Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Gavin Williamson

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Q5. What recent assessment he has made of the preparedness of the armed forces to adapt to new and changing strategic threats.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

Our armed forces are among the very best in the world. Through the modernising defence programme, we will assess the ever-changing threats that this country faces and understand what we can do to make them ever more effective at keeping us safe today and into the future.

[Tony Lloyd]

The Defence Secretary will recognise, given his earlier answers, that the threats that we face—both conventional and from new forms of technology—are massive and varied, and come not simply from Russia, but from many different sources. In that context, he talks about a fiscally non-neutral defence review. Will he tell us whether the Chancellor has agreed to sign up to that process?

[Gavin Williamson]

When the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and I met and agreed the terms of reference of the modernising defence programme, we were absolutely clear that it was not to be fiscally neutral. We were to understand what the threats were and understand the capabilities that were needed, and make sure that the Ministry of Defence leads a study to ensure that we are best equipped to deal with those threats.

Modernising Defence Programme

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Gavin Williamson

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

One of the key elements of this programme is looking at how we can use defence to increase the prosperity of the nation. We talk about global Britain and about international diplomacy, and our armed forces are virtually always the best diplomats, because when others see British forces—whether the British Army, the Royal Air Force or the Royal Navy—they perceive them as a real symbol of Britain’s reach and what we can achieve in the world, and we will certainly be looking far beyond Suez.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The Defence Secretary knows that nobody in the House today believes our defence forces are anything other than underfunded, but against that background and if he is to have the meaningful conversation with the nation indicated in his statement, will he give early consideration to publishing the terms of reference and the perception of the changing strategic threats that this nation of ours faces?

[Gavin Williamson]

The NSCR will be looking at producing a document explaining how it sees the changed threats and how we should respond to them, and that will be in the public domain. We need to have a more active debate—we all encourage that—because the threats we are facing are developing very quickly. Just five years ago, Russia was not seen as a real threat to our national security. We have to start talking about it. If we do not talk about it, people do not understand those threats. I will certainly be encouraging that debate going forward.