UK Air and Missile Defences

Luke Akehurst Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK air and missile defences.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am pleased to have secured this debate to highlight a critical weakness in our national defences. I am sure it will come as no surprise to hon. Members that I say this, but I sincerely believe that outside this place, and even among many of our colleagues, it is not appreciated that the diversity of the threat we now face from air attack, and the lack of our defences against it, is at its most serious in decades.

This debate is about defences against conventional air and missile threats, not nuclear threats—for that we maintain our continuous at-sea strategic nuclear deterrent. The world is more unstable today than at any point since the cold war, but sadly, despite a changing threat environment, I fear our defences have not been adapted quickly enough to deter or protect against it. The House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee’s report published in September, which analysed the lessons we can learn from Ukraine, laid out in stark terms the significant weaknesses in European defences. Key among them is the fact that our air and missile defences are, frankly, inadequate. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine not only brought conventional warfare back to mainland Europe, but has shown in stark terms the importance of credible and robust air and missile defences.

Nearly 12,000 missiles have been launched against Ukraine by Russia since February 2022. About 80% of them have been intercepted, thanks to different air defence systems protecting military and civilian infrastructure, but that still means that thousands of missiles have impacted, often to devastating effect. Earlier this month, over the course of just one week, Russia used more than 800 guided aerial bombs, about 460 attack drones and more than 20 missiles of various types against Ukraine.

During the cold war NATO’s air defences were a largely static system arrayed in belts around a unidirectional and well-defined threat of manned aircraft from the Soviet Union, but today’s environment is less predictable. The range of air and missile threats is larger and the threat can come from any direction. Indeed, according to reports from earlier this year, NATO states can provide less than 5% of the air defence capacity deemed necessary to protect allies in central and eastern Europe against a full-scale attack.

Unlike Ukraine, the UK has some obvious geographical protection from attacks by ground-based short-range missiles and drones, but two significant and concerning reports over recent days show once again that there is no cause for complacency. First, Russia is now prepared to use intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missiles against targets in Ukraine. This is the first successful use of that type of missile with conventional warheads in combat. They are harder to intercept and represent a significant escalation. The second concerning report in recent days relates to the presence of unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles around three RAF bases—Lakenheath, Mildenhall and Feltwell—between 20 and 22 November and overnight on 25 November. I do not expect the Minister to go into too much detail about that recent incident or about what counter-measures are in place at our bases, but both reports show that short-range and long-range threats to the UK are very real, very diverse, and we need to be able to defend ourselves against them.

If we look at events in the middle east, we can also see the diversity of short to long-range aerial threats. Israel has faced rocket, drone and ballistic missile attacks from Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria. In October, Iran launched almost 200 ballistic missiles against Israel following its previous attack involving 300 missiles and drones in April, but, unlike the UK, Israel has a sophisticated and multi-layered air and missile defence system to counter wide-ranging aerial threats. The Iron Dome intercepts short-range rockets of the type fired by Hamas and Hezbollah. David’s Sling can intercept medium to long-range rockets, as well as ballistic and cruise missiles, and Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 can intercept long-range ballistic missiles. Recently, we saw the deployment of US THAAD—terminal high altitude area defence—batteries to bolster defences against ballistic missile threats.

The UK’s current air defence capabilities against such threats are primarily made up of Sea Viper on Type 45 destroyers, utilising Aster missiles, Sky Sabre ground-based air defence, and quick reaction alert Typhoon fighter jets. Typhoons on quick reaction alert at Coningsby and Lossiemouth can intercept potential hostile airborne threats, including aircraft and UAVs. The Sky Sabre ground-based air defence system can intercept multiple cruise missiles, aircraft and UAVs up to 25 km away. However, there are only about six Sky Sabre systems in service with the British Army, and at least two are deployed overseas, to the Falkland Islands and Poland. Clearly, many more such systems would be needed to provide sufficient cover to a larger number of critical military and civilian national infrastructure sites across the UK.

I know the business case for more Sky Sabre launchers has been approved, but orders have not yet been made. Bizarrely, no business case has been made for ordering more missiles for Sky Sabre, despite such orders taking longer to fulfil. Crucially, Sky Sabre cannot defend against ballistic or hypersonic missile threats—it was not designed to do so. The only defence the UK currently has against ballistic missiles is Sea Viper, which utilises Aster 30 missiles on our six Type 45 destroyers. Sea Viper can currently track potential threats at ranges of up to 250 miles, and eliminate them within about 70 miles.

I know that Sea Viper is being upgraded over the next decade, with initial operation capability in 2028. That is very welcome, but given that we have only a few Type 45s in service at any one time, the coverage that they can provide in defence of homeland targets against ballistic missile threats is limited. To defend London against ballistic missile threats, a Type 45 destroyer would have to be permanently moored in the Thames estuary, which would mean that it could not do anything else. In particular, it would be unavailable for its primary role of protecting one of our aircraft carriers from air and missile threats. That alone makes the case that some form of new or upgraded ground-based air defence system that provides protection against threats, including ballistic and hypersonic missiles, is needed.

To consider only the military critical national infrastructure that would be vulnerable to air attack and would need adequate protection, we have the three main Royal Navy operating bases at Portsmouth, Devonport and Clyde; seven RAF bases, including Lossiemouth, Marham and Coningsby; and the major Army garrisons. We have radar sites, ammunition depots, and overseas sites, including the sovereign base areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus, which are in range of Iranian ballistic missiles, unlike sites in the UK. Major defence industrial sites would also presumably be at risk. Then there is a plethora of significant civilian infrastructure that could be targeted, including nuclear power stations, large transport hubs, industrial sites and Government buildings. We know tragically from the war in Ukraine that Russia has no compunction about hitting civilian targets such as hospitals, shopping centres or concentrations of housing, purely to terrorise the civilian population and degrade national morale.

The previous Government’s integrated and defence reviews slowly started to acknowledge the threat from air attack. The 2023 Defence Command Paper described the threat as being

“at its most acute for over thirty years”.

Clearly, the resources have not yet been put into upscaling equipment and filling the gaps in capability that we need to counter that.

Other European countries have been taking the issue seriously and placing orders. In the past decade, France and Italy have jointly developed the medium-range SAMP/T air defence system, which can intercept ballistic missiles, drones, fighter jets and other targets. In September, France ordered eight new SAMP/T NG systems, capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles. The first ones will enter service in 2026. Italy also ordered 10 of these new systems, which will utilise upgraded Aster 30 missiles.

Many European countries already utilise the American Patriot air defence system. To bolster that, existing operators Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden are procuring 1,000 additional Patriot missiles between them. Poland has signed contracts worth £4 billion with UK industry to deliver the NAREW next-generation air defence system. Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France and Hungary are jointly buying around 1,500 Mistral short-range air defence—SHORAD—missiles. Latvia and Estonia are jointly procuring IRIS-T for medium-range interception, and Finland has ordered the David’s Sling system.

To fill capability gaps and ensure interoperability, we should be working with our European NATO partners on joint procurement. The Government have said that the UK is engaging with the European Sky Shield initiative, which seeks to establish a ground-based integrated European air defence system with anti-ballistic missile capability. There are clearly different views across Europe about which systems it should comprise to ensure not only interoperability but to develop and maintain Europe’s defence industrial base.

I am aware that the UK signed a letter of intent to launch the integrated air and missile DIAMOND initiative in October, alongside six allies: France, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Sweden. That is clearly welcome, as it shows the seriousness with which the threat is recognised, but there is no clear timetable of key milestones associated with the DIAMOND initiative. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide an update.

It is not just our ability to take down hostile airborne threats that we must consider; there is also our ability to detect them in the first place. It is no secret that we have only a limited number of fixed and mobile land-based radars on UK soil, which would probably be among the first targets vulnerable to air attack. The previous Government’s early retirement of E-3 Sentry left a capability gap in airborne early warning and control, which has only been compounded by delays in the E-7 Wedgetail programme.

Airborne early warning and control will be crucial in monitoring the western and south-western coasts of the UK, where ground-based radar is limited, to detect potential submarine-launched threats. We also need to take seriously the potential for radar evasion along the east coast, particularly by UAVs or projectiles passing through wind farms. The Government are actively working on deconflicting windfarms and existing air defence surveillance systems. I would be grateful if the Minister could speak briefly about that.

Ministers will be acutely aware of everything I have said but, as I said at the start of the debate, I do not think many of our colleagues, including across Government outside the Ministry of Defence, appreciate the scale or seriousness of the issue. The defence analyst Francis Tusa has compared the current situation with that found by General Frederick Pile in 1937 when he was appointed commander of the 1st Anti-Aircraft Division. General Pile highlighted the severe lack of anti-aircraft batteries to defend civilian and military locations. His analysis led to an increase in personnel in anti-aircraft roles and the mass production of anti-aircraft artillery.

Our armed forces are among the best and most capable in the world but, unfortunately, the defence they can provide today against significant airborne threats to the homeland, such as missile attack, is very limited. We have highly capable equipment but not enough of it to protect the significant amount of critical infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, and to defend troops deployed on operations overseas. Principally, that is because we spent most of the previous few decades focused on expeditionary overseas missions rather than active homeland defence. We have been too slow to adapt to the changing threat picture.

The lack of active homeland defence is fundamentally a strategic failure. I hope the ongoing strategic defence review will deem it such and outline how it can be urgently addressed. The first responsibility of our Government is to protect our people and defend our freedom. I fear that further delay in outlining the action we are going to take and, crucially, the budget to deliver it, brings only greater risk of catastrophic failure in fulfilling that fundamental responsibility.

Addressing that capability gap needs to be an urgent political, funding and industrial priority for Government. I hope the Minister feels that this debate helps her demonstrate the political support in Parliament for tackling it.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Akehurst]

Actually, I think it is appropriate that the time has been used by the Minister, because getting those reassurances is extremely important. That is what we all wanted to hear. I am particularly pleased that she recognised that the purpose of the debate was to demonstrate the support across the House, as well as the knowledge of the set of threats. I welcome her saying that a key part of the SDR will be to look at preparedness against missile threats.

I reassure the shadow Secretary of State that he need have no concerns about support for the nuclear deterrent. A recurring theme of my entire political life has been getting stuck into the arguments for the sustaining and renewal of the nuclear deterrent. It is part of my political brand. I am sure we can have that debate another time.

I thank all hon. Members who contributed. There were important contributions from Members who have an industrial interest in their constituency. From Thales to MBDA, we have some excellent technologies around the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) made an excellent contribution about the wider industrial concerns. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) made another insightful contribution, based on his service in the armed forces—

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).