Middle East: Security

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

We have heard the report, like the right hon. Member, and we are currently trying to establish the truth of it—it came out of Iranian media. Our position would be that we urge that that person be granted a visa. The United Nations is obviously one of the key locations where we will try to use diplomatic levers to resolve and de-escalate the situation.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

President Trump has already thrown our Kurdish friends in the area under a metaphorical bus. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the dramatic action that President Trump has taken means that he is turning away from his policy of withdrawing from the region, increasing his policy of withdrawing from the region, or does not have the slightest idea which of the two he ought to do?

[Mr Wallace]

I cannot answer for the United States long-term policy on the middle east, but I can say that this action was heavily weighted in self-defence—an issue of the here and now and the threat that they faced. My right hon. Friend’s question feeds the point made quite rightly by the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), that we need to invest in our defence and security so that we are never over-dependent on one ally or another. It is the UK Government’s view that we need to have long-term support and investment in Iraq, which is important for the region. We do not want to be in a place where we are always dependent on others, such that should they change their policy, our policy has to go with it, whether we want it or not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

On the joint comprehensive plan of action, dealing with the Iranian nuclear capability, I have made it clear to the United States, as have my colleagues in Europe, that we support the maintenance of that agreement. We think that is the best way forward to make sure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, but also to deal with the concerns that the Iranians have had over the years about their security. We will continue to press that, as we continue to press in the areas of Turkey and Syria for upholding international and human rights obligations.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The good doctor and the illustrious Chair of the Select Committee on Defence—Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Lewis]

23. I hope I get an extra-long question in the light of that introduction, Mr Speaker. May I take this opportunity to congratulate, for the first time, my right hon. Friend on becoming Secretary of State for Defence? May I return to the question of the tanker seizures and the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron)? Does not the fact that it was originally conceived that 32 frigates and destroyers would be necessary to complement the carrier strike forces and the amphibious forces mean that, at 19 frigates and destroyers, the size of the escort fleet is woefully too small?

[Mr Wallace]

I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend. I think I am going in front of his Committee later in the week, and no doubt I shall bow to his knowledge as he will no doubt grill me.

I understand the point that my right hon. Friend has made. All our defence capabilities have to match our ambitions across the board—that is the first point—whether that is land, sea or air. It is the case that our surface fleet is of over 50—of course, 19 are frigates and destroyers—and that means we do allow flexibility in our fleet to meet certain needs, such as disaster relief, which was done by a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship. However, in case the threat changes, we must always be prepared to move to match that threat, and we will always keep under review the size of our fleet, but it is also why we are continuing to invest in new ships—more capable sometimes than numbers because of the very potency they pose. The Type 26 frigate will be a world-leading capability, and that in itself will be a deterrent to many of our adversaries.

Defence Spending

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In the four minutes available, I propose to make two points. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) on a masterly introduction to the debate. Her timing could have been better—to secure a debate so close to the arrival of a new Prime Minister is perhaps chancing her arm. Nevertheless, if we are to get the issue in the news, we need to link it to that, so I will quote the responses of the two remaining candidates in the race to be the next Prime Minister to my letter of 26 June, which asked about their defence policies.

On 2 July, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), the former Foreign Secretary, replied:

“The armed forces have done some exceptional work of late in attempting to live within an increasingly stretched budgetary environment. I can give you an absolute commitment to fund defence fully. I believe Military spending should be dictated by the threats we face—and, it is clear that these threats have multiplied in both scale and complexity in recent years. I guarantee, of course, that we will exceed the minimum 2% NATO spending target and the Defence Budget will continue to grow at a minimum of 0.5% annually.”

On 8 July, the current Foreign Secretary replied:

“In this leadership campaign, I have given more attention to defence spending than any other candidate. I have pledged to increase the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP over five years. I have argued that additional funds would need to be”—

made available, I think he means—

“for new capabilities and not simply plugging gaps in existing plans. Were I to become Prime Minister, I would consider the path of further increases in spending once the 2.5 per cent had been achieved.”

That is their position.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Lewis]

I had better not, because of time pressure.

Secondly, to coincide with the debate, the Defence Committee has updated its April 2016 report, “Shifting the Goalposts? Defence Expenditure and the 2% pledge”, in which we set defence spending in context. We showed that, while we spent similar amounts on education, defence and health in the mid-1980s, we now spend 2.5 times more on education than defence, and 4 times more on health.

Our latest report, which was published today—HC 2527, for those who are interested—has recalculated the figures for the last few years and brought them up to date. It shows that, in the last three years, we have spent 2.1% on defence, if we calculate it from NATO’s point of view and bring in extra things such as war pensions, which never used to count towards the total. If we exclude them, the new report shows that our like-for-like defence spending is only 1.8%. Is that credible in an age when the profile of the threats we face includes an adversarial Russia and the revival of a terrorist threat in the form of Islamist terrorism? When we compare it with the 1980s, when we regularly spent 4.5% compared with 1.8%, or 5% compared with 2.1%, we can see the shortfall.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Slightly unusually, if an hon. Member takes an intervention, I will not add on time, because that would push somebody else out at the end and they would not be able to speak.

National Shipbuilding Strategy

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

I am envious of the hon. Lady for going back to Cornwall. I spent my summer holidays there last year, and it is a wonderful part of the world.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

So is Durham!

[Mr Jones]

But Cornwall is, equally, very nice.

The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is about not just the build, but the through-life support. For a lot of the systems that we procure for the armed forces —certainly in shipbuilding—we look at the initial procurement, but we should also be looking at the through-life support. That is where the jobs are, and where the value is for the original, prime companies. As she rightly says, there is also value for smaller companies and others. If we are to spread prosperity around, we should see the contract as an investment in Britain. As she rightly argues, it is an investment in skills going forward. When looking at whether we can afford to make that investment, we should ask the Treasury, “What is the prosperity agenda?” The right hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) did a very good report that tried to explain that the prosperity agenda should be linked to procurement in the Ministry of Defence. One of the GMB trade union’s reports argued that 20% of the value of the fleet solid support contract comes straight back to the Treasury anyway, through taxes and national insurance.

That has to be taken into account, but it is the throughput of work that will ensure that the shipyards and supply chain are maintained. We have a great opportunity to do that with the FSS contract. Unfortunately, for reasons that I am not sure even the Minister understands or privately supports, it has been put out to international competition. We will make the same mistakes that we made in the 1980s if we think this will somehow lower the price or get a better deal. I am sorry, but no other country in Europe does the same thing.

We can dance on the end of a pin over whether EU procurement rules apply to the FSS vessels—I have made it very clear that they do not. The French have just ordered four new Vulcan class support ships. Did they think about putting that out to international competition or asking British yards to tender? No, they did not; they ordered them directly. It is the same for Italian and Spanish ships. That is the difference.

The South Koreans and Daewoo have now pulled out of the competition for the FSS contract, but we are not dealing with a level playing field. Those companies have huge amounts of Government subsidy, which is not open to UK shipbuilders. If we are to procure the ships and build them abroad, it is quite clear that the Exchequer will not get back 20% straightaway in tax and national insurance. We will also lose the ability to support our shipbuilding and ship repair businesses.

Since 2010, the Government’s industrial strategy on defence has been disappointing. When I was a Defence Minister, I had the privilege of working with Lord Drayson, who understood this issue. As part of his wider industrial strategy on defence—I think it ran until 2010—he rightly argued that if we want to build complex warships in this country, we need to put in the investment, get the drumbeat of work going, and ensure there is certainty for industry.

Since 2010, we have been promised various defence strategies, but what we really need is an overarching defence industrial strategy. I know the Minister will say that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or other Departments are dealing with these things, but I am sorry: a particular strategy needs to be developed for defence industries, including the maritime sector.

Sir John Parker’s strategy was an attempt but, as I said, I think it misses the point. It tries to reinvent some of the wheels of competition that failed in the 1980s. There is a fixation in the Ministry of Defence—I cannot understand where it comes from—with the idea, “Isn’t it terrible to give the work to BAE Systems?” BAE Systems is the only company in the UK capable of building complex warships. There are ways of incentivising it, but also ensuring that we get value for money and that we have the necessary systems. The hulls are important and the steel is important, but being able to invest in combat systems, engine technology and other things related to shipbuilding is vital, because they are exportable.

The carriers were a good example of Babcock, Thales and BAE Systems coming together in an alliance that worked. I do not understand why that alliance should be broken up on completion of HMS Prince of Wales, which will happen soon. That alliance seems an obvious way forward in terms of skills for the FSS. I understand that the new Secretary of State wants competition to be reviewed, which is welcome. I hope we can get understanding of the points that I and a lot of other Members have made about the importance of shipbuilding in the UK.

Let me conclude where I started. This is a vital sector if we are going to keep sovereign capability for complex warship building in this country. It needs to be invested in. It is not a smokestack industry; properly invested in, it is an industry for the future. Off the back of contracts such as that for the fleet solid support vessels, I would like to see investment in not only technologies but skills. We need urgently to ensure that companies such as BAE Systems, which do a fantastic job of recruiting apprentices, have the certainty to invest in skills. If we do not, we will fall behind: even with the political will to build complex warships in this country, we will not have the skills to do so. As I said, we have only to look at Barrow and the submarine programme to see the problems with trying to regenerate skills from scratch.

I am pleased that we are having this debate and putting shipbuilding on the agenda. I hope that that incentivises the Government to make an early decision to award the FSS contract to British yards or a British consortium.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

As an old schoolmate of yours, Mr Evans, it is a particular pleasure for me to contribute to this debate under your able chairmanship. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for continuing his relentless and entirely justified campaign to ensure that the defence footprint, particularly as regards naval shipbuilding, is not shrunk still further in this country.

Mr Evans, you will know, having been in the House even longer than me, that one of the few benefits of having spent more than two decades here is that we get to see trends over decades. What has happened with our naval shipbuilding does not make for a pretty picture. I remember the 1998 strategic defence review undertaken by the then new Labour Government of Tony Blair. It set out a policy for the Royal Navy that seemed to leave it in quite a winning position. Although the Royal Navy was asked to sacrifice three of its frigates or destroyers, thus reducing its total from 35 to 32, the review put forward the concept of carrier strike and amphibious strike, which meant that the two large aircraft carriers would be built.

Had it remained in that formulation, the Royal Navy would have had every reason to be satisfied. We all know, however, that that was not the case. Successive Governments reduced the total from 32 frigates and destroyers, first to 31, on the basis that these were much more capable ships and therefore 31 would be able to do the work of 32. When that little stratagem succeeded, the 31 were reduced to 25, and the 25 were then reduced to our present pathetic total of 19 destroyers and frigates—six destroyers and 13 frigates, to be precise. Before anybody starts lecturing us about the change in the nature of warfare, it is worth reflecting on the fact that one of those 13 frigates, HMS Montrose, is in the news today, having performed the very important function of protecting British shipping from Iranian attempts to respond to the impounding of a large vessel of theirs that was believed to be carrying contraband oil to Syria.

It is rather hard to have a strategy when we are dealing with only a relatively limited number of vessels, even though those vessels may well be much more potent, powerful and versatile than their predecessors. However powerful, versatile and potent they are, each can be in only one place at any one time, and that means that each can be built in only one place over a particular period. That makes it harder to have a versatile and flexible strategy to match those qualities in the ships that are being built.

One of the encouraging results of the publication of the national shipbuilding strategy was that, in identifying the general purpose frigate, the Type 31e—the cheap and cheerful version of the next generation of frigates—as one that should be designed for export, Sir John Parker, to whom we should again pay tribute for everything he did, also specified that, as a result of those vessels being built in modular fashion, they would be very flexible and adaptable over time to what is sometimes called incremental acquisition. In other words, we get the ship hulls built and get them out to sea, and then, over time, because we have built compartments in the vessels that can be used for a variety of purposes over a period of years, we sow the seeds of their future adaptability and additional potency.

We should remember that this was the first time there was talk of an increase in the total number of vessels. Instead of just being told, “We will be replacing 13 Type 23 frigates on a like-for-like basis,” we were told that there would definitely be eight of the Type 26, specialising in anti-submarine warfare, and at least five—not a limit of five—of the Type 31e general purpose vessels. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister whether there are plans to exceed the figure of five for the Type 31e.

Slightly less than a week away on Tuesday 16 July there will be another debate in this Chamber about defence expenditure. Of course, all these issues, including the important one about the fleet solid support ships raised by the right hon. Gentleman, generally come back to defence expenditure and—it must be said—the inadequacy of defence expenditure.

I regard it as one of the achievements of the Select Committee on Defence that, with members representing no fewer than four different parties, it has consistently come to the view, irrespective of party allegiance, that too little is spent on defence in the United Kingdom—far too little. Our expectations were managed downwards to such an extent that it was believed to be some sort of triumph when we did not dip below NATO’s basic recommended minimum guideline of 2% of GDP. To coincide with next Tuesday’s debate, the Committee will bring out an updated report, following on from our 2016 report in which we laid out the decline in defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP compared with rises in health, education and, above all, pensions and benefits, and how defence had declined in our scale of national priorities to such an extent that the size of the armed forces was becoming unsustainable.

The national shipbuilding strategy gives us an opportunity to reverse that decline, and I would be grateful to hear from the Minister what plans there are to do that. It will be no easy task, given that we will remove the Type 23 frigates from the fleet at the rate of one a year between 2023 and 2035. It will be no small task to replace each of those frigates at that sort of rate with a new, modern, complex warship.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the number of ships. Does he agree that the crisis point in the Navy is also about people and not just in number? I referred to skills in the shipbuilding industry, but there is also a need for particular skills in the Royal Navy.

[Dr Lewis]

That is true, because if we fall below what one might call critical mass, we will not be able to maintain the necessary footprint to support the construction and manning of vessels on a consistent basis. That is why the question of the fleet solid support ships is so important. Those vessels can be classified as warships or, if we choose not to, simply as auxiliaries. We have that choice, and it is a choice that we feel, on a cross-party basis, it is necessary to exercise.

The trouble that the Ministry of Defence runs into is that every time a long-term strategic view suggests to it that we ought to make an investment of this sort, it runs up against the short-term imperative that the defence budget is so small that cuts must be made at every opportunity, even where, as in this case, they are short-sighted and storing up problems for the future.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I thank the Chair of the Defence Committee for giving way. Is there not another priority for the MOD—the increased submarine activity we are seeing from Russia? The lack of Navy surface vessels could contribute to that. The modernising defence programme really needs to address that issue.

[Dr Lewis]

I entirely endorse what the hon. Gentleman said, and I am glad that he mentioned the modernising defence programme. I will take a moment to talk about that exercise. It was felt at the time that the programme was not a very substantial document, but it did rescue the armed forces from what I can only describe as a bureaucratic ambush laid out for it by something called the national security capability review.

Right hon. and hon. Members will remember that that mini-strategic defence review was an exercise that I believe began in 2017 and was conducted not by the Ministry of Defence but by the National Security Adviser, who is currently also the Cabinet Secretary. It was designed to consider security, intelligence, cyber-warfare and defence all in the round. I even heard Sir Mark Sedwill in front of a Committee on which I sat refer to a £56 billion defence and security budget, thus taking all the budgets and putting them together, as it were, in a single basket. There was only one snag with that. If the review decided, as it was minded to do, that much more money needed to be spent on what was called “21st century threats” such as cyber-warfare and ambiguous or hybrid warfare, as there was to be no extra money for anything, the already depleted conventional armed forces would have to be cut further.

The hon. Gentleman’s point is therefore particularly pertinent. Although we live in a world where we face new hybrid warfare, cyber-warfare and other highly technological threats we have not faced before, that does not mean that the traditional threats on the sea, under the sea, in the air and on land have gone away. It is a profound mistake to say that, just because we need to spend more money to meet novel threats, we can afford to spend less money to keep up the strength of our conventional armed forces.

I referred briefly to the Defence Committee’s original report from April 2016, entitled “Shifting the Goalposts?” that set out charts showing the decline in defence expenditure to barely 2%—and that figure was achieved only by including certain categories in the total, such as war pensions, that NATO guidelines allow us to include but we never previously chose to. We just scraped over the 2% line by doing that. I will not spoil the effect by revealing in advance what the new figures show, but believe me, they are not cause for great comfort.

We are now at a stage when we are expecting a change of Prime Minister. Every Prime Minister has a honeymoon period. Even the present one did—sadly, it did not last all that long. In this case, the person most likely to become the next Prime Minister projects an optimism, a sunny personality and a robust world view.

I suggest that all of us, from whichever party we are, should remain united on one thought—there will be a brief window of opportunity. There will be a moment when we will have a new occupant of No. 10 Downing Street who will be full of the joys of spring. This will be our chance to say that the great naval traditions, all those matters of history and all the events in which his great hero, Sir Winston Churchill, participated as First Lord of the Admiralty and later as Prime Minister will be laying, as another Prime Minister once said, the hand of history on his shoulder. What better way to shake the hand of history than to restore defence spending to its rightful place in the scale of our national priorities?

[Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)]

Hon. Members will be able to tell that the right hon. Gentleman and I are old school chums because I gave him a bit of latitude to ski off-piste. I call Douglas Chapman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

That is an excellent analogy, perhaps better than the one I used. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct: these are warships. If it looks like a warship and acts like a warship, it is reasonable to assume that it is, in fact, a warship and not a civilian ship.

The criterion should be changed to designate fleet solid support ships as warships. If I understood correctly the answers the Minister gave the right hon. Member for North Durham and others in Monday’s Defence questions, that will be the direction of travel. It is all very well saying that will be the future direction of travel, but it should be the immediate one for those contracts. The GMB trade union has said—a point emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman)—that 6,500 jobs could be created by securing that; £285 million of the estimated cost of the order could be returned to taxpayers—money that would be lost should the order go overseas. That is an important criterion that the Ministry of Defence, and the Treasury, appear to overlook.

After four years in this place I am starting to believe that it is the Treasury that makes the defence decisions, not the Ministry of Defence.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Definitely.

[Chris Stephens]

Apparently the Chair of the Defence Committee agrees. If the Treasury is making those calls, surely it has to take account of the fact that the workers who would build those ships would pay income tax and national insurance that would go back into the Treasury coffers, but that will not happen if the contracts are sent to other places. Unite has estimated that the Treasury would receive 36p in every pound from those defence projects. This is an excellent opportunity for the Minister—in the next two weeks, before his elevation—to demonstrate the Government’s commitment to taxpayer value by making sure that the ships are built in the UK. I have other constituency demands, which I have lobbied the Minister about, and I hope he will take my advice on those in the next couple of weeks, too.

There are plenty of examples of other countries—normal-sized nations or larger ones such as the UK—that better plan their sovereign naval defence capability, build their warships and keep their drumbeat going. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife highlighted, and as shown in my exchange with the Chair of the Defence Committee, this issue is important in the context of current Russian activity. The excursions into Scottish waters are increasingly blatant but there are still no Navy surface vessels based in Scotland—they are all based on the southern coast of England. That seems a very curious way of organising defence when there is increased Russian submarine activity.

As others highlighted, promises have been made about the shipbuilding industry. We heard the classic one that there would be 13 Type 26 frigates; the Treasury then interfered and they became eight Type 26 frigates, and then five Type 31 frigates. Despite that announcement more than three years ago, I still do not know exactly where the Type 31 frigate sits within the Royal Navy and what its purpose will be. It may have a general purpose, but where does it fit in? It is just a smaller and cheaper ship, and that seems to be the only reason it exists. That ship was supposed to be exportable—one that would be easier for BAE Systems and others to sell abroad, so perhaps we might think about going back to 13 Type 26 frigates. In relation to the Type 31 frigate, the Minister should look at the benefits of the prosperity agenda across the UK; I hope he will give a commitment to that.

Now, there is the frigate factory. A former Defence Secretary still insists that the frigate factory exists in the Clyde, and has found himself arguing that twice in the House of Commons Chamber. On one occasion, the GMB trade union and a BBC journalist with a television camera went around the site of the proposed frigate factory and found ash. There is an important point here, which is contained in the all-party parliamentary group’s report, and I hope the Chair of the Defence Committee will pick it up: the Ministry of Defence needs to look at giving some support to shipyard investment. It is no use the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence insisting that they want the industry to build more efficiently and save costs if they do not help the industry to invest in its own shipyards. That shipyard investment can ensure that ships are built more efficiently and cheaper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I said that I would come on to those issues a little later, and I promise I will—I will not hide from them.

The strategy is important for the Ministry of Defence, but I am keen that we look at this across Government too. For that reason, I have asked to meet the Minister for Business and Industry and the relevant Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Transport so that we can discuss how best to support UK shipyards, from the perspective of not only defence, but the opportunities that may exist for the commercial maritime sector and whether it is ready and prepared for them. I want this to be a cross-Government approach to securing the future of the industry.

The strategy sets out an ambitious plan to put the UK at the forefront of the technologies of the future. That is why investment in science, technology, and innovation is key, as they have the potential to drive improvements in productivity, to grow prosperity in the UK and to build an internationally competitive industry that is resilient to the peaks and troughs of both military and civil shipbuilding.

We have heard today about the success of the BAE Systems approach when it comes to the Australian and Canadian work; the company has also been successful in terms of the Royal Thai Navy’s offshore patrol vessel requirements. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had conversations with both the previous and the current Secretary of Defence in the United States about whether the Type 26 and Type 31 might be appropriate and suitable for their requirements. That is something that she will continue to pursue, as will we all.

Of course, there are all sorts of other investments happening, such as the Royal Navy’s new autonomy and lethality accelerator. This £45 million programme will deliver rapid and ongoing transformational change across the maritime environment. The Royal Navy is also forging ahead with things such as the 3D printers that the right hon. Member for North Durham sent me a question about recently. There is a lot of work going on in that innovation area that will continue to support the wider supply chain to our industry.

A few hon. Members have mentioned the Type 31e programme, so I will give an update. It is, of course, a pathfinder for the delivery of the new shipbuilding and capability vision set out in the strategy. We announced the award of contracts for the competitive design phase in December. I am pleased to say that the competition is still on track, and it is our intention to announce the outcome of the competition for the design and build of the ships by the end of the year. It has been a vibrant and healthy competition.

I take the point that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) made regarding the value. I have been checking throughout the price we have, which is £250 million per ship. We made some initial adjustments to make it tie in with the way we have procured other warships in the past, so we have taken costs such as Government-furnished equipment out of that £250 million. The Royal Navy assures me—both I and the Secretary of State have been quite robust with it—that the capability we will receive will meet its requirements; it has given us that absolute reassurance, and it is looking forward to receiving the ships.

I will go over some of the other points that have been made. In opening the debate, the right hon. Member for North Durham rightly talked about the skills agenda—I will come on in a minute to the points about the supply chain. He is absolutely right that we must ensure that we learn the lessons from the submarine programme. It has been blindingly obvious to me, as I have been learning this job, that ensuring that Barrow is right up there again and capable of delivering our submarine programme has been a major challenge.

Coming on to the drumbeat, it is our intention to ensure that the industry has that 30-year plan of what the Royal Navy’s requirements will be, so that it can see where the opportunities will arise and where there may be potential gaps that it may need to fill. That said, we have of course provided 20 years’ worth of work on the Clyde. I will comment in a minute on what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is doing in this area, because it will be incredibly important.

[Steve McCabe in the Chair]

I have heard a number of people say that the FSS are warships, and that no other country in Europe buys its support ships or other ships from international orders. That is not quite true: for example, Germany had an international competition for its multi-purpose frigate, Norway has procured a support ship from South Korea and five frigates from Spain, Australia has had two support ships from Spain, and New Zealand has an auxiliary ship from South Korea. It is not true to say that all those countries always have their ships built in their home countries.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

What the Minister says is completely correct. The question is not so much whether countries choose to do this but whether they have to. In the case of Germany, its expenditure on defence is notoriously a much smaller proportion of its GDP than ours is of ours, so it is probably doing it for the same sort of reasons. That does not make it the right policy.

[Stuart Andrew]

I will come on to my right hon. Friend’s comments. He talks about funding, which is absolutely the heart of the issue. With a very challenging budget, we must ensure that we get the maximum capability possible for our armed forces at the best value. I must say that in the past, international competition has proved very successful; on the MARS tankers, it saved a considerable amount of money. We want to go for two of the ships on the FSS with the option of a third.

[Dr Lewis]

rose—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Stuart Andrew]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend, but there will be a fixed budget, and we must get the best we can out of that money.

[Dr Lewis]

I fully understand the logic of the Minister’s position, but it just goes to what I was trying to convey in my speech: it is a question of short-term savings that will show up in an annual budget, compared with medium to long-term costs when the time comes that we want to build other ships and we find that we have lost our industrial footprint to some extent and have to reconstruct it. I acknowledge that that is the dilemma that he faces.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am grateful for the point that my right hon. Friend makes. That is the balance we are struggling with at the moment; I will be completely up front about that. It will probably be helpful if I go on to talk about what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said. In the speech that she gave to the Royal United Services Institute, she was quite right to say that we needed to look at where we could explore changing policy so that the UK could at least have the choice, if it so wished, to just build in the United Kingdom.

A tremendous amount of work is going in to reviewing the national shipbuilding strategy. We have Sir John Parker’s comments and of course we are taking stock of those. My right hon. Friend asked for a review to learn the lessons from the MARS tankers, so that we can feed them into potentially changing the policy, but I assure hon. Members that all that, and all the debates, meetings and questions I have had, is followed through.

[Dr Lewis]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stuart Andrew]

I had better give way to the right hon. Member for North Durham first, and then I will come back to my right hon. Friend.

[Stuart Andrew]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the report we commissioned will look at every single aspect of that, including the benefit to the supply chain in the United Kingdom. There is some evidence that a number of UK supply chain companies have seen their international work increase as a result of being part of that. We are formulating our response to the review of the strategy.

[Dr Lewis]

The Minister is being amazingly kind. I really appreciate it. Let me put this sunny scenario before him. Let us imagine that the wishes of the Defence Committee come true and the defence budget is restored to 3% of GDP, as it was right up until the middle of the 1990s, quite a few years after the end of the cold war. Will he at least acknowledge that if there were an uplift in the defence budget, spending some of that extra money on securing the shipyards and the defence-industrial footprint, even if that sometimes meant that we spent more than we might spend in the short term if we contracted with an overseas builder, would be a sensible strategic decision?

[Stuart Andrew]

Again, that is part of the work that the Secretary of State is looking at, so that the United Kingdom can make a choice on those options. Of course, that will require more money. We have to accept that. I look forward to right hon. and hon. Members securing similar debates, so that Treasury Ministers can answer those questions.

[Dr Lewis]

They never do. They always try to put it back to you.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the good doctor, Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State mentioned HMS Albion in an earlier answer. Does she recall that it is not that many months since her predecessor had to fend off moves to scrap HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark and to reduce the size of the Army by 11,000, the Royal Marines by 2,000 and the RAF by 1,250? Does she accept that there is a fight to be had with the real enemy here, and that is the Treasury?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I should declare an interest, as HMS Bulwark was the last ship I served on. I am very glad that she and Albion are still going. We are approaching a spending review, and I think we need to do more to tell the Treasury and the nation how much defence brings to this country—to the prosperity agenda, social mobility, research and development, innovation, and many other things. We need to tell that story because we need to keep our armed forces strong.

Combat Air Strategy

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to make a brief contribution to this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. All three previous speakers have shown absolute mastery of the detail, which I cannot hope to match in this context, so I intend to draw out some of the broader issues and seize a particular current opportunity: the forthcoming election of a new leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister.

Occasionally in politics, a window of opportunity opens, usually when aspiring leaders of the nation wish to generate support from those whom they presume to lead. We on the Select Committee on Defence met on Tuesday and decided that we would write to both of the final candidates in the leadership election. I have in front of me the text of the similar letters sent to each, picking up on the Foreign Secretary’s bid for the support of defence-minded MPs. In those letters, we spell out the fact that the Defence Committee, whose members represent four different parties, has for several years been absolutely united about the fact that we need to be spending more on defence.

In particular, the Committee believes that we ought to have as our target figure not the bare 2% of GDP that we currently just about manage to spend, but a figure approaching 3% of GDP, the proportion of gross domestic product that used to be spent by the United Kingdom—not during the cold war, when that figure was 4.5% to 5%, but as late as the mid-1990s, several years after the cold war had come to an end.

The complexity of weapons systems in any of the dimensions that we might care to identify—land, sea, air, cyber-space, or space itself—is increasing. If we do not have an adequate financial base for defence, it is difficult to see how any of those projects can hope to be brought to fruition. That applies as much to what from this moment onwards I will call “the Tempest strategy” as it does to every other system.

In a few moments, I will come back to the terms of the letter that I sent. However. I want to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) has just said by noting that as these advanced weapons systems get more complex, their numbers get fewer, and they have to be planned longer and longer in advance. Needless to say, they also cost a great deal more. I am a little more familiar with the cycle involving warships than I am with aircraft, but we can see the same pattern. For example, there are two types of submarines: nuclear-powered attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines. No sooner have we completed the construction of a class of one of those vessels than we have to construct a class of the other.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, who is making some interesting points, but the question is “That this House has considered Combat Air Strategy progress and next steps.” I hope the right hon. Gentleman will focus his remarks on the objective of the debate.

[Dr Lewis]

All will become clear very soon, Mr Stringer; you have my assurance.

Just as we must not interrupt that cycle, whether it be for a nuclear-powered submarine that is an attack submarine or a nuclear-armed submarine that is a ballistic missile submarine, we must not interrupt it for frigate or destroyer construction. We face exactly the same problem with aircraft strategies: we have gone from the Typhoon to the F-35, and even as we are introducing the F-35—the fifth-generation aircraft—we must already be planning for the sixth. That is despite the fact that, as has been pointed out, one of the existing aircraft still has at least 20 years to go in its lifespan, and the other has only just begun a period in service with the Royal Air Force lasting probably twice that. The question that arises, therefore, is how the new generation of aircraft can be financed.

With that, we come back to the issue of what we are being promised. Whenever Prime Ministers or Defence Secretaries are in place, we are told constantly that all is fine and everything in the garden is rosy and flourishing, yet when Defence Secretaries leave their position, they immediately call for increases. Recently, one brave Defence Minister even said at the Dispatch Box that we are not spending enough on defence. Now, we find that the Foreign Secretary is saying that within the next five years we ought to increase defence spending by a quarter, and he even made a speech at Mansion House suggesting that over 10 years, the rate of increase should be that much greater.

Looking at the Tempest strategy, we have to ask ourselves how an aircraft of that degree of complexity, requiring so long to be designed and brought into service and demanding so much in the way of our resources, will be financed. The sole issue that I wish colleagues to consider today is that, if it takes 30 years to conceive and build the sixth generation of our air power, we will have to invest a great deal of money in it. We on the Defence Committee have worked across party lines to try to change the terms of the debate on funding aircraft, land systems and naval systems, as well as dealing with the issues that arise from what are commonly called the 21st-century threats in space and cyber-space.

It is a matter of concern that there have been indications that the permanent part of defence and security machinery has been advocating that we move away from our traditional profile and stance: of investing in such systems as those aircraft to a greater degree than the rest of our NATO European allies. Normally, as we know, the overall burden of NATO’s expenditure has been borne by the US superpower; the continental allies have put forth something below the minimum guideline and we have been somewhere in between.

It has been disturbing to see arguments being put behind the scenes that we should come to terms with the fact that we should not in future seek to outdo our continental European allies and should lower our expenditure to the level they invest. Personally, I feel that would be a disastrous mistake—it would mean that we would no longer be able to rely on retaining an industrial base that could produce and develop weapons systems of a complexity to keep us at the cutting edge of air power, sea power and land power, let alone protect ourselves in space and cyber-space.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

In this debate, we have spoken about sovereign capability, the industrial base, the agenda for jobs and apprenticeships and the economy. In his position as Chair of the Defence Committee, would my right hon. Friend say that we should always be seeking the capability to conduct unilateral operations? On that basis, is it not crucial, in terms of sharing intellectual property and technology with our partners in building the new generation of aircraft, to have the most reliable strategic partners who will enhance our capability to conduct unilateral operations?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis]

That is a critical point, because the argument to which I have obliquely referred—I was tempted to refer to it more explicitly, but I decided not to, bearing in mind your stricture, Mr Stringer—and which is being put forward by civil service mandarins is not only that we should spend less, but that we should recognise the fact that we will only ever be involved in major conflicts along with allies and so we do not need the full spectrum of capability on land, at sea or in the air.

The problem with that approach is that it assumes that if we were to go into a conflict alongside allies at the beginning, those allies will remain available throughout—right until the end. What happens, however, if one of those allies is overrun and occupied, as has frequently happened in major conflicts in the past? If we are relying for the sake of our air power, for example, on a particular injection of expertise and capital from a particular ally who is no longer available, our defence capability could be fatally undermined.

I will conclude with this point. We are trying, as always, to construct a system for the air, as in the other dimensions, that is the most advanced the world has ever seen. That means that we have to be prepared not only to pay for it, but to recognise that we cannot expect to anticipate the context and circumstances under which the crisis will arise where the system will be put into action. We cannot anticipate that, so equally we cannot anticipate whether our allies who might be available in one type of conflict will be available in another and, even if they are available in that other context, whether they will remain available until the fight is brought to a close.

As we get involved in more complex and expensive systems—systems that take longer to design, develop and produce—we also must recognise the limitations on our scenario prediction ability. That is why we must invest enough and recognise that a full spectrum of military capability is essential, including, of course, in relation to the Tempest aircraft strategy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Courts]

I thank the Minister for his full and comprehensive answer. One of the things I love about debates such as this is that no matter how much I rack my brain to try to cover every point, I never do. Every hon. Member brings to the table something new and interesting that I have not managed to cover, and I always learn something. I am very grateful to all hon. Members who have taken part, and to the Minister for his response.

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), who said that the Government have done a wonderful thing. The spirt of our remarks is of celebration and—I hope the Minister will forgive me—gently pushing for a bit more. That is where the enthusiasm takes over. The Government did a wonderful thing in listening to a debate secured by Back Benchers from both sides of the House, responding to it and producing a detailed plan, which, as the Minister said, has led to the employment of 1,000 people in new jobs, rising to 1,800 by the end of the year. It has created something from nothing, and that is a great example of the Government listening to Parliament. I thank the Minister, the Department and everybody who has worked very hard on it for all their work.

That does not mean that we will not keep pushing for more; I make no such promise. I ask that the Minister consider some of the broader issues that we have mentioned today, particularly those relating to the broader defence industrial strategy. We are talking about a platform, vital though it is. The Minister is right about the vision that it gives us for the future, but perhaps it should be wider.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North for emphasising that SMEs must be deeply embedded in the strategy, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) for rightly mentioning the historical context. We must consider whether we will be fighting as part of a NATO alliance with allies, or whether we will be fighting alone. We always hope that we will be fighting with allies in a NATO context but the Falklands is the obvious example of a time when we were not, for a reason we could not foresee. If history teaches us one thing, it is that whatever comes around the corner probably will not be the thing that we are expecting. My hon. Friend was right to point that out.

My hon. Friend was also right to talk about space, which we have not dealt with, but with which the Royal Air Force and the Ministry of Defence are increasingly engaged. It is of increasing importance.

I am also grateful to my hon. Friend for rightly raising the issue of whether we should have a manned platform or not. My personal view is that we are not quite there yet, for a number of reasons. For issues of morality and accountably, people are probably not quite ready for us to take men and women out of platforms altogether. There are also questions about technology: who we work with and whether we can afford to allow that high level of technology out of the country. We are not quite there yet, but she is quite right that that will be more and more important. I think she said that we should not put all our effort into that. I think the Minister will agree that Tempest includes an unmanned element—it is an airframe that can be flown manned or unmanned—and I believe that the Minister and the combat air strategy are correct in taking that approach.

I am always humbled to speak in the presence of the Chair of the Defence Committee. He is right to argue, as he always does, for the financial base. I think his target is 2.5%—

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Three.

[Robert Courts]

Sorry, it is 3%—that is even better. We all agree about that. My right hon. Friend’s overarching point is that we cannot expect the industrial base to be there in the way that it has been in the past. In the past, the Government have been able to allow the industry to create the incredible machines that the Air Force has used and exported, but because of the extraordinary complexity and cost, the Government now have a greater role in identifying what we will need and why. He is right that more Government input will be required.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) echoed the point about increased funding—I quite agree. I am also grateful to him for emphasising that the Hawk is the last all-British aircraft. Perhaps it will not be the last; let us hope not. It is a flying British ambassador that does wonders for our international influence and our standing as a country every time it is seen at an air show.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for emphasising both the multiplier effect of jobs in the supply chain, and primary school involvement. She is absolutely right that the younger that people get interested, the better. In her intervention on the Minister, she put her finger on something: in the past, industry or the military went into the school and everyone had a great day, enjoyed themselves and remembered it, but the next week they moved on to something else. I am conscious that it is no longer like that—not at Carterton Community College, which has a partnership with Brize Norton. Perhaps one of my letters will follow to the Minister, who might like to come and see the interplay between the base, the industry on the base and the local school, where they are starting to build almost a supply chain of engaged, technically aware pupils. That is very much what we aim to do at Carterton, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for putting her finger on that.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) for mentioning the F-35 model point. I did not go into detail on that because it is slightly away from the topic, but he has given me an idea. I might apply for something on that issue in the near future.

That brings me to the Minister, and again I am grateful to him for everything he said. He gave me another idea: I might apply for a similar debate, but I will work with the House authorities to see if I can get a Treasury Minister to answer instead of him. That would be valuable. I have issued an invitation to him to come and see Carterton, which I know he would enjoy. I am grateful to him for agreeing in principle that more money should be spent on defence. I emphasise that, and I make that plea again. We have gone as low as we can, given the world we face and the complexity of our armed forces’ requirements. We need more money in defence, but—this is not aimed at the Minister—we must reassess the way in which its contribution to the entire country is measured. I thank you, Mr Bone, and everyone who took part in the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Combat Air Strategy progress and next steps.

Use of Torture Overseas

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

First, the change to the policy introduced in 2018 was an amendment at the request of the IPCO. As I say, it is only a short number of weeks before we will get the review back from the Commissioner, and the Government will be able to look at the recommendations made. I will look at this in the round, as Members would expect of a new Secretary of State coming into the Department, and I will update the House. I fully hear what all Members in all parts of the House are saying. I understand, and I hope the House has confidence in the fact that I understand, how critically important these issues are, for, as I say again, the safety of our own armed forces, as well as other people, and I will give this my urgent attention.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If anyone ever tries to tempt the Secretary of State with the maxim that the end justifies the means, will she bear in mind the wise words of Sir Robert Thompson? He was probably the leading counter-insurgency expert of the 1960s and wrote about torture and other extrajudicial means:

“Not only is this morally wrong, but, over a period, it will create more practical difficulties for a government than it solves. A government which does not act in accordance with the law forfeits the right to be called a government and cannot then expect its people to obey the law.”

[Penny Mordaunt]

I quite agree with my right hon. Friend: it is absolutely fundamental to everything that we stand for and everything that our armed forces represent that we uphold the law, that we uphold international humanitarian law and that we abide by the rules. I could not agree with him more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman touches on two important aspects. First, there is the obligation to honour the covenant, which is still in its infancy. There is so much work still to be done, because implementation is very disparate across the country. Secondly, there are specific challenges in Northern Ireland. I have had the pleasure of visiting Northern Ireland with him to see how we can ensure that the covenant is honoured there, given the very sensitive issues faced there.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

On behalf of the Defence Committee, may I welcome the Secretary of State to her new position, for which she is well qualified indeed? May I also pay tribute to her predecessor, who not only saved our amphibious forces from premature dissolution, but won considerable battles with one of our real adversaries in defence: the Treasury?

Does the Minister, as a veteran himself, agree that part of the veterans strategy ought to be the protection of former service personnel against repeated re-investigation for their activities in past conflicts? I welcome the fact that the Government seem to be moving towards some sort of qualified statute of limitations approach, but may I urge them to bring their announcement to the Floor of the House, rather than simply putting it out as a written statement, as at the moment they are suggesting they intend to do?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. I am afraid that I cannot provide a full answer because, as he suggests, the Secretary of State will be providing more information on this tomorrow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

First, we now keep track of those who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq in a way that we have not done before, so we are having a much better relationship with veterans after they depart service. I will be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss this issue in more detail. It is important that those who are affected by any aspects of mental health issues receive support from this country—from a very grateful nation.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Two notable parliamentary celebrities have risen to their feet: the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence and a former Minister for the Armed Forces. It is very awkward—[Interruption.] No, you are too modest, Dr Lewis; I call Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

As a naval reservist herself, will the Secretary of State personally look into the removal of the captain of HMS Queen Elizabeth, apparently on the grounds of what might have been a misunderstanding about the use of a car supplied by the Ministry of Defence? If we lose talented people like this, surely it is not only unjust but a waste of all the investment made in someone’s 29-year unblemished career in the Royal Navy.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can assure my right hon. Friend that I am fully aware of the situation and that I understand his concern when we have invested in an individual and they are unable to carry out the tasks for which they have trained. The officer remains within the Royal Navy and it is a matter for the Royal Navy to deal with, which it is doing.

Military Aircraft Manufacturing

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) on securing the debate and on his work for many of his constituents. He often grabs me in the corridor to raise issues that are of concern to him and them. As he rightly said, his constituency has a proud tradition in military aviation. Over recent years, BAE Systems Military Air & Information at Warton has been the central assembly facility for the Eurofighter Typhoon. That was one of the first visits I made when I was appointed to this job, and the passion that goes through that company was clear, from the management to the workforce. We should be proud of what it has done.

The area has a strong heritage. Warton was originally the base of English Electric and the testing ground for the legendary Lightning fighter—the supersonic interceptor of the 1960s and 1970s, rather than today’s world-beating F-35 Lightning II stealth jet. It is doubly appropriate, therefore, that the debate has highlighted the proud history of the UK in the field.

Let us make no mistake that the UK remains a global leader in military aerospace for three reasons. The first reason, which my hon. Friend touched on, is innovation. We have a long heritage of leading the world in aerospace thinking—in taking cutting-edge industrial, technical and scientific know-how from the drawing board to cutting-edge military capability. The first purpose-built air-to-air combat fighter was designed and built in Britain, as was the first vertical take-off and landing aircraft. That heritage remains undiminished.

The second reason is our history of successful international collaboration in producing some of the best military aircraft in the world, such as Jaguar, Tornado and Typhoon, with our partners on the continent, and now the F-35 with the United States, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The third reason is the strength of our domestic combat air sector, which has created skilled jobs and prosperity not just in his constituency, but across the nation.

It is worth mentioning the recent successes for the UK industry in the sector. Programmes such as the F-35 are creating considerable industrial benefit, with 15% of the value of more than 3,000 airframes being built by British industry. The Government are also delighted with the UK’s recent success in securing another batch of F-35 avionic and aircraft component repair work, which will bring an additional £500 million of work to north Wales and secure hundreds of skilled jobs. Overall, the combat air sector has an annual turnover of more than £6 billion. It directly supports more than 18,000 skilled jobs across the UK and many more in the wider supply chain, which are equally important.

To maintain and strengthen the sector’s competitive international position, the Government established the £2 billion future combat air system technology initiative following the “Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015”. That initiative sustains investment in the sector to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of developing the next generation of technological capability.

Last year, the Government further demonstrated their commitment to the sector by launching the combat air strategy at the Farnborough international airshow, as my hon. Friend said. The strategy defined a clear vision for the sector that preserves our long-standing national advantages in the field and our freedom of action in deciding how our combat air capability is delivered. All future combat air decisions will be based on a national value framework that takes full account of our armed forces’ requirements, the contribution to the nation’s industrial capacity and prosperity, and the significant benefits that military aviation provides to our international influence.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

As the Minister knows, the Defence Committee is quite worried that not enough is being done to protect the defence industrial base. In advance of his appearance before us on 21 May, when we will look into some of these subjects, can he tell us how much consideration is given to the knock-on benefits of investing in production in the UK rather than buying off the shelf, given that the money spent is then channelled back into the British economy?

[Stuart Andrew]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention, and I say with some trepidation that I am looking forward to appearing before his Committee in a couple of weeks’ time. He is absolutely right to raise that important issue. We are doing a tremendous amount of work across the Department, and a lot of it is of course the focus of the fantastic report by our right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) on the important prosperity that the defence industry can bring. We are also engaging a lot with small and medium-sized enterprises around the country to encourage more of them to take part in many of the competitions, and to ensure that they do more business with defence. Wherever we build new platforms, we are encouraging wider prosperity among those in the supply chain in the United Kingdom.

I know there has been some controversy about some of the platforms we are buying from overseas, but we are working with these industries to ensure that they work closely with the UK supply chain, so that we can increase the prosperity that comes about because of the platforms we are buying. For example, Boeing recently took a lot of SMEs over to the United States to talk through how they can bid for business from that company. Of course, Boeing has made investments in this country, but we want to see even more of that happening, and I will be happy to develop a bit more of that when I come before the Committee chaired by the Member for New Forest East (Dr. Lewis) my right hon. Friend.

Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much indeed for that intervention. I agree with him. From testimonials sent to me by former students and their families, I know how strongly they agree, too. In many cases, Welbeck has transformed their life chances. As he also says, this is about building fantastic armed forces, particularly with a science, engineering and technology background, for the United Kingdom. I am sure the Minister will want to cover how he thinks the changes proposed will enhance that and not detract from it. There is some convincing to do on that score.

Welbeck aims to prepare students for life at university and beyond by giving them a well-rounded curriculum that will—as a champion of character education, I particularly endorse this—

“challenge and develop them academically, physically and socially.”

The college also aims to develop students on a personal level by challenging them through a diverse range of co-curricular activities, which include many different sports, combined cadet force activities, and working within the community through volunteering and charity work.

On 6 April 2018, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, wrote to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood:

“I am writing to inform you that the Ministry of Defence will be undertaking a review of the Defence Sixth Form College at Welbeck as part of an ongoing initiative to understand how to improve the supply of STEM graduates into Defence and the Armed Services…Welbeck is part of our wider scheme for recruiting STEM graduates. Its role is to educate pupils in relevant A-level subjects prior to moving to the next phase of the scheme where they are supported through STEM courses at university. If successful they then go into Initial Officer Training with one of the Armed Services or enter the Civil Service within the MOD. Like many other organisations, we”—

the MOD—

“have found it consistently difficult over recent years to attract sufficient, good quality, STEM candidates. Whilst the education and wider experience provided by Welbeck is of a high standard, and despite measures to mitigate shortfalls, intake targets are not being achieved. Equally, over the 5-6 years they are in the pipeline the numbers seeing it through to Initial Officer Training has consistently only been about 55%.

The review will look at the breadth of the operation of Welbeck, which is a private Finance Initiative establishment run by a contractor, Minerva. It will explore re-setting the current PFI, extracting better value from the current PFI, and also whether a different STEM graduate recruiting scheme would better meet Defence’s needs. We will be instructing PwC to work with Minerva to explore the viability of these options.

Whilst the review will be internal to MOD only, I understand that such a review can create uncertainty and potentially some concern among your constituents. I want to reassure you, however, that no decisions will be made until the review is complete, at which point I will write to you again. One of the assumptions of the review is that, whatever happens, students who are currently on the scheme will be able to see it through to graduation and joining the Services or Civil Service.”

I know that, as the local MP, my hon. Friend raised a question with the Prime Minister on this in the House last year and has had regular engagement on it with Ministers. But as far as I can establish, the review’s conclusions have not been released to the public, nor is it clear who was formally consulted, so it was deeply disappointing to read last month, in a written statement by the Minister here today, of the decision by the Ministry of Defence to

“put in place a new, targeted scheme to recruit undergraduates in related subjects; the STEM graduate inflow scheme…This scheme has been designed to significantly increase the number of STEM graduates brought into defence and the variety of STEM disciplines they are from…The new scheme will replace the current defence technical officer and engineer entry scheme…which has produced some excellent young graduates but is not meeting defence’s requirements or providing sufficient value for money. Ending the current scheme will also mean that the Defence Sixth Form College…at Welbeck will close, with a final intake in September 2019.”

We, and those watching this closely, note the Minister’s final comment in the statement:

“Full transition to the new scheme will take place incrementally over the next five years, during which the current intake of students will be fully supported. For the final two years Welbeck remains a going concern. That time will be used productively to work with local authorities and stakeholders to seek the best possible future use of this impressive school, including within the education sector or an alternative use within defence.”

I will return to the issue about the future in a moment but, first, for the sake of those affected, we must be absolutely sure that the Ministry of Defence is making the right decision. As the local MP, my hon. Friend has written:

“A number of constituents have written to me, following the announcement, to express their concern about the forthcoming closure of the College, particularly in light of the excellent opportunity Welbeck offers young people across the UK, since 1953 and on its current site since 2005, to get a first-class STEM and technical education in preparation for a career in our Armed Forces, and for the values and discipline it instils in its students. While I can understand the Ministry of Defence’s approach to ensuring that it has access to talented engineering and technical graduates needs to be updated from time to time to reflect changing needs and approaches to training and education, I do share the view that Welbeck's closure will be a real loss in that context.”

As local MPs, we note, and are grateful, that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chair of the Defence Committee—I am delighted to see him here—has written to the Ministry of Defence to ask if it is wise to

“shut down a means of creating graduates who have been working towards a service career from their mid-teens.”

He goes on to say

“we are very concerned that closure of Welbeck College risks sacrificing an existing—and productive—source of STEM graduates in the hope that a new and untried system will be more successful.”

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Like my right hon. Friend, I, on behalf of the Defence Committee, received a number of representations from people involved with Welbeck who stressed the high quality of the service it provides. I cannot help wondering if part of the problem is that not all Welbeck graduates go into the armed services. Perhaps part of the solution is that part of the budget should be funded by some other Department to recognise the fact that there is an educational benefit that goes wider than just recruitment into the armed forces.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He speaks with great expertise as Chair of the Defence Committee and makes an interesting point. If I were still Secretary of State for Education, I would be thinking about the impact on my budget, but he made two broader points. The first is about the positive impact of having more young people studying science, technology, engineering and maths in this country. Of course, if they are going to be part of our armed forces or the MOD civil service, that is a great thing for the country, but there are many other fantastic STEM-based jobs that will benefit this country too, and I suspect that many of those future employees have started life at Welbeck and been inspired there.

The second point is about how the decision was made, what alternatives were looked at and who was consulted. In his letter to the MOD, the Chair went on to say:

“Our understanding is that the staff and governors were not consulted on the College’s future and it does not seem obvious to us that the creation of SGIS requires the closure of the College”.

He asked why the decision must lead to the closure of Welbeck, whether the change between the two schemes offers value for money, how closing the college will help UK defence

“in an increasingly competitive market for STEM graduates in the UK and globally”,

and whether the staff and governors of the college were consulted before the written statement, or whether they were informed of the decision without being able to influence the review. We look forward to reading the Government’s response to that letter, which I suspect, like all other Select Committee correspondence, will be published and made available to the public in due course.

The decision is clearly very unsettling for staff, families, current students and those who had hoped to study there in future. We note the current 847 signatures on the petition on the Parliament website and the current 1,076 signatures on the 38 Degrees petition site. The latter petition calls for a consultation to be held to include parents, staff, students and other relevant stakeholders over the proposed closure of Welbeck. As I have said, it is clear from the comments received just how strongly parents and families feel. I have selected two of those I have received. The first reads:

“It is incredibly disappointing to read that Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College is to shut...Our 15 year old daughter...has visited Welbeck twice as she has her heart set on joining the Navy and training to be an air engineer. Welbeck provides a place where young women can be encouraged and supported into engineering careers. It offers a standard and type of education—and opportunities—that would otherwise be out of reach to families like us who are not affluent and cannot afford to pay for expensive boarding schools”.

The second reads:

“I strongly believe without Welbeck my son would not be achieving as well as he is doing now. Welbeck is there for intelligent children from poor backgrounds and not just for children from private schools or more affluent families. They are all given the same opportunity from an early age to reach their full all round potential academically and within many sports and other areas which my son would not have been able to achieve at sixth form collage. Welbeck is a community; a family and a collection of likeminded intelligent young adults who are training with the mind set to do as well as possible not just for themselves but for their country and their chosen entry force. My son ended up getting offers from both and chose the RAF to follow on from his years at air cadets.”

I hope that in his reply the Minister will address the questions raised by the Chair of the Defence Committee and say how he thinks the new scheme will still benefit the students whose lives and futures are being shaped and transformed by Welbeck. I hope he can also take us through how the review was conducted and who was involved.

If this decision is not to be reversed, this fantastic site could well be empty in just a couple of years. Neither my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood nor I want an empty site just sitting there, nor do we want it sold off to any old bidder. We know there is already local interest. The Minister’s written statement made it clear that an alternative use within either education or defence would be found. I hope that the PFI contract will not put future occupiers off or provide an excuse for officials not to pursue alternative uses sooner rather than later. If he can shed more light on plans for the site, we would be pleased to hear them.

I finish with another comment from a family. [Interruption.] The Minister is poised. He cannot wait. I am delighted—he is a coiled spring—but I hope he will bear with me while I read out one further comment:

“The training and preparation that the students receive is truly first class and I am fearful that we may lose something irreplaceable which, if lost, will be impossible to replicate.”

I echo that sentiment. I hope that, at a time when the UK needs all the talent that we can muster, the Minister will understand the concerns that I have set out and provide reassurance. I suspect that this will not be the last debate or set of questions on the issue that I have raised. As the local Members of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood and I look forward to working with the Minister and his officials on this important matter.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mark Lancaster)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on securing the debate, and, indeed, on all her contributions and support for the college over many years. I also acknowledge the presence of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), to whom my right hon. Friend referred. I should perhaps add, by way of explanation to the general public, that he is unable to speak today because of his role as a Minister. However, his very presence on the Front Bench alongside me today highlights the fact that he has been a champion for Welbeck during his tenure as the local Member of Parliament.

As I listened to my right hon. Friend, it was impossible not to recognise and appreciate the affection that is felt for the current Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College—as well as its predecessor establishment, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire—and the disappointment that some will feel at the decision to close it as part of the MOD’s move to a new scheme for recruiting science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates to careers in defence. It is, perhaps, most important for me to acknowledge the high-quality education that Welbeck has been providing, and to pay tribute to its excellent staff and the talented young graduates who have gone on to forge successful careers in defence.

Let me say at the outset that the MOD remains firmly committed to attracting high-quality STEM graduates into the armed forces and the civil service, which, in turn, will contribute to support for the wider UK STEM agenda. In an increasingly complex and technologically driven world, we need talented individuals with a diverse range of STEM skills to ensure that we keep pace with our competitors and are fully prepared to meet the challenges and threats that we face today and, especially, in the future.

Welbeck has undoubtedly played its part in producing excellent STEM graduates. I should explain that attendance there forms the first stage of a two-part scheme, the defence technical officer and engineer entry scheme—or DTOEES, another fantastic abbreviation that only the MOD could come up with. I shall refer to it simply as “the old scheme”, if I may. Following two years at the college and successful completion of A-levels, students have gone to selected universities to study for STEM degrees and joined one of four defence technical undergraduate scheme squadrons. On graduation, they have entered initial officer training with one of the services or become defence civil servants. Under the old scheme, they could go to only 11 universities in the United Kingdom, including just one in Scotland; under the new scheme, that range will be widened. The courses available under the old scheme were traditional STEM courses, rather than—at this point I should declare my interest as the deputy commander of the 77th brigade—courses involving information advantage, cyber, and other 21st-century skill sets that are now required in the military.

Unfortunately, the fact is that the scheme as it stands has consistently failed to deliver the required number of engineers and technical officers to Defence since its establishment in 2005. Despite efforts to improve its output, on average only 53% of entrants have completed it successfully, and a proportion of those have not achieved STEM degrees. While this is not about money, it should be noted that the scheme has cost the MOD and the taxpayer some £200,000 per student who has become a STEM graduate.

My right hon. Friend touched on social mobility, which has been an important part of the scheme. She may be interested to know that just 15% of Welbeck graduates have had a general household income of up to £20,000—perhaps those at the lower end of that bracket—while 60% have had a household income of over £60,000. We are also interested in that area in trying to improve the social mobility aspect of the new scheme.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the review, and we did have a review. In effect, 11 different options were considered, which were broken down into three broad categories: do nothing—retain the current scheme as it is; do better—identify a number of sub-options that would all retain Welbeck; or do something differently—identify a number of sub-options that would involve the closure of Welbeck. There really was a genuine effort to look at a vast range of options.

My right hon. Friend also mentioned consultation with staff and governors before the decision was made. A cross-section of both Welbeck staff and governors were engaged during the course of the study by the review team. Equally, prior to the announcement, Defence Academy staff formally engaged with contractors, and the review was a standing agenda item for the board of governors. There were also two “town hall” meetings with staff in June and November last year.

The reasons why some individuals have not completed the old scheme, leaving it early at either Welbeck or university, are varied and complex, but they include medical, academic and voluntary withdrawals. Ultimately, asking young people to make life-determining decisions at age 14 or 15 has, in some cases, been one factor that may have impacted on both recruitment and retention. Another downside of the previous scheme was its relative inflexibility, which I have already touched on, principally because of the fixed costs of Welbeck. This really has meant that the Ministry of Defence could not respond effectively or quickly enough to changes in requirement, or target spending where it would be most effective.

Looking to the future, as I set out in my statement to the House on 11 March, a review of STEM officer recruiting concluded that an alternative method of recruiting STEM graduates was needed to improve the numbers entering a career in defence. The STEM graduate inflow scheme has been designed significantly to increase the number of STEM graduates brought into Defence and the variety of STEM disciplines they are from. Unlike the old scheme, it will be open to undergraduates across all UK universities, studying a wider range of STEM subjects that will include cyber and other new technologies.

The scheme will be supported by an attractive financial package, whereby undergraduates may receive a mix of bursary, tuition fee payment and other targeted payments that are significantly higher than the current bursary of up to £4,000 per annum. This will attract and support a wider range of applicants who are already academically proven, having passed A-levels or being already in the undergraduate pipeline. Importantly, this will provide a greater opportunity to improve both social mobility and diversity. The new scheme, with its focus on supporting individuals through university, will enable more students from a wider range of backgrounds to receive financial support. Indeed, we hope and anticipate that we will double the number of students who receive support.

The financial package has been benchmarked against industry offerings for their own STEM graduate schemes, and it will be competitive. Even with this financial package, however, it will be better value for money—estimated at about a third of the cost per student of the old scheme. The new scheme will also be inherently flexible, allowing the Ministry of Defence more easily to adjust its requirements should the demand for STEM graduates change—for example, due to an increase in requirement or, indeed, a need for specific skills.

Full transition to the new scheme will take place incrementally over the next five years, during which, as my right hon. Friend has said, the current intake of students will be fully supported. The MOD and the single services will develop their specific schemes over this period according to their own requirements, and that is where the flexibility will come in. These are likely to be built around their existing officer recruitment schemes. It may still include some sponsorship of those at school, depending on individual service need, but personnel and funding from the old scheme will be transferred to these schemes to enable them to undertake this work.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Can the Minister tell me how long it will take to determine whether the new scheme is a success? If it is found not to be a success, will it be too late to go back to a continuation of the college-based scheme?

[Mark Lancaster]

As I said in my earlier remarks, this is effectively a five-year transition. The intake to Welbeck this year will be going into a two-year programme, which will be the last. That will give us two years, as we move to a more undergraduate-focused scheme, to get the new scheme right according to single service requirements. The new scheme, which will run for a period of time, will also be under review. We have not leapt to this decision—anything but—and we hope that the transfer period will allow us to get it right.

As I have said, the new scheme, like any recruitment initiative, will of course be kept under review to ensure that it is achieving the output it is designed to achieve. If it is not, we will look at it again. The final intake to Welbeck will enter in September this year, and for the final two years Welbeck remains a going concern. Over that period, we will work closely with the Welbeck contractor, Minerva, and the principal to help the contractor to support staff who are impacted and to ensure continuity of quality education to students, keeping staff, governors and pupils fully informed of any developments.

I recognise that there are concerns over the future of the Welbeck site, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough that it has become an important part of the local community. I can reassure her and the House that we will do all we can to secure an alternative, sustainable future use for the site. An assessment is being undertaken to determine whether Defence may itself have a use for it and, in addition, some early market testing has identified credible, prospective interest from the private education sector. It is too early to say what the outcome will be, but Defence will work with stakeholders, including the local authority and partners across Government, to seek to secure a viable future for Welbeck.