Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness

Tim Roca Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for securing the debate. I was proud to join him, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) and Field Marshal Lord Richards of Herstmonceux in creating the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament. We are discussing a topic that we all agree on: the threat that faces the country and the necessity for us to rearm.

I had hoped that the tone of the debate would have been slightly less political. I feel like we have had a little bit of amnesia as to how we have got to where we are. I do not intend to focus on that too much, but I am sure that others will make the point about the decline in the size of the Army over the past 14 years, the decline in the size of the Air Force, and about the frigate fleet—we talk about the frigate gap—and what happened to frigate and destroyer construction.

We should remember that the threat has not just arrived. There was not a meaningful increase in defence spending after the annexation of Crimea, and there was not a meaningful increase after Putin violated Minsk I or Minsk II. Indeed, there was not a significant increase in defence spending after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That context is really important.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Member is right on the funding—I will mention that later—but one important thing that did happen after 2014 was under what was then called Operation Orbital. We began training Ukrainian soldiers on Salisbury plain, because they knew what was coming—and, I think, perhaps so did we. We will talk about the money in a minute, but the training of Ukrainian troops in Britain did start fairly shortly after 2014.

[Tim Roca]

I agree with the right hon. Member, but I am not sure whether his point is relevant to the one I was making about the broad context of defence procurement. There has been great cross-party consensus on what we are doing with Ukraine, and we should ensure that that continues.

I also want to comment on the defence nuclear enterprise. Under the DIP, we will be spending £45 billion over the forthcoming period on the incredibly important nuclear deterrent. It is right that we do that, but that amounts to 25% of the defence budget. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) is in his place. The other week, I was reading his arguments at the time of the coalition Government, urging them to press ahead with the renewal of Trident, which they did not do. That cost us many years and has cost us many billions of pounds that we could be spending today on conventional forces. It means that we have tired Trident submarines heading out to sea beyond when they should be doing so, and we have crews on extended patrols of 150, 200 or 250 days. That is the cost of the decisions made at that time.

I want to talk a little about ensuring that we do not fall into Russia’s trap. Of course, there is a significant threat from Russia, which is both conventional and hybrid—

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Tim Roca]

The hon. Gentleman did not give many interventions to Labour Members. If it is relevant, I will be happy to take it.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I happen to agree with the hon. Member about the failure of the coalition Government to make progress with the deterrent, but there were many of us complaining about that at the time, including my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis). Indeed, as shadow Defence Secretary in the early 2000s, I was complaining about the cuts in defence spending that were then being made as we went to war in Iraq and as we went to war in Afghanistan. I very much welcome the hon. Member’s bipartisan approach, but rather than pretending to be bipartisan, and making oblique references to what happened under previous Governments, he should be bipartisan, and then we would all get on much better.

[Tim Roca]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his advice. If he gives me time, he may find that comes later in my speech.

We should not allow Russia to make us talk ourselves into a place of weakness. As the then Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff put it to the Defence Committee,

“If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight.”

Our readiness is not where we would want it to be, but that is not the same as saying that Britain is defenceless. I am not trying to be complacent; I am just making the point that we have excellent armed services and excellent people in uniform, and we should not talk as if those things do not exist. What we are saying is that we need more.

In Ukraine, we have watched a country that is considerably smaller than our own, with far fewer resources, resist Russian aggression with extraordinary determination. We have to remember that Russia’s greatest weapon these days tends to be psychological. It wants us to believe that it cannot be beaten, that resistance is useless and that despite four years of attritional warfare and 1.4 million casualties, it somehow remains an unstoppable European military power that could overwhelm Britain and her allies, but it is not.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent, well thought-out speech. He talks about the weapons that Russia is using. Will he also reflect on how we need to be alive to its use of disinformation on social media and the internet as weapons? We need to be alive to that. I look across to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who I talk to regularly about the importance of the BBC World Service. Does my hon. Friend appreciate that that service is vital to the defence of this country as well?

[Tim Roca]

My hon. Friend makes the point well. Indeed, in a recent interview my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) talked about how the recent attacks on Iran had destroyed a huge propaganda apparatus, which had contributed to 3% of total nationalist propaganda for Scottish separation from the United Kingdom. It is an important point.

Following on from that, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak made the important point about strength being a foundation of deterrence. We are trying to deter war, not just by having capable armed forces but by having industrial capacity, well-stocked armouries, cutting-edge technology and a properly funded plan—because the stronger we are, the less likely conflict becomes. Every capability we field, every production line we expand and every drone we manufacture add to our deterrence, and that is incredibly important.

At the beginning of the debate we talked about the credibility of getting to where we need to be. To be straightforward, it is my belief that we need to reach 3% of GDP by 2030. That is the minimum needed for us to show that we are committed to our plans and to our NATO allies in having the capabilities that we need. In fairness to the Government, they have made significant progress and we will be at 2.7% in 2027-28, which is the highest defence spend in three decades. The defence budget will also be 27% higher in real terms than it was at the start of the Parliament. Those are significant commitments that need to be recognised, but unfortunately, I am worried that they do not meet the strategic moment that we are at.

The pace at which Russia might reconstitute, the lessons that are emerging from Ukraine over technology, the threats in the far east to our allies and our interests, and the demands placed upon us by NATO to meet certain targets mean that we have to move faster than the Government currently say. A spending review published in 2027 could, in theory, postpone most of the increase until the final year of the period. That would technically fulfil the commitment, but it would not reflect the urgency of the moment. There is a significant difference between spending 2.8% in 2028, 2.9% in 2029 and 3% in 2030, and remaining broadly flat and trying to make a leap—if we can prove that we can do that—at the end of that spending period. The Government deserve credit for changing the direction of travel from what it was in the past, but events have accelerated and so we need to accelerate our rearmament beyond those plans.

There is no shortage of priorities, and the DIP was a significant document, as colleagues have described. I share their concerns about some of the autonomy in the Royal Navy. It is unlikely that we will have the new ships designed, tested and deployed within 10 years, and there will have to be service life extensions for the Type 45s. I worry about the lack or absence of—

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

The hon. Member is making a very important speech. I agree that there should be a life extension plan for the Type 45, but we know that there is not one. It is not costed, it is not in the DIP, and the plan is to take them out of service over several years from 2035. Does he agree that the common combat vessel would be better suited, in terms of putting that capability within the Type 31s that are being built, and that, indeed, that is what will likely happen?

[Tim Roca]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and, eventually, we will have to look at the Type 31 hull as a possibility. Maybe the Minister will comment on contingency plans if continuous capability sustainment does not develop as it should.

On the lack of commitments around ballistic missile defence, we are now an outlier in Europe in terms of air defences. Many countries in Europe—Spain, Germany, France, and so on—have Patriot or SAMP/T—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I call Ian Roome.