Army Restructuring: Future Soldier
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(2 years, 12 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on the details and implementation of the Army’s future capabilities, structures and basing.
In March I came to the House to announce the outcome of the Defence Command Paper, part of our integrated review. I said that we must adapt to new threats, resist sentimentality, and match our ambitions to our resources if we are to field armed forces that remain relevant and credible for the challenges of the future. I also said that we owed it to our service personnel to ensure that we now turn that policy into reality and that the work to do so had only just begun.
The Army was tasked with undertaking the most significant modernisation in a generation and, after an intense period of planning—for which I am especially grateful to the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, Brigadier Clark and the rest of the team—I can now announce to Parliament the details of its plans, entitled “Future Soldier”.
Let me begin by paying tribute to those soldiers, the brave men and women of the British Army. To me, they are the finest in the world. Yesterday, we witnessed soldiers, alongside colleagues from other services, parade outside Parliament. It was an opportunity to pay tribute to their extraordinary endeavours during Operation Pitting, helping to evacuate some 15,000 people in a matter of weeks, and to thank them for their service and sacrifice throughout the decades-long Afghan campaign. It was also a reminder that the Army that departed Afghanistan was a very different one from that of 2001. But the Army of the future must adapt even more radically if it is to adapt to the threats of the future. Let us be clear: those are proliferating threats, from increasing humanitarian crises, to ever more capable and determined violent extremism and the use of proxy forces, to the ever present spectre of great power competition.
To keep pace with the changing character of warfare, our Army must be forward-looking, adaptable and embracing of new ways of working as much as new weapons and technologies. Not only must it have the best force structure to counter an ever growing range of threats to the UK, our people and interests, but it must achieve our ambitions on schedule and in budget. Thanks to the Prime Minister’s record settlement for defence announced at last year’s spending review, we have been given the time and resources to undertake the generational modernisation that defence needs.
Far from being deprived of investment as some claim, we are injecting £41.3 billion into Army equipment and support this decade. That is £8.6 billion more than had been planned prior to the integrated review. We are using those funds to create a modern, innovative and digitised Army. Our future Army will be leaner but more productive, prioritising speed and readiness over mass mobilisation, but still over 100,000 strong, integrating regulars and reserves, as well as all the civil servants and partners from the private sector. As the Chief of the General Staff has said, it must be an Army that places a premium
“not just on mass, but on critical mass; relevant, networked, deployable”.
The Army will now be reorganised to operate on a continuous basis, fielding all the relevant capabilities for this era of constant competition, and persistently engaged around the globe, supporting our partners and deterring our adversaries. Crucially, it will also be an Army that is designed for genuine warfighting credibility, as an expeditionary fighting force that will be both deployable and lethal when called on to fight and win. Since the publication of the defence Command Paper, my officials have worked hard to finalise a reform programme to deliver our priorities at home and abroad. Our future soldiers will find that tomorrow’s Army has six distinct elements.
First, it will be globally engaged, with more personnel deployed for more of the time, employed in a new network of regional hubs based on existing training locations in places such as Oman and Kenya.
Secondly, it will be a key contributor to NATO warfighting, capable of fielding a division throughout the decade, as we transition to the new capabilities for a fully modernised warfighting division by 2030.
Thirdly, it will be enhanced by state-of-the-art equipment, including upgraded tanks and digitally-networked armoured vehicles, as well as long-range precision strike, cyber and electromagnetic capabilities.
Fourthly, it will exploit innovation and experimentation to get ahead of the evolving threats. Not only will the Army share the £6.6 billion of defence’s increased research and development investment, but next year both the new British Army battle lab and a dedicated unit, the Army trials and experimentation group, will be established to stay at the cutting edge.
Fifthly, it will have integration at its heart, bringing together regulars, reserves and civil servants to form a more productive force with warfighting and resilience at its heart and cross-Government working in its DNA.
Sixthly and finally, it will be an Army that benefits the whole of our Union, with an increased proportion of the Army based in each of the devolved nations and expenditure contributing to prosperity throughout the United Kingdom under our upcoming land industrial strategy.
I am pleased to report that we have already made substantial progress. When it comes to global engagement, we have formed the new Army special operations brigade, in which the new ranger regiments will sit; established the security force assistance brigade; and set up a NATO holding area in Sennelager, Germany. In terms of warfighting, we have reinforced NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, established new brigade combat teams and reinforced the Army’s global response force.
Over the next five years, implementation will continue apace. At the end of this year, our new ranger regiment will reach initial operating capability. By mid-2022 our new deep recce strike brigade combat team will be established, and by Autumn next year two battalions of the Mercian Regiment will merge to form a new Boxer-mounted battalion in one of our armoured combat teams. The recapitalisation of major equipment is already under way. I am determined to do everything within our means to accelerate the introduction of Challenger 3 tanks, with an ambition for their delivery to units starting from 2025 onwards. Likewise, we are transitioning to Boxer armoured personnel carriers from the retiring Warrior, with units starting to receive their first vehicles from 2023.
We are resolving development issues with the troubled but, none the less, technically capable Ajax armoured reconnaissance vehicle. We are also upgrading the battle-proven Apache attack helicopters while investing in everything from long-range precision strike, ground-based air defence, uncrewed aerial systems, electronic warfare and tactical cyber. These cutting-edge capabilities will be wielded by the newly restructured brigade combat teams—self-sufficient tactical formations with their own combat support and logistics. They will include 16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team and a new aviation brigade combat team, which together will form our global response force, providing defence’s rapid response for crises overseas.
Let me now turn to our plans to streamline the Army force structures. For too long, historical infantry structures have inhibited our Army’s transformation. We cannot afford to be slaves to sentiment when the threat has moved on. Today I can therefore confirm a major reorganisation under four new administrative divisions of infantry: the Queen’s Division, the Union Division, the Light Division, and the Guards and Parachute Division. These divisions are designed to reflect historic ties, while balancing the numbers of battalions and unit roles, offering greater flexibility and opportunity to soldiers of all ranks.
As announced in March, these plans do not involve the deletion of any cap badges, further major unit changes or any military redundancies. Although we are significantly reducing the total number of Army personnel, we are not compromising our presence in and contribution to the devolved nations. The numbers will reduce slightly everywhere except Wales, but we are increasing the proportion of the Army based in each nation and investing millions in the defence industry and estate.
Northern Ireland will keep the same number of battalions, but host a greater proportion of the Army’s workforce and gain an additional reserve company of the Royal Irish. Scotland will be home to more battalions—going from six to seven units—and a greater proportion of the Army than today. We will be retaining Glencorse barracks and will grow in Kinloss and Leuchars, thanks to £355 million of investment in the Army estate.
Wales will see the return of the Welsh cavalry—the Queen’s Dragoon Guards—to Caerwent barracks and a new reserve company of 3rd Battalion, the Royal Welsh to be established in north Wales. The retention of the Brecon barracks and the growth of Wrexham are just part of a £320 million investment in the Army estate in Wales.
I know that colleagues will be enthusiastic to learn the basing implications for their own constituencies. The full breakdown of the Army’s new structure can be found on the Government website or by clicking on the link in the “Dear colleague” letter that will be distributed.
Our future Army will be as agile in the new domains of cyber and space as it is on the ground. It will contribute the most personnel of all the services to those enhanced information-age functions, such as the National Cyber Force and Defence Intelligence, which are so critical to our new integrated force. In practical terms, this amounts to an additional 500 regular personnel, taking the number from 72,500 to 73,000. Together with the more than 10,000 Army personnel who work in other parts of defence, we will now, as I said, have a figure of 73,000.
As I said back in March, the size and capabilities of our Army must be dictated by the threat. What we can show on paper or even muster on parade matters little if we cannot rely on those numbers when it counts, or deliver the relevant capabilities required. Unlike the purely financial or numerically driven reviews of the past, we have taken a positive, pragmatic approach, matching our size to the current security environment and the Government’s current ambition.
Every single unit will be affected in some way by this change, and transformation on this scale requires radical change at the top of the Army. By 2025, the Army’s headquarters will be reduced by 40% regular personnel, and reserves integration will be made more productive across the force. Notably, the covid pandemic underlined the need for resilience structures that can cope with crises on the home front, so a new reserve brigade based in York will ensure that we can provide forces at the point of need. Simultaneously, we will be strengthening our Army’s institutional foundation across the United Kingdom by establishing regional points of command.
Our Army has always been defined by its people and their adaptive, resilient, determined and diverse qualities, so this review puts investment in human capital first. The more we use our people, the more we must make sure they are properly supported. That is why we will be modernising individuals’ careers and family assistance, all of which will be consolidated in an Army people plan published early next year. Finally, in this more competitive age, we will ensure that equipping our people with the ability to understand, compete, and fight across all domains is firmly at the forefront of defence policy making.
This is an Army that we can remain proud of, not just for its historical achievements or the “Top Trumps” comparisons of numbers of tanks and people in its ranks, but because it is an honest force that is credible and relevant, relentlessly adapting to confront the threats to the nation and meet the challenges of the future, changing the way it operates as much as the equipment with which it does it, and evolving culturally as much as structurally to place our future soldier in the best possible position to compete in all domains, both old and new, to shape our world for the better. Like their forebears, I am certain they will grasp these opportunities with both hands. It is certainly an Army that I would have liked to serve in. I am certain that this modernisation programme will allow them to do just that and ensure the Army remains both relevant and credible, in support of our Prime Minister’s vision for a global Britain that is a safer, stronger and more prosperous place. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Speaker
This is a very important statement and that is why I have allowed it to run three minutes over, so Members also have the ability to run over because there is a lot to take in. I am sure that Fulwood barracks was missed out, but there we are—we will leave that for another time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Hello, it’s me again.
I will gladly take the Secretary of State up on his offer of a meeting about procurement, but there is an old Army saying: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This is broke—it is official. This is the worst report on MOD procurement in living memory, Ben. We both know it is, so can we please do something about it and put it right?
Mr Wallace
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is the hon. Lady’s birthday, and I am not sure if she would think it a birthday present or not but I will be delighted to visit it with her.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome the new nuclear alliance with Australia and the United States, but I wish we would use a bit more robust language and say why we are doing it. It is to stand up to China’s current behaviour in the South China sea; let us not continue to be in denial about that. However, the timing and the manner of this announcement are not without diplomatic consequence, and prompt further questions about the cohesion, purpose and, indeed, leadership of NATO after the bruised departure from Afghanistan. There is no doubt that France has overreacted to losing a major procurement deal, but does the Minister recognise that China’s authoritarian behaviour cannot be defeated by military means alone? We need all the tools and all the alliances working towards a common strategic aim, and if we do not resolve a sense of unity in the west and, indeed, NATO—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Chair of the Select Committee should know better. He cannot make a speech; it has to be a question. I got him in deliberately because of the job he holds, but he cannot take complete advantage of the Chair: it is not fair.
Jeremy Quin
All the questions were excellent, Mr Speaker, and I will try to deal with them. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Why is the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) shaking his head?
Mr Speaker
Right. I am in charge, and I am not trying to abuse my position, so do not abuse yours.
Jeremy Quin
First, let me make it absolutely clear that the agreement with the United States and Australia is a requirement—an Australian requirement—for their strategic purposes. It is a decision that they wanted to make in order to enhance their strategic capability and their strategic defence. We have very strong contacts and a relationship with Australia and the United States, quite transparently. It will be a pleasure to work with them, and to help to deliver this important strategic capacity for Australia.
As for France, again, we work very closely with the French. My right hon. Friend is well aware of that, and of the Lancaster House treaties. There are ongoing discussions about incredibly important joint defence initiatives that we run together. I was in contact with my opposite number over the weekend, and I am looking forward to our working very closely with the French in the years ahead, as we have always done in the past.
Jeremy Quin
My right hon. Friend is a great advocate for British engineering and British defence jobs. There is an awful lot that is good about our Astute programme, but I am not going to second-guess the Australians’ 18-month assessment. They will work that through, but both we and the United States are there to support them in the delivery of this extremely important strategic capability.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to see you back from “Coronation Street” in such fine form, and to see the defence team still in its place.
When the Government presented the integrated review to the House, we were told that this Indo-Pacific tilt would not undermine interests in the Euro-Atlantic area. Can the Minister tell the House exactly how engaging in secret diplomacy against the mutual security and against the trust interests with one of our closest European allies helps our interests in the Euro-Atlantic area?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. The Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), is leading the charge here. Some of those people who are arriving here are finding the outlook strange and confusing—they have literally taken off one uniform, got on a plane and arrived in the United Kingdom. We in the Defence Department felt that it was incredibly important that the veterans’ community, local government, the Home Office and so on reach out a hand of friendship and support them as they integrate into society. We are looking at those who have already qualified, including those who have been through Sandhurst into the armed forces, to see what we can do for them. All the way through, we shall mentor them and put our arm around them.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I want to ask the Defence Secretary about the Ajax armoured vehicle, the biggest defence procurement failure since the Nimrod. What did the Defence Secretary know about the Ajax flaws when he published the integrated review in his Defence White Paper in March, scrapping Warrior, scaling back Challenger and fully backing Ajax?
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), the Secretary of State stated that the fire services of the naval bases in Faslane and Coulport had been nationalised, yet Capita won the contract last year to provide the fire services for those naval bases. Would the Secretary of State like to come to the Dispatch Box, perhaps to rectify that anomaly?
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
I think the best way to rectify this, Mr Speaker, is to read Hansard, where you will see very clearly, in black and white, that I referred to the Atomic Weapons Establishment.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I join the right hon. Gentleman in his tribute to the men and women who fought, some of whom never came back, and contributed during the many years in Afghanistan. I have previously placed on the record the fact that in my view the United States leaving made it very difficult for us to continue that mission. It left many of us unable to continue that without a significant international uplift. That has not been forthcoming, and therefore we are in a position where we, too, are on the path of withdrawal, with all the risks that may leave in the future—in the next 10, 20 years—so we have to do our very best with what we have now. That means we will continue to work with the Afghan Government. We will continue to focus on the threats that emanate from Afghanistan and may grow towards the United Kingdom and our allies. We will do whatever we can. However, it is important, in forward presence, that we are always in such countries with the consent of those countries. There was a Doha peace agreement, and that means we have to consider what we are going to do next.
Mr Speaker
These are topicals—short and sweet. I call the Chair of the Select Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I am pleased to welcome reports in the weekend papers that suggest that the aid budget may return to 0.7%. The utility of hard power without soft power invariably leads to failure, as sadly illustrated in Afghanistan, where the sudden exodus of NATO forces means that there is now a high risk of civil war, with the Taliban advancing and securing more districts by the day. I repeat my call for a formal inquiry so that we can understand how this NATO mission, endorsed by the UN, lasted two decades, has now ended in failure. We are now abandoning the country to the very insurgent organisation that we went in to defeat in the first place. This cannot be what we expected when we went in, and it is not the exit strategy that we anticipated. Our presence gave legitimacy to the Afghan authorities, and our exodus will be seen as a victory for the Taliban. Please let us have the inquiry.
Mr Speaker
Can I just remind people—Front Benchers as well, and Chairs of Select Committees—that if they want a long question, they should go in questions earlier? These are short and punchy questions, and we have to keep it that way to get the rest in.
Mr Wallace
I would say two things. First, my right hon. Friend, as I said earlier, has the means of his own salvation. He chairs the Select Committee, and if the Select Committee wishes to have an inquiry, I will be happy to make sure the Department services it.
Mr Wallace
I will be delighted to ensure that either I or the Minister for Defence Procurement meets my hon. Friend.
Mr Speaker
I am suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Loss of Secret Documents
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Jeremy Quin
Mr Speaker, you will be very relieved that the Secretary of State is not here, given that he was in contact with someone who has tested positive for covid-19.
Jeremy Quin
The hon. Gentleman gets the point. I am sure that the Secretary of State would have wished to be here otherwise, so please do not take it as a lack of interest on his part. He is doing the right and responsible thing. We all want our colleagues to do the right and responsible thing in all circumstances.
Please do not take my desire to hear the results of the investigation to be covering up anything other than serious disquiet, and indeed anger, that this has happened. It should not have happened; these documents should not have been mislaid. I am deeply sorry that that has been the case. We need to see from the investigation the circumstances that led to it and get the full details, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are taking it very seriously.
Jeremy Quin
I have no evidence to suggest that the safety of our personnel has been compromised, but clearly, as I have said, this is an investigation. It will go through the documents. It will ensure that missing documents have now been returned. It will go through the contents of the documents and put in place any mitigations that are needed. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that we have been in contact with the United States. It is aware of the issue and we will keep it updated if we need to in future.
Mr Speaker
I am now suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business.
Ajax Programme
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]
Does the Minister agree that the Ajax situation undermines global Britain’s forward presence objectives as envisaged in the integrated review, such as the ability of the Royal Dragoon Guards based in Warminster to project reconnaissance combat teams, which they were being re-roled for? If it turns out that the vibration issue—[Inaudible.]
Mr Speaker
The sound is as defective as the programme. Minister, do you want to try to answer that?
Jeremy Quin
I am very sorry that we have lost my right hon. Friend. It gives me scope to interpret his question. I think he was asking about our capability to equip our recce troops. What we can do is a needed step change. The vehicles we are currently using were brought into service in the 1970s. We need that digitised framework. We need those sensors. We need the four dimensional capability. The programme will significantly help our armed forces, and we will be able to deliver it at speed.
Jeremy Quin
That is a positive point on which to end these exchanges—if, indeed, this is the end Mr Speaker. It is absolutely right that we should look at the land industrial strategy to see what we can secure for this country. In terms of armoured fighting vehicles, we have not only Ajax but Boxer, and there is additional work on our Challenger 3 main battle tank. We have a lot of capabilities in the land domain, as we have in respect of exporting ships of various descriptions and the fantastic work that we continue to do on Typhoon and the development of our future combat air system. There is huge potential for us not only to defend our country and keep us secure but to offer huge prosperity benefits to all the people of the UK.
Mr Speaker
I am now suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
Yes, my hon. Friend makes an important point about small and medium-sized companies and their role in the supply chain; I see it as part of my job as Defence Secretary sometimes to protect them from the big primes and make sure that their voice is heard. As for the competition that he mentions, I obviously cannot pre-empt the results of the contract, but all bids will be properly considered. I know Kromek by reputation and congratulate my hon. Friend on being a champion of it.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
The Prime Minister said back in November that the current four-year funding for defence would create “10,000 jobs every year”. Six months on, how many new defence jobs have been created?
Mr Wallace
The Afghan forces have been fully responsible for the security of Afghanistan since 2015, and I want to place on record my admiration for their remarkable resilience and courage in meeting the challenges they face. The UK has an enduring commitment to Afghanistan. We plan to continue to provide financial sustainment support until at least 2024. It is in all our interests that the state of Afghanistan transitions through the peace deal as the state we envisage it to be, and I will explore all options, whether from inside the country or outside it, to continue to support those forces one way or the other.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Let me begin by wishing the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier battle group all the very best on her maiden voyage.
Operation Telic, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, cost the taxpayer £8 billion and the lives of 179 UK military personnel, and there was a full independent inquiry. Operation Herrick, the invasion of Afghanistan, cost the taxpayer £28 billion and resulted in some 450 UK military deaths, but to date the Government have not announced an inquiry. We now withdraw from Afghanistan just as the Taliban are on the ascent and another civil war looms. That cannot be the exit strategy that we ever envisaged, and we must understand what went wrong. For example, why did Donald Rumsfeld exclude the Taliban from the first peace talks in December 2001? If we do not understand and learn from the strategic errors of the past, this House will be hesitant to vote in favour of deploying our hard power in the future. Please, let us have that inquiry.
Mr Wallace
I hear my right hon. Friend’s requests—I know he has recently written a letter to the Prime Minister making that request. First, there is a stark difference between Iraq and Afghanistan; the article 5 triggering of that deployment and the causes behind it were not in doubt. Secondly, as our former Speaker would have said, part of my right hon. Friend’s salvation is in his own hands: as Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, he obviously has significant capabilities and powers to bring forward an inquiry, if that is what he wishes. At present, the Government are reflecting on his letter and do not think there is a need for the same type of inquiry that we saw into what happened in Iraq. Of course, we do learn lessons; there have been a considerable amount of internal looks by military professionals at what is going on.
On Donald Rumsfeld and the United States Administration, that is a matter for the US Administration and not for me. I am not able to ask what lay behind their motives as to decisions they have made over the past 20 years and I cannot therefore venture into that space.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Dr Julian Lewis.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I hope we are not so naive as to believe that the Taliban will stick to any peace deal unless they recognise adverse consequences for breaking it. So will the Government take steps, in conjunction with the US and other NATO allies, to find a new strategy, possibly based on a strategic base in the region, to deter the Taliban and protect Afghanistan from a total Islamist takeover after our land forces have totally been withdrawn?
James Heappey
Over the weekend my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence visited the carrier strike group, as did Her Majesty the Queen on Saturday, and I know that the carrier strike group personnel will be further delighted by the good wishes sent by so many in the House today. Over the next six months they will fly the nation’s flag in all corners of the world and I am sure they will do so with great style and skill. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the deployment as the embodiment of so much of what is in the defence Command Paper. Over the next few years we all look forward to this being not the first but the latest in a sequence of events of similar importance that project global Britain around the world.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Cuts to armed forces numbers will affect Britain’s influence around the globe. The former Defence Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), appeared before the Defence Committee on 11 May and said that “no one” could explain the rationale for the size of the defence cuts. Does the Minister agree with his former colleague?
Leo Docherty
We support service personnel transitioning out and seeking to start their own businesses and be self-employed through the career transition partnership, which is a hugely successful initiative. We recognise that veterans bring some of the key skills to successful self-employment: initiative, discipline and the tendency to work extremely hard. I think overall the support offered by the career transition partnership is a very positive story.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
A survey by the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association has suggested that almost half of recruiters would worry about hiring a service leaver because of concerns around negative mental health. While the Government’s proposed national insurance relief for businesses that hire veterans is welcome, it does not tackle the root cause of the problem. What are the Government doing to address the misconceptions employers may have about veterans?
Mr Wallace
I think the right hon. Member is looking at the special measure. The reason I am here as the Secretary of State for Defence is to get the record level of investment that will put right not only five years or 10 years, but 20 years of mismanagement of these programmes. Sometimes that means taking tough decisions, and the Warrior will be retired when it runs out in 2025; it is not just going to be cancelled as such. It was also important to make sure that we invested in parts of the land capability that I thought, and indeed that officers thought, were the right thing for the future of the Army—the Boxer armoured vehicle. For that investment, not only do we get a factory in Telford and hundreds of jobs, but we get one of the very best wheeled armed vehicles in the world. For his £3.3 billion on Ajax, he will get over 500 vehicles when they are delivered, and much of that money has already been committed. He will also get a factory in Wales, which I am sure he is pleased about. In both projects, we will get the intellectual property, so that when we export those vehicles around the world, not only will British defence profit, but so too will the people of the United Kingdom through their jobs.
Mr Speaker
Let me say to the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State that topicals are meant to be short and punchy, not lengthy debates. Can they both get it right for next time? I now come to Mr Metcalfe, who will definitely get it right.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Mr Wallace
We will continue with the Astute programme. As the hon. Lady points out, there were some delays in some of that programme. We will continue to manage the programme. The Astute submarines will be delivered by BAE Systems in Barrow-in-Furness. I visit regularly to make sure we try to keep it on track.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
Mr Speaker
I am suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Afghanistan
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]
Like the Minister and the shadow Secretary of State, I pay tribute on behalf of the Scottish National party to all those who served, and of course, we remember all those who sadly lost their lives in Afghanistan.
All of us want the Government to get this right. I accept that there are no easy, clearcut, black and white ways forward, but I share some of the concern at the somewhat over-optimistic assessment that the Minister comes to the House with today. There is no absolute victory, of course—there is victory of sorts—but the peace is unstable. Governance is better, but it is still unstable, and the Taliban are not the outfit they once were, but they still pose a threat. The Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), made some excellent points on how lessons are learned about what went wrong, because some things did. I return to the question he asked, which the Minister was not quite clear on: what is the Government’s view of a Chilcot-style inquiry? If we are all committed to getting this right, that is the kind of thing that surely needs to happen.
This might be the end of one of America’s forever wars, as it is sometimes known, but for Afghanistan, it remains immensely uncertain. What does the post-September relationship look like with the Afghan Government? I say this to the Minister on foreign aid. We can either have peace and stability in countries such as Afghanistan, or we can have foreign aid cuts; we cannot have both. If the Government are committed to a stable future for Afghanistan—which, in fairness, I believe they are—they need to reverse not just the cut that the shadow Secretary of State mentioned but the cut in its entirety across the foreign aid field.
Mr Speaker
May I remind the SNP spokesperson that he has one minute, not the more than two minutes that he has taken?
James Heappey
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to ask what the mechanism is for solidifying the peace within Afghanistan, but I am not sure that I see what the international military presence would do to solidify that peace any further. What needs to happen now, as we have seen in Northern Ireland and many other conflicts in which we have been involved in the past, is this deeply imperfect and—for those of us who have served —uneasy reality that all parties, irrespective of the role they played in the conflict, need to come together and make the politics work. I think that the conditions are right for that to happen now.
I do not mean to sound over-optimistic. My eyes are wide open. I said in my answer that the future for Afghanistan is uncertain—of course it is. But there is a set of Afghan national security forces in place now that are capable of maintaining the peace, and I genuinely believe that there is a political will to achieve that and an expectation within the Afghan public that their politicians will achieve that.
How the lessons are learned from this campaign, as they were with Iraq, is for my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary to decide in due course. Of course, in everything we do in the Ministry of Defence, we look at what we have done, and where it worked, we reinforce, and where it did not work, we change. Within the integrated review, there is already a recognition that the way we have done our business in the last two decades may not be the way that we do it in the next.
On the hon. Gentleman’s final point about the relationship with the Afghan Government and the need to financially support them, as the Secretary-General of NATO said, this is not the end of our involvement in Afghanistan; it is just the start of a new chapter. That new chapter is one that remains every bit as committed to supporting the Afghan national Government, and this year alone the UK will spend up to £70 million on supporting the Afghan security forces. Such support—both diplomatic and financial—is key to ensuring the future that we envisage for Afghanistan in the absence of a military contribution.
Defence and Security Industrial Strategy
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Jeremy Quin
This is a great opportunity to build our skills base and our number of apprentices. My right hon. Friend will have heard what I said about FCAS and Team Tempest and that new generation coming through—people are very excited about the prospect of working on this new system—but it is broader than that. I particularly pay tribute to the work of the RAF across Wales in bringing on STEM skills. The whole of the armed forces are acutely aware that our future is going to be digital, cyber and highly technological, and we as a country need to have that STEM support. I know that this strategy, with its £6.6 billion minimum spend on R&D over the next four years, will help to deliver just that.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome that we are getting more clarity on some of the issues around defence spending, and particularly the Minister’s bold statement that he wants to see us
“achieving real reform in how we procure.”
It would be great if we saw some of that go down to our SMEs. However, as he knows, the National Audit Office concluded in its recent report on the defence equipment plan that the Department
“continues to make over-optimistic and inconsistent judgements when forecasting costs.”
That information comes from the Department’s own cost assurance and analysis service. Can the Minister tell the House and the country what precisely he is going to do differently to ensure that procurement and cost management in the equipment plan is managed better? What precise actions is he going to take?
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I certainly hear what my hon. Friend says. As another Lancashire MP, I am conscious of the good news which the Prime Minister announced that the force will be based in the north of England. Obviously, we will go through the processes of selecting where it is to be based. I think of the lessons that we learned when Bletchley Park and its successors moved to Cheltenham, as opposed to a big city. The impact that that had in levelling up the area is something on which we should all reflect. It is incredibly important that, in our whole levelling-up agenda, we focus not just on cities but on towns as well.
Mark Logan [V]
Our Prime Minister and Secretary of State are backing the north by developing the National Cyber Force here. Some say that it should be in Manchester, but others say Lancashire. Surely Bolton is the place for it, with a foot in Greater Manchester, but our heart firmly in Lancashire.
Mr Wallace
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I would take issue with it on one thing, and that is about us catching up. I was the cyber-security Minister—I was the Minister of State for Security—for a considerable period of time. Britain actually led the world both in NATO, where we were the first to offer cyber-offensive capability, but also through our programmes. The national cyber-security programme spent billions on enhancing capability right across not just military, but predominantly the civil sector. The National Cyber Security Centre is a first; there are almost none in Europe.
We are one of the first to have such a centre to be able to advise business, private individuals and the Government how to keep themselves strong and secure. There is always more to do and there are lessons to be learned around the world, but Britain has a lot of innovation and strengths in cyber-security. It is a dangerous world out there in cyber. I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that one of the ways to deliver this is to ensure that we constantly work with our friends and allies.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend accept that while the cyber-threat to critical national infrastructure can paralyse a society that is then subject to attack by more conventional means, we also have to maintain the methods and equipment to counter-attack anything involving conventional military force? Is he satisfied that the integrated review, while recognising the role of cyber, also recognises the continuing role of conventional defence?
Johnny Mercer
No; I do not have responsibility for the Prime Minister’s advisers, clearly. On satisfaction around pay, I am clear that pay is one of the reasons that people stay in the military. If the hon. Member looks forward to the integrated review, we will be looking to announce a direction of travel on this matter in due course.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We have indeed seen a steady drumbeat of media stories promoting radical changes to our defence posture, but the Defence Committee has not received any of those briefings, despite frequent departmental requests. What troubles me the most is the MOD’s decision to share with the media the desire to increase our nuclear stockpile with the purchase of 200 W93 US-made warheads. I am a firm supporter of continuous at-sea deterrence, but changes to our non-proliferation policy deserve proper oversight in this House and should not be used a sweetener to overshadow dramatic cuts to our conventional defence posture. May I ask for your guidance on how we can encourage the MOD to brief the Defence Committee—perhaps in the Ladybird book form that the Defence Secretary likes to promote—and to ensure that any announcements on CASD are made in this Chamber first?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to both right hon. Gentlemen for giving me notice of their points of order. “Erskine May” states that
“The Speaker has made it clear that the media should not be informed about the content of statements before they have been made to the House”.
When a statement is made, Members will of course have an opportunity to ask about any advance briefing given to the media, but my position is clear: I want important policy announcements to be made first to this House. Ministers on the Treasury Bench will have heard the comments of the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and the Chair of the Defence, Committee as well as this response. I expect that that response will be shared with all Ministers and that they will act accordingly. Thank you.
I suspend the House to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.