International Immunities and Privileges

Debate between Julian Lewis and Richard Foord

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an absolute honour to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey). He has delivered an excellent maiden speech, and it is an example to every new, and old, Member of this House that he should set out his love and affection for the place where he lives and where he has clearly spent many happy years. It is obviously a custom in this House to use the term “honourable and gallant” for somebody who has served, but in the case of the hon. Member it has particular resonance, because he received an MBE a decade ago in recognition of meritorious, gallant, and distinguished services. He made a tremendous speech, and the whole House will have heard him talk about the importance of a new hospital to his constituency, and about the scourge of knife crime, and his own personal reflections on why young people carry knives. We will all reflect on his thoughts and comments as he makes them in the months and years to come.

I welcome the Minister of State to her place, and congratulate her on her new role at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Given that she shadowed that role for some time, I feel hopeful that she has a good understanding of our partnerships not just in Europe but in east and south-east Asia, and that they are safe with her.

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats I welcome the Government’s announcement that they remain committed to the global combat air programme. I also welcome the presence in the King’s Speech of the strategic defence review. Reflecting on the speech that we have just heard, it is essential that we go through a strategic defence review every time we have a serious change of Government, as we have had after 14 years. It was encouraging to hear that the review will be published soon, within the first half of next year.

Professor Michael Clarke points out that this is the 12th defence review to have taken place since the end of the cold war, and that most have “not been very strategic”. He says that most reviews have been cost-cutting exercises, and that only a couple of them could be described as genuinely strategic. He goes on:

“I think this one has an ambition to be more genuinely strategic.”

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of past strategic defence reviews, and I particularly remember the 1998 SDR, which was after a Labour landslide. It was strategic and outlined concepts that stood the test of time. One reason for that was that it gave other people the opportunity to contribute to the review. I am hoping that Labour Ministers might pay a little attention to the idea that if they want their strategic defence and security review to do well, they should open up the process so that people on a non-partisan basis can have serious input to it—[Interruption.] I am delighted to see my friend the Minister for the Armed Forces nodding his agreement.

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that intervention, and so far I gather that the Government are prepared to listen to external expertise. I was encouraged to hear that Fiona Hill will be very much at the pinnacle of this review, and I know as an example that she has a great deal of insight into matters Europe, and in particular in relation to Russia. The defence review will need to look not only at means, which is what we are discussing today, but at ends and ways, so that it comes to thinking about means only after thinking about ends and ways. The problem with pre-empting a review and leaping straight into talking about particular procurement programmes is that it only serves, at this stage at least, to start to raise questions about what programmes have not been confirmed so far.

In this, the week of the Farnborough airshow, lots of questions have been raised about GCAP, or “Tempest” as the fighter aircraft will be known in the UK. On Saturday, one headline warned:

“RAF jet may never get off the ground”

and on Monday a subheading read

“questions are being asked about whether it should be scrapped to save money.”

On Tuesday an opinion column warned:

“The Government’s silence over the future of the Tempest fighter is deeply concerning.”

Sometimes the question is not as simple as whether to spend, but whether to spend in the near term or the long term, or on procuring equipment today or in the future. There is a trade-off in combat power between the near term and the long term.

I appreciate that the Government will be seeking to confirm to our allies that GCAP will proceed, and they will want to reassure Italy and Japan, as well as offer reassurance to commercial partners. Those of us from the west country need look no further than Yeovil to see what a success Leonardo has been for industry in our region. Defence exports from Yeovil amounted to £1.6 billion in 18 months. This issue clearly does matter a great deal to UK industry, but we must think about what else is happening in the commercial space.

We have heard about the European future combat air system—SCAF—consortium made up of France, Germany and Spain, which is developing a fighter jet in parallel. I urge the Government to consider whether the two systems can be as interoperable as possible. The pyramid open systems architecture that we anticipate will be part of GCAP would do well to be able to speak with whatever the SCAF comes up with.

Aside from GCAP, the strategic defence review should consider the UK’s existing capabilities, and existing combat air in particular. Twenty-six tranche 1 Typhoon fighter aircraft are due to be retired from service at the end of next March. The option remains for those tranche 1 aircraft to be brought up to the standard of tranche 2 or tranche 3. BAE systems provided the previous Government with the structural and avionic modifications that would be required, but they chose not to take that up. Instead, they intended to put the 26 tranche 1 aircraft on to a so-called reduce to produce programme to strip them of usable parts for the Typhoon fleet’s inventory of spares. I wonder whether consideration also could be given to whether they could become tranche 2 or tranche 3 aircraft instead.

An initial order of 150 F-35 Lightning aircraft has already been scaled back to 138, in part to release funding to GCAP. We can see that there is always a trade-off between thinking about future combat air in 2035 versus what we might need today. Upgrading the 26 tranche 1 fighter aircraft would grow the UK’s Typhoon fleet from 107 to 133. Of course, they will not have the latest air-to-ground capabilities of the F-35, and they certainly will not have the range, payload or stealth capabilities that we will expect of GCAP and Tempest, but they would be available soon. In recent months we have seen Typhoon intercept Russian long-range maritime patrol bombers north of the Shetland islands within NATO’s northern air policing area. Now does not seem to be the time to cannibalise Typhoon tranche 1 for spare parts.

I recall from my own service the phrase used in the armed forces that we should “deal with the crocodile nearest the boat.” In announcing that GCAP will go ahead, I trust that the defence review will also appraise those near-term risks in our near abroad rather than simply carrying on with existing programmes because they are already in train.

In closing, I will pose three questions to the ministerial team. First, is GCAP still too linked to the assumptions about geopolitics from the 2021 integrated review? Is it taking into full account the integrated review refresh of 2023, and particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Secondly, if there is to be a parallel development of GCAP and SCAF by other European allies, will the Government reassure us that consideration is being given to interoperability such as in relation to open systems architecture? Thirdly, if there is not enough money in the pot to upgrade Typhoon tranche 1, buy more F-35s and develop GCAP, which of those three initiatives is the UK unlikely to do?