Summer Adjournment

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I begin by agreeing with the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) on the seeming inability of the House to react to the news about Scottish drugs deaths. There has been a cross-party effort this week from Scottish Members of Parliament to get this issue on to the Floor of the House. Sadly, that has not happened, but I am sure that he and many on the Opposition Benches—not least my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss)—will press to draw the attention of the House to this issue at some point.

I want to talk not about anything or anyone hyper-local to my constituency, but about a woman from Russia. Her name was Elena Grigorieva and she was butchered to death at the weekend by thugs in St Petersburg. She was an extraordinary and brave woman. She was an unrelenting defender of civil and human rights. She was a thorn in the side of the thugs in Red Square in Moscow and she was a staunch proponent of LGBT rights, which is not easy in that country. She was killed at the weekend by what can only be described as complete and utter cowardice. I believe that her memory will live on and many people who knew her will keep making the case for human rights and civil rights in that country, which so badly needs them.

Elena Grigorieva was also a great believer in Ukrainian sovereignty. She was a great opponent of President Putin’s behaviour in Ukraine, not least the illegal annexation of Crimea and the illegal terrorist activities he continues to fund and co-ordinate in east Ukraine. As we have a new UK Government and all the disaster that undoubtedly will flow—I hear the word “Opportunity” from the Treasury Bench; I am sure those on the Government Benches disagree with me—I appeal to Members not to forget Ukraine, because it has to fight every single day for its independence and its sovereignty. It has just entered uncharted political territory. An entirely new Parliament was elected earlier this week. The governing party, under President Zelensky, managed to achieve a majority for the first time since independence in 1991. It should also be noted that it has elected its first ever ethnic minority Member of Parliament in the country’s history. That is a bit like the Scottish National party in 2011, which achieved a majority in our country for the first time and elected the first ever ethnic minority Member of the Scottish Parliament.

Ukraine requires our support and I encourage the fraternal support of Members of this House through the all-party group on Ukraine. It is undoubtedly a testing ground for the hybrid war that is creeping and crawling more and more into western democracies, including our own. It is incumbent on all of us to understand that; it is not enough to stand up and thump one’s chest about how terrible President Putin is and say all the right things that you read in The Times that morning. We must also understand what that interference might look like in the form of Russian oligarchs and their money in this country. This week, the United States House of Representatives announced that it will be looking into the use of Russian oligarch money in UK political parties. That is a damned sight more than what is happening in this Parliament. We will be letting the electorate down if we do not grapple with that issue after the recess.

Finally, I say to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to all the staff of the House, all the Members here present, and those who are already enjoying their gin and tonics on the train or on the terrace, I hope they enjoy the summer.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

There are certainly no gin and tonics in this Chamber, may I add.

Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

No, it would not. Indeed, the two arguments I am setting out, the second of which I am coming on to, are that there is no military or economic case for this. The hon. Gentleman knows, because I have said this to him before, that I am not going to get into an argument about morality with him because you never wrestle with chimney sweeps.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can the debate come through the Chair? I do not want it to get personalised.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am now going to come on to the economic case. It ought to be the case, for sure—and on this I am sure we do agree with others—that the Government carry out a threat analysis and, subsequent to that, get what they need to meet that threat and to keep people safe. But we do not believe, quite simply, that Trident complements that effort. The total cost of Trident, from design to through-life support, ran into many, many billions of pounds—estimated by some to be as high as £200 billion. We know for sure that the current renewal project is already woefully out of control. Indeed, over £1 billion of the £10 billion contingency that was set aside by the Ministry of Defence has already been tapped into, and of the extra £1 billion announced by the Chancellor, £400 million is exclusively for the nuclear renewal project. The most recent House of Commons Library figures tell us that the £2.2 billion per year spent on maintaining the deterrent is roughly equivalent to £42 million each week. That is about the same as we spend on income support, statutory maternity pay, carer’s allowance or winter fuel payments.

All that represents a drain on conventional defence, which has always been the priority of the SNP. This is at a time when the Department has enormous funding gaps in its equipment plan, estimated by the National Audit Office to be well over £10 billion, and big gaps in the funding of the defence estate, which is draining money as though it were going out of fashion. It is at a time when the Ministry of Defence continues with the bizarre fetish of privatising and outsourcing things that do not need to be privatised or outsourced: the defence fire and rescue service, the war pension scheme, the armed forces compensation scheme and even the medals office. Those things must remain in the hands of the MOD in their entirety. In the armed forces, it is not uncommon for serving members to have to buy substitute kit because the money is not there to get it through the Department’s budget.

Far from enhancing our national security and providing the necessary capability to keep us safe, Trident is a drain on conventional defence, particularly as the Government keep it as part of the overall defence budget, to the point that it diminishes our conventional defence and security posture, which is in need of proper investment and oversight.

To make one last point, it can be concluded that this country is now an irresponsible nuclear power. The timing of this debate could not be more breathtaking if the Government had tried. We sit here today to mark 50 years as a maritime nuclear power, but just last week the National Audit Office told us that hundreds of millions of pounds are being wasted by the Government on storing obsolete nuclear submarines and their utter failure to decommission them properly and responsibly. The independent NAO—this is not me—has said that it puts the UK’s reputation as a responsible nuclear power at risk.

The MOD has not decommissioned a single submarine successfully since 1980, twice as many are currently in storage as are in service, nine still contain radioactive fuel, seven have been in storage for longer than they were in service and no submarines have been defuelled in the last 15 years. It is a total failure, and the liability costs estimated by the Secretary of State’s own Department run to £7.5 billion. We can be sure, as night follows day, that that figure will get higher. The auditors said that the MOD did not have a fully developed plan to dispose of operational Vanguard and Astute submarines or its future Dreadnought-class vessels, which have different nuclear reactors.

Here the House sits with the iron-clad consensus that we must renew a nuclear submarine programme that the Government do not even have plans to decommission in the future, even though the National Audit Office has just outlined what a costly farce that has become. This cannot just be shrugged off as though it is business as usual. The public expect us to get to the bottom of it. I ask the Secretary of State—perhaps the Minister will say when he sums up—whether he will set up a public inquiry into the farce of nuclear submarine decommissioning.

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

The hon. Gentleman will know that his colleague the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and I are working with the Department to make progress on this matter. Will he and the SNP support us because, despite their position, we need to find the line of credit for nuclear decommissioning, which is an enormous one across the board? Rather than bashing the Government on a question that is long and historic, will they help us to move forward and get the Treasury to support that decommissioning line?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure the hon. Lady wants to catch my eye to speak. I do not want her to use up her speech just yet. I am bothered that, with 19 speakers, there will now be less than 10 minutes each.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The short answer to the hon. Lady’s question is yes. I will conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I am conscious of the time.

There is nothing to celebrate here in 50 years as a maritime nuclear power. No doubt the rest of the debate will be wrapped up in British jingoism. I am not sure anything could convince the Conservatives to abandon the nuclear programme, but I am at a loss as to why the Leader of the Opposition allows his party to be locked into it. There were times when he would have spoken in this debate. He would have been on these Benches and, if there had been a Division, he would have been in the voting Lobby with us at the end of the debate. He would have found himself with Members of the Scottish National party. That he has abandoned that honourable principle and not even tried to move his party’s position on nuclear weapons remains a disappointment to millions and a mystery to me.

It is left to the Scottish National party to give voice to those who oppose the militarily and economically illiterate case that the Government have put forward, supported by Leader of the Opposition’s Front-Bench team. It is left to the Scottish National party to urge the Government to sign up to the nuclear ban treaty. It is left to us to make the case for sound conventional defence that protects us at home and ensures that we can do the job that needs to be done with our allies abroad. And it is left to us to say, with one voice in this House, let us please stop this madness.

RAF Centenary

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct: a good idea is a good idea. It has been introduced with the genuine best of intentions, and I hope that the Government will see it in that spirit.

The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), mentioned the issue of funding, which also plays into the whole notion of whether a young person today would choose to sign up to the armed forces. If they were to spend any time at all looking into how the armed forces are funded—the pages of The Times newspaper are usually where someone can read all about this—it would cause them some concern. SNP Members have offered to the Secretary of State and his team of Ministers to try to get to a sustainable level of funding for the MOD, because that is clearly not there now. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports that show that the affordability gap in the equipment plan has got worse, not better—indeed, the best-case scenario has got worse by around £3 billion.

We can really only hold our fingers in our ears about this issue for a certain amount of time. Again, we have brought forward another good idea. Indeed, the former Minister, whose constituency has gone right out of my head, but who chose to resign from the MOD over the Brexit issue, said that he would consider our proposal of multi-year defence agreements to try to bring some sustainability to how the armed forces, such as the RAF, can be funded. Again, this is an entirely normal practice in other NATO member states and in other European countries. It helps to take the heat out of how defence is funded—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) shouts that the Minister was the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). The proposal could help to take the heat out of some of that discussion and put some proper weight behind what the MOD want to achieve.

In that context of what the MOD wants to achieve, what is the role of the armed forces, and what is the role of the RAF to be? We thought we would all see that in the modernising defence programme, a programme that is now so steeped in controversy that I am not sure whether anyone will be able to take it seriously when it is published. We were supposed to see something earlier this year that would be linked with cyber-security and cyber-defence, but that was hived off in about April, which I think was a sensible decision.

The Government then promised to produce the programme before the summer recess, but instead the House was treated to—I think—four or five paragraphs in a written statement on the day the House rose for the recess. My nephew could have written that in a couple of hours, and he only started high school this year. It is really not on. If I were in the armed forces, looking on, I would be thinking, “What on earth is going on at Government level to ensure that we have the necessary equipment and funds so that we can continue to have the fine armed forces that we deserve?” When will the modernising defence programme be published so that the House can consider it?

I said earlier that creating the Royal Air Force was a tremendous act of foresight by Parliament. I think that we now need to revisit these questions: what is the modern Royal Air Force set to achieve for the United Kingdom and its allies, and what is its role to be in a changing threat picture involving kinetic and hybrid threats? I accept that we cannot give any serious answers in the time that remains this evening—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

There is plenty of time.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I do not want to prevent others from showing their worth, Mr Deputy Speaker.

That is the level to which Parliament needs to take this debate. I think that Parliament is up for it; I just hope that the Government are as well.

Points of Order

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I have been given no such indication, but I know that the hon. Lady will be taking up other avenues to pursue the matter. Her comments on this important matter are on the record, and I am sure the Government will be looking at it.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Again, it is a pleasure to see you back in your place. We have just had the statement. Many Members—those who are here and those who are not here—feel deeply aggrieved at the way it has been handled. You will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, about the shenanigans yesterday: the statement was on and off several times. Worse, in a debate yesterday morning, the Minister for the Armed Forces assured Members that the statement would be happening next week, not this week. I was also given an assurance by the Leader of the House that it would happen next week. I welcome the fact that it has come early, but the Government’s jiggery-pokery has been deeply unedifying and discourteous to Members. Can you give us an assurance that the Ministry of Defence will not do this again, and can you advise Members on how to ensure that, when Ministers report on the review in July, as they hope to do, the same thing will not happen and they will not trick Members into thinking that a statement is not forthcoming when it actually is?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

What I can say is that it is not for the Chair to decide when the statement will come; it is up to the Secretary of State when they decide to do it. I recognise that there has been a lot of frustration. I am sure that will have been taken on board. I am sure that the usual channels can begin to have a conversation to try and ensure that all parties do not feel aggrieved. I am sure this is something that has been taken on board, but I can assure you that it is not for the Chair to decide when the statement will come. Recognising that the House is frustrated, and that this is an important matter, I am sure that this was not done deliberately.