National Security Strategy

Debate between Pat McFadden and Roger Gale

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

Let me express my gratitude to the shadow Foreign Secretary for her response, the spirit in which she put her questions and her welcome for at least broad parts of the strategy we have published today. Let me turn to the questions she has asked and try to address them.

On the resources to protect people, we made our commitment to increase defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP. Unlike the Conservative party, we said exactly how we would pay for that, even though it meant a very difficult choice on this side of the House. On the FIRS scheme, the right hon. Lady will be aware that Iran and Russia have been placed on the enhanced tier. She asked about our approach to China. This is a serious question and we must have a serious approach to it. The Conservative party, during its time in government, veered between the naivety of the so-called “golden era” to, in effect, no engagement at all. We believe that both were the wrong approach. Instead, our approach will be marked by a desire to protect our national security and to promote our economic interests; total disengagement is not a good option for the UK, so we will be guided by both. The Foreign Secretary, as I said, will make a fuller statement on China shortly.

The right hon. Lady asks what might be included in the 1.5%. It will include such things as cyber-security, border security and telecoms infrastructure. To those who ask what those things have to do with defence, let me be clear: our opponents and our enemies know that they are part of national security, and we should recognise that, too.

Finally, we have resisted the Opposition’s pleas for us to choose between our allies. In resisting that, I believe we have a strategy that makes our country stronger and enhances Britain’s capabilities. That is at the heart of the strategy we put today. Indeed, we made a conscious choice to increase investment in the country’s future capabilities at the spending review. This will give us increased strength in the future. The spending we have committed to is funded, it is set out in the spending review and that is the approach we will take in the future, too.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Chairman of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I totally agree that defence and security have to begin at home, in the home and in the workplace. This is a very welcome comprehensive national security strategy, given its wide-ranging assessment of all the threats we face, in defence, security, critical national infrastructure and so on. An impressive number of workstreams have fed into it—AUKUS, the SDR, the resilience review and so on—but there was no mention of the National Security Council. Can my right hon. Friend tell me what he is doing to ensure that there is a coherence across the strategy that will herald a cultural change in how this country faces security?

[Pat McFadden]

I thank the Chair of the Joint Committee for his question. I should have said, in response to the shadow Foreign Secretary, that I hope to reach a resolution with the Committee soon on the matter of appearances before it. I am always happy to appear before the Committee, if invited. The Chairman of the Joint Committee is quite right to say to the House that publishing strategies is one thing, but there must be follow through. The difference between this and some other documents produced is that it is a whole-system approach, looking at sovereign capability, international alliances and making our country a harder target for our enemies. All three of those must be brought together and followed through in a systematic way.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome the publication of the Government’s national security strategy, because we recognise that we are living in a world that is less stable and more insecure now than at any time since the end of the cold war. Putin’s forces continue to wage their war in Ukraine, the middle east is teetering on the precipice of a fully-fledged regional war, and the actions of the United States under an unreliable President Trump are putting an enormous strain on the post-war settlement from which we have benefited so much.

The nature of the threats we face continues to evolve, as has become immensely clear to millions of people across the country with the recent cyber-attacks on Marks and Spencer and the Co-op, and in other countries we have seen attempts by authoritarian states to meddle in free and fair elections. That is why we welcome so much of what is contained in the strategy. It is also why the Liberal Democrats have welcomed the Government’s decision to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, although we have urged Ministers to go further.

Given the new NATO target of 5% of GDP, will the Government now urgently convene cross-party talks to establish a consensus on how to get there? We need to show our adversaries we are serious about that commitment. The strategy also has a welcome focus on resilience, something especially important given not just the scale of the threat we face but its varied nature. Will the Minister look at steps taken by our allies such as Estonia to inform their populations about how to deal with those threats, should they arise? To reflect the threat posed to our democracy by hostile actors, will he make protecting our democracy a national security priority? I also note the importance that the review places on sovereign independent capabilities. Is that an admission from the Government that, under President Trump, the United States is no longer a reliable ally? Will the assessment be carried over into defence procurement, where we look to maintain an inextricably close bond with the United States?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Pat McFadden and Roger Gale

Thursday 24th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

During the last Parliament, I made a submission, on behalf of the National Association of Retired Police Officers, for a medal to be issued in recognition of the service given by those injured on duty and invalided out of the service. That had the backing of the then Policing Minister, and I understand it also has the backing of the current Policing Minister, but it has now disappeared into a black hole in the Cabinet Office. Will the Minister please dig it out, dust it off and give it a fair wind?

[Pat McFadden]

I will find out exactly where we are with this matter and then write to the right hon. Member.

Charter for Budget Responsibility

Debate between Pat McFadden and Roger Gale

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

I suspect that the Bank of England will not be the only institution attacked by the right hon. Gentleman tonight, but I remind him that part of the purpose of the charter is to restore our faith in the economic institutions, after what happened less than six months ago.

The IMF has forecast that the UK will have the lowest growth among developed countries for the next two years: bottom of the league on the record and bottom of the league on the forecast. And yet still the Government come along tonight and table a debate supposedly designed to enhance their economic credentials.

Well, what will the effect on those credentials be of the re-emergence of the former Prime Minister at the weekend? I have to give her 10 out of 10 for timing. What better time to write an article saying that her mini-Budget was right all along than the day before the Chief Secretary has to come here and stand up for the Government’s fiscal stability record? What better moment for her to say to members of pension schemes that had to be put on life support as a result of her mini-Budget that it was not her fault? No contrition for trying to borrow from my constituents in Wolverhampton South East in order to pay for a tax cut for people earning over £150,000 a year; not a word of apology to the millions of mortgage holders left paying a Tory mortgage penalty because of the reckless irresponsibility of the Conservative party. Just when the Government were trying to bury the memory of that mini-Budget under 10 feet of concrete, up she pops—like one of those hands coming out of the swamp at the end of the film—to tell us it was all someone else’s fault.

For me, the best bit in the article was when, in a long list of culprits, other than the Government that actually introduced the mini-Budget, the former Prime Minister blamed the Treasury civil servants for not warning her about the impact on pension schemes. I had to ask myself, were these the same Treasury civil servants that she had spent the whole summer scorning and disparaging? Were they the same Treasury civil servants whose boss was shown the door on the first day of her premiership? In what world are we expected to believe that the former Prime Minister, her Chancellor and the Government would have listened to a word those civil servants said, when all along she defined them as being part of the problem and not part of the solution?

The real problem for the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Treasury is that this is not going away. The last Prime Minister is not a lone voice, and the more that Conservative Members realise the Government have nothing left in their tank and are resigned to managing decline, the louder the drumbeat will become; and it will be cheered on by the same newspapers that gave such a warm welcome to that mini-Budget in the first place. The Prime Minister, demonstrating the sureness of touch with which we have come to associate him by now, has labelled those on the Government Benches calling for tax cuts “idiots”. That is his phrase, not mine—about those on his own side. And yet today, fearful of them, the Prime Minister now says he will listen. Which is it? Are they idiots or is he listening? This weekend’s intervention, and those who cheer its argument, will have the Prime Minister and the Chancellor looking over their right shoulders every day between now and the election, when they should be focused on the needs of the country.

This debate is supposed to be about all of us swearing fealty to fiscal rules, but there is another problem: since this Government came to office, they have broken their fiscal rules 11 times. They have had even more sets of fiscal rules than they have had Chancellors and Prime Ministers over the past year. If you don’t like one set, don’t worry—there will be another one along in a while! The Chief Secretary himself outlined how these rules were different from the ones we debated this time last year in the George Osborne tribute debate of 2022, and each time we are expected to treat the new rules as though they were the ten commandments.

The second part of this is about respecting the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility. The document before us is very clear about that. It talks in great detail about the importance of that role. Indeed, when it was first launched, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury of the time set out the benefits of the OBR, making clear the value of its

“strong, credible, independently conducted official forecasts”—[Official Report, 14 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 747.]

She said that the establishment of the OBR and its independence from the Treasury meant that

“Governments will be reticent about introducing policies that seem to take them off course”—[Official Report, 14 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 749.]

Well, there was not much sign of that reticence last year as the Government crashed the economy, caused a run on the pound, caused mortgage rates to rise and put pensions on life support. Indeed, we had a real-time lesson in the cost of disparaging our institutions—institutions that the Conservative party used to care about. But tonight, even after that experience with chapter 4 of the charter, we are back to a hymn of praise for the OBR.

The real problem here is not just inconsistency, but credibility. I am afraid that the many-year record since the idea of this charter was first conceived a decade or more ago has meant that the Conservative party has now forfeited the right to call itself the party of sound management; it has forfeited the right to call itself the party of growth, because the record on growth has been abysmal; it has forfeited the right to call itself the party of low debt, because debt has rocketed; it has forfeited the claim to careful stewardship of the public finances, with billions lost in bounce back loan fraud, personal protective equipment waste and tawdry stories of one dodgy contract after another; and it has forfeited the right to call itself the party of low tax, because the tax burden is at its highest for decades.

What, after all that, has this been for? We have record waiting lists, trains that people cannot rely on, and delays and backlogs everywhere. In fact, there is not a single public service that runs better now than it did 13 years ago, when the Tories took office. Low growth and high tax for a worse outcome—that is the record. When people are faced with the question, “Are you and your family better off?”, the answer is no.

Two weeks ago, we had the Chancellor’s speech on the way forward. He had four Es, and more than one person said that the biggest E was for empty, because the real problem for the Conservatives is that, when it comes to growth, the only policy they reach for is unfunded and untargeted tax cuts, and when they tried that in September, it blew up in their faces. Growth is the right question for the country, but it does not come from the discredited idea of trickle-down economics. It comes from the efforts of all of us—from every businessperson with a new idea and the drive to make it happen, and from making sure we use the UK’s strengths to make the most of the green transition that is coming, rather than standing back and allowing those investments to go elsewhere. It comes from every teacher equipping a pupil with new skills and knowledge, and from not having 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, keeping many of them out of the labour market. Talking of former Prime Ministers, it does not come from saying “F*** business”, but from a modern partnership with business that brings in the long-term investment the country needs. Most of all, in a knowledge economy like today’s, growth has to come from everyone, not just from a tiny proportion of people at the top.

Fiscal stability is an essential foundation for what we have to do—I agree with the Chief Secretary on that—but it is not an end in itself. It has to be the foundation for meeting the challenges the country faces and for giving people a more prosperous future. After many years of this debate, we look less at the latest version of the rules and more at the gap between claim and reality, because after crashing the economy and leaving the British public to pay the bill, the Government have no credibility to come forward and claim to be the champions of fiscal stability.

The idea for this charter was born in another political time, as I said at the start, and if it did have a purpose, events since have rendered it an unconvincing exercise to say the least. It certainly has not kept the Government to their fiscal rules, which have been broken many times, and it is unlikely, particularly after recent months, to convince anyone outside this Chamber that the Government have got the economy back on track.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

If I may slightly abuse my position in this Chair, let me say that I only heard from the Minister on the Treasury Bench at the start of this debate of the death of Robert Key. He was a dear personal friend, an excellent and dedicated constituency Member of Parliament, and a first-rate Transport Minister. I know that those in the House who knew him will wish to share their thoughts with Sue and his family.

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Pat McFadden and Roger Gale

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

With this it will be convenient to take the following:

Amendment 9, in schedule 1, page 6, line 6, after second “period”, insert—

“of not less than 16 weeks”.

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the referendum period lasts for at least 16 weeks.

Amendment 20, page 6, leave out lines 23 and 24.

Amendment 28, page 6, leave out lines 23 to 31.

Amendment 24, page 6, leave out lines 25 to 31.

Amendment 53, page 6, line 33, at end add—

“(ix) the total number of permitted participants shall be limited to a number specified by the Electoral Commission to ensure broad equality of resources between those campaigning for each of the outcomes of the referendum and those taken into account for the purposes of this provision will be the first persons to give notice under section 106(1) of the 2000 Act.”.

The amendment would require the Electoral Commission to ensure that during the referendum campaign, the total spend of the campaign on either side of the referendum would be broadly equal by limiting the number of participants, taking into account moneys spent by business, government, the European Commission and the campaigns themselves.

Amendment 32, page 6, line 33, at end add—

“( ) Nothing in this Schedule alters the law governing charitable organisations in any part of the United Kingdom to confer an entitlement to participate in a referendum which would not have been possible prior to the coming into force of this Schedule.”.

Amendment 29, page 7, line 5, leave out “any of sub-paragraphs (v) to (viii)” and insert “sub-paragraph (v)”.

Amendment 22, page 7, leave out lines 16 to 19.

Amendment 30, page 7, leave out lines 16 to 23.

Amendment 26, page 7, leave out lines 20 to 23.

Government amendment 14.

Amendment 33, page 12, leave out lines 18 and 19.

Amendment 41, page 12, leave out lines 18 to 25.

Amendment 37, page 12, leave out lines 20 to 25.

Amendment 10, page 12, line 38, at end insert—

“(6) For the purposes of paragraph 6 of Schedule 15 of the 2000 Act a permitted participant must not accept a relevant donation, irrespective of whether or not it meets the requirements of the 2000 Act and this Act, if the donation is funded directly or indirectly in whole or part from moneys, resources or support disbursed or allocated by or at the direction of the European Commission, its agencies or any related European institution to the donor or via other parties to the donor.”.

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that no funds or support provided directly or indirectly by European Union bodies have a bearing on the outcome of the referendum.

Amendment 45, page 12, line 38, at end add—

“( ) Nothing in this Schedule alters the law governing charitable organisations in any part of the United Kingdom to confer an entitlement to make a donation during a referendum which would not have been permissible prior to the coming into force of this Schedule.”.

Amendment 42, page 13, line 6, leave out “any of the paragraphs (c) to (f)” and insert “paragraph (c)”.

Amendment 43, page 13, line 10, leave out “any of the paragraphs (c) to (f)” and insert “paragraph (c)”.

Amendment 36, page 13, leave out lines 12 to 16.

Amendment 44, page 13, leave out lines 12 to 22.

Amendment 40, page 13, leave out lines 17 to 20.

Government amendment 15.

That schedule 1 be the First schedule to the Bill.

That schedule 2 be the Second schedule to the Bill.

That schedule 3 be the Third schedule to the Bill.

[Mr McFadden]

On a point of order, Sir Roger. I seek your guidance. The Committee has just agreed to Government amendment 55, which states that the referendum will not take place on the same day as elections in May of next year, but other amendments that we did not get the chance to discuss fully this afternoon also deal with the date of the referendum, including amendment 3, which is in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Can you give the Committee any guidance on whether there will be time to debate those further amendments on Thursday?

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to amendments 3 and 7—I think he is—it will be a matter for the Chairman of Ways and Means to consider them for debate on Thursday. I think the answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is yes, there is the opportunity, or there is likely to be the opportunity, for debate.