Defence

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Douglas Ross

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and my other Defence Committee colleagues. I commend the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) for tabling the motion. As a member of a defence family whose nephew joined the Royal Engineers on 2 January, we are very much aware of his defence of the members of the armed forces.

Those of us who take an interest in these things know that, of late, this Government’s running of the Ministry of Defence has focused more on slick sloganeering than on the huge issues facing the Department, so it is no surprise that recent media coverage has tended to focus on the relative success of the propaganda coming from Main Building. Take, for example, the Year of the Navy campaign, which probably could not have gone worse. I am sure the Air Chief Marshal and the Chief of the General Staff wake up at night in a cold sweat after nightmares that 2018 is to be the Year of the RAF or the Year of the Army.

Following a slightly botched Army recruiting campaign, this week saw the MOD refuse one of the campaign’s stars permission to speak to Sky’s Alistair Bunkall, which comes just after the Defence Secretary was forced to reconsider a decision to ditch the Army’s “Be the Best” slogan.

As the Conservative and Unionist party struggles with its messaging, I thought I would go back to another time when it was divided on Europe and tanking in the polls to find a slogan that best sums up what I will talk about today: “Back to Basics.” As the Government bang on about their vision of a global Britain and the Foreign Secretary comes out with absurd assertions about HMS Queen Elizabeth being deployed to the South China sea, they continue to neglect the most basic of defence tasks at home, namely the defence of the homeland and the north Atlantic, on which I will concentrate.

Last year, I was delighted to attend the launch of the Royal United Services Institute Whitehall paper on revitalising our collective defence in the north Atlantic area, edited by John Andreas Olsen, the Norwegian defence attaché here in London. The launch was facilitated by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the polar regions. Mr Olsen contributed to the booklet by pointing out that, for most of recorded history, the cold, grey waters of the north Atlantic were seen by most, even on these islands, as the very edge of civilisation. That fact changed rapidly, to the extent that the north Atlantic was the crucial link between North America and Europe during the two world wars and in the planning processes during the cold war.

Of course, the north Atlantic gives its name to an alliance that I would hope all of us in this House agree, although some in senior positions do not, is the bedrock of our defence and security. During the first period of NATO’s existence, protecting the sea lines of communication between the United States, Canada and Europe was a core task. It was during that time that the UK developed a world-leading anti-submarine warfare capability, as the skills honed hunting U-boats during the second world war were allied with American technology to ensure that NATO held the operational advantage. At a time when many believe Russian submarine incursions into our waters are again at the level of those during the cold war, if not exceeding them, we must consider whether the balance of power is still the same. I am afraid that, for me and my hon. Friends, it is not.

We know that the Royal Navy’s escort fleet is at a historic low of just 17 usable frigates and destroyers. We know that over Christmas, for the first time in living memory, none of them was deployed outside UK waters. We also know that the UK’s most northerly surface warship base is on its southern coast, meaning a journey of more than 24 hours to reach the place from which most of the threat is coming due to the reimposed Russian “bastion” policy.

If we listened to the Government, we would think all is well for the defence of the realm. They say there is record investment in the procurement budget and an increasing defence budget, so I was glad that, in our report on procurement last month, my colleagues on the Defence Committee endorsed the National Audit Office’s assertion that the affordability of the equipment plan

“is now at greater risk than at any time since reporting was introduced in 2012”.

The beginning of our report looked at the Committee’s previous reports on procurement and it was remarkable to see how little this Government have learned from previous mistakes—we all know that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The defence cuts made by the Conservative and Unionist Government in 2010, whether it be the decision to reduce the escort fleet to its current woefully low number or the decision literally to chop up the UK’s maritime patrol capability, were meant to be the last we would see for the foreseeable future, and the MOD vowed to develop an affordable equipment plan.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose; forgive my French pronunciation. The deficit that led to the 2010 cuts was £38 billion and the upper limits of the estimates of the current deficit are around £30 billion, meaning that hard decisions will have to be taken.

For example, can we be certain that the purchase of F-35s will be balanced sensitively against the rest of the defence budget, especially now that they are more expensive with the depreciation of the value of sterling? One other worry for those, such as myself, who value the defence of the high north is that the vital and much-missed maritime patrol capability will either be delayed or decreased in scope from the current planned purchase of the Boeing Poseidon P-8s.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Not at the moment, because I need to make progress, as other Members want to get in.

Last month, it was no surprise when I received a reply to a parliamentary question which revealed that on no fewer than 17 occasions last year maritime patrol aircraft from allied nations undertook missions from RAF Lossiemouth in Moray. That is an unacceptable situation, made worse by the fact that by the most generous estimates it will now take until 2024 before this capability is returned. This return to a triangle of north Atlantic patrolling from Scotland, Iceland and Norway will hopefully be accompanied by a reinstatement of NATO’s Atlantic Command. I am glad to say that my party has made it clear from the start that Scotland is an obvious choice to host SACLANT—Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. I can only hope that Scottish Conservative Members will use the renowned leverage they have with the Government, demonstrated so clearly this week, to press the MOD on this.

We must only hope that this return to that posture can also be accompanied by a continuing commitment to one of our oldest allies, the Kingdom of Norway, as represented by the ability to deploy Royal Marines across the North sea provided by HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. Scrapping these ships was, of course, a sadly much-anticipated consequence of the security and capability review we were waiting for this year, but which has been delayed yet again by a Government who seem quite unable to take hard decisions. Unfortunately, the hopes for an improvement in not only Scotland’s security, but that of this entire political state hinge very much upon that review and the extent of the “adjustments”—I believe that to be the favourite euphemism—contained within it. I am not holding my breath for good news.

As I did earlier, I fully endorse the findings of my Committee’s report, when it said that the MOD

“faces the risk that in future it may have to return to a situation where affordability of the portfolio is maintained by delaying or reducing the scope of projects.”

Anyone who has read the NAO report on the equipment plan knows that, with the procurement budget about to enter a period of unprecedented budget bandwidth challenges, at least until 2023, delays to decision making such as this do no one any favours. It is an incredible situation, one I can explain only by repeating the words of General Sir Richard Barrons, which have already been used in the Chamber. When he gave evidence to the Defence Committee in November, he said:

“The reason we are having a review only two years after the 2015 defence review is that at no time in that review has the amount of resources provided to defence matched the programme.”

This situation will only be exacerbated by Brexit and the various economic consequences it has presented us with. The fact that the only part of the defence budget to be protected from the cuts is the one for the deterrent is something that my party has a long-standing disagreement with. I am sure we do not need to go into that again today, especially as, I am glad to say, we are beginning to break the omertà around questioning it among Government Members.

Let me bring my remarks to a close by pleading with this Government to back their old-fashioned “back to basics” on defence by lifting the public sector pay cap for armed forces personnel, which is giving them a real-terms wage cut this year, and focusing on the essential task of defending not only Scotland, but this entire political state and, crucially, the north Atlantic. It will come as no surprise that I would ask them to take Trident out of the defence budget and to focus on the conventional capability within that budget, which we so desperately need. It will also come as no surprise that I hope that the security of Scotland, which has suffered from decades of under-investment in its security, and that of our allies, will be improved by independence. It is this Government’s challenge to prove us wrong.