HMY Iolaire

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The numbers are a huge percentage of the able-bodied men in the area, and of the able-bodied men who had survived a global catastrophe. That made it doubly difficult.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech about the unspeakable tragedy that happened to Lewis and Harris. I say it is unspeakable, but he is speaking very powerfully about this terrible tragedy. Perhaps it is hopeful that at the centenary we are able to speak and to teach the nation about the impact it had on that island community. It is the duty of this Parliament to safeguard the special cultural and historical interest of those island communities in our country, and to make sure that they are at the heart of our nation’s interests and are protected in the future.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am very grateful indeed to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out that aspect. We have to remember the culture and the background that these guys came from: they were raised in difficult circumstances, in peat-smoke-filled rooms in small, dark houses. There were no amenities such as running water and electricity. They were a generation that had worked hard, and their parents had to work hard to raise them.

RAF Centenary

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. The RAF is more than just the service itself. It is all those people who contribute to it so much. It is the businesses that help to create these amazing flying machines, which have been so instrumental in defending Britain repeatedly in the past and will be so again. I pay tribute to those who bring that to life. I take this opportunity to mention the Boulton Paul Aircraft Company, which was in my constituency and produced the Defiant aircraft during the second world war, and the many people of the Boulton Paul Aircraft Society who have kept alive not only the skills of aircraft production but the contribution by so many people across the west midlands and the country to the Royal Air Force.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State makes a point about the evolution of technology over the past century. It is amazing to think that it was only 10 years from the first flight of the Lancaster bomber to the first flight of the Vulcan. The level of evolution in that period is astonishing in today’s terms. In addition, the cost of these technologies has increased exponentially over the past century. His Department normally calculates defence inflation. How can he properly assess the true cost of these equipment programmes? Can he commit to reinstating defence inflation, so that we can properly plan to give our wonderful aircraft industry the certainty that it needs for the future?

[Gavin Williamson]

I will touch on the great future of our aircraft manufacturing industry later in my speech, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have an amazing heritage. We have wonderful RAF museums in London and in Cosford, Shropshire, which are brilliant examples of the ingenuity we have in this country. That is certainly something that, as a Department, we are very much trying to encourage and to foster, working hand in glove with industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct to point that out. When I was last in County Fermanagh, I had the great privilege of meeting a group of air cadets, who were doing such an amazing job of bringing communities together. There has been a large change in representation within cadet units in Northern Ireland, from them wholly comprising people from a Protestant background to there now being a 70-30 split. We recognise that there is much further to go but, given the progress that has been made over the last 10 years, I hope that we will see much further progress over the next 10 years. It is certainly something about which we can feel very proud.

[Mr Sweeney]

The Secretary of State makes reference to the air cadets, who do a fantastic job spreading the social footprint of the Air Force to our communities around the UK, but we should also recognise the contribution of our university air squadrons. On Friday night, I had the pleasure of attending the annual dinner of the Military Education Committee of the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, where we celebrated the university air squadron and the other service organisations in the universities. The university air squadron in Glasgow has been in existence since 1941, when it recruited over 400 airmen into the RAF as officers and pilot officers. It made a huge contribution to the war effort and continues to make a huge contribution to this day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend has been lobbying on behalf of RMB Chivenor over the last year. I will meet him to discuss this further, as he has been fighting a particularly strong campaign on the matter.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State said that he recently visited the Royal Navy’s flagship, HMS Albion. Why is it that the Ministry of Defence defined it as a warship in 2009, but it is no longer defined as a warship in the 2017 national shipbuilding strategy?

Armed Forces Covenant

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

Support for mental health—or what I prefer to call mental fitness—is critical to what the covenant espouses. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that. If I may, I will venture further into my address, but he is welcome to intervene at a later stage.

I was touching on the reforms that we have seen since the first world war. There have been many key moments in the history of our nation when we bettered the service conditions for our armed forces. The major ones came in 1868 with the Cardwell reforms, which removed the use of flogging, abolished the sale of officers’ commissions and set the length of service for how long people would remain in uniform. In 1880, the Childers reforms established the regimental system that we recognise today and the standardisation of uniform. There was a feeling that wearing a red tunic on the battlefield was not such a great idea, and something a little bit greener might be better if we did not want the enemy to see us—something that my regiment, the Royal Green Jackets, picked up quite quickly, hence the name. From 1906, the Haldane reforms brought in the lessons from the Boer war, but also created the British Expeditionary Force—the first force to set foot in France and provide our initial response in world war one.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister also recognise that the 1906 Haldane reforms created the Territorial Force, which has of course been an instrumental part of Britain’s military capability since that time?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I do not know where we draw a line on those reforms, but he is absolutely right that the introduction of the reserves as such, and of a standing Army, was something Haldane was very important in doing, and we are ever grateful to him for that.

To go back to what happened in the aftermath of world war one, it was the warriors returning from the continent who exposed the shortfall in support for our veterans. That shortfall in support prompted the creation of many of the charities we recognise today, such as Combat Stress and Blesma, as well as the Royal British Legion, which led to the poppy appeal that does so much to support our veterans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

Well let’s go out and do a basic fitness test and see how we get on. My point is that, in our time, would we have been willing to put our hand up and say that we had an issue with our mind? If we had a physical injury, absolutely, we would have stepped forward—we would not have had a problem with that—but there was perhaps a stigma associated with being honest about any mental troubles we might have had. That was the entirely wrong approach, because those issues can then incubate and become worse, and then someone ends up departing the very thing they love because they find it difficult to cope. That has a knock-on impact because, when somebody loses confidence in themselves, that affects their career possibilities, they may depart the armed forces and it may affect their relationships and lead to family break-up or unemployment, which could spiral into a very dark chapter.

Let us go back to the beginning. If someone is able and encouraged, and does not feel that it will threaten their ambitions in the armed forces, they should be able to put their hand up and say “Actually, I have a bit of an issue. Can someone help to sort it out?” Someone might say to them, “Why don’t you go and see the doctor and get yourself checked out? It’s okay”. That is the place we are now going towards. Every ship’s captain, platoon commander, squadron leader and person now has a responsibility—a duty—to look after one another and ensure that if there is an issue we talk about it straightaway. It is okay for someone to say that they are not okay.

[Mr Sweeney]

The Minister is making a positive effort to outline the vision we ought to have, which I think everyone shares. Does he also recognise that four in 10 service families who have requested access to and been referred for mental health care have had difficulty accessing that treatment? That is not good enough and we need to do more. Many of our veterans experience great frustration when it comes to mental health support, and that leads to the despair that we have seen, with a spate of veteran suicides.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I will come on to the details of mental health and wellbeing, and say what more we are doing. More funds have come through from the recent Budget, but we need to ensure that treatment is available and that veterans know where to find it.

UK Sovereign Capability

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK sovereign capability.

This is a subject that I have spoken about frequently since my election and is close to my heart. I grew up in a shipbuilding family, so from a very early age I became acquainted with the concept of feast and famine orders in shipbuilding in this country. I also developed an awareness of what we need to do to maintain a sovereign capability, not just in shipbuilding but across the full spectrum of defence.

I will be 30 years old in January. Britain’s defence industry landscape has diminished considerably since I was born. Look at shipbuilding. I attended my first ship launch—of HMS Lancaster—when I was one year old. There were a number of shipyards around the UK that built surface vessels, including Swan Hunter in Tyneside and Cammell Laird—

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

In Birkenhead.

[Mr Sweeney]

In Birkenhead, as my right hon. Friend says. We also had Vosper Thornycroft in Southampton, and Harland and Wolff in Belfast, to name just a few, but today the landscape is much diminished. The Clyde is the only UK location capable of building complex warships, and even its capabilities have been significantly downsized. In 2013, when I was working in that very shipyard, more than 1,500 jobs in the shipbuilding industry were lost, and the BAE Systems shipyard in Portsmouth—formerly Vosper Thornycroft—closed.

Some 75% of shipbuilding jobs in the UK have been lost since the 1980s. That downsizing was predicated on a realisation that Britain did not have a naval fleet big enough to sustain the industrial base that existed at the time. Rather than drip-feeding orders to yards that would never be at full enough capacity to invest in world-class infrastructure, the idea was to cut our cloth accordingly, so in 2009 the then Labour Government signed a terms of business agreement with BAE Systems. The concept was to introduce a proper and rigorous strategy for shipbuilding in the UK. In return for rationalisation and transformation, the industry would be guaranteed a certain drumbeat of industrial capacity that would give it the confidence to invest in reaching the upper quartile of the world.

When I started working in the shipyards as a young graduate, one of my jobs was to study every other shipyard in the world that was building complex warships, benchmark us against them, determine what they were doing right and develop a prescription that would allow us to design a world-class shipyard in the UK. That seemed a laudable aspiration, because if we could build an infrastructure in the certainty of a pipeline of orders, we could build ships that achieved world-class performance, saving the taxpayer money. It was such a great idea that other countries followed the same model—most notably Canada, which developed its own national shipbuilding strategy and, indeed, employed the very same person from the Royal Navy who developed our strategy under the terms of business agreement.

Sadly, when I corresponded with the Minister for defence people and veterans last November, he informed me that the terms of business agreement had been extinguished in return for the signature of the Type 26 manufacture phase 1 contract. It was then superseded by the national shipbuilding strategy, which in the meantime was used as cover to significantly reduce the scope of ships that the UK had been qualified to build, and that had given certainty to UK industry. The very first page of the strategy document states:

“It is only by building ships that we will once again become good at building ships”.

Well, quite. That seems like a laudable aspiration and exactly what we all want to achieve, but unfortunately the strategy itself undermines that effort, restricting the scope of orders that can go through UK shipyards by limiting the exclusivity of UK build to frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers.

The 2009 terms of business agreement made very clear the range of ships that were to be built exclusively in the UK without competition, including aircraft carriers; amphibious vessels; all forms of frigates and destroyers; mine countermeasure vessels, including all design and major subcontracted work; all minor naval vessels, including patrol ships; and complex auxiliary ships, which at the time meant the vessels for joint sea-based logistics and joint casualty treatment. That certainty would have enabled British industry to invest in world-class facilities that delivered world-class performance for UK shipyards, achieving the competitive advantage that we had so long striven for. Given that other countries are successfully employing the very same model—Canada now plans to build 15 Type 26 frigates, as opposed to Britain’s much diminished effort of just eight, if we even get them—it is self-evident that we are doing something very wrong by undermining that effort.

It seems to me that the national shipbuilding strategy, particularly the Type 31e frigate project, is a classic example of the Government misidentifying the root cause of the problem that they are trying to solve. The UK prosperity agenda and the effort to make our industry better would be much better served by providing certainty for industry to invest in being world class. That would achieve the opening gambit set out in the strategy document.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the challenges for the prosperity agenda, and for the Royal Navy’s aspiration to be part of making us a global maritime nation again post Brexit, is that the Treasury does not have a model that helps the Ministry of Defence to plan for that or values the impact that building in the UK rather than abroad would have on the coffers of UK plc?

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the hon. Lady for that pertinent intervention, which drives home the point that I am trying to make. I am highlighting the landscape as I see it now, which is not what we want to achieve and is not optimal. That is not necessarily the fault of the Ministry of Defence, but of what Sir John Parker’s report refers to as the “total enterprise” of shipbuilding, which very much includes the Treasury as financial controller.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), the MOD is at fault. It takes no account whatever, either in shipbuilding or in other procurement contracts, of the value added to the UK economy, not just in skills but in the money that the Treasury gets back through tax and national insurance.

[Mr Sweeney]

The Minister might have been hopeful that I was absolving him of all blame in the matter, but I did not quite mean that; I meant that it was not entirely the fault of the Ministry of Defence, because there is a combined silo mentality across Government. My right hon. Friend makes the important point that in shipbuilding and in major defence procurement programmes, there has been a failure to understand the total prosperity effort across the UK. Royal Caribbean would never approach financing the building of a cruise ship in the way that the Ministry of Defence finances its frigates. The MOD does not achieve anywhere near the sort of efficiencies that commercial operators such as Cunard or Royal Caribbean achieve.

The MOD and the UK Government’s considerations ought to be about what maximises industrial and economic benefit to the UK as a whole, but they have failed to incorporate that into their processes for making these critical decisions. To give a classic example, modelling done by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions makes it clear that if major shipbuilding programmes were procured in the UK, the return of wage and supplier payments to the Exchequer would effectively achieve a 20% net material discount. The prosperity of those programmes would flow back into the UK economy instead of being bled out into another country.

[Frank Field]

The hon. Gentleman described the order for eight frigates earlier. Before the first world war, there was the great cry for dreadnoughts—“we want eight and we can’t wait.” Whatever the size of the Government’s programme, is not one of the problems the reliability of the dates for when they start commissioning the programme, which is very important for the longer-term future of shipbuilding? Is it not also about, with this phase, the confirmation that they will give a role in bidding—and therefore a chance of winning—to yards such as Cammell Laird’s, which has done so well recently in helping to build defence orders, but also in winning a major merchant contract, which I think is the first for a British yard in 20 or 30 years?

[Mr Sweeney]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Britain became a pre-eminent naval power because its industry was pre-eminent and because it was an innovator. That is what we need to get back to. The national shipbuilding strategy is trying to achieve that, but it falls short on how it will deliver it, because it militates against the very objectives it is trying to achieve. Industry needs certainty of capacity, so that it can invest with a degree of vigour in shipbuilding.

I talked about HMS Lancaster and the launch of the Type 23 frigate, which was my first ship launch, as a babe in arms, at Yarrow’s in Scotstoun. Sir Bob Easton was chairman of Yarrow’s at that time and made it quite clear that the Type 23 frigate was being bid in batches of three. It was Swan Hunter versus Yarrow. In 1990, Bob Easton said, “I am currently employing 2,500 people in my shipyard. I can employ them until the end of 1991. If I don’t get an order next year, I am making 1,000 of those people redundant, and that is the stark reality of what I am facing. It is not just about the jobs. I would like to invest in a new covered shipbuilding facility. I would like to invest in modernised plant machinery, but the business case does not stack up, unless I know for sure that I am going to be building all of those Type 23 frigates.”

The same issue is playing out today. The national shipbuilding strategy harks back to the same mentality, driving the same behaviours. Whether it is Cammell Laird or BAE Systems, they will not be able to say that they have a prescription for a world-class frigate factory, as it was dubbed, or a modern dock hall covered facility. They will not be able to make that business case stack up. They will not be able to put their shareholders’ money into that and to finance it, unless there is the certainty on the horizon that they will be building the entire programme, and unless there is legal certainty that that will happen. Without that certainty, companies cannnot make the investment and we therefore cannot get the operational efficiencies that deliver the savings and the cost reductions that would enable the Royal Navy, ultimately, to build a larger fleet. That is the virtuous cycle that we ought to be striving towards. Unfortunately, the strategy document undermines it.

When it comes to Type 31, the same point is still an excellent one. By bidding it in blocks and spreading it around the country, we lose the critical mass and do not get the certainty that would allow a shipyard such as Cammell Laird’s to invest in building a production line of Type 31 frigates, in parallel with a production line of Type 26 frigates. Ultimately, we want to get to exactly what the Americans do. They have been building Arleigh Burke cruisers since the 1980s; they have built the exact same ship in a consistent way for the last 30 years or more.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point. Does he agree that we were promised 13 frigates in 2014, not eight plus five general purpose ships? The shipyard workers in both Scotstoun and Govan have been hugely let down by those broken promises.

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the hon. Lady for Glasgow—

[Carol Monaghan]

North West.

[Mr Sweeney]

Glasgow North West. It was much better when we had the proper place names for constituencies.

[Carol Monaghan]

Anniesland.

[Mr Sweeney]

Yes, Anniesland. I was one of those shipyard workers at the time. I agree that certain understandings were given about investment. Indeed, the bulk of Scotstoun shipyard was demolished on the premise that it was going to be rebuilt as a new modern dock hall. I was personally involved in the project to design it; my personal investment in that project is second to none. However, it has to be recognised that the Clyde has certainty to the 2030s, although we need to go further in making the most of the opportunity we have.

I understand from the MOD that its ultimate aspiration would be to build Type 26 frigates in perpetuity if it could—if it had that certainty of financing and planning. Then we could be certain that the Clyde would always be the centre of production for those larger frigates. That would mean that other yards around the UK, such as Birkenhead, could focus on smaller projects, such as the Type 31, which could form a critical mass of a learning curve and a productivity enhancement, and secure the investment that would make it excellent at building those ships and more likely to win overseas orders as a result.

[Frank Field]

A strategy like that, with unit costs coming down, would allow us to compete seriously in the export market.

[Mr Sweeney]

Unit costs ought to come down but the problem is that the way that the shipbuilding strategy is defined makes it more likely that the cost reductions will not be maximised. That is a great shame, because it undermines the aspirations of the strategy.

I am a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on shipbuilding and ship repair, and we hope to bring forward a report on the strategy very soon. It will highlight some of the opportunities to improve it, because we all share the same aspiration. We want to see a world-class industry in the UK that has the certainty to invest. We want a world-class product that is cost-effective enough to grow the size of the Royal Navy.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend rightly focuses on warships, but it is also about the civilian ships for the Ministry of Defence. Unlike every one of our European competitors, the Ministry of Defence stubbornly insists on advertising abroad. There is a point about maintaining a competent workforce and the drumbeat of production, as well as the supply chain and the supply ecosystem, which is so important for sustaining all the yards. Can my hon. Friend find a logical, rational explanation for why the Ministry of Defence refuses to behave like every other European naval country?

[Mr Sweeney]

My right hon. Friend’s point goes back to that made earlier about the Treasury’s behaviour. I feel that this is almost about an economic orthodoxy that drives behaviour and says that we must maximise competitive tendering for the sake of it, because there is some sort of axiom that it works because it does. That approach does not bear scrutiny. Shipbuilding has the highest barriers to entry of any major industry in the world. It is a hugely capital-intensive industry and the only way to make it work, and the only way to get to a world-class, market-dominant position—much like with aerospace, where, as we know, the Americans and Europeans built their own champions in the form of Airbus and Boeing—is by having that synergy between Government, industry and the research and development base that makes it work. That is what we ought to have with shipbuilding in the UK. Fragmenting it in the way proposed in the national shipbuilding strategy serves only to undermine the UK’s long-term sovereign capability in shipbuilding. It is the primary sovereign interest of the UK to have that capability. We are an island nation, a nation of islanders and shipbuilders, and we ought to maintain that capability.

There are critical issues at stake here. We have already heard that Appledore, owned by Babcock, is due to close in March, which will be a devastating blow to the local community and to the UK’s wider defence manufacturing base. It is yet another shipyard to fall. Once it falls, it will not recover and be reopened—that is a simple fact. Once it is gone, it is gone. Despite the recent contract announcement at Cammell Laird, it is also completing an HR1 notification form and making significant redundancies. That is very unfortunate, and speaks to the point about feast and famine. We cannot have these cycles in capacity any more; we need to smooth the cycle as much as possible.

In the context of major shipyard closures and significant downsizing, whether that is at Rosyth or Appledore, it is bizarre that the Government are quite happy to tender contracts overseas in international open competition. Under article 346 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, the Government could quite easily designate the industry as UK-protected. It is entirely at their discretion. Any notion that their hands are tied is bogus. They could do that, smooth the production cycles and build a firm and stable footprint for UK shipyards, which would enable them to get match fit and then go out into the world and compete effectively for other orders. That is exactly what they do in Italy with Fincantieri, and what they do in France with DCNS. It is exactly what happens in Germany.

I do not understand why other European Union member states can achieve the same objectives much more effectively than us, but we are so holier than thou that it hurts when it comes to the zealous application of these EU rules and we seem to undermine our own industrial base and our prosperity as a result, meaning that communities are broken and skills lost. Ultimately, we undermine our objective of building a more resilient and effective industrial base to serve our defence industry and, potentially, commercial spin-offs.

Barrow-in-Furness is another example. The gap between the end of the Vanguard programme in the 1990s and the beginning of the Astute programme meant that the shipyard was essentially unable to build a submarine and they had to go to General Dynamics in the United States to be retaught how to build them. That is what we risk losing again if we are not careful.

[John Spellar]

It was surely not just the design capability and the managerial capability, but the actual day-to-day work experience and the work teams that have been created and then broken up. It took 12 to 24 months to rebuild that capability and was hugely expensive. The Ministry of Defence and the Treasury have still not learnt that lesson.

[Mr Sweeney]

My right hon. Friend makes a very prescient point. There is no calculation of the opportunity cost when those skills are lost or of how much it costs to build them back up. The feast and famine cycle is hugely costly and inefficient, and the national shipbuilding strategy risks going back to that pattern. I think that is a critical point that the Minister really ought to address in his remarks about the national shipbuilding strategy.

Let me make it clear that we are all here to try to deliver the best outcome for defence infrastructure in the UK—we are trying to get to the same end goal. We are trying to offer the best of our understanding and experience of these issues to inform this document and improve it as much as we can, and it is fair to say that we want to achieve the same objectives.

We have also seen the development of a combat air strategy—the Tempest programme—which is laudable and looks promising, but there is a lack of an overarching objective on defence. We have already lost the capacity to build large fixed-wing aircraft through the cancellation of the Nimrod programme, which was done hastily by the disastrous 2010 strategic defence and security review and means that we have permanently lost that capability in the UK. Similarly, we have lost the capacity to build main battle tanks.

What else is at risk, and where is the risk profile of the sovereign capabilities that will be lost? What is expendable and what is indispensable? That is not defined in the national shipbuilding strategy, where there is talk of potentially putting the Type 31e combat management system out to international tender. Why do we not define what the key sovereign capability is—not just in the shipbuilding programme, but in aspects of its critical supply chain, including gearboxes, gas turbines, combat management systems, weapons systems and so on? We need to have that granularity of detail in the national shipbuilding strategy, but it is not there. That leaves it open to interpretation and extreme gerrymandering by the Ministry of Defence.

Those are the key issues that we have to highlight, whether they are across land, maritime—I am biased towards maritime, which I have focused on heavily—or aerospace. I am sure that other Members are willing to contribute and add their own thoughts to this debate, but essentially that is an overview of my main concerns about our UK sovereign capability and the risks to sustaining it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) on his superb oratory.

We are back here again: the same people are largely in the same chairs making the same arguments, although we have a different person in the Chair—you are very welcome, Mr Hollobone—and a different Defence Procurement Minister. I think he is the third since I was elected. We made effectively the same speeches to the previous Ministers, but he should not worry: these are good speeches with good arguments, and I am sure he will enjoy hearing them.

I think that we have a good Minister now. His freshness to defence means that he will bring a new approach to procurement decisions, and I hope that that will yield different results. We need different results, because our sovereign defence capability is at risk. I do not say that lightly, because I know that people who wish our country ill listen to these debates. We must present a strong and forthright position, and we must ensure that our military has the best equipment, the best training and, importantly, a supply chain and support structure that enables it to continue to operate at a high level. Russia is on the rise—it is increasing its threat to our country and making incursions into our airspace and waters—and China is growing its ambitions in the far east. The risk of state and non-state actors threatening the UK’s interests and those of our allies is high.

I will focus my remarks on the Royal Navy, about which much has been said. As the MP for Devonport, I would perhaps be expected to do that. The Royal Navy has suffered the greatest ill done to our sovereign defence capability. It could be said that that is also true of fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, and to Army equipment, but the Royal Navy has suffered the biggest impact. The shipyards that support our Royal Navy are not just about concrete, steel, bricks and mortar; they are about the people and skills, which must be invested in and grown over time. We have had holes in our procurement exercises in the past because there has not been a constant stream of investment in our shipyards. Although we do not build ships in Devonport, we refit them, and we need a constant stream of ships to be refitted to ensure we keep up our skills. That is why it is so important to get the Type 26 and Type 31 right.

I congratulate the Government on what they have done in supporting the industry to sell the Type 26 overseas. I hope the Americans adopt the Type 26 as a platform for their future frigate procurement, which they are struggling with at the moment. The Type 31 is an example of what we need to get better at. There was great potential for it in the national shipbuilding strategy. We need more hulls that can do defence engagement work, station keeping, and the forward deployment roles that are so important in our Royal Navy, while maintaining the high-end capability of the Type 26.

As hon. Members know, I have a problem with calling a Type 31 a frigate. I would much prefer it to be a world-class corvette, rather than a rather poor frigate. I normally use more colourful language, but I will mind my p’s and q’s in this Chamber. We need to sell the Type 31 as the best in class. That would make our international allies want to buy it, rather than one of the plentiful array of small frigates and corvettes that are on the market. The Type 26 shows that people want to buy high-end British technology. The procurement delays and the disruption in the procurement process over the summer do not give us much confidence in the procurement of the Type 31s.

We also need to look ahead. Over the past year, since I and many others in this House were elected, we have been fighting to save HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. Other Members who would have been here if they had turned up might have claimed the success of the campaign to save those vital capabilities from being cut. Now that we have done that, we must ensure that we plan for suitable replacements for them. If Albion and Bulwark will go out of service in 2033 and 2034 respectively, we need a plan to build their replacements in UK shipyards. That is important, because it builds on the battle to ensure our Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships are built in UK shipyards, too.

We must maintain our sovereign defence capability to build such complex warships. I regard an RFA fleet solid support ship as a complex warship—the Government may stick it in a different column of their spreadsheet, but given that it has the roles and the capability of the RFA, I think it is a complex warship, and it should be built exclusively in UK shipyards.

[Mr Sweeney]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I cannot stop the hon. Gentleman intervening, but, including his summary at the end, he will have had 26 minutes of a 60-minute debate. I have to call the Front Benchers at 5.7 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the Minister for his reply and thank right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed so effectively to the debate. In reply to the Minister’s last remark about the need to maintain the UK’s sovereign capability to build complex warships being arbitrarily restricted to frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers, the only reason we can build those ships in the UK today is that the last Labour Government placed an order for an auxiliary ship, the RFA Wave Ruler, at Govan shipyard in 1999, which enabled that yard to continue in operation. Also, there are five River class batch 2 patrol vessels being built at Govan to sustain production there until the Type 26 kicks in. By utilising those less complex, but none the less complex, warships to smooth the build cycle, we can retain the skills, infrastructure and critical mass we need to build complex warships including frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers. We must look beyond that arbitrary restriction and maximise the purchasing power of the Ministry of Defence to deliver UK sovereign capability in the long term. We should broaden our horizons.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered UK sovereign capability.

Veterans Strategy

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow colleagues in this very moving debate about critical issues facing veterans and, in particular, to follow the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant). His area shares a great affinity with Glasgow, because it is of course the traditional home of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, the Glasgow and Ayrshire Regiment, which now forms part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, as its second battalion. I had the great pleasure of visiting 2 Scots at Glencorse barracks in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley), where I had discussions on a number of issues facing serving personnel and members of the regimental family who are now veterans.

As of July, I count myself as a veteran, having served 12 years as a reservist in the Royal Regiment of Scotland. I am very proud to wear the regimental tie today, just as I did on Sunday, when I went to George Square, as I have done for several years, to join many of my friends at the cenotaph to remember our friends who have suffered life-changing injuries and, in my case, a good friend who was killed in Afghanistan in 2013. That is a moment for us not only to reflect, but to get together to have a good old time—there is a social aspect. For many people, particularly those who have worn the uniform, Remembrance Day is about not just solemn remembrance, but having a bit of a laugh, which is always good. We did get on to talking in great detail about many of our friends who have suffered, and in the past few months alone, the Royal Regiment of Scotland veterans have taken it upon themselves to set up a Facebook group to try to help each other.

It has been eye-opening to see the difficulties that many people are going through but which they often cannot make clear to their comrades. There is a culture, particularly in the Army, of not talking about these things. Instead, people have traditionally been told to man up, get on with it and pull themselves together. In the past, it was an admission of weakness for someone to say that they had difficulties, so it is great that people feel that there is now a safe space in which to make those vulnerabilities clear to their friends and to seek help.

In that spirit, I welcome the thrust of the veterans strategy, particularly the cross-cutting factors that have been identified, which chime with what I would like to see happen. However, I am concerned that the document is too high-level and that there is not enough understanding of the intended outcomes. There is a broad intent, which is laudable, but a lot of details about how it is to be delivered are lacking. The term used in the Army is “mission command”: beginning with a general intent, but then building up a fuller picture of what is to be delivered on the ground. It is ironic in an organisation with an effective command-and-control system built into its DNA that when it comes to supporting our veterans, that seems to fall apart and the same rigour is not applied. I would like that to be addressed as part of the further development of the strategy. This is crucial for collaboration between organisations and the co-ordination of veterans services. The urgency burns through and needs to be gripped.

A lot of charities are doing excellent work and many have been mentioned today. A great example in the city of Glasgow and the wider area is the Erskine Hospital, which was founded over 100 years ago by one of the Yarrow family whose son was killed on the battlefields of the first world war. So riven with guilt was he that he formed a charity along with William Macewen, one of the leading surgeons in Glasgow at the time, to create the first proper prosthetic limbs to help those who had suffered life-changing injuries in the first world war. The charity continues to help veterans of all ages to this day.

We have to recognise that the demography of our veterans is changing. The Army has downsized by around 20,000 regular soldiers in the last five years alone. That is a significant outflow of people, many of whom will have served in conflict zones—very intense conflict zones at that—and those people will have very particular and urgent needs that need to be catered for. I do not feel that there is any sort of infrastructure to deal with those specific requirements, however, and that needs to be dealt with.

I have spoken about this next issue several times in the last few months, because many of my friends and people I know personally have been affected. Indeed, we lost four Jocks from the Royal Regiment of Scotland in the space of two months, in July and August this year, which is a terrible suicide rate. Indeed, it is estimated that over 50 veterans have taken their own lives in the last year alone. We have to recognise the true scale of the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) talked about data collection, and we need to get a grip of that. Other countries have shown the way on how to deliver it, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) hinted at. We need more robust infrastructure that assists in identifying veterans so that we can then help them.

Often, when we think of a veteran, we think of someone who has heroically served their country and then left on good terms to go off, be of good character and deliver in civilian life. Technically, anyone who has served one day in uniform is a veteran, and many will be discharged in difficult circumstances, such as for drugs problems or reasons of chaos in their personal lives. They will leave on unhappy and difficult terms, and simply to cast them out and not give them the right support is to fail them.

I think of the four Jocks who have taken their own lives in the last couple of months. In many cases, they had already reached out for support. I spoke to Combat Stress about members of the Royal Regiment of Scotland who had sought help for PTSD. Many had identified themselves. Indeed, one of the men who tragically took their life, Jamie Davies, had been recording video diaries of his experiences. They are haunting to watch now in the knowledge that he ended up taking his own life. His descriptions of the difficulties he encountered are harrowing. To think that we all failed him is something we have to take cognisance of.

The sooner we get the strategy robustly developed and delivered meaningfully, the better. We cannot simply have these high-level aspirations; we need a robust plan that actually tells us in root-and-branch detail what we will do differently. That is what we need to understand.

The charities do a great job, but many people who go to charities, and particularly veterans, get some assistance—they might get cognitive behavioural therapy, for example—but find that it does not meet their needs. It is often a box-ticking exercise—“Right, we’ve consulted this veteran. He’s presented himself and we’ve dealt with it”—that might not resolve the issue, and there is no ongoing support once the course of treatment has finished. They then fall through the net and find no way out other than to take their own lives. That is the tragedy that is happening.

It is not that we do not know that these people are there. We know they are there, but we are just not robust enough in helping them, which is why we need to look into having a structure that takes its inspiration from the command-and-control structure that is embedded in the armed forces so that we can robustly deal with these issues. My view is that a caseworker ought to be appointed to every veteran who leaves the armed forces as a single, consistent point of contact to whom they can turn, regardless of the length of time since they left. That would be an ideal structure, because veterans often fall into the gaps between different charities and organisations. They have to go through the same history and issues, and end up overwhelmed with frustration. They disengage from the process and find themselves lost—and then they are lost to their friends and family as well, when they take their own lives. That is the true carnage that is being caused and its cost.

We do not know the true scale of the situation—the people we identify may be just the tip of the iceberg. Veterans who find themselves in prisons will not identify as veterans. Veterans who find themselves with mental health problems, drug addiction or alcohol addiction will not identify as veterans, because they do not want to embarrass their friends—they do not want to embarrass their cap badge. We have to get a grip of this issue, on a number of fronts.

I welcome the strategy in broad strokes. The cross-cutting factors that have been identified—improvements in data on the veterans community, public perception and understanding, recognition, and, most importantly, collaboration and co-ordination—are laudable, but that does not go nearly far enough. We have a crisis on our hands in this country, and it is an ever-looming one, as more than 100,000 people in our country have served in the theatres of Iraq and Afghanistan in Operations Telic and Herrick. If we do not help them, an absolute epidemic of mental health problems will be visited upon us. The needs of the world war two generation are different from the needs of the generation—my generation—that has served in conflict zones in the past 15 or 20 years. We have to get an understanding of how to tailor services to their needs. I welcome the Government’s strategy but, echoing the sentiments expressed from the Opposition Front Bench, we need to go much further to get a grip and to deliver for our service personnel—we owe them nothing less.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will write to him to clarify the matter.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State has commended the work and the crew of HMS Albion, one of our landing platform docks in the South China sea. Bizarrely, however, the national shipbuilding strategy has defined it as not being a complex warship, unlike frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers. Can the Secretary of State explain why HMS Albion and other amphibious ships are not deemed to be complex warships?

[Gavin Williamson]

The national shipbuilding strategy highlighted the fact that the definition was to apply to aircraft carriers, frigates and destroyers, and the strategy was welcomed on both sides of the House.

Defence Industry and Shipbuilding

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) clearly explained, a much better deal could have been done.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) talks about the benefits to his constituency, but what about the people who live near Woodford, the BAE Systems site in Manchester, who in 2010 watched as the Nimrod MRA4 programme, 94% complete, was smashed up by JCBs and Britain’s capacity to build large fixed-wing aircraft permanently destroyed? Was that not the total destruction of British industrial capability—something we are trying to avoid in this debate today?

[Nia Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and now I shall conclude, as I am sure that hon. Members are thinking about what they will be watching later this evening.

When I was very young, I remember not only the excitement of England winning the World cup in 1966, but the I’m Backing Britain campaign. Before they go off to support the English football team this evening, I urge Members from across the House to recognise that the order for the fleet solid support ships represents a prime example of one that can and should be awarded here. I urge Members to back British industry and to vote to build them in Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

We have wandered away from ships a little, but my hon. Friend is right. I pay tribute to the RAF for its event yesterday, and for what it has done and continues to do. The Royal International Air Tattoo starts at RAF Fairford on Friday, and we have the Farnborough airshow next week, where we will be launching our air strategy, based on the same principles as for shipping, which will be exciting.

Returning to ships and the role of the maritime sector, we should remind ourselves of the significant changes to the Royal Navy fleet. We have two incredible aircraft carriers coming into service, a new generation of Dreadnought-class submarines, the Type 45 destroyers—the most advanced in the world—and the new Type 26 global combat ships. We also have the Type 31e frigates—e for export—which have deliberately been designed with a modular concept. Depending on the export need, which could be interdiction, surface support or humanitarian purposes, its parts can be interchanged simply to adapt to the local requirement. This is an exciting time, and all the ships will be built in the United Kingdom.[Official Report, 24 July 2018, Vol. 645, c. 7MC.]

To achieve our ambitions, we need a strong shipbuilding industry as part of the wider maritime sector. As the Opposition spokeswoman said, more than 100,000 people work in this country’s maritime and marine sectors, including in the shipyards that supply parts and support equipment to keep the great industry alive.

[Mr Sweeney]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will, but I need to make progress, as other people want to speak and there may be something else that we all want to go to later.

[Mr Sweeney]

The Minister refers to shipyards. He might be aware that a deal was done in 2013 so that, in return for closing down operations in Portsmouth, capital investment would be made on the Clyde to make it a world-class centre of shipbuilding expertise, but that deal was never followed through with. He talks about creating a world-class industry, so why has he failed to follow through on the investment proposals that would make the Clyde world class and restore that capability?

[Mr Ellwood]

We are investing both in the Clyde and in Portsmouth. Looking back over the past few decades, let us be honest that although we have world-class shipbuilding capability, efficiency has not been what it could be. Successive Governments could have done better—we put up our hands up to that—which was why it was all the more important to create a shipbuilding strategy. We commissioned John Parker’s report so that we would be able to understand—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

I can only say that I hope that 100% of people would like ships to be built in the UK, but I also think that 100% of fiscally responsible people would like value for taxpayers’ money. That is the difference that this debate will illustrate.

Since the strategy was launched in 2017, the Government have worked closely with our partners in industry and made significant progress on our commitments under the shipbuilding strategy, not least through our continued investment in five River class offshore patrol vessels that are being built on the Clyde. Those ships have safeguarded industrial capability through a contract worth around £635 million, which is exactly what the shadow Secretary of State wants to see. We must make sure that there is this drumbeat of work, not only so that none of the shipyards face closure, but because it is essential so that we can continue to act when we require ships to be built for the Royal Navy. The first batch of the cutting-edge Type 26 frigates that are being built under the £3.7 billion contract with BAE Systems are also being built on the Clyde.

[Mr Sweeney]

The Minister mentions the River class batch 2, which was primarily designed to maintain production at Govan shipyard until the Type 26 was of sufficient maturity to begin construction. Does he accept that the only reason why Govan shipyard is open today is because a Royal Fleet Auxiliary order for the Wave Ruler was placed there in 1999 to keep the yard open until the Type 45 build could start? The only reason why that yard exists today is because the Government placed that Royal Fleet Auxiliary order with Govan, and that is exactly what we are arguing for today: to maintain these builds in the UK to maintain industrial capability.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman sort of makes my point. We need to make sure that we bear in mind not only prosperity and British capability, but value for money for the taxpayer.

The Type 26 will offer a leading anti-submarine warfare capability for its planned 25-year service life, providing critical protection to the continuous at-sea deterrent and maritime task groups. We are currently in dialogue with industry on the strategy’s flagship Type 31 frigate programme, which is worth £1.25 billion for five modern warships. They will be flexible and adaptable in design, as I said earlier, and part of a balanced Royal Navy fleet that will be deployed across operations in support of the UK’s maritime task group.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the launch of our fleet solid support ships programme, which is procuring vessels for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary through international competition. They will provide munitions, stores and provisions to support maritime and amphibious-based task groups at sea.

On exports, we are delighted that Australia is considering the Type 26 global combat ship and BAE as the preferred tenderer for its future frigate programme. The consequence of our creating something that other countries want is that further countries have been prompted to look carefully at the Type 26. That is exactly what is happening in our discussions with Canada. This is exactly where we want to go: we want to make sure that we have the capability to build something that we can export, not just something to keep shipyards open. That is critical. The UK’s long-term commitment to the Type 26, which is currently being constructed for the Royal Navy in Glasgow, was an important consideration for Australia in its decision-making process. The fact that we continue to invest in it showed our continued confidence in the Type 26, which we believe is the world’s most advanced, capable and globally deployable anti-submarine warfare frigate.

In conclusion—[Interruption.] I could go on, if Members would like. I hope that the House will join me in recognising the important role that the defence industry plays in helping us to meet our ambitions and commitments, ensuring that we continue to deliver cutting-edge, battle-winning capability for our armed forces for years to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the Minister for his intervention.

The part of the motion I have sympathy with is about ensuring that when we engage in procurement exercises the criteria take into account the wider benefits of using particular contractors. One of the things I am slightly concerned about is the idea that buying from the UK is something we are only going to do if we have a protectionist policy in place. As is shown by the example I have just been able to give of Babcock building ships for the Irish navy, our industry is perfectly capable of winning contracts in the international market. That is because of the quality of the teams, the quality of the product and the cutting-edge nature of some our technology. The recent Australian navy contract won by BAE, which has already been mentioned, will see the export of our knowledge and expertise—many small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK will get jobs and contracts out of that decision—and it is a sign of the quality we can offer.

It is almost doing down our industry if we stand up in the House and say to its potential international customers that the only reason we would want to buy from it is if we were required to do so, because that is simply not the case. Our industry has moved on hugely, and it is a cutting-edge and competitive one. It is disappointing that more Members have not got up and said that in this debate. I must say that Members on both sides of the House have implied there would be a massive cost to buying here in the UK, whereas we can actually win contracts overseas.

For me, it is clear that our industry can go out and compete properly for work, based on criteria that take into account the wider benefit of delivering a particular contract in a UK yard. I want to see these ships built in the UK and I want a yard to win that contract. I want us to be able to go out and say to our international competitors that that was done because our shipbuilding industry put in a good bid, at a good price, and could deliver exactly the right product and one that they would want as well. Let us be candid: if global Britain is about saying, “We want to sell everything to you, but there is no way we’re going to buy anything in return,” it will not be particularly successful.

In every trade deal we sign, we should rightly look to include protections against subsidy or state aid. In the same way that we would look to stop the dumping of steel via tariffs, we should make sure that a procurement contract deals with any nation wanting to subsidise it with a view to having an unfair competitive advantage. Again, fair criteria would deal with that.

[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Gentleman has perhaps heard of learning curves, which drive efficiency and productivity improvements, but that relies on a consistent drumbeat of work in order to hone efficiencies. His prescription militates exactly against such efficiencies being achieved.

[Kevin Foster]

I completely and utterly disagree. We can have such criteria, but I am saying that telling everyone else in the world “You can buy from us, but we aren’t going to buy from you” is absolute nonsense.

The idea that our industry is unable to drive efficiencies, deliver savings and, on contracts, deliver good-quality products at the right price for customers who want to buy them is actually doing down the industry. We did not win the contract at Appledore because the Irish navy said it could buy only from shipyards located on the Irish sea; we won it because it was right, Babcock having put in an excellent bid for the contract. Sadly, the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) could not himself name one country that would bid for such a contract—for a naval ship—abroad.

For me, it is absolutely right that we encourage people to put bids together. It is right that we have criteria—this is where I have sympathy with a lot of the Labour motion—that look to deliver products from companies based in the UK. However, I would say to Members that we cannot come to the Chamber one day and whine about the nonsense arguments about the steel industry in the United States, and then pop back here the next day and use almost the same arguments, in another context, about one of our own industries.

I believe that our shipbuilding industry will benefit from the fact that we have a big supply line order for the Navy, and that it will strongly benefit from long-term maintenance as well. I am the son of dockyard worker. My father did not build ships, but he spent 37 and a half years maintaining and repairing them. It is quite sad to hear people dismiss the after-work as something rather minor, because it is actually a massive part of a contract. The vast majority of the money spent on the Dreadnought class will be in the maintenance and refitting of the submarines over their whole lifetimes.

For me, this debate is welcome, and we agree with elements of the motion. There will now be some pretence that I have argued such ships should be built abroad. No, I have argued that we need to have a consistent policy as a nation, because if we are not consistent, we cannot expect others to be consistent when they are dealing with our industries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall do my best to keep my remarks brief, Mr Speaker, although this is a subject close to my heart. I have grown up around the shipbuilding industry my entire life, and I had the privilege of working in it as a new graduate in 2010-11 and through to 2016. Through that time, I have learned the bitter lessons of failed and deeply flawed MOD procurement practices. Through the 1990s, my dad had to travel around the country following shipbuilding orders, as Type 23 frigate orders were drip-fed and we were usually in a race to the bottom with the Irish shipbuilders and Swan Hunter to build them. That was a recipe for disinvestment and unemployment, and that was the harsh lesson learned. That is why the Labour Government turned away from the policy after 1997 and promoted a defence industrial strategy, which was well regarded in all parts of the House. That was followed up by a terms of business agreement that would have guaranteed a stable pipeline of work, with one ship built every 12 months in a six-year design cycle for complex warships. That was extinguished in 2014 by the MOD, in pursuit of an utterly wrongheaded policy on shipbuilding procurement.

Let me make it clear: the capacity to award this contract to a British shipyard is entirely at the MOD’s discretion, under the terms of article 346 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Indeed, it is common practice to have done this; France, Germany, Italy, Spain and US do it. Most recently, Canada has pursued a similar policy with its national shipbuilding strategy. Its big ship construction will be focused on Vancouver and complex warship construction will be focused on Halifax, with a new purpose-built frigate factory there. Sounds familiar, does it not? Only the Canadians have actually achieved it and we have not.

The Govan shipyard is now the mainstay of British shipbuilding capacity, with the largest steelwork capacity in the UK and by a considerable margin. It is represented by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), and I had the privilege of working in it for several years. The yard is also the only one capable of building complex warships in the UK—to date. That shipyard exists today only because it was saved in 1999 by a UK Labour Government who made it clear that they would save it by providing a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, the Wave class, and then another, the Bay class, to that yard. That enabled it to be match fit to build the Type 45 destroyers, the aircraft carriers and, subsequently, as we see now, the River class ships and the new Type 26 frigates. That yard exists today only because that Government took a conscious decision to ensure capacity was maintained at those shipyards.

Today, we see a new crunch point emerging. The current Royal Navy shipbuilding capacity plan for 2020 to 2040 shows a large UK ship-construction gap, primarily focused on Rosyth, which will have a 15-year gap in work between the completion of the HMS Prince of Wales and the first refit of the Queen Elizabeth or, indeed, the build for the new future amphibious capability. It is the only facility in the UK that is currently capable of building large-beam vessels wider than 20 metres. The new FSS vessels are 29.5 metres and the new future amphibious vessels will be wider than 20 metres, so to ensure that the pipeline of capability is maintained in the UK, we must build the FSS in the UK. To ensure that we have our future amphibious capability—as the Minister conceded, the amphibious capabilities are regarded as sovereign shipbuilding capabilities—we must secure that pipeline of work to enable future amphibious-vessel construction.

Let us be clear about the economic benefits, which the Minister dusted over somewhat in his rather flimsy analysis. According to the Royal United Services Institute, naval shipbuilding work offers a return of 36p in the pound. Some £285 million would be returned to the Exchequer, but that is just a quarter of the overall industrial and economic benefit to the UK. A recent Institute for Public Policy Research report, which took into account welfare savings and greater GDP growth, found that naval shipbuilding activity in the UK offered a return of 40% to the Treasury. That must be taken into account when we consider the awarding of public procurement contracts. Some 70% of shipbuilding contracts are derived from the supply chain, which was worth £2.8 billion in 2015. That is a huge industrial benefit to the UK.

Overseas shipyards like Daewoo in South Korea are not bidding out of altruism; they are aggressively pursuing state-backed support efforts to pump-prime their own industrial base. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in South Korea invested $6 billion in 2017. Sir John Parker’s report, which the Minister lauded, said:

“Overseas build brings its own challenges including potential denial of opportunities for the UK supply chain, higher costs of overseas supervision and potential foreign exchange risks”—

as we saw in the recent RFA build in Korea. The report went on:

“Nor does the foreign build of ships make the direct prosperity contribution to the UK economy that an onshore build would achieve.”

If the Ministry of Defence is to stand by its convictions and its ideological position on this issue, I urge it to demonstrate the economic and social impact of domestic production versus offshore production, instead of the flimsy assertions that Government Members have made today, which have been utterly at odds with the truth.

If the Government define a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship as not a complex warship in respect of being fitted with armaments, do they class the River class batch 2 as complex warships? The proposed FSS ships will contain far more armaments than the River class patrol ships—[Interruption.] Yes, so are the patrol ships, so why do the Government define them as sovereign build but not the FSS? Their logic does not stack up; it is based on flawed analysis. We must have a virtuous cycle of investment, not a vicious cycle of disinvestment. The harsh lessons of the 1990s were learned: stop throwing away 20 years of coherent and proper defence procurement planning in this ridiculous pursuit of an ideological vanity that is going to utterly fail our shipbuilding industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guto Bebb]

I remind the hon. Gentleman of the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay: we won the contest to build OPVs for the Irish navy. Again, that seems to be ignored. I find it very odd that Members who claim to speak up for shipyard workers throughout the United Kingdom seem to dismiss our success in ensuring that we had that contract delivered for the Irish navy.

[Mr Sweeney]

rose—

[Guto Bebb]

I need to make some progress because I must cover some of the points that were touched on.

From a defence perspective, we are trying to put a coherent plan in place to ensure that we have a competitive UK defence industry that can compete with the best. The way to do that is not to be scared of competition but to embrace competition. We have a shipbuilding strategy that says very clearly that we will understand the need for a national sovereign capability when it comes to building our warships. We need to make sure that we can measure our shipbuilding industry against the best in the world. The way to do that is not to go down the route of a protectionist “Britain first” policy but to invest in the capability that we have in our shipyards. That is why we invested £6.3 billion in Rosyth when we saw the fantastic build quality in the completion of the Queen Elizabeth class. That is why we are investing £3.7 billion in the first three Type 26’s in Glasgow. That is why we are showing a degree of confidence in our shipbuilding sector that Opposition Members need to share.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

rose—

[Mr Sweeney]

rose—

[Guto Bebb]

No, I will not give way any further at this point.

The key thing that Opposition Members need to be aware of is that in addition to developing a shipbuilding strategy, we are ensuring that we are looking at the future of our combat air. That shows that this Government are taking a coherent approach across the board. We recognise fully in the Ministry of Defence the importance of defence in terms of the contribution that it can make to the prosperity of the United Kingdom. I welcome the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) in his report on the prosperity agenda, which has been welcomed by Members in all parts of the House. This Government and this Ministry of Defence intend to make sure that the lessons and the ideas put forward in that report get full consideration.

Many Opposition Members have rightly argued that in our procurement processes we should be thinking very carefully as to the means by which we can ensure a contribution to the economic wellbeing not only of the United Kingdom but of localities within the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guto Bebb]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, which has been a significant part of the discussion and is certainly being looked at closely in terms of the modernising defence programme. I welcome that sensible contribution.

[Mr Sweeney]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guto Bebb]

I am sorry, but I have to make some progress.

What we are highlighting is that across the Chamber we want to see a successful British shipbuilding sector, and we categorically want to see the conclusion of Sir John Parker’s report implemented. He said clearly in recommendation 21 that he wanted to see the opportunity for British shipyards to compete for the fleet solid support ships contract. That is categorically the position of the Ministry of Defence. We want to see a competitive bid from British shipyards. It can be a competitive single bid or a block build option, but we want to see that bid forthcoming. We want that bid to win because that bid is the best, the most cost-effective, the one that offers value to the taxpayer and the one that shows that the confidence we have in our shipbuilding sector is justified and will be maintained.

Defence Fire and Rescue Project: Capita

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing multiple times but expecting different results. I think that this may be the case given the absolute failure in Army recruitment, whereby Capita has not met the already woeful threshold of 82,000. What is the Minister doing to grip that issue before rewarding failure again with this fire service contract?

[Mr Ellwood]

We are wandering into a very different subject, which is related to this matter only because of the company involved. The challenge that we have with recruitment is that the gene pool of people from which we are recruiting is of a particular age group and a particular level of fitness. In this day and age, that is a very competitive environment; it is not just Capita that is going out and doing recruitment. Capita works very closely with all three services. But, yes, it is a tough environment—I do not doubt that—and we need to do more to attract the brightest and best to be in the most professional armed force in the world.

Galileo Programme

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

First, I pay tribute to the workers at GCHQ, many of whom are my hon. Friend’s constituents. I visited GCHQ last Thursday, and he is right to highlight the contribution that people there make to security not just in the United Kingdom, but across Europe and on a global basis. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend—I think the Prime Minister should raise this issue and highlight once more that we do not consider a threat to our security and that of Europe part and parcel of our negotiations to withdraw from the European Union.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The UK’s space industry is world class and world leading, and a good example of that is Clyde Space in Glasgow, which is a world-leading manufacturer of cube satellites. The CEO of Airbus, Tom Enders, has called on Britain and the European Commission urgently to find a solution to this issue for the safety of the entire region. What reassurance can the Minister give to industry stakeholders that this issue will be resolved so that they do not move elsewhere, especially bearing in mind the huge time constraints on the procurement process for Galileo?

[Guto Bebb]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the Government argued strongly that UK companies should not be excluded from the current round of contracts offered through the Galileo project. We have met industry partners and representatives on an ongoing basis. I have done that as well in my role as the Minister responsible for defence procurement. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will continue to engage fully with this UK industry because we know how important the industry is for our future prosperity. We want to give confidence to that sector of our economy that there is a strong future for it in the United Kingdom. We have the technology and skills, and we will need to reassure the industry that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that we have the capability we need from the Galileo system in a UK context, if that is what has to happen. I stress, however, that our preference would be to have a reasonable response to our very fair request to the European Commission.