Strategic Defence Review
Debate between John Healey and James Cleverly(5 days, 8 hours ago)
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John Healey
My hon. Friend is proud of the Government and of the SDR, and we are proud of her—the first Labour MP ever for the town of Aldershot, home of the British Army. She serves that community and the Army with great distinction. She is also doing extremely valuable work on how we match the significant increase in taxpayers’ investment in our defence with more private sources of investment. I have been following her work in developing those ideas, and am looking at them closely; I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is, too.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Like many in the House, I have only had a chance to skim-read the SDR. Fundamentally, it seems to be heading in the right direction, but why is it so timid? Why is it so slow? If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, we face an era-defining moment, why not move with the pace that the era demands? Why not commit to 3% within a meaningful timescale, to give industry and the forces a serious opportunity to plan, and to make this a document worth its name, rather than saying, “Let’s see how little we can get away with while keeping the papers happy”?
John Healey
I reject that characterisation completely. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman recognises that the SDR is going in the right direction; it certainly is. He will recognise that it is a complete break from what the Government of whom he was a leading member, less than year ago, presided over—14 years of hollowing out and underfunding our armed forces. It was defence with no vision for the future, and it has ended now. This is a plan to use the very best innovative technology to reinforce the strength of our armed forces and the traditional hardware that we have. The SDR will deliver that vision, and we will deliver it.
Diego Garcia Military Base
Debate between John Healey and James Cleverly(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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John Healey
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He makes a powerful point in a judicious way. The shadow Defence Secretary could learn a bit from him.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Both the Prime Minister—in his extensive press conference prior to the Secretary of State for Defence coming to the House—and the Secretary of State have said on numerous occasions that this deal is the only way of protecting the military operations on Diego Garcia. When I was Foreign Secretary, I did not see anything to make me agree that this is the only way of protecting military operations on that base. The Defence Secretary suggested in his statement that a judgment could come within weeks that would undermine the operations of the base. From which binding legal authority does he fear that jurisdiction may come? We know it is not the International Telecommunication Union or the International Court of Justice. Who does he believe would prevent us from military operations on that island?
John Healey
The right hon. Gentleman was a formidable and very senior figure in the previous Government. He was in the post of Foreign Secretary during the period when there were negotiations on this deal. By entering into the negotiations, his Government accepted and conceded the principle that a negotiated deal was the way to secure the full operational sovereignty of this base for the long term.
The right hon. Gentleman may well not have been satisfied with the deal that his own people could have negotiated at the time, because when we picked up the negotiations, there was no agreement on an effective UK veto across the archipelago, which we have now; there was no buffer zone accepted in that agreement, which there is now; there was no agreement in that text for 99 years, or the option of an extra 40 years, which we have got in there now; and there was also not an agreement for Mauritius to take on responsibility for any migrants, but there is now. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman looks at the new text of the treaty, and I hope he will back it when it comes before the House.