Defence Capability

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Government’s review of defence capability.

It is a pleasure the serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and an honour to engage with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), in this vital debate. People throughout the country will remember his empathy, bravery and application when he helped the emergency services during recent terror events not far at all from here. They will not be surprised to learn that he served in our armed forces with distinction before he came to this place. They will recognise the virtues that he displayed that day as the instincts of our armed forces personnel serving throughout the world. We are all lucky to have him representing us as a Minister.

At the battle of Thermopylae some 2,500 years ago, a vastly outnumbered 300 Spartans led resistance against the massed ranks of Persian invaders from the east on a narrow seaside salt marsh only 100 metres wide, while their Greek allies retreated behind them, better to defend their homeland. That Spartan royal guard, who were specially selected for their prowess and the fact that they had sons, and their King, Leonidas, all perished together at those hot gates. They bought their allies crucial time to fall back and regroup, to preserve what they held dear. A famous ancient memorial inscription to them at the site reads:

“Go tell the Spartans…that here, obedient to their laws”

300 lie.

The Greek word for laws that was used is ambiguous. It can mean orders. That ambiguity was appropriate, since at that particular festival time, the Spartans usually observed a strict religious law that was against their normal tradition of military readiness. However, they had been ordered by the Spartan political council to lead this vanguard of the Greek city states’ defence, and they put aside what must have been deeply mixed feelings to do the duty that had been assigned to them, for their countrymen and for wider civilisation. The culture of the enlightenment and the forces enlisted throughout history to help defend it have drawn inspiration from these men, who did their duty for the greater good against all odds.

We all remember Nelson’s final message, that

“England expects that every man will do his duty”,

and his own personal sacrifice for our nation and our allies. Our modern civilisation and modern forces face different challenges and threats, but what does not change is our crack forces’ heroic willingness to go all out, head on and straight at them, to defend each other and what we hold dear. When our modern-day political councils ask what our country should ask of those who are willing to put themselves in harm’s way for us, and how we should help them, we need to remind ourselves of the value of that bond in blood that binds our history and our fighting generations. It is easy for generations whose family memory is distant from the sacrifices our nation made to make the future safe to lose feeling for their importance. However, the modern western civilisation in which we live and into which most nations—even those from outside our tradition—seek to integrate, even while maintaining their own traditions, is founded on a rules-based system that we, as much as any nation, helped to make. We must be prepared to defend it.

Our politics, our freedom and our democracy are worth fighting for, now as always. It is only through preparation, innovation, training and modernisation in our time of relative peace—when the gates are not so hot, as it were—that we will ensure that, should things change, this and successive generations can fight and win.

It is right that in this fast-changing and in many ways increasingly dangerous world we constantly consider how to enhance our capability, capacity and ability to defend the things that we hold dear. The Government recognise that. They have a growing budget for defence and they are committed to the regeneration of our capabilities. They are committed to spending at least 2% of GDP and to grow the defence budget by at least 0.5% above inflation every year. We need to get the most out of that spending and to ensure that our armed forces and other security and support services have the resources, forward thinking and support from our nation that they need to succeed, if at any stage they are called upon. It is right that we, as politicians, in close consultation with our security advisers, military and otherwise, clearly assess our capability requirements in different areas. It is also right that we constantly drive for value for money in the long term, which includes ensuring that we have a highly productive, agile and innovative defence and security industrial base that is a strategic asset and deterrent in its own right. The political councils of our time must take a long-term view and provide consistent leadership on policy in this area for military and security chiefs to implement.

At this time especially, as we leave the political construct of the European Union, we must lead in showing that our European friends and allies have no more dependable, able and committed a partner in defence and security than the United Kingdom. I believe that the people of the UK instinctively understand that and have the overwhelming will and desire to ensure that it remains the case. The vast majority of people across politics get that when it is expressed in this way. Those who rail at the inefficiency of Brussels and its largesse, inscrutable accounting and questionable politics would nevertheless, without hesitation, defend the values at the heart of homes across Europe. Those of almost all shades of political opinion on how we should improve our compatriots’ lot would agree in a heartbeat that the defence of our shared basic values of liberal democracy and the rule of law should be defended in as modern and effective a way as we can muster. Most people understand that those values provide and preserve the certainty that is fertile ground for prosperity and happiness to flourish, and that protecting and nurturing them is a multigenerational and never-ending endeavour for us all to pursue.

I will leave it to others to catalogue the ways in which our ongoing and upgraded sovereign contribution could help to preserve the rules-based structures that nations of the world enjoy, but let us make no mistake: every child, every family and every individual throughout the land should understand that our willingness to stand up for the civilisation that we hold dear is part of what makes us the people we are, and temporary strictures should not be allowed to detract from that. We are proud of our forces and of the people who serve in them, and we want them to be proud, too. We want them to serve, safe in the knowledge that they and their loved ones will be looked after. If we need to spend more to ensure that they know that, then that is what we must do.

We should not underestimate the economic value to our communities of defence spending. That value comes not just in pounds, shillings and pence, or in the form of the 10,000-plus jobs that support families across my constituency, for example. No—the ethos of service, and respect for it, has its own much wider value in society. If we want public servants who are committed and dedicated to often unseen work, they need to know that, even when they are not thanked, we are thankful. If we want people to look out for each other, it helps to think about what we would do to help each other in extremis.

Everyone in our nation has been touched by stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in recent moments of need, in Manchester, London, Paris, Brussels and Nice. Our defence personnel, our security services, our police forces and all the other public servants and civilians who leap into action daily inspire us. They, too, are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Let us think about how we inspire those who make that their life’s work. Let us ensure that we have the most excellent personnel to operate our state-of-the-art new equipment. Let us ensure that they have good pensions and homes. Let us ensure that they are incentivised to give their all.

Colleagues will, I hope, speak about how we used to spend more on defence. I will highlight two aspects of that as food for thought. In the early part of the cold war, we spent 6% of GDP on defence. I do not necessarily advocate spending quite as much as that, and obviously circumstances are different. However, it may be worth noting, at least for theory’s sake, that if the UK were to make up the other EU nations’ deficit of spending against their NATO target of 2% of GDP, we might do that by spending 5.5% to 6% of our GDP.

Some extraordinary new strategic assets are coming into our forces, not least the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers and their complements of aircraft, which it would absolutely be in our allies’ interests for us to be able to deploy, concurrently, in the European sphere and elsewhere. We should maximise the sovereign usefulness of those assets by making sure we can operate them in battle groups on our own if need be. Our naval programme should be geared towards that, and our defence spending and training of skilled personnel should be upgraded substantially to deliver it.

My community in south Somerset is particularly proud of the contribution that it makes and can make in future through the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton and the helicopter manufacturing and wider defence industry supply chain. I strongly believe that the armed forces component of our national security must have a 360-degree ability to deal with all requirements. For me, amphibious capability is an essential part of that. I strongly support the modernisation of our Army and want it to have sufficient trained personnel to be scalable and capable of sustained use, with properly equipped medium-weight strike brigades that can make an essential contribution to allies and that are a strategic deterrent in themselves.

I am conscious that the tempo of operations and lack of proper equipment, at least in the early part of operations in recent middle eastern engagements, put significant pressure on the Army and its families, and that must not happen again.

Helicopters were one thing our forces lacked, and I am proud of the way that my Yeovil community has helped to give our forces proper battle-space protection and mobility with its Wildcat and Merlin programmes. In particular, I note Wildcat’s agility and flexibility in close support operations, versatility over land and sea, and flexible and powerful inter-operation with other key systems in both the naval and army spheres. Although there may be other systems that one might want to add for specific purposes, I believe it would be immensely short-sighted not to upgrade and extend our indigenous helicopter platform capabilities, and indeed support, as the Ministry of Defence is, the development of the next generations of battle-space mobility and protection products.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way on that point. Does he agree that it would be great to see a defence industrial strategy that really set out a vision for the way in which we procure stuff from the MOD, particularly to support the British steel industry, which is close to my heart, so that we do not see a repeat of the procurement process for the Type 26 frigate, which saw just 35% of the steel in each ship coming from British steel?

[Mr Fysh]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She makes an excellent point. I will come on to industrial strategy in a moment.

I will be working as hard as I can with industry partners to raise the tempo of productivity and innovation to match the commitment from the Ministry of Defence. Defence should be a fundamental part of our industrial strategy for both military and economic reasons, and I stand ready to work with Ministers and their Departments to ensure that we get this right and that proper account is taken of these matters during the defence and security review.

So what are the arguments against spending more? There are those who say we do not have the money. I wish a strong signal to go to the Treasury and Cabinet Office from this debate that it is a false economy not to give defence what it needs to regenerate a full 360-degree capability at this time. We could certainly use a few billion pounds a year currently given in international development, with overwhelming popular support and much greater domestic economic impact.

I have made other multibillion pound suggestions for savings to the Chancellor for his upcoming Budget, which I look forward to discussing with him again. To those who say we have other priorities, I say that this Government more than any other have focused spending on defence and on regeneration of our capabilities, and that this success needs to be reinforced. Economic value added to our communities and inspiration to our people and our allies should be top priorities for us at this time.

To those who say we do not have the will, I have never underestimated the ingenuity, good humour and grit of the British people. We should not hide our light under a bushel. I believe most of our fellows citizens would be proud to see it shine as a beacon for all to rally around.

I will conclude now because I want to allow time for others to speak. We all have a duty to do what we can to keep ambitions for our civilisation open to the next generations. There are some things worth fighting for, and we need excellence in the fight for them in all aspects of what we do every day. We have a duty to honour those who have gone before us. Giving our defence what it needs now is part of defending what they held dear.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

The House might like to know that the winding-up speeches will start at 4 o’clock. Only four Members have written to say they wish to speak. I shall take those Members first and then get in as many others as I can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Fysh]

I thank all hon. Members for turning up to this important debate. We have heard that since SDSR 2015 the challenges have increased and so has our need to project our capabilities and to make them available to our allies on a full-spectrum sovereign basis. We heard from many Members about the energy we need and about our potential deficiencies, not least in integration with industrial strategy, which in defence must be an essential consideration.