Ukraine
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I begin by congratulating the three Front-Bench spokesmen on the eloquence and unanimity that has been displayed. In studying the depravity of dictators, one quickly understands that cynicism has no limits and hypocrisy no boundaries. Putin likes to draw parallels with the second world war, and there are indeed parallels to be drawn. For example, the false flag operations go back to the very outbreak of that war. On 31 August 1939, Hitler would have had it that the war began because Poles attacked a radio station at Gleiwitz, on the east German border. They were in fact Nazis dressed up in Polish uniforms, and they even left the dead bodies of concentration camp victims as props in that scheme. It is a sign that Putin’s comparisons are insufficiently accurate or insufficiently free of hypocrisy that he does not recognise that what started that war was Stalin’s pact with the Nazis to divide up Poland between them.
This is necessarily a short debate, which is just as well, because I side with those who do not think it is a very good idea for us to discuss military strategy in an ongoing campaign on the Floor of this House. What we can observe is that one complicating factor in a dictatorship such as Putin’s Russia is that there are no mechanisms whereby a leader who is unethical, irresponsible, incompetent and indeed murderous can constitutionally be removed. That has to be a factor in our considerations.
If it were not too flippant, I would be tempted to remark that it is truly a sign of desperation and indeed substandard propaganda that a cheerleader for Putin yesterday threatened a nuclear strike on London if we continue to help Ukraine defend territory that is being illegally annexed. Given the extent of the property portfolios of so many of Putin’s oligarchs in the centre of this great city, they would, I think, have a word or two of objection to a Russian strategy of that sort.
The beginning of the invasion left quite a few people thinking that resistance was unlikely to be successful. Indeed, it probably would not have been successful but for the supply of complex weapons systems that had taken place since the earlier invasion of Crimea. As a result, we have seen the Russians’ air arm neutralised, the Russian fleet’s major surface unit in the area sunk, tanks and other vehicles destroyed, and ground troops decimated. The only tactic that has been left to the Russian dictator has been the physical destruction—usually by long-range artillery—of territory that the Russians cannot take and hold.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I totally agree with the comments of my right hon. Friend. I am sure this is happening, but combat supplies and spare parts need to be reinforced, because complex weapon systems go wrong and need to be repaired. While we are at it, as we come into winter, it would be good to provide the Ukrainian armed forces with simple little things such as face masks so they can go through the winter, because they probably do not have them.
Dr Lewis
Not for the first time, my right hon. and gallant Friend anticipates my next but one point. I will make the next point first, which is that, because the only tactic left is destruction, the area of doubt is how far Putin will go. Will he simply think that by escalating destruction, the Ukrainians will suddenly say, “We can’t take any more of this and we’re going to surrender”? Surely the events of the past months have shown that any such approach would be completely counterproductive. The more he behaves atrociously, the stronger the resistance will be and rightly so.
My right hon. and gallant Friend referred to the supplies that we give. Of course it is greatly to the credit of the previous Government and, indeed, the previous Prime Minister, who spoke earlier in this debate, that we have given such substantial supplies, but in giving those supplies, we have seriously depleted our own stocks. What I need to hear from the Minister is that a full-scale effort is being made and will be increased to ensure that the more we give, the higher our rate of replacement will be, because an effort cannot be sustained if the people who are resisting run out of supplies.
Finally, it would be remiss of me to conclude any debate about defence without making a reference to the need to reach 3% of GDP. We have made progress: we now have a pledge to reach 3% of GDP by 2030, but the situation in 2030 is a long way away—it is longer than the second world war, with which I began. We need to reach it sooner than that.
Ukraine Update
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I am grateful for the support of the right hon. Gentleman and his party on Ukraine. I apologise to him that he did not get my statement earlier. I changed it at the last minute—I was taking a bit of time as I wanted to give the House as many facts as we could and declassify some material.
It is my ambition that Operation Interflex—the training of Ukrainian forces in the UK with the international community—goes on as long as necessary, for now. We set a target of 10,000 troops, but through this pipeline I envisage that we will continue to train as many as are sent by Ukraine, to ensure that we are providing forces for them during the offences they are engaged in. Last Thursday, I again visited Yorkshire and met some troops who had come back. I met one man who had been injured by shrapnel and another man who, not long after leaving, had used a British NLAW to destroy a Russian tank. The scheme has a double benefit: we are learning as we go and improving the curriculum to ensure they get the very best training—they already want to learn more about some things and less about others—and our own troops are learning on the latest battlefield what our enemy does and how we deal with it. That is incredibly important, and we will continue to supply and support them as long as possible. When they arrived for the first curriculum I went to visit them, and some of those guys were getting off the plane in their tracksuits, training in uniforms and then having to hand them all back. They now leave here with 50 pieces of uniform—equipped, ready to go, with much better battle training and so on—to go into the next phase of their training in Ukraine. We will continue to supply that.
How many are trained, again, is in the hands of the Ukrainians, but we already know that they will want more specialist training. That is where I often convene our international partners, because they might want to do that closer to Ukraine than in Yorkshire or wherever we are delivering it. Those are the two phases, but the training is still going strong. I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman came to visit, and I am happy to facilitate the leaders of the other parties or their Defence spokespersons to come and visit it as it progresses. I notice we have all the Vikings—the Danes, the Swedes and the Finns—all in the same camp, so come October time they will be able to teach us about working in the cold. That is very good.
Our strategy is to give the Ukrainians the absolute best chance either to negotiate, when they wish to, from a position of strength or to defeat Russia in their own country—to hold their position, to push back the Russians and, if necessary, to defeat Russia within Ukraine, to ensure that Russia comes to its senses and withdraws from its military and illegal action there.
We signed off last week on more replenishment of the high-velocity anti-air missiles, which are made in the same factories as the Thales NLAWs, to ensure that they are replaced. Right across the western industries there is a challenge with replenishment. Many of the supply chains have been dormant, and I think the right hon. Gentleman will know—as I think either he or the Leader of the Opposition made a visit to Belfast—that it is not as simple as switching on a tap. I have been very clear that we will place the orders, but we need to encourage the arms industry to invest as well.
It is not just for us to effectively pay for manufacturers to double their production lines; those lines will be full of customers, and we would like to ensure we get the balance right. Nevertheless, I will not sacrifice our readiness and our stocks to do that. The industry has letters of comfort from the accounting officer in the Department to say, “We will be placing orders, and you should start to proceed.” I met the head of BAE recently, who said it is already starting to expand its production, so that is on track.
The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne is absolutely right about the energy crisis. It did not come out of nowhere; some of it was about peak demand post covid, but President Putin is weaponising energy. He has weaponised a lot of other stuff over the years: he has weaponised cyber, political division in our countries, misinformation and corruption, and energy is just another plank in his arsenal. It is important that we communicate to our constituents that some of the deeply uncomfortable times that we all face are driven by a totalitarian regime in Russia that is deliberately setting out to harm us and trying to test whether we will sacrifice our values for our energy costs. That is very important.
For what it is worth, President Putin is sowing the seeds of the end of energy dependency, not only for Russia but around the world. We must all work on putting investments into renewables, which many Governments have talked about—I have been in this House under both Labour and Conservative Governments—but diversity of supply is also important. In the long term, Putin has put Russia in a weaker position. Switching off the pipeline instantly will just persuade Germany even more that it has to invest in something else, and I think that is a good thing.
I am delighted to join the right hon. Gentleman on a commitment to more defence spending; I wonder whether he will join us in our commitment to 3% of GDP on defence spending by 2030. I have always been very clear that as the threat changes, we should change what we do and how we invest. The Armed Forces Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey), has made the point that it is not as simple as taking whatever extra money we get and doubling or increasing our troops; the lesson of Ukraine, as I have often said, is that history shows that when people spend lots of money on lots of new platforms and on certain numbers, they can hollow them out and not actually produce medium, small or large perfectly formed units.
If we have more money, I can assure the House that we will ensure that our soldiers and sailors are less vulnerable than they are today, that they have the 360° protection they need and that we invest in the enablers to make sure that the frontline is properly supported. All the vulnerabilities that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown—across the western armies, not just in the United Kingdom—will be fixed. At the same time, we will make sure that we fix the forces we have with better maintenance, better spares and everything else, so we can be more available and readier.
It is always tempting at these times for people to come out with ideas that are like going back to the steam train. Some people still want to go back to the steam train. There is always a tendency to want to suddenly mass up, but if we mass up without the appropriate funding, we will be in a mess in 10 years’ time. I do not want to repeat that.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Although the commitment to 3% of GDP on defence is welcome, 2030 is further away in time than the entire duration of the second world war. It would be nice to see that commitment, which the Select Committee on Defence originally called for about six years ago, implemented a little sooner than the new Prime Minister plans. Can the Defence Secretary confirm that the extra expenditure on replenishing the arms supplies that we are giving to Ukraine is being met with extra funds from the Treasury reserve? What steps are we taking to ensure that the Russian people get the same message about the failure of Putin’s campaign that the rest of the world can clearly see?
Mr Wallace
On the latter point, in one sense it is sad, because it is people’s lives, but in Russia they cannot ignore the long and continued train of bodies to their loved ones and families. It was not missed by Soviets in the Afghan conflict. The terms “boys in zinc” and “load 200”, which are now in the Russian vocabulary, refer to the planes that brought back the dead bodies: zinc was what they used to wrap them. That is clearly before people in Russia. It is not helped by the misleading, dishonest and manipulative state information that tries to say that these people died fighting Nazis. The only people who are displaying a fascist tendency in Ukraine are the Russian regime; it is not in any way being extolled by the Ukrainians defending their soil. But we obviously do our best.
On the increase to defence funding, some of that £2.3 billion is replacing gifted equipment from our own stocks; that is already being done. We were able to release the GMLRS M270 because we received some others from another country, which we are refurbishing. We will continue to keep pace and make sure that we do not sacrifice too many of our own stocks. At some stages, there are also opportunities when our stocks come out of life or approach their sell-by date and are perfect for gifting, because they will be used. We have already planned to replace them. Some of the NLAW orders are actually quite old, because we knew anyhow that they were coming out of date; they were a 2003 weapon, so we had already started that process. I think it is NLAWs, but I can happily write to my right hon. Friend about the exact weapon system.
UK Defence Industry: Procurement
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Leo Docherty
Yes, indeed. I join the hon. Gentleman in commending, and reaffirming our commitment to and admiration for, those 10,000 defence jobs. He rightly points out that they exist because of the standard of international excellence that those workers achieve, particularly as part of our deterrent. I hope that he will take a public opportunity—maybe not now, but perhaps in future—to put on the record his commitment to the deterrent. It may not be easy for him to do that, so I will move swiftly on.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Before the Minister moves swiftly on from the deterrent, I would like to take him back to aerospace. In the past he has been generous with his time and has met me to discuss the subject of the war widows, a subject that falls more within his own bailiwick. I have been trying to get a meeting with his colleague, the Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), so that a British-based aerospace firm can show him a presentation that greatly impressed me when I chaired the Defence Committee. I have no financial or commercial interest in the company concerned, but I am worried that independent, smaller companies get squeezed out by the big operators, and I would not ask for such a meeting if I did not think that company had something important to offer to defence.
Leo Docherty
I am happy to recommit our determination to ensure that SMEs are a part of our collective success. I am sure that the Minister for Defence Procurement will be delighted if I commit on his behalf to him meeting our right hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned Ajax. We entirely understand the concerns that she has expressed and we have made no secret of the fact that it is a troubled programme. Despite those troubles, we are proud to be in Merthyr Tydfil because of the excellence of the workforce. I can offer some reassurance, in the sense that the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Defence Procurement continue to meet with our commercial partners, but the bottom line, very clearly, is that we will not accept a vehicle that is not fit for purpose. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement will keep colleagues updated as progress is made.
I agree entirely with the main thrust of the speech we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, which was about supporting SMEs as an integral part of our supply chain. They are indeed the lifeblood of the Welsh defence industry. She referred to the fact that there has been a growth in the proportion of supply they make up, which I am pleased about. We want to increase the proportion of defence expenditure that goes into SMEs to 25% by the end of this year.
That will not happen by accident. It is happening because we are fortunate to have many SMEs who are agile and producing products that we absolutely want. My hon. Friend mentioned Charcroft Electronics and Compact Orbital Gears in her constituency. They are two very good examples of first-rate SMEs. I should also mention Radnor Range Ltd at Presteigne, which provides range facilities for the testing and evaluation of weapons and is another good example of a first-class SME with which we partner.
My hon. Friend can rest assured that institutionally we will continue to support companies big and small, and we have strategies such as the defence equipment plan, and the defence and security industrial strategy, which colleagues will be familiar with, alongside subsector plans to provide industry with the transparency it craves in order that it can clearly understand what capabilities we need and then respond to that.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, we are also using the opportunity provided by our departure from the European Union to develop better defence and security procurement regulations, which will be tailored to better meet our own needs. That will lead to the Procurement Bill, which will replace the existing set of complex public procurement ordinances with a single uniform framework. It will be simpler to use for both the Ministry of Defence and suppliers and it will make the acquisition process much faster, helping to unleash the innovative potential of British businesses. That is a concrete and important legislative step forward, which I am sure colleagues will welcome.
Our Department is also doing all it can to encourage larger defence primes to invest in and develop SMEs. As my hon. Friend pointed out, our refreshed SME action plan, which we launched at the beginning of the year, will be pivotal to this work. We are doing that to help smaller companies maximise future business prospects, ensuring that we can maintain an agile supply chain, which will help us meet the evolving threats that we face. To help innovative companies succeed, we have ringfenced £6.6 billion for research and development spending. That money will help industry produce the kinds of game-changing capabilities that are necessary to keep us ahead of the curve of innovation.
My hon. Friend mentioned exports. I was pleased to hear about the company that has a full order book. We commend that, and we are trying to do everything we can to offer more export opportunities to a greater number of players. We have committed to developing a standardised commercial mechanism for Government-to-Government defence and security sales, which should make it much easier for customers and partners to do business with us.
My hon. Friend mentioned operational ration packs. I confirm that I do know them through a great deal of personal experience, and I am actually a big fan. When it comes to procurement, it is only right that we have a nuanced approach. For some generic procurement, we are bound to a degree by public procurement regulation, but British food, of course, needs no introduction and has the competitive advantage of being great value for money. That is borne in mind more broadly across defence for not just the operational ration packs, but our provisioning for the entire defence establishment. We are reviewing the way we feed our force, and access to fresh, local British produce will be a key component of that. I am grateful for her remarks on the matter.
On skills, I applaud the apprenticeship programme that my hon. Friend mentioned. I have similar programmes in my own constituency, and I am pleased to confirm that we are working with the Department for Education to develop STEM programmes in local schools and colleges. I hope hon. Members would agree that the RAF has been ahead of the game on that matter. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) mentioned the success of the commercial and institutional partnership that takes place at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton—between Leonardo, the Royal Air Force and local schools—to drive the collective success of the Fleet Air Arm and the Commando Helicopter Force at that critically important Royal Navy air station, which one of the busiest air bases in Europe. I am grateful for his comments.
I want to be clear that we are absolutely on the same lines. We are excited about the prospect of a greater number of SMEs being involved in the collective success of defence procurement. It is an exciting and innovative time for defence investment, driving forward the kind of operational output we need to fulfil our ambitious plans in the Future Soldier programme and the defence Command Paper. It is sensible to say that defence procurement not just in England but in Wales has a very bright future indeed.
Question put and agreed to.
Ukraine: UK and NATO Military Commitment
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Leo Docherty
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s questions and, as ever, we are grateful for the support of the Opposition for our Ukraine defence policy.
To go straight to the questions, new contracts are under discussion. The Minister for Defence Procurement and the Prime Minister had a meeting this morning, which was the latest in a series of discussions about escalating the supply of NATO-standard equipment, which is very important.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about training, and that was a very significant result of the Prime Minister’s visit last week. I think the Defence Secretary also had some discussions. Not being privy to those discussions, it is not appropriate for me to speculate about their content at the Dispatch Box. However, I can say that the reference point for the UK’s contribution will be the remarkably successful Operation Orbital, which has trained some 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers since 2014. We have a long and deep heritage of working very closely and successfully with our Ukrainian allies, and I think that will be a very good basis on which to conduct future training support. As to which NATO allies may be involved, I cannot confirm that, but I would say that NATO, by disposition, tends to work in alliance, so I suspect other nations to be involved.
I am glad for the update about the right hon. Gentleman’s visit to PJHQ, but I would ask him to be a bit more optimistic about our absolute resolve to meet our commitments. This is about a disposition in which we are absolutely resolute to be agile and to strain every sinew to deliver at pace the technological and military revolution necessary to make ourselves more lethal, agile and deployable around the world than ever before. For too long, the measurement of our military capability has been about men and vehicles in garrisons, rather than our ability to project power, and that is something that we are absolutely confident we are getting right.
To prove the point, the fact the Chief of the General Staff is mentioning Russia demonstrates that, since March last year, this has been part of our job done. That is nothing new, and under the leadership that we are showing and with the determination for us to change and embrace modern technology as part of our ability to deliver lethal effect, we are getting to a point where we are more match fit than ever before to counter Russian aggression.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As the expenditure on all the equipment that we have rightly been supplying is operational, will the Minister confirm that it is coming from the Treasury reserve and not from the normal annual defence budget? I gently remind him and the House that, in the first half of the 1980s, we were spending not 2.3% or even 3% of GDP on defence; we were spending between 4.7% and 5.1% of GDP on defence.
Leo Docherty
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s question. The answer is yes. I note, with particular regard to the long-standing nature of his interest in the issue, his comments about overall defence spending.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
Taiwan is obviously a clear and growing point of tension in the Pacific. I regularly speak to our allies, both in NATO and further afield, about those tensions. Here in the United Kingdom we are reminded of Hong Kong’s recent experience and what the read-across could mean for other people who are trying to live freely and within the rule of law. The UK’s position is that the problems between Taiwan and China should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
This week marks the passing of that doughty Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament campaigner ex-Monsignor Bruce Kent. While paying their due respect, will the Government nevertheless reassert the fact that, as long as other countries have nuclear weapons, Britain must never give up its nuclear deterrent?
Mr Wallace
I remember, in my formative years politically, asking the late Mr Bruce Kent a question when I was at school. I do not think I asked the question very well, and I do not think he answered it very well, either. The reality is that Britain’s position is one of multilateral disarmament. It is not a position of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
NATO and International Security
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Thank you very much for calling me to speak so early, Mr Deputy Speaker. When one has discussed these sorts of subjects for a very long time, it becomes rather difficult to avoid simply saying the same things over and over again. On the principle of trying to say at least one new thing that I have not contributed to a previous debate, I wish to refer to the role of formerly neutral states in the formation of NATO.
It comes as something of a shock to me to realise that it was in 1975—substantially before the admirable defence spokesman for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), was even born—that I had a conversation with the late, great strategic historian Professor Sir Michael Howard on the proposed subject of my doctoral studies, which was how the British empire, as it still was at the time, prepared to adopt a strategy for after the defeat of Germany and Japan, and how the possible revival of German and Japanese threats gave way to a confrontation with our erstwhile allies, the Russians. What I was surprised to find was that the first thinking about this went back to the end of 1941: Trygve Lie, the Foreign Minister-in-exile of the Norwegian Government, made an approach to the British Foreign Office and was soon joined by the Foreign Ministers in exile of Belgium and the Netherlands. What did Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway all have in common? It was that in 1940 they had all been neutral, and in 1940 they had all been invaded and occupied nevertheless.
The proposal that those three Foreign Ministers put forward, which in the fullness of time led to the Brussels treaty and eventually the formation of NATO, was that Britain should be offered strategic bases in their countries once they had been liberated, and once the war was over, so that they could never again be occupied, despite their pacific intentions, by another European power.
Therefore, there is a certain appropriateness in the decision now of two countries—Finland and Sweden—with a tremendous history of neutrality, albeit strongly armed neutrality for purposes of self-protection, to apply now to NATO in order to prevent themselves being exposed and suffering the fate that Ukraine looked as if it was going to suffer, and which Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands had suffered in 1940.
That leads me to the only other point that I will make in this short contribution, which I have said before and will continue to say. Despite many years of thinking about these matters, all I can come up with in the end are three concepts summarised in half a dozen words. The three concepts are: deterrence, which is carried out by nuclear weapons primarily; containment, which is carried out by conventional weapons primarily until such time as the potential enemy has had a chance to evolve or implode, but either way until it can no longer cause a threat; and, finally, the unpredictability of future conflicts—the unpredictability of when or if they will arise, and the unpredictability of what will happen when they do arise.
My mind goes back to 24 February, the day of the invasion, when there was an exchange with the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House. At that stage, the best suggestion that I could make—at that time, let us face it, none of us expected Ukraine to resist as successfully and as courageously as it has so far been able to resist—was at least to offer a Ukrainian Government-in-exile a home here in Britain if their country became, as appeared likely, overwhelmed by massive Russian firepower. So far at least, there is every sign that such an offer will not have to be made. The lesson that we must take away from that is that we must always have a full range of military preparedness, because we do not know what the threat will be, we do not know when it will arise, and we do not know how it will turn out when it happens.
I end by saying, as I have said so many times before, that as recently as the mid-1980s we used to spend 4.5% to 5.1% of our gross domestic product on defence. Several years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we were still spending 3.5% of GDP on defence. Successive Defence Committees have now called—even before the present crisis arose—that we should raise our target not from the minimum of 2% of GDP, but to at least 3% of GDP. It is a matter of priority. What has happened to Ukraine shows where our priorities must lie.
Ukraine Update
Julian Lewis Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
On the Harpoon missiles, we are not currently providing them. Our Harpoon missiles are launched from ships, and very few nations launch Harpoon missiles from land—I do not think any do nowadays. There is a lot of media around this invasion and not a day goes by on which I do not have to counter stories that have somehow appeared. I think some of them are made up. The AS-90s going to Ukraine was another story—it appeared in the Express this weekend—but no, they are not. I do not know where that story came from, but it is not true.
On Brimstone missiles, we made a commitment 18 months or two years ago, when we were selling a fast-attack patrol boat to Ukraine, that we would sell it armed with maritime Brimstone missiles. Those ships are not yet in the country; they have not yet been purchased or delivered. However, if we decide to provide Brimstones in whatever guise, I will inform Members of this House when we do so. I will not close that off as an opportunity; it is a perfectly legitimate thing. There are different sophistications between block 1, which is just land Brimstone, and the at-sea developments that we have never bought. They have a range of capabilities. First and foremost, if we do provide Brimstone, we will look to provide it for the land, using stock that we already hold, but not as yet for the sea.
What more can we do for our eastern colleagues? I always advise colleagues of the Joint Expeditionary Force—many Members present already know about it—which is a tremendous group of the 10 Nordic countries. I recently asked colleagues from around the House to the dinner when we had the JEF summit here in the UK. The JEF is composed of the Scandinavian and Baltic states, the United Kingdom and Iceland. It is a tremendous grouping of people. Some people describe them as the beer-drinking nations; I am less charitable and describe them as the nations with probably the worst weather in Europe—that is what uniquely binds us together. We are the doers in Europe; we get on and do, we share, and we exercise and train together. The JEF also involves Finland and Sweden. I think it is a very good group.
As for 45 Commando in Arbroath, they have done and are doing an excellent job in Poland, as the hon. Gentleman said. They are incredibly professional, and there is more work for them to do.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is clear that the supply and use of missiles has turned military assets such as ships, aircraft and tanks into costly losses and liabilities. The one gap appears to be artillery. I know the Secretary of State said that we are supplying some artillery, but as earlier episodes show, the counter to a weapons system is not necessarily the same weapons system but a missile to destroy it. What can be done to prevent Russia from using artillery to raze cities to the ground without engaging Ukrainian forces properly, which is the one area in which it still seems to be succeeding?
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend has put his finger right on the heart of the current race. The race is on to equip the Ukrainians with the same long-range capabilities that Russia has, so that they are not outranged and pinned down. That is why we started first and foremost by sourcing 152 mm around the world—Soviet calibre—so they can keep going with that.
In parallel, we and a number of nations are exploring providing either 105 mm, which is our main lightweight gun, and the 155 mm in more mobile versions than the big armoured AS90s. One thing that this modern battlefield is showing is that people had better move quickly once they have fired their guns, because they can be very quickly found by pretty cheap off-the-shelf unmanned aerial vehicles. Exactly as my right hon. Friend said, there is a race on in parallel. We have now seen a number of eastern countries providing 155 mm howitzers; that unlocks NATO ammunition. We will play our part and make sure it gets to them.
In addition, the intelligence around artillery has to be improved, so we are exploring counter-battery radar, so that as soon as Russia fires a shell at you, you know exactly where it came from, and you can return the favour.
War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme Payments
Julian Lewis Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Leo Docherty
We will pursue that immediately. I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for the opportunity.
We will seek to improve speed and quality. We will not be just tinkering in the way we improve things; we are serious, because we know that we will be judged on our failures in this regard. I will briefly mention contributions by other hon. Members before I get on to putting some of the broader issues in context.
I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), who has a long-standing interest in this field. He talked about our moral responsibility to veterans—I agree with him—and his interesting ideas about the role of the VAPCs offer food for thought. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) raised the very concerning case of her constituent, and mentioned the good work of the Scottish Veterans Commissioner. I join her in commending that role.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) also raised a constituent’s case, and spoke about the convoluted nature of the process. I accept that that is the case, and that is exactly what we want to change by moving away from the paper process. The hon Member—my honourable friend—for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) mentioned the important role of service charities, but I would argue that they augment the role of the state rather than replacing it, and we should be very proud of that.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly highlighted his concerns about his constituents in Northern Ireland. I look forward to visiting him there soon. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) called for the reformation of the war pensions system, and that is exactly what we are getting after. I was grateful for the variety of comments made by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who made a range of points, some of which I will address now.
First, I must set the context. We must bear it in mind that Veterans UK makes 106,000 monthly payments to recipients of the war pensions scheme and the armed forces compensation scheme. Those payments are tax free and linked to inflation through the consumer prices index. There are around 6,500 applications and 1,000 appeals and reconsiderations currently being processed. I am just trying to give a sense of the scale.
All that costs Her Majesty’s Government £736.3 million a year, £652 million under the war pensions scheme and £84.3 million under the armed forces compensation scheme. It is an operation of huge scale, and justifiably so, because it recognises the scale of the service of our magnificent veterans’ community, which comprises more than 2 million people, but in an organisation of that size there will of course be some cases that do not get the appropriate level of service.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the Minister find time to update the House on the progress of a small-scale matter but an important one—the cohort of about 250 war widows who lost their pensions on co-habitational remarriage and did not get them back when the law changed?
Leo Docherty
My right hon. Friend has been a long-standing campaigner on this. I hope we are making progress and I look forward to meeting him soon to update him.
Of the 106,000 awards, 154 complaints were received, so that is a 0.1% failure rate. Of course any failure is unsatisfactory and we want to reduce that number to absolutely zero, but I am just trying to give a sense of the scale of the system. The staff at Norcross are working their hardest in difficult conditions, and they do receive significant numbers of thank-yous, so I should put that on the record. It is a real problem that they are working with an antiquated system of paper records from many different sources of information that they have to bring together. The armed forces compensation scheme now has an average target time to resolve cases of 90 days, which is being met, and the war pensions scheme has an average target time of 127 days, which is falling short, but that is because they are trying to get rid of the backlog, which we all seek to clear, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston asked. We should do that with empathy and thoroughness. The future will be better. We recognise that we can do more. That is why we are injecting £40 million into digitising both schemes, which will result in a quicker process. The pilot that has just taken place resulted in something that previously took six weeks with the paper system now taking six hours. We hope that the new digital system will launch at the end of 2023.
In tandem with those mechanical and procedural improvements, we are cognisant that we must inject more empathy into the process. Veterans UK is therefore conducting lived-experience roundtables bringing together veterans directly with its staff to hear about their service and adjusting their customer service style accordingly. On that note, I invite the hon. Member for Midlothian, on the back of this debate, if he would like to engage with the staff at Vets UK to try to be a part of the solution. We would be very grateful and I would look forward to affording that opportunity.
We are determined to improve the service to all those in receipt of payments from both schemes because they deserve nothing less than a first-rate service, as they deserve the gratitude and respect of the whole nation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Lewis Excerpts(4 years ago)
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James Heappey
There is a constant regeneration of forces. As two battle groups are committed to Estonia, more battle groups need to embark on the training pipeline to make sure that we have contingent land forces at readiness. Similarly, ships have been deployed to the two NATO standing maritime groups and to Exercise Cold Response. We continue to generate further ships to give more choice and options thereafter, if requested by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Similarly, with the Typhoons and F-35s, a large amount has been committed as part of the initial response force, but we are generating more to have them at our disposal, if SACEUR asks for more.
The hon. Gentleman asks about the money right now. All of it seems to be being met by the Treasury; long may that continue.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Given that we should help the Ukrainian armed forces by all legitimate means short of war, will Ministers press our NATO allies on the fact that the rather artificial distinction between defensive and offensive weaponry should be swept away when requests for equipment are received, because when a country is fighting on its own territory, having been invaded, all its weaponry is defensive?
James Heappey
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It suits our purpose to refer to the equipment that we are providing in the context of the defensive role it can play, but defence intelligence over the weekend reflected on the fact that the armoured column to the north-west of Kyiv has been pushed back in recent days, because small bands of determined people are manoeuvring with lethal weapons systems. That is forcing the Russians to move back into a place where they feel that they can defend themselves better. These are defensive bits of equipment. That, I think, is the right message to send to the Kremlin. If, in the ingenuity of the Ukrainian armed forces, they do something more, that is good on Ukraine.
Jeremy Quin
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I think I wrote to her last in November of last year on that issue. I am afraid we have not moved on yet and we are still studying exactly what radar configurations will be required, but it is actively being looked at and I certainly commit to updating her when I can give her an assurance one way or the other.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
James Heappey
My right hon. Friend knows that I have been engaged in this matter for him for some time. I am told from my phone that the high commissioner has now reached out to explain the situation. For the benefit of the wider House, the challenge is that for those who arrive in Pakistan with eligibility to come to the UK under whichever Government scheme they are intending to use, but have not entered Pakistan legally, the Pakistan Government are taking a view on limiting our ability to process those people. We are working hard to persuade the Pakistan Government to take a different approach.
Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22
Julian Lewis Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Not for the first time and, I am sure, not for the last time, the House has cause to be grateful to the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) for reaching across the party divide in support of the strongest possible defence of this country and the strongest possible support for NATO. It is in that spirit, as a former Chairman of the Defence Committee, that I acknowledge the stalwart support he has given to successive holders of that post. This is an opportunity for defence-minded parliamentarians to give some initial reaction to the colossal and extraordinary events of the past fortnight in the context of what Britain was going to spend on defence, and what it should spend on defence in future.
In June 1950, five years after the end of world war two and following a time of mass demobilisation, the Korean war broke out. The effect of that conflict, quite apart from the terrible consequences for the people living in Korea, was to cause a huge reassessment of the amount of national effort that must be invested in defence in the United Kingdom. That led to a reconsideration of the level of defence expenditure, and I suggest that the seismic events of the past two weeks should lead to a similar reassessment of what we are prepared to invest in defence in the United Kingdom in the 21st century. We cannot conduct this debate as if nothing serious has happened to transform the situation in the past two weeks.
Although it is very early and the outcome of the conflict is still very much in doubt, I suggest it is possible to come tentatively to about half a dozen conclusions, and I will run through them very quickly. First, I think we can say that the advanced public messaging by the United States, NATO, the United Kingdom and other allies has been outstanding. It has prevented President Putin from seizing the narrative. By predicting accurately in advance what he was going to do, it has completely undermined his potential disinformation campaign. Every pronouncement that we hear from the Kremlin is so ludicrously at odds with reality that it cuts no ice at all, except with those totally indoctrinated.
Secondly, the events of the past fortnight dispel any illusions we might have had about the nature of our Russian adversary. As has been said rightly many times by those on the Front Bench, that is not the Russian people, but the people in control of that great, but benighted country. We must remember that people such as President Putin are the direct descendants of the regime whose ideology led them to kill millions of their own people in the decades in which Leninism and bolshevism held sway. Although the communist doctrine has collapsed, the mindset, the imperialism and the brutality have not. I have previously described President Putin in uncomplimentary terms, and I think it is worth repeating them. This man is a cynical, sneering psychopath. He does not care how many people he kills, as long as he gets his own way. Anyone thinking that there is a way to reason with these people, rather than deter, contain or, if necessary, defeat them, is living in a world of fantasy.
Thirdly, in light of Ukraine’s decision to give up—admittedly it was not a system it could operate at the time, but given time it could have done so—the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, which it inherited from the former Soviet Union, any lingering doubts about the wisdom of the United Kingdom continuing to possess a strategic nuclear deterrent as long as Russia does so have finally been put to bed.
Peter Grant
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we do not have a problem with the issue; we have a problem with nuclear weapons. Is he not aware that as a matter of international law, as a successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia was the legal owner of those nuclear weapons? It was entitled to take them away. Ukraine would have been in breach of the law to try to hold on to them.
Dr Lewis
Yes, and I am also aware that as a result of Ukraine’s decision to give up those nuclear weapons, Russia guaranteed the security and the borders of Ukraine. If the hon. Gentleman is going to throw international law at me, all I can say to him is that, if he thinks that those sorts of manoeuvres and unilateral renunciations are the way to stop someone being attacked and destroyed by a ruthless adversary, it should be a long time indeed before he and people who think like him have any influence on the way in which we choose to keep the peace—by deterrence—so that we do not end up in a situation like Ukraine.
Fourthly, this horrible situation should establish whether and to what extent economic sanctions can force an aggressor to desist. It is often said that the world has become more interdependent. We will never see a more extreme example of democratic countries seeking to use economic pressures to force an aggressor to desist. If that fails to work in this instance, it will be a further argument for increased investment in hard defence capability, because that particular aspect of hoping to be able to turn war into an outmoded concept will, sadly, have been disproved. I hope that it does play a part in stopping Russia from proceeding, but I am not holding my breath.
Fifthly, the conflict has exposed the folly of fuel dependence on hostile countries and raised questions about the wisdom of a policy of unilateral net zero targets by democracies regardless of what much larger countries, that are not democracies, do. I am not seeking to pick an argument with the environmentalists; I am merely saying that there is a parallel with the question of unilateral or one-sided nuclear disarmament, because if we achieve net zero at tremendous cost to ourselves while much larger hostile countries simply flout the commitments that they have given, we will have taken that pain for no benefit to anyone. Targets must be multilateral if they are going to do anything other than weaken our ability to protect ourselves.
The last of the six lessons is that the conflict has killed the idea that conventional aggression by one state against another is an outmoded 20th-century concept. Time and again, people such as the right hon. Member for Warley on the Opposition Benches and my right hon. and hon. Friends present on the Conservative Benches have raised the question of what an appropriate level of defence investment should be, only to be told from on high, “You’ve got to realise that there are new forms of warfare. The next war will not be fought much with conventional armed forces. It will be fought in cyber-space or even in space itself.” Of course, there are new and serious threats—potentially fatal threats—in those two newer areas of conflict, but they are additional threats. They are not substitutes for the threats that we have always faced and continue to face from conventional armed forces.
Bob Stewart
I thank my right hon. Friend—who is a good friend and is gallant, because he was a midshipman once—for allowing me to intervene. One thing that the Russians are showing is that to take territory, people have to put boots on it. But, guess what? We are chucking our boots out. That is appalling and we must reverse that decision.
Sir Robert Syms
There are one or two other lessons from the current conflict. One is the impact of mobile phone cameras and psychological ops on the way in which a country communicates with itself and the world, and I think we could learn from that. I think we have lost a lot of the skills that we had in the second world war and when we were facing the Soviet Union, and this is one area we need to look at.
Dr Lewis
I quite agree with both my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and my hon. Friend.
Bearing in mind your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will conclude with one point about the budget itself. During the period in which I chaired the Defence Committee, we produced two reports—one in 2016 called “Shifting the goalposts?” and the other an update to that report in 2019—with the purpose of setting very firmly on the record what the proportion of GDP spent on defence had been historically on a like-for-like basis. It is a fact that, in the aftermath of the Korean war, defence spending as a proportion of GDP at one point was as high as 7%. In about 1963, it crossed over with spending on welfare at 6%. That was all a long time ago, but as recently as the 1980s the spending on health, education and defence was roughly the same at just over 4% of GDP.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
My right hon. Friend, I and probably everybody present in the Chamber have been calling since we have been Members of Parliament for much higher defence spending. I think that is accepted. However, does he agree with me that once that higher level of spending is determined, we should not necessarily link it to GDP, because economies can go up and down? There have to be real-terms increases once that higher figure is decided, otherwise the armed forces will not know where they are and it will be difficult to plan.
Dr Lewis
I do agree with that point; using GDP percentages has always been only a very rough and ready guide.
What was absolutely shocking was the way in which, given that even within half a dozen years of the downfall of the Berlin wall—as late as 1993-94—we were still spending 3.1% on the old method of calculation and 3.6% on the new method of calculation, whereby the MOD is allowed to include certain things we never used to include, it then became an argument as to whether we would even manage to achieve 2% of GDP. Our expectations have been managed down so far that when, even in recent times, a number of us have called for 3% to be a target, it was regarded as being completely out of reach. It should not be out of reach. The sort of effort we put into defending this country is the most important investment we can make, so 3% of GDP should now be seen not as a target or as a minimum, but as a stepping stone on the way to a realistic investment to meet the threat that never really went away, the reality of which in Ukraine has now been proclaimed for all the world to see.