UK Air and Missile Defences

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

It is pleasure, Mr Dowd, to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for obtaining the chance to debate this vital matter, and I commend him on his comprehensive diagnosis of the threats we face.

My hon. Friend is right to say that we have entered a period of global instability not seen since the cold war. First, there is Putin’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine, where the threat continues to escalate and the damage continues to spread. We must answer Russia with a European, transatlantic and UK-based response that adapts to the evolving threat of warfare—be that through technology, on land, in the sea, in the air or in space. I am proud that my constituency of Stevenage plays an integral part in the UK’s response to Putin, as the place where Storm Shadow missiles are refitted for use by Ukraine.

Secondly, there is the ongoing instability in the middle east—with the risk of escalation to an all-out regional conflict that will implicate allies around the world. We must also assess our preparation for the vastly different challenges that ongoing chaos in the region will cause.

Regardless of the conflict, and the differing threats posed, it is clear that NATO, Europe and the UK are not where we need to be to confidently say we can protect our interests at home and abroad. On air defence alone, NATO states can provide less than 5% of the air defence capacity needed to protect Europe from a larger attack.

This matter is of deep importance to me and my constituents in Stevenage. As a former local armed forces champion, I am proud to represent a constituency where MBDA is based. The company produces Sea Ceptor and Sea Viper, which bolster our naval-based air and missile defence capabilities and are integral to the UK’s missile defence strategy—both in protecting our ground-based assets at home, and for our blue water naval capabilities wherever they may be deployed across the world.

Primes in Stevenage, such as Airbus, also support the UK’s thriving small and medium-sized enterprise sector. One of those firms supplies MBDA with the thermal batteries that allow its missiles to sit dormant under pressure before going off quickly when activated. We must not downplay the role that our industry partners play in our air defence. Without the ingenuity of industry, such as that in Stevenage, we would not be able to maintain—or scale up—our missile response. It is the proud international role that my town plays in the defence sector that inspired me to take up a role as part of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and for the past week I have been at the NATO summit in Montreal discussing these exact issues with international partners. The consensus across NATO is clear: growing threats lead to growing strength, faster evolution and a more unified response than ever.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

It is clear that war in Europe—war on our continent—has fundamentally shifted defence priorities and key areas for our focus. Does my hon. Friend agree with the Chief of the Defence Staff’s recent comment that a key area for future investment should be integrated air and missile defence, so that we better address growing global challenges and threats?

[Kevin Bonavia]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee on Defence, and I absolutely agree. We must have interoperability across all our services—not just on land, at sea and in the air, but in space, which is not just the next frontier but brings it all together. We must not forget that.

Currently, the UK, alongside 22 other NATO allies, is meeting the NATO contribution requirement of 2% of GDP. I am pleased that this Labour Government have a commitment to increase that to 2.5% following the strategic defence review. In undertaking that review, the Department will be looking at the many ways in which we can develop strength where we are weak and efficiency where we are slow—and develop strength we must. It is integral to that that the UK bolsters its air and missile defence capability, especially as we saw only last week Putin’s first use of intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missiles in Ukraine. We must ensure that our constituents and the infrastructure on which we rely are protected from missile attack, and the threat of such attacks will continue rising for the foreseeable future.

I believe that the only way we can upscale our capability effectively is by working with both our strategic partners in NATO and our geographically-closest partners in Europe. I urge the Minister to explore the viability of a defence and security pact with the EU and across Europe. As a third partner currently, we run the risk of not just the UK Government but our industry being locked out of discussions with our counterparts across Europe. We must work to supercharge our UK-based defence industry and give it the correct tools to work hand in hand with our European partners to keep us all safe. If that does not happen, we will not be effectively maximising either our own capability for our defence or our wider response to the war in Ukraine and to increasing uncertainty internationally.

I make this case to the Minister: keep spending, bolster our armed forces and do everything in our power to retain sovereign capability over every area of the defence sector, from manufacturing to procurement. We must speed up production and explore every avenue to develop the new technologies and systems that we need to face down modern threats and tackle global challenges. At the very heart of this all, we must prioritise the UK’s missile defence capabilities so that companies, such as MBDA and Airbus in my constituency, can contribute in an ever bigger and better way than they already are.

I urge the Minister to explore the viability of a defence and security pact with the EU and wider Europe—one that includes an industrial pact for UK-EU collaboration on weaponry to guarantee our safety and stability while we navigate our evolving relationship with our close allies in the US.

To conclude, the rules-based order across the world is under the greatest threat since the end of the second world war. The UK has been at the very heart of creating that rules-based order, and we must do all we can to protect it. Boosting our own defences is now critical.

--- Later in debate ---

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I declare an interest as the Member of Parliament for Bolton West, which is the home of MBDA’s Logistics North production site. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate; I particularly welcome his comments on both the lessons to be learned from Ukraine and the need to ensure that our armed forces can protect us from a diverse range of threats.

All of us will have constituents who are concerned about last week’s developments between Russia and Ukraine, including Putin’s use of an advanced hypersonic missile. This is a personal issue for me. My own father was stationed in Germany throughout the 1970s as the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union loomed. The shadow cast by that period of constant existential fear is, unfortunately, a long one. The terrifying reality is that now war is not just something we read about in newspapers; it is on our doorstep. However we are not fighting on the beaches, landing grounds, fields and streets any more. The long distance missile capabilities of hostile states mean, regrettably, that war can now reach us in our own homes.

All that is to say that sovereign capability for missile defences here in the UK has seldom been so important. As others have already noted, we are vulnerable to advanced missiles such as the one fired by Russia last week and the one fired by Iran on Israel earlier in the year. As our armed forces and defence infrastructure were left to crumble during the last 14 years, a serious capability gap has emerged, particularly around defence against air threats and our ability to engage targets at extended range. Only in September, the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee warned that the Government must

“pay greater attention to homeland defence”,

particularly to

“integrated air and missile defence…in close collaboration with our European NATO allies”.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is making an excellent speech. It is increasingly clear that enhanced co-operation with NATO and other allies will be essential in achieving air and missile defence aims in the UK. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we have seen in the recent Estonia pact, these continued alliances will not only enhance our ability to meet procurement challenges but ensure that we are able to defend against these long-range missile threats?

[Phil Brickell]

I agree with my hon. Friend; I will come on to that issue in the context of the recent Germany-UK defence agreement, which was signed in Trinity House only last month.

Over the weekend, there was also an intervention from former Defence Minister and former Chair of the Defence Committee Tobias Ellwood, who said that we are “woefully unprotected” and described London as “almost a sitting duck”. This issue can garner support from all sides of the House; I know that other Members will recognise the scale of the challenges ahead, which necessitate ever closer international relationships and collective defence within NATO and the European Union. With that in mind, I should say that I had the immense pleasure of talking to German counterparts as part of a delegation to Berlin in September. As the secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Germany, I enthusiastically welcomed last month’s UK-Germany Trinity House agreement on defence.

The Government’s shared objective with Germany to sustain effective deterrence against would-be aggressors by building credible, resilient defence forces and defence industries is vital if we are to work towards the vision of a peaceful and stable Europe and north Atlantic. Sovereign capability, as an enduring necessity, is something that I expect the Government’s forthcoming strategic defence review will attest to. To ensure adequate manufacturing capacity, industry must remain at the very heart of our missile defence system.

MBDA employs 1,200 people in my constituency and almost 6,000 across the UK. I am sure that colleagues will agree with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) that MBDA represents the very best in ingenuity, working as a trusted partner throughout Europe and providing the air defence capability that we and our allies need to stand up to Russia’s unwarranted aggression. I therefore welcome the Secretary of State’s comments at the Farnborough International Airshow earlier this year, when he committed to

“renewing important partnerships with industry and continuing to push technological boundaries”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for bringing forward this critical debate.

In 1988, The Sunday Times published a formative exposition of the integrated air defence system that protected the UK at the time. I managed to find the article, called “Can the RAF defend us?”, with the aid of the Library. It gave a very detailed analysis of the system in place, some parts of which had not changed since 1938, and it spoke of how an investment of about £10 billion on combined programmes would address that. I enjoyed reminding myself, while reading the article, of the places that were commissioned back then that I finally served in during the early 2000s. The reason for bringing that up is that, then as now, we need a clear understanding of where we are and of the degradation in our services since the 2010 strategic defence and security review.

Defence has three outputs: policy, capability and operations. We must convince ourselves of the need to do some of the things that my hon. Friend spoke about eloquently earlier. On policy, we must recognise that our security problem is inherently European. The European Sky Shield initiative is fundamental, so it is critical that we enhance and recover some of our relationships with our European partners, and that we remain NATO-first. We must recognise that we will not stand alone, and that the solution to our problems and funding must have a European bent. I urge the Minister to do as my hon. Friend discussed and enhance our European relationships —specifically regarding access to funding and partnerships.

I note the article’s clear recognition that our Army was inherently European based. It is largely pointless having tanks on Salisbury plain when the threat is elsewhere. I wonder whether now is the time to reconsider where some of our Army is based. Having a deployed Army that contributes to a security problem will also need an air defence above it. We need to give consideration to the service that, at present, is prime in delivering parts of our integrated air defence system. I also welcome the discussion about Type 45s. It is imperative that we understand that the Royal Navy has a part to play in our air defences, and that Type 45s not just protect the carrier but are fundamental to ensuring the long sea track.

With policy, it is essential that, whatever solutions we come to, we ensure that we are in the grey zone right now. Defence is about deterrence, and it is fundamental that we maintain a posture that deters our enemy. We must understand that this logic has already started: our enemies have already started to encroach on some of the fundamental parts of our deterrence, including damaging the rules-based international order. I urge the Minister to take back to the Department a discussion about a deterrence policy that works around our integrated air defence—something that is discussed incredibly well in the 1988 article.

On capability, I do not wish to politicise the debate, but just as we now reflect openly on the damage that the 1957 defence review did to our industries, we must have an honest discussion about the impact of the 2010 SDSR. Critically, we must recognise what happens when we take capability holidays, and how those create long and lasting impacts on our capabilities. That is why we are in the position that we are in now. Some of the capabilities that were mentioned in the opening speech are not there because we did not support the industries that were enabled to build them. A recovery of our industrial base is essential. Readiness is about availability, capability and sustainability. The greatest damage that has been done to our defence enterprise is in our ability to sustain a response. We must have an industry that is capable of building and sustaining the stocks necessary to counter mass.

On operations, we have circa 10,000 people deployed on 250 operations worldwide at the moment. The Defence Committee was told the other day that we have about 100,000 personnel fit to fight. For it to be sustainable—not using harmony guidelines, which are complex to work out—that is a force of 30,000 people who are committed today to operations. It is also not unreasonable to assume that an amount of our forces above that are in readiness, and they should also be at a ratio of 3:1 or greater, so something upwards of 30% of our fighting force is currently deployed sustainably.

I ask the Minister to foster an honest discussion within the Department about whether that is affordable and sustainable. We need our forces at home, or on European soil, training and getting ready for the coming fight. We cannot erode our defence enterprise by doing what may be considered profligate operations that do not contribute to our future security.

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend is making a very thought-provoking speech. In an increasingly volatile world where new global threats are constantly emerging, we must ensure that we are at the cutting edge of technology. That is why I was pleased to see recent progress on the new air defence laser, equipping RAF pilots with high tech to defeat missile threats. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must ensure that steps are taken to put us at the cutting edge of innovation to enhance our air and missile defence capabilities?

[Mr Bailey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that eloquent and apposite intervention. I agree that to be able to respond and counter mass, we need technology. To align that with the point I was making, it is essential that we have people trained and ready to use that technology, which is why the size and mass of our deployments is critical. If we do not allow our forces to train and recover adequately, they will not be able to exercise and be ready to use those technologies as they come online.

I urge the Minister to address the points that I have made in this honest discussion, particularly about deployment. I also ask her to look at the disparity in some of the policies we are using when our forces are deployed—in particular, those that have an impact on weapons carriage hours. There is a significant disparity in the policies that we use to sustain our stocks, and an alignment with NATO and, certainly, the US would bring significant cost savings and reductions in the size requirements of our stockpiles. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) might be able to talk about that, based on his experience and understanding.

I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham for securing this debate. I welcome the Government’s announcement last week about the removal of costly and antiquated systems. I am hopeful about the SDR, and I am very grateful that the Government value the service of our armed forces.