Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention—I think he should have declared an interest. He is absolutely right; the defence estimates and the Budget need to reflect the new reality.

I want to concentrate on the broader context: the ideological battle that is taking place, and the institutional shake-up that is consequently required. Most crucially, we have to recognise the full-spectrum approach of our opponents. Commentators in the west often gabble glibly about hybrid warfare, but in the framework of cyber war as an alternative to kinetic capability, and often in a mechanistic way, rather than understanding the political context and the need for whole-of-society resilience.

The Soviet mindset, of which we are now seeing a resurgence, is quite different. For these people, politics—politik—is everything. All agencies of the state are engaged. For too long we have ignored the multidimensional attack on our society, but that is a luxury we can no longer afford. This also means that the integrated defence review has, to an extent, disintegrated, and requires a major revamp which should start immediately. This necessary intellectual rethink must now focus primarily on state-on-state conflict.

Over many years, I have posed a question a number of times to military figures, defence officials and academics. During the cold war, we based our defence and security posture on our assessment of “the Threat”, with a capital T, and I have asked what the Threat is today. Invariably, I receive the answer that we face a variety of threats, but that is not the right answer, because the question is “What is the existential threat to our nation and society?” It is not terrorism, Islamist or otherwise, ugly and vile though that is. Today we—the people of Ukraine, the people of Europe, and indeed the west more widely—know the answer. It is a revanchist Russia and its desire to re-establish the Soviet territory, although I accept that in the longer term, as the defence review states, a revisionist China may be a more significant challenge. That means that today’s estimates are fundamentally an historical document, as, indeed, is the review.

That is not just down to the violently aggressive attacks by Putin’s Russia, but is also, thankfully, a result of the vigorous response not only from NATO allies but from formally neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland, where for the first time there is a public majority favouring NATO membership. The most seismic public reaction has been in Germany, where the new Social Democratic party Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has rewritten decades of German policy of both parties in his historic speech to the Bundestag. Equally dramatic was the wide political support, including support from the German Greens.

Chancellor Scholz stated clearly that President Putin had created a new reality which required an unequivocal response and a dramatic shift to supply Ukraine with weapons. He also made it clear that making international solidarity possible required new, strong capabilities. Essentially, that means that Germany must invest more in the security of the country. He addressed the readiness crisis in the Bundeswehr, which has been widely publicised and has featured in discussions we have had with our German counterparts. He stressed the need for aeroplanes that can fly, ships that can set out to sea, and soldiers who are optimally equipped for their mission. He has designated a one-off sum of €100 billion to set up a special fund, and has pledged an annual 2% of GDP.

I suggest to the Minister—I should welcome his observations—that we may also need to revise the ideological decision made by his Government, although not by current Ministers, to abandon our bases in Germany. I do not think the indication that we might make some minor return meets the need presented by the current challenge.

This was an imaginative, bold and historic intervention. Scholz clearly, in Bismarck’s phrase, heard God’s footsteps marching through history, and managed to catch on to His coattails as He marched past. I hope that our Ministers see the significance of that intervention, and engage rapidly and deeply with our German colleagues to build on this new reality. I hope they will also engage with our own defence industry. The Financial Times reports that after Scholz’s speech on the Sunday, on the Monday the German Defence Ministry and defence firms were engaged in detailed discussions as to how to ramp up production. The MOD and ADS should take note, because that is the sort of national response that we need. I was talking with the industry yesterday, and this does not appear to have happened, particularly not in the supply chain, which is wondering where it fits into the changed environment.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

But this has been happening for many years. These are political decisions that have been taken, and nearly 30% of our procurement is now bought off the shelf from the United States, with no commitment from companies such as Boeing to reinvest to ensure that not only jobs but technology stay in the UK.

[John Spellar]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is vital to have a well-established industry to be able to respond to a crisis. The Ministry of Defence and the Treasury need to break out of the ideological straitjacket that states that domestic industry does not matter and we can buy from anywhere in the world. That is a hugely important change.

[John Spellar]

I would welcome a bit more detail from the Minister as to the nature and engagement of those discussions. I was talking to a representative from the industry only yesterday, and they are seeing precious little coming through. It is not happening in any way on the same scale or intensity as in Germany. We could argue that Germany is doing some catch-up, but it is really engaging with its industry. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has said, we give away huge orders and get little or nothing in return. Even now, the Minister’s own Department refuses to commit to building the fleet solid support ships in the UK, and his colleagues in the Home Office are giving an order for new Border Force vessels to a shipyard in Holland.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is worse than that. The Department used to hide behind European regulations, but now we are out of the European Union, we should be free to procure in the UK. I challenged the Minister before Christmas as to whether his Department was going to give a £10 million contract to Damen in the Netherlands for a special naval vehicle, and he said we should wait for the competition. Lo and behold, this week it has been announced that Damen has won that contract for a vessel that could have been built in this country.

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[Peter Grant]

I think the right hon. Gentleman will understand that there are far too many examples for me to quote them all. I want to leave some for him. I have no doubt he will bring his much greater knowledge to bear on the example he quoted.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The Minister said the plan is in balance, but that is not what the NAO report says. It is only in balance if the Department meets the so-called efficiencies, which, on previous form, it has never met.

[Peter Grant]

I wish I had not let the right hon. Gentleman intervene, because he has just stolen my thunder, but never mind—“It’s nae loss whit a freen gets”, I think is the phrase we would use in Fife.

The single living accommodation, at the time the NAO started looking at it on 31 October 2010, was being used by almost exactly 80,000 armed forces personnel, or more than half the entire number of people working in our armed forces. Some 36% of those 80,000 people were living in accommodation rated grade 4 or below. The accommodation was so poor that the MOD did not even have the cheek to charge rent on it—that is how bad it was. I do not know what accommodation standards legislation is like in England, but certainly in Scotland it would be illegal to rent out some of that accommodation as a private landlord, a social landlord or a local authority.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for opening the debate. He is right that our thoughts today are with the people of Ukraine and the brave servicemen and women, and civilians, who are resisting the might and cruelty of Putin’s war machine. As the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, that focuses our minds in our debate on defence.

We need to ask how we have ended up with the smallest Army in our history. That has not happened by accident; it is a political choice. In 2010, a Conservative party came into power, in the coalition Government, that had argued before the election for more spending on everything in defence, but then, suddenly, they got into a programme of austerity, under the cloud of a mythical £38 billion black hole that the bad Labour Government had left them. That never existed and we know that because within two years, it seemed to have disappeared, given what the Government said.

That Government cut the budget by 16% because the Treasury wanted money out of that budget. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) asked why this was about people—well, it was about people because that is how to get money quickly out of a budget. The Government did things such as making people take compulsory redundancy and losing people with vast experience, and it was absolutely shameful. If a Labour Government had done that, frankly, there would have been an outcry.

[John Spellar]

Is my right hon. Friend not shocked that that Government did not learn lessons from the cuts in personnel under Options for Change after the end of the cold war, which led to the same collapse in morale and loss of experience?

[Mr Jones]

My right hon. Friend is right, but these measures were not about that. They were about the Treasury making austerity cuts. We now have a situation where the present Government—who, again, talk in slogans—talk about the biggest cash injection ever. The budget will still be lower in real terms than it was in 2010. The fact is that, like the right hon. Member for New Forest East, I would agree with increasing the defence budget, but we have to recognise how we got to where we are today.

Interestingly, there is clearly some thinking going on in the MOD, because I asked a parliamentary written question last week, which I tend to do, as the Minister knows, on whether the cuts would be reversed. I would have expected to get a reply within days, but last night, I got a holding reply saying that the question of whether the MOD would reverse the decision on reducing the Army to 73,000 personnel could not be answered in the normal timescale, so I suspect that a lot of work is going on in the MOD on that. It has to look at that, because everyone who has spoken in this debate has said that, although we can have enough equipment and the concepts of war, at the end of the day, we need people. That is key.

As Members know, I have always been an advocate for defence and I would argue for more defence spending, but I think that argument will fall on deaf ears a lot if we look at the way that this matter is being managed internally in the MOD. The NAO report is a bit like groundhog day: every year it comes back with a catalogue of delays and overspends. Whatever the Minister says, I am sorry, but he should just read the report. The budget is not in surplus. It misses things out and looks at efficiencies. But it has been like this for the past 10 years, and efficiencies have never been achieved and never will be.

It is important that we use defence expenditure, if we actually get it, to generate capacity in the UK defence industry and ensure that we get the equipment we want. I welcome things like the national shipbuilding strategy, but I am appalled that, even this week, the MOD has given a £10 million contract to a Dutch yard for a vessel that could have been built here. The right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) has done a very good report that says that we should take social value into account when awarding contracts. I have asked the Department and now the National Audit Office to tell me what the formula is for that.

We are buying off the shelf from the United States and others, without any commitment to supporting our native shipbuilding and defence sector. I am one of the people arguing for more on defence, but I want to ensure that there is a proper defence industrial strategy behind it, not only to deliver for our armed forces, but to ensure that we get jobs and prosperity here. I see no evidence of that at the moment.

The last thing I would like to talk about is the nuclear deterrent. As the House knows, I have always been an advocate for our continuous at-sea deterrence, and these times have brought its importance into sharp focus. It will be important for the Department to ensure that the programme not only has finance behind it, but is actually on target. People have talked about the guarantees that Ukraine was given; whatever Putin guarantees is completely worthless, but the one guarantee that we have behind us is the nuclear deterrent. It is important that we maintain it.

These are dark times. We will hear a lot of instant judgments about what is happening in Ukraine, but we cannot have armed forces without people, and we have to invest in those people. It is not just about numbers, but about making sure that we have the right skillsets and that they continue. Frankly, the IR is now redundant and has to be revisited. And can we get away from the slogan “global Britain”? It is a great slogan, but it suggests that we are going to rule the waves and send power around the world. We will not, on our defence budget, and we never will again.

We have to ensure that we invest in what we are good at. It might be unpalatable for some Government Members, but we have to work with our European colleagues in NATO to ensure that we deliver a deterrent effect—I was going to say “on the Soviet Union”, and actually there is not much difference between that and Putin’s ideology and the way he is doing things. We have to ensure that that happens and is done in a coherent way. We have to get away from the rhetoric. Let us have a proper defence budget that is not only in balance, but puts the investment where it counts.

I will break the habit of a lifetime and agree with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, who has just come back into the Chamber: we have to invest in people. We can have all the best equipment in the world, but without the people, the skillsets and the right mix, we will not get a deterrent effect or treat our people right, as they deserve.

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I will try to be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was struck by a letter in The Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago from Lieutenant General Sir James Bucknall. It is short, and it should be required reading for all Members. His final paragraph ends with the line:

“There needs to be an honest, unvarnished appraisal of our current capabilities.”

As has already been said by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), plans do not survive first contact, and in these instances we need to review them, and to do so at pace.

There are just four points that would like to make in this debate, because I suspect that all the other points I would have made have already been made far more articulately and far better than I could have made them. The first is on recruitment, which my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) mentioned. It is extraordinary that the stats for the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army are all higher. In the 12 months running up to 30 September 2021, the Royal Navy had an uplift in recruitment of 4.3%, the Army had an uplift of 25.2% and the RAF had an uplift of 8.2%. The staggering difference between the three services and the way in which the Army succeeds show that there are lessons to be learned by the RAF and the Navy on how they can encourage that level of recruitment.

As I said earlier in my intervention on my hon. Friend, the concern I have is about outflow and retention. Even the briefing document we were given for this debate talks about the fact that there is a problem with staffing and retention in the Defence Nuclear Organisation, and it is not just limited to that area. It also occurs in the Army and the Air Force, and in some of the places where we really want to have our staff because there is a national security need for it. This needs to be addressed immediately, and I hope that the Government will be able to give some clarity in their summing up.

On housing, a number of Members have touched on the idea that we must ensure that our armed forces personnel are given the best services and that they have the equipment they need. That point also stands for their families and for the housing and accommodation they are given. I am proud that I have the Britannia Royal Navy College in my constituency, as Private Stone said earlier, but we occasionally have a problem there when we find it difficult to staff people who are coming down to train future recruits, and to put them into suitable housing within the vicinity. We have been fortunate in that we have always managed to get through those difficult situations, but the problem is going to become greater, because house prices in coastal areas such as mine are shooting through the roof. I respectfully ask the Minister to refer to some points on housing for armed forces personnel, because this is going to come up time and again.

I think I have been very clear in my time in this place about my support for international development and the aid budget. One of the things that came up when we were having the debate around foreign aid was whether we should look at certain reforms, and if we return to 0.7%, I would really like us to look at ways in which some of that money could be spent through the Ministry of Defence to support our armed forces to undertake humanitarian missions. There is real value in those sorts of things—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. Fine, but I think there is real value in having the ability to unilaterally send in humanitarian forces using our defence budget.

The last point I would like to make is that our military academies have extraordinary export value. We attract an enormous number of foreign students who come through them and pass out, and we should cultivate that further. I am particularly pleased that the current captain of the Britannia Royal Navy College, Captain Roger Readwin, has done a fantastic job in attracting cadets from all over the world to pass through this historic college. More of that would not only give us the ability to learn from other countries but ensure that we strengthened our defence relationships with countries around the world.

The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) says that he does not like slogans. Well, I like “global Britain”, but I think it needs to be fleshed out. If we are going to talk about global Britain, we have to prove it in the things that we do. I have said before that this is about the four pillars of trade, defence, diplomacy and development. If we can ensure that our defence is linked with other countries around the world and that we can help to train people in this country, that will send a strong, positive message and provide us with armed forces that are able to respond to some of the problems we are facing. The fragility of the world is more apparent than ever. If we are to play a part in global Britain and if that is to have real meaning, we must adapt as well as update.

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[Dave Doogan]

There is a lot of chest-beating about the nuclear deterrent, but much less discussion about the cost of it. We have heard from hon. and gallant Members how much they would like to see numbers in the Army go up, but they do not talk so much about the cost of the Defence Nuclear Organisation, which is 50% higher than that of the next department, the Army. They are not so focused on that cost. Incidentally, I note the Minister in his intervention did not point out which surface warships there are in Scotland, because there are none.

[Mr Jones]

They are all submarines!

[Dave Doogan]

That is not a surface ship. The UK’s breakneck pivot away from the European domain has been dramatically overtaken by recent events in Ukraine. The mercifully long period of relative stability in Europe is under threat in a way not seen since the war, so it is clearer than ever that the top defence priority on these islands is, and must always be, ensuring peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area, as we on the SNP Benches have long argued. The MOD must re-profile its equipment plan, troop numbers and finances accordingly. In conclusion, this debate affords an excellent and very necessary opportunity for Ministers to reformulate the MOD’s finances, the force numbers and the equipment plan.