Defence Personnel Data Breach

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I have outlined the Government’s position on this a couple of times, but I do want to note that the hon. Gentleman says “consider it likely”; I am saying that I cannot rule it out. Those are two different things. We need to allow for this forensic work to go ahead before we start attributing it. However, if there is attribution, there will clearly also be consequences.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Well, at least it wasn’t Capita. This will be very worrying for service personnel and their families and for veterans, who will feel disrespected by the fact that the Government seem to have briefed that it was China overnight and then not had the nerve to confirm that in the House today because someone rang up from the Foreign Office and said, “Don’t do that.” When, oh when, will we start standing up to the Chinese in the way that they are clearly not frightened of doing to us?

[Grant Shapps]

Indeed, it was not my right hon. Friend’s favourite contractor on this particular occasion. None the less, we will be carrying out a comprehensive review of the contractor’s work. Again, I want to make it clear to the House that we did absolutely everything that we could to avoid this being made public until I had the opportunity to come to the House. We proactively endeavoured to ensure that our own approach towards removing the data that was online—closing that system down, ensuring the personnel were paid, making sure the alternative payments system was in place for expenses and other things—could all happen ideally before we came to the House. We most certainly did not wish to see nor brief out the story. Unfortunately, as a large number of people were impacted or potentially impacted, it was almost impossible to expect them not to go and talk about it, and I believe that that is how it came into the public domain.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about this. He is a champion for ensuring that these contractors do the jobs they are actually paid to do. We are now trawling through all the detail and, as I have said before, we will not leave this hanging. We will take every appropriate action because, as he might imagine, my entire team and I are very concerned about the welfare of our personnel—brave men and women who do not deserve to have this happen to them. We do not want to see it happen in the name of the MOD, either.

Defence

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

This is a serious issue, and I am surprised by that sort of attitude. I want to ask, because it is a serious point, whether the Opposition are now ready to commit to that extra £500 billion if they were elected, because I have yet to hear that confirmed, and that is an important issue for our Ukrainian friends. I accept that the Ukrainians have the Opposition’s support, but they also need the pledge of money and the certainty that this House will provide it, come what may.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

If I heard the Secretary of State correctly, a few minutes ago he said that we have now gifted all our AS-90 howitzers to Ukraine. We are buying 14 new Archers. We are then buying a completely different system based on Boxer, which will take some years to come into service, and our multiple-launch rocket systems are being refurbished. What is he doing to ensure that the British Army is not left without heavy artillery for the next few years, because what he is talking about is a dangerous risk?

[Grant Shapps]

As my right hon. Friend will realise, it is not a move I have taken easily. There is a balance to be struck between where the weapons can do the most good and the extraordinarily difficult fight that our Ukrainian friends are in right now. I thought, believe and think that that warrants the provision of further AS-90s. The new equipment, as I do not need to tell him, is vastly superior and will be in our hands quickly, not least because of the excellent work of the Minister for Defence Procurement, who has sped up the acquisition of new equipment through his brilliant integrated plan.

I want to be entirely clear with the House: there are choices to make when we do this gifting, and we have to make the choices as to where we think the equipment will be most useful and how quickly we can replenish it. One of the very good things about this significant boost in defence spending, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) will appreciate, is that it will enable us to replenish not only equipment but, crucially, munitions, which have been a real concern of his and many others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman wants to relitigate the past, but I think we all agree that we cannot do anything about it. I want to talk about the future, and the future is that those on his own side have yet to commit to the 2.5% that is required to ensure that our nuclear deterrent can deliver on time. In March the Prime Minister and I published the defence nuclear enterprise Command Paper, setting out our long-held and unshakeable commitment to our own independent nuclear deterrent.

[Mr Francois]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s desire to look forward rather than back but, just for the record, does he remember, as I do, that at one point the Liberal Democrat policy on Trident was to maintain the submarines but to send them to sea without any missiles?

[Grant Shapps]

I will be as diplomatic as possible: the Liberal Democrats asked us to investigate a range of options, and I am very pleased that the one we ended up with was the four-submarine continuous at-sea deterrent.

We are investing £41 billion in our next generation of the Dreadnought fleet, and investing in our replacement UK sovereign nuclear warhead as well.

Defence Spending

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am really sorry that the right hon. Gentleman cheapens what is a very important discussion about the defence of the realm with such a ridiculous remark. We should all come here in the right spirit to discuss these important issues, given the subject matter. He asks about Ukraine. Ukraine is a part of what our armed forces and this country are having to deal with. We do not ask America to strip out its help to Ukraine, in the same way that we did not ask it to strip out its help to Afghanistan or Iraq, because it is part of the core defence budget. Yesterday—I did not mention this in my statement, and perhaps on this basis the right hon. Gentleman may be forgiven—we also said that our enhanced amount of money for Ukraine is not now just for this year, but we are going to carry on doing it every single year into the future. So, yes, it is part of our core expense.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I commend the Secretary of State for obtaining this massive £75 billion increase in defence, which theoretically would allow us to buy 20 new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. At the risk of upsetting our excellent First Sea Lord, we are not likely to do that, but we are putting our defence industry on a war footing. Can we do the concomitant thing and create a war reserve of equipment with older Typhoons, older warships and older armoured vehicles, so that if we had to fight at short notice we would have enough equipment to do it and so that we can tell our adversaries that when we say, “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” we actually mean it?

[Grant Shapps]

I thank my right hon. Friend not just for his words, but for his constant campaigning on this subject. Those of us who have been subject to him in a Select Committee know that he knows his facts, knows what he is talking about and has done as much as anybody to ensure that this uplift is happening. I can confirm for the House that we will not be using the £75 billion for 20 new aircraft carriers.

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point about what we could do with older equipment. I have to say to him that right now, I am much more minded to send that equipment to Ukraine. That is why, yesterday, I pulled together the biggest donation package to date, in what is now the third year of the war, of equipment to Ukraine. For the time being, I think we will be sending it in an easterly direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

The integrated procurement plan, brilliantly created by my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement, has ensured that exports and exportability are a key part of the contract. I have mentioned how we have already used this model to speed up the production of DragonFire.

We are also using the integrated procurement model to make sure that we do not over-spec things, so that they do not become like—

[Mr Francois]

Ajax.

[Grant Shapps]

I was not going to say Ajax, but I will say it now. Ajax was over-specced to the point where it became a very delayed project. Fortunately, it is now back on track.

Ukraine

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support, and indeed all Members of this House from all parties, for the tremendous support that Ukraine has experienced from this Parliament. As he said, whatever else our divisions, no one should be in any doubt about the united voice with which we speak on this subject. He is right to mention the exceptional work done with training. I imagine he has seen some of the Interflex training, and there is no greater pride than seeing, with other world leaders, their own trainers training here in the UK. We can be truly proud of that and, as I mentioned, we will be doing more of it.

The right hon. Gentleman is also right about NATO membership as the ultimate path for Ukraine. We have the 75th anniversary of NATO coming up in summer in Washington D.C., and it is important that the west helps to set that path for Ukraine’s membership even more firmly. He will be pleased to hear that my right hon. Friend the Attorney General is working proactively on the legal matters, as are the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary on sanctions, which will only work, as recent reporting shows, if they are done in a collective manner, including with the G7 and other bodies.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about a military action plan. In conversations with my opposite number, Minister Umerov, as well as President Zelensky and others, what they want is for us to work privately with them on the £2.5 billion, and that is what we are doing. There are strategic reasons for not producing a published plan on that. We will release information to the House as appropriate, but there are military reasons to do it rather differently on this occasion. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that not only do we spend the published amount, but we go over and above that in a variety of different ways.

The right hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of the partnership co-operation agreement, and we will be publishing a series of follow-ups. For example, one measure is to teach English as the second language for Ukraine, and I know from talking to my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary that 100 universities are in the process of being linked to Ukrainian institutions to press that plan forward, and much else besides is involved with that agreement on security co-operation.

Lastly, the shadow Secretary of State mentions the family visa scheme for Ukrainians. As he knows, I had a Ukrainian family of three and a dog live with us for a year after the invasion, and they are still living in this country. They are keen to return home to build Ukraine back when this war ends. In the meantime, this Government have put in place further visa arrangements, which, if not the most generous in the world, are among them. I know from speaking to the family who lived with me that they were delighted with that statement by the Home Secretary recently.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

The Defence Secretary has recently drawn parallels with the 1930s. He spoke powerfully at Lancaster House about our transition from a post-war world to a pre-war one. In a similar vein, I was part of a Conservative Friends of Ukraine delegation to Congress recently to lobby Republican congressmen to support the aid package. In one such conversation, a Republican perfectly reasonably asked me, “Why should I tell the people of my district to send their taxpayer dollars to Ukraine?”, to which I humbly replied, “Because as a member of NATO, it is ultimately cheaper than sending your sons and daughters.” In that context, does the Defence Secretary agree that while we must respect American domestic politics—it is not for us to tell them what to do—this, again, is a time for the new world in all its power and might to come to the rescue and liberation of the old?

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that matter. I am aware of his work in Congress—in fact, I think we were there at roughly the same time last month—and his clear explanations and lobbying of Congress to help release that money to Ukraine. His point is absolutely right: the aid package is in America’s interest not just to come to the rescue of Europe but because other despotic leaders, other autocrats and other regimes of any type will be looking at whether we simply lose and give up because we get bored of the fight and then walk away. They will draw conclusions about that and whether they can always take on the red line of the west and the no-go area if all they have to do is wait it out. This is why my right hon. Friend is right to say that it is indubitably in America’s interest to step in, because otherwise they will find it far more expensive in the future, perhaps in other parts of the world, to defend the world order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

Very simply, I read that report and, as the hon. Lady has rightly pointed out, accepted all of its findings. We do not usually take it further, but I will certainly be happy to take a look at the case she has raised.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

On the subject of recruitment and retention, on 7 November the Chief of the General Staff, Patrick Sanders—arguably the best general of his generation—told the Defence Committee:

“We are taking 400 soldiers out of the field army to put them alongside recruiters, because—guess what?—it takes a soldier to recruit a soldier.”

Never was a truer word spoken. So when are we finally going to sack Capita?

Situation in the Red Sea

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

As ever, my hon. Friend raises an excellent point. That is what Operation Prosperity Guardian is all about: that taskforce enables shipping to be protected to an extent. He may be getting at the broader point of whether individual ships should be protected. The view that the world has taken is that Prosperity Guardian provides an umbrella to shipping more widely. The sheer volume of ordinary traffic through the Red sea means that we need that US-led international taskforce for the security of the Red sea and the gulf of Aden.

This is incredibly important. After all, we are part of defending the international rules-based order in the actions that we are taking. Last week, I was onboard HMS Diamond—which is right at the heart of the issue in the Red sea—talking to our brave sailors who are out there protecting our critical sea lanes. The House will know that this is the first Royal Navy ship’s company for 32 years who have fired in anger—or in self-defence, in their case. It was fascinating to talk to them about their experience and to witness their professionalism in dealing with this challenge.

It really did not have to be this way. We worked hard to warn the Houthis off. At the start of the year, the world sent a very clear message to the Houthis: “End your illegal and unjustified actions. Stop risking innocent lives. Please stop illegally detaining vessels and crews. Cease threatening the global economy.” All those warnings fell on deaf ears, and eventually enough was enough.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I completely support the Government’s action, which is totally in accordance with international law and defending freedom of navigation on the high seas, but we can only do it with people; otherwise, there will be no one to maintain the Typhoons or crew the warships. People are leaving three times as fast as we are recruiting, as the Secretary of State is aware. Will he commit to coming to the House before Easter to make a statement on what we are doing about the retention of critical armed forces personnel? He knows why it is important.

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend has been very solid on these issues, which he and I have spoken about in the Defence Committee and elsewhere. He will be pleased to know that I have recently held meetings with individuals he believes will help to resolve the issue. In common with many western militaries, I am working very hard to ensure that we have the men and women we need in our armed forces, skilled up to the right levels and capable of taking on this challenge. He will be reassured to know that I went to Akrotiri last week and met the Typhoon pilots. They are incredibly highly skilled, and backed by an enormous array of tanker pilots, ground crew, mechanics and many others. It is very important that we support them. I am working very hard on this, and will come back to my right hon. Friend, the Defence Committee and the House with future plans to back up what Haythornthwaite and others have proposed.

A fortnight ago, the Prime Minister, relevant Cabinet Ministers and I authorised the RAF precision strikes using four Typhoon FGR4s, supported by two Voyager air-refuelling tankers. They struck facilities at Bani in north-western Yemen and an airfield at Abbs. The sites had been used to launch reconnaissance and attack drones as well as cruise missiles over the Red sea, and they were destroyed. Let me reiterate what has been said before: this was limited, necessary and proportionate. It was done in self-defence in response to very specific threats and in line with international law.

Middle East: UK Military Deployments

Debate between Mark Francois and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will know of my personal interest in and dedication to Ukraine. I can absolutely reassure him that this is not defocusing that work in any way, shape or form. We are ensuring that we continue to provide daily support to our Ukrainian friends, and I have a very close relationship with the Ukrainian Defence Secretary Umerov, Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakov, President Zelensky and many others within their system.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

It is important that Israel abides by the law of armed conflict, but in that context I welcome the deployment of these assets, not least to try to locate the British hostages. The Secretary of State will know that, ultimately, Hamas and Hezbollah are funded and trained by Iran, so what discussions has he had with our new Foreign Secretary about when, oh when, we will finally declare that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be banned?

[Grant Shapps]

The IRGC and its position are kept under constant review. I know that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is constantly looking at the region. He has been out there already and will be weighing up the advantages of things such as being able to have a post in-country against what it would mean to carry out such a ban. I also know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) will know how to take that up with the Foreign Secretary.