Global Military Operations

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The point about the measure—counts in terms of GDP—is that it demonstrates the priority that the Government of the day give to a particular area of necessary spend. It was 2.5% of GDP in 2010. We have got nowhere near that in any of the 13 years after 2010 under the hon. Gentleman’s Governments.

On the question of a necessary rethink in domestic and international strategy, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there were indeed some welcome changes in the 2023 integrated review: a new commitment to reinvigorating important bilateral ties across Europe; a declaration that the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt has been delivered; and a recommitment to NATO as our overriding priority. However, that was a rebalancing of defence plans, not a reboot. While NATO is increasing the strength of its high readiness force to 300,000, the Government are cutting the Army still further, to its smallest size since Napoleon. While Germany boosts its defence budget by over €100 billion, the Government continue with real cuts in day-to-day defence spending. While Poland is buying an extra 1,000 tanks, the Government are cutting back our UK Challengers from 227 to 148—all this in direct breach of the promise the then Prime Minister made to the British people at the 2019 election, when he said that

“We will not be cutting our armed services in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed services.”

All this is part of the pattern of the 13 years since 2010. There are now 45,000 fewer full-time forces personnel, one in five Navy ships has been axed, and over 200 RAF planes have been taken out of service. Satisfaction with forces life has hit a new low, and our ammunition supply has been run down to just eight days. The Defence Secretary summed it up in January when he told the House that

“I am happy to say that we have hollowed out and underfunded”—[Official Report, 30 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 18.]

our armed forces. While threats increase, our hollowed-out forces are working with fewer numbers and less training, and without the long-promised new kit that they need to fight and to fulfil our NATO obligations, such as Ajax.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the lack of investment over many years. Does he agree that today, it is particularly worth mentioning the potential capability gap with the retirement of the Hercules fleet? Given that we have quite rightly paid tribute to our armed forces, including the RAF, perhaps my right hon. Friend wants to say something about the looming capability gap—for up to two years, as I understand it—with those wonderful aircraft having been retired recently.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right to pick up that point, and he is not the first on either side of the House to raise those questions. They have still not been satisfactorily answered by Ministers, particularly if the Government’s strategy is to have our forces persistently forwardly deployed. When the Minister responds to the debate, he might like to try again to reassure those who are still not satisfied that the A400 provides the capabilities in very specialist areas that the Hercules had been able to provide for so long.

I am conscious of the time and the number of people who want to speak, but I want to pick up where the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), who so ably chairs the armed forces parliamentary scheme—a scheme that is so highly valued on both sides of the House—set out, with the budget that defence requires. We left government in 2010 spending 2.5% of GDP. In November, the Defence Secretary told this House that

“the inflationary pressure on my budget for the next two years is about £8 billion”,

but the Chancellor announced just £5 billion in the spring Budget, earmarked only for stockpiles and nuclear. That means no new money for pressures on the core defence budget or capability gaps, or indeed to deal with inflation.

It is not just how much we spend on defence: it is how well we spend it. Since 2010, we have seen Ministers waste at least £15 billion of taxpayers’ money through MOD mismanagement in procurement, with £5 billion wasted since 2019 when the Defence Secretary took up his post. Those failures have implications for the defence Command Paper: it risks being a defence plan driven by costs, not threats, framed by the Defence Secretary’s failure to win the funding that he has said is needed.

In the face of threats that the Government confirm are growing and intensifying, I ask the Minister these questions: will the defence Command Paper put an end to the Defence Secretary’s hollowing out of our armed forces? Will it halt deeper Army cuts? Will it pick up Labour’s plans to conduct a NATO test of major defence programmes to ensure that we meet our NATO obligations? Will it pick up our plans to establish a stockpile strategy to replenish UK supplies and sustain our support for Ukraine? Will it pick up our plan to renew the nation’s moral contract with those who serve in our forces?

In the end, the country is best served when defence can be bipartisan. We want this defence Command Paper to be a sound defence plan for the country, not just the plan of current Conservative Ministers. If the Government are willing to take these steps, Ministers will have Labour support. If not, the big decisions will have to be taken after the next election, I hope by a Labour Government.