Mark Francois
Main Page: Mark Francois (Conservative - Rayleigh and Wickford)Department Debates - View all Mark Francois's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Louise Sandher-Jones
We have a plea for defence spending to hit 3% by 2030 from a party whose manifesto committed to spending just 2.5% by that date, and calls for a fully funded defence investment plan fit for the modern battlefield from a former Government whose fantasy equipment plan was overcommitted, underfitted and unsuited. They left 47 out of 49 major defence programmes delayed or over budget.
It is a motion that claims to understand the delicate legacy issues in Northern Ireland, from a party whose own plan was struck down as unlawful—it protected nobody. We have had many debates on the issue that the Government are reflecting on. I have set out my position many times, and in partnership with colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office, we will progress the Bill in due course. As I have said before, I am mindful of the responsibility to get it right.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Will the Minister give way on that matter?
Louise Sandher-Jones
No, I am going to finish. Armed Forces Week is a moment to give thanks. But the best thanks a Government can give our servicemen and women is not warm words from these Benches, but our full backing. There are more officer-cadets, lieutenants, and Captain Joneses serving today—we are a big family. I say to them that the Conservative Government failed me; this Labour Government will deliver for them.
Dr Pinkerton
My hon. Friend puts her finger on an incredibly important point that is intrinsic to the publication of the DIP. We should never ignore the experiences of women in our armed forces, who perform brave service every day.
Mr Francois
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I want to turn to legacy. Our motion calls on the Government to drop the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which the Liberal Democrats, like the Conservatives, voted against on Second Reading. That Bill has now famously been described by the outgoing Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), as “unfit for purpose”. Is the hon. Gentleman’s party, like us, still opposed to the Bill, and does that also apply to his colleagues in the House of Lords?
Dr Pinkerton
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman—and, if I may say so, my friend; he has supported me in debates in the past—for his intervention. We are opposed to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which delivers neither justice for victims nor protection for veterans. I will talk a little more about that as I conclude my speech—in fact, I will move on now to talk about the issue of legacy.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), who is both gracious with his time and entertaining to listen to. I thank him for that.
I begin by thanking all armed forces personnel who are protecting our country at the moment. Importantly, this debate is taking place in Armed Forces Week; I give credit to the Opposition—this once at least—for bringing forward this debate today, though I am not sure that we have quite reached the level of consensus across the House that we might hope for on defence.
Mr Francois
Perhaps we can achieve some consensus on this: yet again, we are debating defence, our armed forces, and the people who keep us safe, but the plastic patriots of Reform cannot be bothered to turn up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people who wrap themselves in the flag should at least turn up to debate the future of the people whose job it is to defend it?
Graeme Downie
I was slightly concerned that I was going to have to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman at this early stage, but I absolutely agree with him. Any politician who wraps themselves in a flag, without there being any substance to their reason for doing so, is not worthy of leading any constituency or party—and certainly not any country.
As I have mentioned previously in the House, I grew up in Berlin from 1987 to 1990, and I was there when the Berlin wall came down. That gives me an unusual insight for someone of my age. I grew up hearing Russian artillery one mile away, and seeing Russian helicopters testing and firing. I was there when Rudolf Hess died, and I saw the various security measures in place. That makes me unusual among people who are my age or younger, most of whom have not seen what a cold war threat is. Most have been used to a safe world, and have not seen the necessity of increased defence spending, unless they have a member of the armed forces in their family, or have served in the armed forces themselves. The majority of people in this country who are my age or younger do not know what a threat from Russia, or indeed any other country, looks like.
I have said before that I believe that the UK is already in a conflict with Russia. Not only that, but we are a frontline nation and should always consider ourselves as such, whether we are talking about our RAF jets taking off from Lossiemouth or Coningsby to defend our airspace, or our Royal Navy ships and Royal Air Force aircraft in the High North protecting our subsea cables from Russian threats. This country is in conflict with Russia, and Russia considers itself to be in conflict with us. We must always respond accordingly. The attacks extend into cyber-space. Every day we see thousands of attacks, whether on private businesses or on our defence and energy infrastructure. The threats are there. We also see misinformation peddled online that seeks to undermine our democracy. This country is in conflict with Russia. In order to respond effectively to that, the public need to understand the direct implications for them. They must recognise that a cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover has consequences for our economy. A cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer has consequences for people’s ability to buy a jumper, and for the staff working there as well, but these attacks also have a direct impact on our economy and society every single day.
It is always slightly daunting to be in the Chamber for debates like these—there are Members present who have served in the military, and who know far more than I do—but I believe that there is a conversation that we must have across this House. We must, wherever possible, draw lines between the threats that we face, and the detailed military programmes that we talk about, and what they mean for the day-to-day lives of people in this country. Otherwise, those people will not grant any Government the licence to increase defence spending and capability in the way that Members from across this House want.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
It is a tremendous privilege to take part in this debate. It has to be clear to us on both sides of the House that this is the most critical debate that we will be involved with. This is the most critical thing that we face but it often escapes our notice, and I credit my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) for centring on the very thing that is important. I say gently to those on the Government Benches that it is very easy to go around the whole time saying, “Well, of course, you did this and we didn’t.” The truth is, we can go right back and see how much previous Governments failed with regard to defence.
I was serving in the late 1970s when the Labour Government were in terrible difficulty. They were slashing the budgets, and military personnel from the captain and senior sergeant ranks were leaving the Army in droves. I remember having one depressed conversation after another—helped by a certain amount of Scottish water. [Laughter.]
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. [Laughter.]
In those conversations, we decided that there was clearly no future for us in the Army. Now, I did stay on a bit longer, but many left who I knew were very competent and very good people, and it is difficult to fill those posts. That is the bit in the armed forces that is critical to everything else that happens. If we do not have a cadre of middle-ranking and senior non-commissioned officers, we do not have an Army. We just have a lot of orders from the top down but are unable to do them.
What we speak about today is critical, because we have to send a message to our armed forces that we believe in them fully and strongly and will support them in every way. That is why it is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) sitting in his place after his resignation. He has the respect of many of my colleagues on these Benches, without question, not only for his past but for his present. I know what it is like to resign when you disagree with the Government—I have done it a few times myself—but the reality is that he will never regret it. The thing that matters most of all when we come to this place is not us or the debates that we have here and away; it is the people out there who put us here. If we do not plan to speak up, even when our own side does not want us to, we are not worthy of being in this place. I therefore congratulate him, not because I am in a party political game but because I respect him for having called out a problem that the Government face. All the Ministers on the Front Bench know that, as does he. The question is: what will we do about it?
I want to start by talking about Northern Ireland, and I shall be here on 4 September, cheering my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne on with his private Member’s Bill. We cannot for one moment forget that we have reduced the morale of British soldiers who have served—veterans who are now often in their late 70s and 80s—and who find themselves persecuted. I say to the Defence Ministers that this really started in the Northern Ireland Office, which was overly persuaded by Sinn Féin that they could somehow change what had happened and come out as victors. As the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak said in his resignation speech, they lost; they lost because of the efforts of the armed forces, and of all those who did not see another day and who died in the service of their country.
More importantly, we forget that walking down the streets in your own country armed and trying to protect civilians against aggression is quite different from anything else that the armed forces were trained to do. In doing it, they had to figure out all sorts of complications. The trouble with the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is that it does not deal with the sense of what we asked our soldiers to do in risking their lives to protect the British public on the streets of the United Kingdom. We therefore have to understand that the legislation that the Government have brought forward is wrong. That does not mean to say that what the Conservative Government brought through was fantastic. It was not. There were many flaws and failings in it, but many of us felt that we would support it because it did one major thing: it stopped the constant attacks on those poor veterans whose lives are now coming to an end and who see themselves being dragged through the courts all over again.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
That is exactly the point. I hope that we will be able to drag this point out again on 4 September and make it very clear that if we in this House do not stand by those whom we order to go to war or to bear arms for the sake of the country, who is going to do that? We have the power to sweep things away or to make them. I have disagreed with my own Government many times, but I say gently to this Government: think again. Do not allow the Northern Ireland Office to drive this thing through when Ministers know full well that it is wrong; they need to defend those soldiers, despite the rows that might take place in Cabinet or among Ministers.
Mr Francois
Does my right hon. Friend recall he and I and others having multiple meetings in the Northern Ireland Office when we were Back Benchers, going through the detail of the Bill—almost line by line on occasions—and trying to defend the interests of veterans, and bit by bit overcoming the resistance of civil servants at the Northern Ireland Office? Does he recall how difficult that was, and does he still believe, like me, that it was worth it?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I do; it was difficult and we stuck to the task. We were not very popular at the time, but that has been a constant in my life. [Laughter.] I think you only know you are successful when you are not popular, and we were not popular on that. What we were trying to get was not perfect, but it was better than what we now have, and that is the key. At the heart of it was the aim of protecting those who have been sent, bearing arms, to defend the British people. We need to defend them and respect the sacrifice they made.
Andrew Lewin
I will make some progress and talk about the record of this Government. [Interruption.] I know Opposition Members are enjoying it.
It is important that we reflect on the progress and the investment we have made. The aid-to-defence spending switch was not a policy that was universally welcomed on this side of the House, but I believe it was a necessary decision and the right decision to make. We have the Type 26 frigate deal, the Typhoon deal with Turkey, 13 new sites for munitions and factories, which are so important for our rearmament, and the armed forces pay rise—the most generous and urgently overdue pay rise for 20 years, which again was delivered by this Government.
We have had some authoritative interventions about the changing nature of warfare, and I have much to learn from other colleagues. It is to be applauded that this Government are investing in drone warfare. My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) has been a champion for investing in drone factories in his constituency. In just the last week, we have learned about the development of long-range missiles that the UK and Ukraine are working on together without the need for US components. That is a significant and welcome step forward.
While I admire many people on the Opposition side of the House, I regret to have to say that at every opportunity to increase investment in defence spending, the last Government did not take that option. I am afraid that the enduring image that has been left with the public is of the last Conservative Prime Minister leaving the beaches on D-Day early. It was a picture that told a thousand words.
In politics, parties need to be judged by their record, not just their rhetoric.
Andrew Lewin
I am going to come to a conclusion.
I recognise that this Government have lots more work to do, but under this Prime Minister’s watch, defence spending is up—it is higher than at any point in the last 14 years or under the last five Conservative Prime Ministers—and whoever is the next leader of the Labour party will have my support in increasing it further.
Ben Obese-Jecty
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. and gallant Friend. The UK military flying training system is on its uppers. I do not necessarily hold this Government responsible for that—there are longer-term issues with the flying training system. I believe the average length of time it takes pilots to qualify is somewhere in the region of six years; most of the pilots who are now hitting the frontline have spent as long in training as I spent in my entire military career, by which point I had done numerous operational tours. Significant work needs to be done in that area, and there are questions to be asked of the company that we have outsourced flying training to, as well as about the Hawk jets—which I will not cover in this debate. The Minister knows that that topic is a hobby horse of mine; I will not speak about it today, but he realises that there is a sense of urgency there.
Mr Francois
When I served on the Defence Committee, just before the election, we went to RAF Marham and spoke to two F-35 pilots. We asked them how long it had taken since they first walked through the door of a recruiting office for them to be allowed to fly the F-35. One said he had been lucky, and it had been six years; the other said he had been unlucky, and it had been 10 years. Does my hon. Friend agree that the MFTS programme requires fundamental reform?
Ben Obese-Jecty
I do—we need to get more pilots through the door, and I have asked numerous questions about our ratio of pilots to aircraft. I appreciate that the Minister does not want to divulge that information, but I would suggest that currently, it is not as good as it could be.
The joint programme office that should fix the F-35 is undergoing a global support solution reset that will cost an additional $13.7 billion. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether any of that figure will be paid for by us in the UK. As a result, there is no timeline for completing technology refresh 3, which 72% of our F-35Bs still require, and no timeline for the completion of the block 4 upgrade. Talk of the 12 F-35As for the NATO nuclear mission—which the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) mentioned—has gone suspiciously quiet, with rumours that they will be cut, and that is before we talk about the four-year lead times for low rate initial production material required to build them. Crucially, though, there is currently no more money allocated to the F-35 Lightning programme. The departmental budget laid out in the integrated review defence Command Paper back in 2021 only included the procurement of the 48 we now have; all new funding for the F-35 will need to be outlined in the defence investment plan.
That brings us on to drones. We know that the RAF is committed to having the Tempest as a manned platform, but by the time it comes into service, the US will be a decade deep into its collaborative combat aircraft programme. It has just awarded General Atomics and Anduril sizeable contracts for the FQ-42A Dark Merlin and FQ-44A Fury uncrewed fighter jets. The Secretary of the Air Force has stated that the US plans to
“procure over 150 combat capable CCA by the end of the decade.”
The US has budgeted $1 billion for CCA procurement, $822 million for modifications, and another $1.4 billion for research and development. How much of the £10 billion of additional funds available for our entire defence budget do we think we are planning to spend? When the defence investment plan is published, we will need to look closely at investment in those projects that should deliver drones.
How does this all tie together? I have spoken briefly about Project ASGARD before—the Chief of the General Staff, speaking at the RUSI land warfare conference earlier, talked about the need to be able to strike Russia within 30 minutes—but whether or not this is properly resourced in the DIP will be instrumental to our fortunes. We need to move past our current squeamishness and invest properly in both Project ASGARD and its RAF cousin, Project BOYD. I was fortunate enough to visit a demonstration of ASGARD during Exercise Arrcade Strike last month, which gave a glimpse of how the next war might be fought. My takeaway, however, was how desperately it will need to be invested in. We risk being a day late and a dollar short when it comes to an integrated anti-access/area denial and integrated air and missile defence solution. The reluctance of our senior leaders to move from an in-the-loop and on-the-loop approach to the kill chain to an on-the-loop and out-of-the-loop posture concerns me—it is better to have the capability and not need it than need it and not have it. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry confirmed to me last week that the MOD is looking at machine vision for lock-on in the terminal phase of one-way effectors, but we must move further and faster.
For all the talk of defence investment in exquisite capabilities, nobody is suggesting that we increase the mass of the Army significantly. That is before we consider that every single vehicle platform the Army operates, except for Foxhound, is due to go out of service by 2030. Our ability to field an armoured division is at best optimistic; in reality, it is laughable. My own background is in armoured infantry, as is that of my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), and were we to try and field an armoured battlegroup—let alone a division—I would be interested to see what form it would take.
At the front of any armoured push is formation reconnaissance. That role should by now be delivered by Ajax. My views on Ajax are well documented, as I delivered a debate on the topic in Westminster Hall earlier this year, but what progress has been made since then? In the wake of Exercise Titan Storm, the Government commissioned an independent expert panel review. The results of that review have been submitted via a final report, but the Minister appears hesitant to publish the outcome. I would be grateful if he published those findings for scrutiny in the House now that the review has concluded. In his summing up, could the Minister outline when the House will receive an update on that review’s findings?
We know that the first phase of bringing Ajax up to speed will require the restarting of trials with the current version of Ajax, but the Minister has also informed me that the current platform requires a number of upgrades outside the scope of work in upgrading from capability drop 3 to capability drop 4, including improvements to the electrical power generation system, the crew compartment heating and the air filtration system. Although those sound like gremlins that need to be worked through on any new platform, can he tell me which of those modifications, if any, will mitigate the injuries sustained by service personnel on Exercise Titan Storm?
Ajax must be a success—we cannot afford to be stuck with a platform that no other country is willing to buy. The reputational damage to the platform is in danger of being baked in if the Government do not get the fix right first time. All 589 hulls have been built, and the factory will have no further work once those vehicles are assembled and rolled out. What work will the General Dynamics facility in Merthyr Tydfil then have to do? When I raised that question with the Government, they stated that it is an issue for General Dynamics. There is a reason the Government did not include that facility within the scope of the defence growth deal for Wales. Put simply, the Government cannot afford for Ajax to fail, neither from a defence exports perspective—and there are currently no pending orders—nor from a capability perspective. The Government know this, having made no assessment of any potential replacement platforms such as the Combat Vehicle 90, so when will we finally see Ajax realise its potential?
Sadly, though, that is not the only issue. Behind Ajax should be Challenger 3, but Challenger 3 remains in the demonstration phase and, based on reports in The Telegraph last week, is now beset by problems. The turret power traverse gearbox is potentially proving to be a problem that may push back delivery of the tank by years—to put that in layman’s terms, that is the part that makes the turret rotate. The Government have now said that this is not the case, but it is concerning that they are yet to declare the planning assumption for service entry for the new tank, despite all 148 remaining Challenger 2 tanks being in scope for upgrade and conversion.
The Government have also previously told me that they are continuing to explore export opportunities for Challenger 3. What export opportunities? We have 148 main battle tanks; how many are we planning to sell, and who would buy them? We have no plans to replace them. I would be interested to understand the full scope of the Army’s heavy armour automotive improvement programme. In January, the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry told me:
“Manufacturing will begin once the tank’s performance is proven, rather than being tied to a specific deadline.”
By when does he anticipate the tank’s performance will be assessed to have made the grade? Meanwhile, our allies look elsewhere to rearm. With both the Franco-German main ground combat system to replace the Leclerc and Leopard 2 respectively and other fledgling initiatives, what is the future of armour? “Behind the tanks” Warrior is due to go out of service next year, currently with no realistic replacement. Warrior is due to be replaced by a mixture of Boxer and the Ajax-derived Ares, but neither looks set to be ready in time. More concerningly, the Government’s position appears to have shifted once again, with the Minister telling me last week:
“Under current plans, Boxer is initially being fielded as a supporting capability to Armoured Units within 3rd (UK) Division, before being fielded to Mechanised Infantry Units between 2030-2035.”
Warrior goes out of service next year, so what is filling this capability gap? We have not yet seen an order for the Patria 6x6 as part of the common armoured vehicle system. The Government told me recently that they were continuing to monitor the market for potential future platforms, but the defence investment plan is supposedly to be published next week, so why have these decisions not already been made?
From a Royal Navy perspective, it is no secret that the hybrid Navy concept is the direction in which they are sailing. The commitment of the Royal Marines to the High North and potential investment in a joint commando craft or littoral strike craft would illustrate a longer-term commitment to that force posture, but the hybrid Navy concept means that the Type 83 is dead in the water. The decision to gift Type 26 build slots to the Royal Norwegian Navy kicks the can down the road when it comes to the sticky issue of when we need to pay for the new ships, with just eight to be built for us and a further five for the Norwegians. Given our significant commitment to global operations in comparison with the commitment of the Norwegians, do we really think that just three more ships will cover our global commitments?
This has been a whistlestop tour through just some of the myriad capabilities that will need to be detailed in the defence investment plan within the next week or so. [Laughter.] I left a lot out! Members are chuckling, but I could have gone on for another hour.
We need to spend more on defence. We need to resource our military to meet the threats that we face, not the ones that we would like to. If this Prime Minister, this Chancellor and this Defence Secretary will not find the funding required by cutting the welfare budget or changing the fiscal rules, they should make way for someone who will—but perhaps that will happen sooner rather than later.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I declare an interest: I am a trustee of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I encourage all Members of the House to undertake their placement on that scheme, if they can.
The Prime Minister has been generating some sympathy with the dignified way in which he is choosing to leave office, and I add my voice to those who have stated that we are fortunate to live in a country with a political system that values leaders who put their country and the dignity of their office before personal gain. The Prime Minister is many things, and I disagree with him profusely, but first and foremost he is a gentleman who won a mandate, and everybody across this House should respect that and wish him well going forward.
Others who have shown personal strength of character and commitment to public office include the former Secretary of State of Defence—the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey)—and the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns). I know that both of them took their decision to resign seriously and with the intense reflection that it deserves. I also understand that their resignations came as a great surprise to the Prime Minister and No. 10, as they were expected to stay loyal, keep calm and carry on. Well, for those of us on the Opposition Benches, it was no surprise whatsoever.
We do not know exactly what was said in Cabinet, let alone in the private discussions between the Defence Secretary and the Chancellor, and nor should we. But from what we have seen and what has been reported about the complete fiasco around the defence investment plan, and about the failure to plan and meet the expectations that the public and our allies around the world have of us, it is no wonder that the Defence Secretary felt that he was unable to work under those conditions any longer. For six months—a quarter of the time the Prime Minister has been in office—he could not make a decision.
Since January, it has been clear to the Government that there is a gargantuan shortfall in the Ministry of Defence budget. The paltry sum that the Treasury deemed suitable to shower on the MOD was barely enough to replace a few helmets, let alone build a next-generation fighting force that can deliver on the priorities outlined in the strategic defence review. Let us be clear: the indecision may be based on process—the Prime Minister’s favourite wall to hide behind—and, yes, there must be a process to prioritise, delegate and decide, but his indecision will cost lives if and when this country faces a crisis that requires a military response. The question remains: why did the Prime Minister and the Chancellor not see this coming? The answer, of course, is that they did. They saw the threat of being exposed as weak on defence, and they chose to do nothing.
I respect the Minister for the Armed Forces and thank her for her past service, but she has added to this. She has spent a lot of time criticising the last Government—quite rightly, because she is a Minister of the Crown—but she now sits in the Department, and she stands at the Dispatch Box saying that all is now well and that she is proud of the process she is putting forward, when one of the Ministers she served alongside in the Department has resigned, as has the Secretary of State, who said that things were not going in the right direction. I think she needs to look at their speeches again.
There are few things more damning for the leader of a country to be accused of than being incapable of protecting the people they were elected to govern. That is not a party political point, but a point that has been made by the former Defence Secretary and the former Minister for the Armed Forces and one increasingly made across the defence sector, including by the Labour man, Lord Robertson, who wrote the strategic defence review in the first place. I sometimes wonder if Labour Members are deaf, because all these Labour voices are telling the Government that their strategic defence review, the lack of a defence investment plan and the lack of funding going into our armed forces are damning, but the Ministers at the Dispatch Box do not seem to hear.
Mr Francois
I have great respect for Lord Robertson, an accomplished former Defence Secretary and a former Secretary-General of NATO, who joined the Labour party in 1961. He is a Labour lifer, and when even he accuses the Prime Minister of “corrosive complacency”, does that not prove how utterly out of touch this Government now are?
Paul Holmes
My right hon. Friend the shadow Minister for the Armed Forces is absolutely correct. I think we can add somebody else, and that is the former Defence Secretary. He is known not as a party political man, but as a deep statesman. He is known as a Minister on whom Prime Ministers from across the Labour party could rely. When we reach the stage of a former Labour statesman who wrote the SDR and the recently serving Secretary of State saying the Government are not listening to them, I think the country at large needs to listen, and so do Ministers standing at the Dispatch Box.
If I may, I will briefly mention specific points on the DIP and resilience. On the DIP, I know that the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench accept that the defence of the realm is the most important duty of any Government, and while I wish them success, I just think that this Government are falling short. There is no clearer sign of that than the lack of a defence investment plan, which they have promised. It has been much touted by this Government, but it is delayed by the latest drama. It is likely to be delayed again, which will spread uncertainty in our defence sector, including defence businesses in my constituency of Hamble Valley. Most importantly, it will spread uncertainty among our allies internationally.
The elephant in the room is that the Ministers sitting here today may not be in their jobs in three weeks’ time. I do not wish that to happen—I believe they are good Ministers—but that is the nature of the job we are in, or that they are in. Again, that will add to the uncertainty faced by businesses in the defence sector that are looking to the Government for the investment they were promised two and a half years ago.
In Hamble Valley, we have a thriving defence sector. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry has been there: he kindly came down to a roundtable in the constituency. We have companies such as Domo Tactical Communications, Kraken, Safran, Saab and Windracers, but the constant feedback I get is that, without a defence investment plan, they do not know what they are supposed to do or where to invest. If the Minister and the new Secretary of State do not do this very quickly, those companies will suffer, and the United Kingdom as a whole will suffer. The figure of £13 billion is not the £18 billion identified by the National Security Adviser as needed just to maintain the status quo, which means that the United Kingdom will lose its credibility on the international stage.
My final point is about resilience. Last week, I was in Finland with the European Leadership Network. With Finnish MPs, we were looking at some of the defence co-operation in the NATO framework in which the United Kingdom, Israel and Finland play their part. I have to say that I was left shocked by the comparison between Finland’s resilience and preparedness and the United Kingdom’s. Hon. Members may challenge me—I know that some went to Norway last week—and point to the fact that Finland has a population of 5 million and a 1,500 mile border with Russia, whereas we have 70 million people on an island, but I think a lot of comparisons can be made. Very early on in the school system and when young people are growing up, defence resilience and preparedness are embedded in them, as it is in civil society and Government Departments.
As a former special adviser at the Cabinet Office, I know we have such documents, but what we urgently need to do—that is why this is in our motion—is not just look at international resilience and defence spending in order to attack, but make our population ready and willing to play their part in defending the homeland. The population in the Nordic countries have been polled about whether they would go to war if there was a threat. In Finland the figure is in the high 80s, but in the United Kingdom it is in the high teens, which worries me. Personally, I am a bit sceptical about how low it is here, because I believe our population would defend this country.
I am looking for answers from Ministers about how they plan—whether through the national curriculum or by reversing the cuts they have made to cadet forces in our schools—to very quickly embed in people from a very young age and entering civil society a sense that they are prepared to defend this country should that be needed.
Mr Francois
I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity in giving way. The Finns have what they call a total defence concept, which is that in the event of an attack from Russia—they have much experience of that, historically—it is not just the armed forces who resist, but the whole of society. They have planned that for decades. We had something a bit like that during the cold war, but the Finns take it to a greater degree. Having been there, does he agree that we could learn a great deal from Finland?
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is a privilege to sum up this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition in Armed Forces Week, when the nation pays particular attention and gives thanks to our armed forces, their families, veterans and cadets, for all that they do to ensure the security of this nation and its people.
This debate has a historical aspect, too. A week tomorrow is the 110th anniversary of the first day of the Somme, the fateful occasion on which the British Army suffered some 60,000 casualties, killed and wounded—the greatest loss our Army has ever suffered in a single day. Their sacrifice must never be forgotten. Indeed, we must not forget the sacrifice of those who died in subsequent conflicts, up to and including Iraq and Afghanistan.
In his emotive poem, “The Soldier”, the war poet Rupert Brooke famously said:
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
Those fields are still there, as are the cemeteries, lovingly and respectfully tended by the staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. In Armed Forces Week, we pay tribute to their highly professional efforts, too.
We still live in an extremely dangerous world. Across the House we stand four-square with the noble people of Ukraine, who have been fighting against Russian aggression not just for four years, since the full-scale invasion in 2022, but for 12 years, since the original Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas—a period longer than the first and second world wars combined.
I say respectfully to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin), who has just rejoined us, that it was a Conservative Government who, in 2014—after that first invasion, when the Ukrainians realised what was coming—began the programme known as Operation Orbital to train the Ukrainian armed forces to resist the full-scale invasion that they knew was coming. Had it not been for that programme—had it not been for the soldier’s instinct of Ben Wallace and the determination of Boris Johnson to equip and train the Ukrainians to resist the Russian invasion—the Russians would be having supper in Kyiv this evening. Perhaps, despite his incredibly partisan speech, the hon. Gentleman could give us some credit for that.
Mr Francois
No. [Laughter.]
In February of this year, along with some 20 Members from this House—the largest ever parliamentary delegation to Ukraine as far as I am aware—I visited Odesa, Chernobyl and Kyiv. On 24 February, we were privileged to take part in the commemoration in Maidan Square to mark the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion. It is, in effect, Ukraine’s equivalent of Remembrance Sunday, and it was extremely poignant to be part of it. They lay lanterns with a candle at their memorial in much the same way as we lay wreaths in Britain. The principle is exactly the same: it is to remember those who gave their lives in defence of freedom and democracy. The Ukrainians are fighting for our values and, ultimately, for our freedom too. We absolutely stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their brave struggle, which we all hope that they will one day win.
In order to help them, we need armed forces that can fight too. As the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) reminded us in his resignation letter, we need to plan for the next war and not the last. With that in mind, I would like to ask Ministers some questions on programmatics this afternoon. Having been in government for nearly two years now, Labour has to begin to take responsibility for something. I have three very specific questions for the Minister on military capability.
First, where are we on the much delayed E-7 Wedgetail programme? When, if ever, will this vitally needed eye in the sky enter Royal Air Force service? When, if ever, will Boeing actually make it work properly?
Secondly, turning to the Army, there are media reports that it will cost an additional £1 billion—above the £5.5 billion already allocated—to fix the Ajax programme and bring it fully into service. Is that true? If it is, can we be assured that General Dynamics will pick up the bill, per its current £5.5 billion firm-price contract, and that not a single extra penny will fall on the British taxpayer? Incidentally, where are we on the Morpheus tactical communication system?
Thirdly, how can it be that our entire fleet of Astute-class nuclear attack submarines are currently laid up for maintenance? The new Secretary of State chided me last week for discussing submarine movements on the floor of the House. I did no such thing. I was, in fact, discussing the total absence of submarine movements. Given the First Sea Lord’s increasingly, and rightly, dire warnings about Russian naval activity in the English channel and the North sea, perhaps the Minister could tell us how we are supposed to credibly deter Russia when not a single one of our £1.5 billion attack submarines is currently at sea?
That brings me to the question of what has happened to the defence investment plan. The three well-respected authors of Labour’s much-vaunted strategic defence review were adamant when it was published, over a year ago now, that the price of implementing the measures in the SDR would be to spend 3% of GDP on defence. The detail of how that would be afforded and the actual programmatics were to be provided subsequently in the defence investment plan.
We were faithfully promised the plan in the autumn. Then we were absolutely promised it by Christmas. Then we were definitely going to get it early in the new year. Now we are in the middle of June and still do not have the DIP. Ministers tell us that they have been working flat out. Well, they are now comatose.
The new Armed Forces Minister assured the House last night that it would be published by the time of the Ankara summit in July, yet The Times reported this morning that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is minded to delay the publication of the DIP because he wants to take these decisions himself. Presumably whoever his new Chancellor turns out to be—we all pray that there will be one—will have something to say about that too. Can the Armed Forces Minister commit absolutely that after crying wolf so many times, the Government are going to stick to the timetable and publish the DIP within the next fortnight, prior to Ankara? Or is it going to slip yet again? She laughs, but this is not funny. This is about the defence of the United Kingdom. Do Ministers not realise that what little credibility they have left is rapidly disappearing?
Indeed, after Cabinet this morning, and even during the course of this debate, the BBC has reported:
“No new major policies or spending decisions until new PM appointed, No 10 says”.
Where does that leave the defence investment plan? Who is in charge of the clattering train? Who actually runs this country? Is it the current Prime Minister or the next one?
Paul Holmes
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) and I mentioned a number of businesses that are not growing—and I know that the shadow Secretary of State went to Kraken yesterday. Businesses are trying to get orders and grow, but are holding off because they do not have the defence investment plan. This lack of action is costing jobs, is it not?
Mr Francois
Absolutely; industry is exasperated, from BAE Systems down to the smallest defence suppliers in the land. When we were in government, we published—with one year’s exception, I think—a detailed equipment plan every year so that industry could plan accordingly. That is what the DIP is meant to be, but still we do not have it.
Labour Ministers tell us and their own Back Benchers again and again that they are increasing defence spending to the greatest extent since the end of the cold war. That is literally untrue. The Defence Secretary told the world in his resignation letter that Labour’s spending plans envisage going from 2.6% of GDP this year to 2.68% of GDP by 2030. That is a 0.08% increase over four years. How is that the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war? Help me out, someone over there.
It gets worse. Labour is also seeking £3.5 billion of in-year, self-inflicted, Treasury-driven cuts to the operational and readiness spending of our armed forces. That means fewer ships at sea, fewer planes in the air and fewer exercises on Salisbury plain—and the Russian and Chinese embassies must be laughing themselves silly. If Members will not take it from me, take it from the Chief of the Defence Staff—the professional head of the armed forces—who warned just a few days ago that if Labour continues on its financial path and does not fund the DIP properly, he will have no option but to cut back on readiness and training, which is exactly the activity that is meant to deter a potential aggressor in the first place.
The blunt truth—as a Brit, I take no joy in saying it—is that this Government are the laughing stock of NATO. Indeed, in NATO’s own readiness index, the United Kingdom ranks 31st out of 32 NATO countries, with the only one below us Iceland by virtue of having no armed forces to ready. As the Government disintegrate before our eyes, we can only hope that their successors are both competent and courageous and actually believe in defending this country, which clearly this collapsing Administration do not.
Another area that we want to press Ministers hard on is the fate of their benighted Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. The hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak, who famously described it as “not fit for purpose”, spoke powerfully in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister in defence of Northern Ireland veterans. He mentioned his battle in government, where he
“set out the changes I believed were necessary, and the lines which I could not in good conscience go beyond. Those lines have not been accepted. I have run out of room to argue this case honourably from inside government. A serving minister cannot ask fellow veterans to trust a process he no longer trusts himself.”
He went on:
“We ask soldiers to fight for this country. In return, we owe them the kit to do the job and the loyalty to stand by them when it’s done. We are failing on both.”
Nine former four-star officers have told the world that the troubles Bill represents a “direct threat to national security.” A group of former SAS commanders who were at the sharp end of the battle against republican terrorism told us:
“Today every British soldier deployed must consider not only the enemy in front of them but the lawyer behind them… Make no mistake, our closest allies are watching uneasily, and our enemies will be rubbing their hands.”
We absolutely cannot allow this situation to continue against those who defended the rule of law. Those who served in Operation Banner stood effectively as piggy-in-the-middle for decades between two warring communities. Over 700 of them were killed and thousands more suffered life-changing injuries. They and their comrades are now to be pursued through the courts via lawfare, actively aided and abetted by a Government who for months have promised multiple times to produce amendments to the Bill to protect veterans and, just as with the DIP, we have seen nothing of substance on which the House can rely, with no amendments and no letters of comfort for them, either.
It is a matter of record that a number of those regiments who served in Northern Ireland on Op Banner came from the north-west of England, including from in and around the Manchester area. I think of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment and its antecedent regiments, including the King’s Regiment, which traditionally recruited from Liverpool and Manchester—they did many tours of Northern Ireland. I therefore ask, in all seriousness, what is the attitude of the right hon. Member for Makerfield towards the benighted Northern Ireland Troubles Bill?
If the new Prime Minister seeks some kind of reset for the Labour party, A good place to start would be to drop this dreadful piece of legislation, which threatens to put our soldiers in the dock solely to the advantage of those who sought to kill them. In lieu of that, he could agree to back the Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill, the excellent new private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), which will have its Second Reading on 4 September and which in essence seeks to curtail any further investigations, inquests or inquiries against our Op Banner veterans unless compelling new evidence as certified by a UK Supreme Court Justice is produced. Some of us on these Benches have literally spent years seeking to defend those who defended us; let us hope that the new Prime Minister will agree.
There has been consensus on one point this afternoon—I heard it again and again—which is that the first duty of Government above all others is the defence of the realm, yet the Armed Forces Minister resigned, the Secretary of State for Defence resigned and now the Prime Minister has resigned. This Administration has failed. It is broken. It is going. It made many mistakes, but worst of all, it failed to defend this country. For that, it deserves to come to an end.