more dangerous world, we need a new era for UK defence to deter threats, to defend the country and to defeat attacks. Over the next decade, we face an alliance of aggression from autocrats who have contempt for international law and freely squander the lives of their own people. With Putin’s war in Europe now into its third brutal year, the Ukrainians, civilians and military alike, are fighting with huge courage. They have regained half the territory taken by Putin and disabled his Black sea fleet, but Russia shows resurgent strength, with its economy now on a wartime footing and its Government spending 30% of their total budget on the military.

I am proud that the UK is united for Ukraine. In response to the Secretary of State’s invitation, the Opposition give our full backing to the Government’s increased UK military aid for this year and following years, as well as to the long-term UK-Ukraine security co-operation agreement. Let us take the politics out of this country’s backing for Ukraine. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) said to President Zelensky in Kyiv, while there may be a change of Government at the election, there will be no change in Britain’s resolve to support Ukraine, confront Russian aggression and pursue Putin for his war crimes.

That is because the first duty of any Government is to keep the nation safe and protect our citizens. The defence of the UK starts in Ukraine. If Putin wins, he will not stop at Ukraine. I say very clearly that Labour will always do what is needed and spend what is needed on defence. When Labour was last in government in 2010, Britain was indeed spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, the British Army had over 100,000 full-time troops and satisfaction with service life was at 60%.

[Bob Seely]

The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) has done really good work with me on the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine, and I pay him credit for that. Whenever we take folks to Ukraine, we try to take as many from the Opposition side of the House as from the Government side. The right hon. Gentleman says that he will do whatever needs to be done, but expenditure requires long-term planning, so I just want to confirm for the record that he is saying that he will meet the £15 billion of expenditure that the Secretary of State has outlined and the £75 billion of expenditure the Secretary of State has outlined for the growth of the armed services budget.

[John Healey]

I will come on to the £75 billion in a bit, but the hon. Gentleman asked about Ukraine. The Government’s increase in military aid for this year and following years has Labour’s full support. Every commitment of UK military aid since Putin invaded has had Labour’s fullest support; that will continue.

We in the Labour party have deep roots in defending this country. Throughout the last century, it has been working men and women who have served on the frontline, fighting and sometimes dying for Britain. It was Labour that established NATO and the British nuclear deterrent—commitments that are unshakeable for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras as Labour leader and for everyone who serves on the Labour Front Bench.

We are a party with deep pride in forging international law and security—the Geneva conventions, the universal declaration of human rights, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty were all signed by Labour Prime Ministers—and we are a party with deep respect for the serving men and women of our armed forces. Theirs is the ultimate public service. They defend the country. They are essential to our national resilience at home.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I endorse what the right hon. Gentleman is saying and echo his support for the Government’s backing of Ukraine. Does he agree that perhaps over the last 25 years, across both sides of the House—I will take my own share of responsibility for this—and maybe across the west as a whole, we have been complacent about the post-cold war situation and about the fragility or vitality of our defence of western liberal democracy?

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one way to demonstrate that we have understood that we are now in a different place is to reverse the cuts to our armed forces? Backing our soldiers—our men and women who put themselves in harm’s way—involves backing them with the resources to increase their numbers and to get the size of the Army up to, say, 100,000, so that we can demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are serious about standing shoulder to shoulder with our NATO colleagues and defending democracy and freedom around the world.

[John Healey]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman only to a point. In his speech to the House, the Defence Secretary set out the range of increasing threats that this country and our allies now face. Those threats are very different from those of 14 years ago, so it is not simply a question of reversing the cuts that we have seen in recent years; it is a question of matching the requirements needed for the future with the threats that we face.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman that defence has to be a consensual matter. All the work I have done with the Labour Front-Bench team has been very consensual, because they have talked a great deal of sense. Every single thing that the shadow Secretary of State has said this afternoon could easily have been said by a Conservative Secretary of State—there is nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Will he therefore continue that worthwhile cross-party consensus by agreeing to match our defence spending commitment of 2.5% of GDP?

[John Healey]

We share the ambition to hit 2.5%. Our commitment to 2.5% is total. We will do it in our own way and we will do it as soon as we can. I will come on to the flaws in the plan set out by those on the Government Front Bench.

[James Gray]

The right hon. Gentleman is extremely generous to give way again. There is a very important difference here. Ours is an absolute 100% cast-iron guaranteed pledge to spend 2.5%. Will he match that?

[John Healey]

I am afraid there is nothing cast-iron about the figures, the plan or, indeed, the proposals for paying for it. I will come to that in a moment.

Before I took the first intervention from the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), I wanted to pick up a final point that was made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on the question of reviewing what we need to face the threats that we now face. The Defence Secretary is dismissive about the need for a strategic defence review, despite the fact that his own Department is preparing for exactly that, whatever the result of the next election. That was confirmed in the House last month by the Minister for Defence Procurement. He also made the point a month before, when the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) talked about a defence review and the Minister for Defence Procurement said,

“he makes an excellent point.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2024; Vol. 747, c. 27.]

The problem for the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, who was involved in the five years of coalition government after 2010, and the problem for the Conservative Front-Bench team, who have been in government for the past 14 years, is that people judge Governments on what they do, not on what they say.

The Defence Secretary mentioned his January speech at Lancaster House, and he is right when he argues that what we do on defence sends signals to the world. What signal does it send to Britain’s adversaries when our armed forces have been hollowed out and underfunded since 2010, as his predecessor admitted in this House last year? What signal does it send to our adversaries when defence spending has been cut from 2.5% under Labour to 2.3% now, when day-to-day defence budgets have been cut by £10 billion since 2010, and when the British Army has now been cut to its smallest size since Napoleon?

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The present Defence Secretary was chair of the Conservative party until 2016. Is it not also a fact that, when the Conservative party was in coalition government, it cut the defence budget by 18% and not only reduced the size of the Army but made people compulsorily redundant? Had a Labour Government done that, we would have heard howls and cries from Conservative Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

I said a moment ago that Governments and Ministers are judged by what they do, not by what they say. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and independent Library figures confirm that 18% cut in defence spending over the first five-year Government led by the Conservatives after 2010.

What signal does it send to our adversaries that defence procurement has been condemned by the Public Accounts Committee as “broken,” that at least £15 billion of taxpayers’ money has been wasted through MOD mismanagement, and that procurement delays to Ajax and Wedgetail are putting our NATO commitments at risk? What signal does it send to our adversaries when forces’ recruitment targets have been missed each and every year for the past 14 years, when satisfaction with service life and morale have fallen to record lows, and when military families live in damp housing and use food banks to get by?

Even after Putin invaded Ukraine, this Government cut a further 4,000 troops from the British Army, took 287 days to sign a new contract to replace the NLAW anti-tank missiles to restock our armed forces and, according to the National Audit Office, created a £17 billion black hole—the biggest ever—in the defence equipment plan this year. It is no wonder the Secretary of State wants to talk about the future, not the past. This is the Tory record of 14 years of failure on defence. Our armed forces simply cannot afford another five years of the Conservatives.

Let me say again that people judge Governments by what they do, not by what they say. The Defence Secretary now thinks he has the answer to every problem—a magic wand, a get-out-of-jail-free card—but the Prime Minister’s announcement last month that the Conservatives will raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 is of course the same level that this country spent with Labour in 2010. Boris Johnson made the same promise two years earlier, and the Conservatives have not delivered it in any of the five Budgets or autumn statements since. None hit 2.5%, none reversed the real cuts in resource spending and none matched Labour’s record.

Everyone recognises that defence spending must rise to deal with increasing threats. We share the same ambition as the Government, and we are totally committed to spending 2.5% on defence. We want a plan that is fully costed and fully funded in Government budgets. Our armed forces deserve no less.

[Bob Seely]

rose—

[Mr Francois]

rose—

[John Healey]

I will give way to two of his colleagues who have not yet intervened on me, and then I am sure I will come back to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely).

[Mr Francois]

Governments should be judged not by what they say, but by what they do. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Wedgetail. If Labour were in government, would it specifically commit to going back to the original five Wedgetail AEW aircraft, rather than the three that are now on order? Is that what Labour would not say, but do?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

The right hon. Gentleman knows the difficulty of serving in this House and debating defence issues from the Opposition Benches. He knows we simply will not have access to the classified information on threats, the capabilities we need, the state of the armed forces or even the true state of public finances until we open the books. Those are the sort of decisions that we will make in a strategic defence review within the first year of a new Labour Government. That is the way that we will balance the requirements for national security with the responsibilities for sound public finances.

[Bob Seely]

Is there not a simple problem here, though? Labour may be committing to a defence review, but that review will take nine or 10 months—maybe a year. That simply means that it avoids spending or matching those increases for a period of at least 18 months. That is a significant problem.

[John Healey]

I think the hon. Gentleman needs to have a word with those on his own Front Bench, because the Department is at the moment planning a fresh review, whatever the outcome—[Interruption.] Yes, it is, whatever the outcome of the election. The problem for the hon. Gentleman is that the 2030 target is not in the Government’s financial plans; it is in a press release. We cannot rebuild the UK’s armed forces, let long-term procurement contracts, deter those who threaten us or defeat Putin with press releases. If this 2030 plan had been in a Budget, it would have been independently checked, openly costed and fully funded, but it is not and it was not. There are more holes in the Defence Secretary’s numbers than there is in Emmental cheese. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has called the £75 billion figure “essentially meaningless”. The Institute for Government has said that the Conservatives’ 2.5% plan does not add up, and that cutting 70,000 civil servant jobs will get nowhere close to delivering the savings needed to fund 2.5%.

To produce his fake figure of £75 billion, the Secretary of State has invented a zero-growth baseline for the next six years, unlike and in contrast with the Treasury’s official 0.5% real annual growth baseline. To get 2.3% as a different baseline for the annual increases in his plan on page 20 in the annex of his report, which he likes to parade, he has added all the one-off spending this year to the defence core budget—that is £3 billion for Ukraine, £1 billion for the nuclear contingency, half a billion pounds for operations and £300 million for ammunition, all in the figures for each of the next six years. Finally, the Secretary of State has used a trick that the Government tried before, in the 2015 defence strategic review, when Ministers pledged to cut 30% of MOD civil servants just to make their spending plans add up. However, after 2015 and that plan, civil service numbers in the MOD of course did not go down to 41,000; they went up to 63,000.

The new promised increase to defence core budgets will not start until April next year. For the next 10 months, day-to-day budgets in real terms are still being cut, the Army is still being cut and recruitment targets are still being missed. Nine out of 10 of the veterans promised a veterans ID card by the end of last year are still missing out, and around 500 veteran households are being made homeless every three months.

Our armed forces cannot afford another five years of the Conservatives. With threats increasing and tensions growing, we must make Britain better defended. Labour’s plan for defence will reinforce homeland protections with a new strategic review. [Interruption.] It will fulfil NATO obligations in full, with a NATO test on our major programmes.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

On that point, will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

I am finishing off now; the hon. Gentleman will have his chance to speak.

Labour’s plan will renew the nation’s contract with those who have served through an independent forces commissioner. It will make allies our strategic strength, with new French, German and EU defence agreements, and renewed UK leadership within the AUKUS alliance. It will direct British defence investment first to British jobs with deep procurement reform. Labour is the real party of defence. With Labour, Britain will be better defended.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.