Oral Answers to Questions
John Spellar Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
We are driving the delivery of capability to the frontline. Over a two-year period to December 2022, we have seen a one-year reduction in the average programme duration, but we can do more to improve and are committed to learning the lessons of the Sheldon review.
James Cartlidge
I do not accept that. I am happy to write to the hon. Member with the details. Our position is that, obviously, we want to use UK steel and we recognise its quality, but there will be cases where the appropriate steel has to be sourced from elsewhere. Ultimately, we have to deliver the equipment required for our capability.
John Spellar
It is probably a bit of a shame but, after missing out on the job of Secretary-General of NATO, the Secretary of State seems to have reverted to “no more Mr Nice Guy” mode today, although it may improve as the day goes on.
I ask the Minister, in an amicable way, why, when every major military-industrial power is relentlessly focused on building domestic industrial capacity following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he is stubbornly refusing to do the same. His previous answer on steel shows again that the mindset has not changed. Why will he not back British industry and British military resilience?
James Cartlidge
I am happy to be Mr Nice Guy when it comes to British industry. A central tenet of the defence and security industrial strategy is that industrial capacity is part of our defence capability. I am absolutely clear about that. Of course we want to have a strong domestic industry. There are occasions when acquisition has to be undertaken at pace and, as we have seen in getting equipment out to Ukraine, we have had to be flexible in how we source that equipment. But we are absolutely committed to a strong industrial base for defence, both at SME level and with our primes.
Mr Wallace
I would say that I am optimistic. In my phone call with my new Turkish counterpart last week, that was one of the first subjects I raised. I have also spoken consistently and on many occasions with Türkiye and its leadership. I am confident that we will get there in the end. Sweden has made significant strides in its counter-terrorism legislation to deal with some of the issues that Türkiye has raised, and I think Türkiye now recognises that as a strong effort.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
The right hon. Gentleman is very persistent. I will have to check that point for him.
Armoured Cavalry Programme: Sheldon Review
John Spellar Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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James Cartlidge
It is no exaggeration to say that no one in this Chamber has greater passion on the subject of procurement and acquisition reform than my right hon. Friend. I look forward to appearing before his Sub-Committee next week to discuss the important role of Defence Equipment and Support, on which, of course, so much of the report is focused. He is absolutely right: we need fundamentally to improve acquisition. A key reason for that is technology. We have to have a system that is faster, leaner and more agile so that we can respond more quickly to evolving technology. It must be self-evident to us all from the theatre in Ukraine—the way that uncrewed systems, one-way attack drones and all the rest of it are being used—that war is changing rapidly and we need to respond to that. Our acquisitions system needs to be able to do so, too.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
May I first express concern that there was in the Minister’s statement no estimate of the extra cost that will be incurred or of the capability gap? To echo the comments of others, the excellent workforce in Merthyr Tydfil are certainly not to blame in this debacle. Indeed, one of the issues highlighted in the report is that they were not listened to when they expressed concerns about the progress of the project. What I am unclear about is why, yet again, no one is to blame. It is probably because Ministers change so quickly that they can evade responsibility. Certainly, the system, and individuals’ roles in it, are to blame.
Why did we need a KC and a year of examination to deal with the blindingly obvious failures in the procurement system, of which this programme is merely an extreme example? Why did Ministers not do a rapid assessment and get on with the job? Will the Minister actually get on with changing the system and not let the natural inertia within the civil service get back to business as usual, as we have seen so often before and as we are seeing again in health with the vaccines programme—this system is failing the British people and, in this case, the British armed forces—or will a successor stand up there and make the same lame excuses in a few months’ time?
Oral Answers to Questions
John Spellar Excerpts(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Wallace
I have heard these tired arguments that what we need to do is keep the Herc and get rid of the A400. The A400 outperforms the Herc in most areas. It has a longer ranger and a bigger capacity, and it can land in the same area; in fact, it can land in a shorter distance. In the massive evacuation of Kabul, one A400 had a fault for six hours and managed to continue on its course. The A400 is performing. The migration to special forces and other capabilities is on track, with jumps having been done from it and other parts. The simple reality is that the A400 outperforms the Hercules, and its availability was extremely successful. The Hercules accounts for only 10% of the fleet, and the overall fleet for lift is now the biggest it has been for 50 years.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I join the Secretary of State in congratulating our armed forces on their role in Sudan, as in Afghanistan. However, there is a problem: in Afghanistan and Sudan—but also during covid, when lots of our citizens were stranded around the world—while the Ministry of Defence was up for early action, the Foreign Office was not. Can we have a stronger role for the MOD in the machinery of government, so that we get the can-do attitude of the MOD, rather than the can’t-do attitude of the Foreign Office?
Mr Wallace
I can do, by helping the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the resilience of the whole of government is supported by the MOD. There are definitely lessons to be learned, and I will ensure that they are taken away and shared across Government.
Ukraine
John Spellar Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mr Wallace
That is a good idea, and I will definitely pass it on to the Chancellor. Work has already been done through the G7 with the oil cap, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that Russia needs funding—it needs to sell its oil and gas. Currently, there are reports that it sells it to China and India at huge discounts in order to get it there. The Foreign Office and the Treasury work tirelessly to close any loopholes that are brought to their attention, whether by Members or anyone else, including the law enforcement agencies. Russia has shown itself to be adept in using those loopholes, but we do see that the Russian industrial base is now struggling with the rearming of some of its equipment. So many of its subsystems seem to have come from the west that it is now definitely finding it hard to resupply itself.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The announcement about new munitions to Ukraine is very welcome, but we also need reassurance that the Secretary of State’s Department will be able to restock. Can he tell us what the Department is doing to ramp up and sustain production capacity, including supply chains, not only to support Ukraine until the end of this conflict, but to ensure we restock our own armed forces?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Gentleman consistently asks about this matter, and he is right that we have to keep restocking ourselves. Some of the restocking has started, including the next-generation light anti-tank weapons, if Members remember the very first gifting—that restocking started a few months ago—and the low and high-velocity anti-aircraft missiles. I am hoping to be able to inform the House in June that we have placed a long and enduring contract in the UK to replace our 155 mm shells. One thing that this conflict exposes is that we need those types of fires available. Restocking is important, and in the autumn the Treasury gave me £560 million for some of that refurbishment, but there was also other funding in the latest Budget, which I will of course make sure is spent on keeping our forces refurbished.
AUKUS Defence Partnership
John Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Alex Chalk
We know, come what may, that the first of these submarines will be built in Barrow, and we have already begun the procurement of long-lead items for that initial batch. Precise numbers will emerge in due course, and that will depend on all sorts of things, including how quickly the Australian industrial base matures and so on. I reassure my right hon. Friend that the first boat will be built here in the UK, and work is being done to ensure that the necessary components for future builds are already being procured.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I welcome this development, as well as the announcement from the Prime Minister, an American Democrat President and an Australian Labour Prime Minister, showing unity between parties and across countries on this vital endeavour. However, I think the Minister is unreasonably complacent. It is not clear who is in charge, and lack of clarity leads to delay and disruption. If we look at the Polaris agreement—it was signed at Nassau in 1962, and HMS Resolution was laid down in 1964, launched in 1996, and commissioned in 1967. Who will be doing that? On the nuclear aspect, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, the report states that we will be looking to
“align delivery of the civil and defence nuclear enterprises”
and goes on to mention the development of
“small modular reactors in the UK through Rolls-Royce SMR;”.
Yet the Treasury is sabotaging that project. It is demanding endless inquiries and evaluations, and is now talking about having a competition with international competitors to try to undermine Rolls-Royce. We do not have that link-up between the civil and military enterprise, so when will somebody get a grip?
Alex Chalk
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks, but I do not recognise the points he is making. As far as Rolls-Royce is concerned, the Government are absolutely behind that fantastic facility—
Alex Chalk
I have been there recently, and I am pleased to say that they are. Rolls-Royce recognises the importance of this programme. One thing that is clear about building nuclear powered submarines is that unless we keep the drum beat of “always-on” manufacture, it is easy for those skills to erode. I am delighted that this programme ensures that we will be building reactors now and in the future for generations to come. That means we will keep those expert personnel, ensure a pipeline of staff, and we will be experts for many years to come.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
It is important, across the international community, that the public get a sense of where all our donations are going and how they are being used. On a recent visit, I met Ukrainians and other international partners to ensure that we put in place some form of assurance, so that we know where what we are sending is going, because soon the public will rightly say, “What is happening to it?” It is also important to recognise, as Ukraine has shown, that supply chains, whether domestic or multinational, have to be supported to ensure that we can surge them at times of need, rather than having to blow the dust off them and it taking months or years to reopen them.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State has indicated, Ukraine has made it graphically clear that long-term ordering is vital to the defence industry and to maintaining capacity in machinery and manpower. Does he therefore accept that the failure to place orders for new nuclear submarines between 2010 and 2016, even though there was a clear majority in the House for doing that, was a major strategic error?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I will do a deal with him if he admits that that is not the only example: we have all made strategic errors in our defence policies in the last two decades, because the Treasury has worked in the short term, so we have hollowed out the company. Government after Government have wanted more but have not wanted to fund it—his Government were no different, as I know, because I was serving in the Army under them.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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James Heappey
Wagner’s presence in Africa is obviously deeply unhelpful, and it is cynical and opportunistic. It has no interest in the countries in which it operates; it is simply there to extract the maximum value for Russia, and potentially to cause as much chaos as it can for those of us who are trying to help on the continent. However, the Government do not routinely comment on whether an organisation is being considered for proscription.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (Alex Chalk)
The defence and security industrial strategy is helping to retain onshore critical industries for our national security and our future. The Ministry of Defence supports the development of a more productive and competitive UK defence sector. With a significant footprint across the UK and the procurement pipeline, the MOD is well placed to contribute to economic growth and levelling up.
John Spellar
May I take the Minister back to the subject of the fleet solid support ships? I realise that he is new to the job, but he has been ducking and diving during earlier exchanges. The prime contractor, as Ministers have admitted, is Navantia. What guarantees have they obtained that the boats will be built in the United Kingdom—especially the first in class—and in respect of the numbers of apprenticeships that would ensure capacity for the future?
Alex Chalk
As is always the case, the precise details of the contract will be set out in due course, but these facts are absolutely clear: the award is of £1.6 billion to deliver three vessels, and this will be a British ship built to a British design in a British dockyard, mostly with British steel. I hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would support this development, because it strengthens British shipbuilding—and, by the way, it also means £70 million for a British dockyard, which he should certainly support.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
Almost within days of the invasion, I convened a donor conference. At the first conference we had nearly 30 nations, and three conferences later, when the United States chaired it in Germany, we had more than 50 nations. We constantly work on that co-ordination and we have set up the international donor co-ordination cell, which is well populated by United Kingdom forces, to make sure that we get the right equipment to the right people in time.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Does our ability to resupply the Ukrainians not depend on our having a robust defence industry? Does that not depend on both facilities and skilled manpower? And does that not depend on orders being placed in this country? Does this not absolutely demonstrate the folly of the Secretary of State’s proposal to offshore the purchase of the fleet solid support ships to Spanish shipyards?
Ukraine Update
John Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend is right; I have often stood at the Dispatch Box and said that as the threat changes so must our investment and funding. That has been all too forgotten when it has come to defence during the last three decades, to be honest. It was interesting that we always understandably responded to pressures in the NHS or the financial markets, but that did not seem necessary when it came to threats. That is how we have ended up with a need to go up to 3% by 2030.
As long as I am Defence Secretary, I will keep the view that as the threat changes we should always review the issues. That is fair and consistent for the men and women of the armed forces. It also sends a strong message to people such as President Putin: that we mean what we say.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
In answer to the challenge from the Secretary of State, I can say that Labour Front Benchers are very ready for government—and by the way, his lot seem to be actively working to be ready for opposition.
The statement was helpful, but ignored the gorilla in the room. Earlier this week, the Secretary of State urgently flew to Washington DC for talks about the situation in Ukraine. There has been quite a bit of briefing in the media on what that may have been about. I fully understand the sensitivities, but surely it is owed to the House and indeed the nation for there to be some indication of how we and our allies see the conflict evolving.
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He and I went to Washington ourselves in calmer times; it now seems decades ago. I was in opposition and he was in government, although he is well qualified to know what opposition is—sadly for him, he has probably spent more time in opposition than government.
There has been a lot of what I would describe as speculation rather than briefing about why I went to Washington; I noticed that yesterday two mainstream media publications gave different reasons for why I went. Fundamentally, President Putin makes his speeches, things change and we need to be absolutely prepared to discuss that with our closest allies. Sometimes it is important to do so in person. I thought it was important after the appointment of the new general, after President Putin’s speech about annexation and during the issues around Ukraine’s success on the battlefield and what that could mean for President Putin, his actions and what happens next.
It is important that we have such discussions in person. I went to the Pentagon and the State Department. I met the National Security Adviser and had other meetings to make sure that we all understand our planning processes about what we would do in the event of a whole range of things.
People should not be alarmed, but I hope they take comfort from the fact that my priority is, if necessary, getting on a plane to go and do that, not dealing with what is currently going on in our mainstream media.
Ukraine
John Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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James Heappey
We absolutely are. Under the previous Prime Minister and under the current one, the Treasury was given very clear instructions, which it has been delighted to follow, to replace everything that we give on a new-for-old deal. We are grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for agreeing to that.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Providing the cash is very welcome and necessary, but is there not a fundamental problem with equipment manufacture and particularly supply chain vulnerabilities, which do not just apply to the UK? What steps is the Department taking to mobilise the defence industry and its supply chain to ensure that those obstacles are overcome, and rapidly, for our supply as well as Ukraine’s?
James Heappey
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he is expert in these matters. It is certainly the case that countries have depleted their own stockpiles to support Ukraine, and as a result of a profoundly changed global security situation, everybody has committed more money to defence. Although that is great news for the defence industry in the medium term, it brings with it more demand than current manufacturing capacity can supply. The former Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin)—sadly, he left the Ministry of Defence in the latest reshuffle, but he has been brilliantly replaced by the new one, my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke)—worked hard to make sure that that new manufacturing capacity is brought online as quickly as possible.
Training is as important as military hardware. Here, too, the UK has been in the vanguard, busily establishing a network of camps to train 10,000 Ukrainians. This has been accompanied by specialist armed training across a number of countries in Europe. To date, we have trained more than 4,700 troops from the armed forces of Ukraine in the UK, and our units are being joined by forces from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Lithuania, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand. Our training offer is already making a difference to Ukraine’s combat effectiveness, and it will continue for as long as Ukraine wishes.
Ukraine has proven its capability not just to halt the invasion but to roll the Russians back. Those who contended that the support provided by the UK and our international partners was futile have been proven wrong, but Ukraine now needs more support to get through the winter, to push home its position of advantage and to recover its territorial integrity. That means helping Ukraine to replenish its stockpiles of equipment and ammunition as well as service its existing kit. It means helping Ukraine to plug its capability gap and refurbish the equipment captured in recent offensives. It also means making sure that as temperatures plummet to minus 20° and below, Ukrainian soldiers remain warm, well fed and motivated while Russian soldiers freeze without any concern from their leaders in the Kremlin.
At the beginning of August, at the invitation of the Danish Government, the Secretary of State co-chaired a conference to discuss further support for Ukraine on training, equipment and funding. At that conference, the Defence Secretary announced that the UK would establish an international fund for Ukraine to ensure the continued supply of essential military support throughout 2023. Last week, partner nations met again to reaffirm our commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, and to maintaining momentum on planning and co-ordinating our continued support to Ukraine throughout the next year.
In addition, the Prime Minister, speaking at the UN General Assembly, has pledged that this Government will match or exceed the £2.3 billion of support that the UK has given to Ukraine since February. This further cements our leadership internationally and our resolve to stand behind Ukraine as it retakes sovereign territory currently occupied by the Russians.
It is vital that we maintain our momentum in support of Ukraine. There will inevitably be those who, given the rising impacts of Putin’s weaponisation of energy, argue that we should seek to normalise relations with the Kremlin on Putin’s terms and return everything to the way it was, but we must be honest with the public. We cannot succumb to Putin’s scaremongering and threats of blackmail. This Government are doing everything they can do address the energy crisis, and on Wednesday my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary brought forward an unprecedented package of measures to address those issues.