Defence Spending

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Westminster Hall

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

There is one thing the Conservative party is, and that is consistent. Its Members call for more defence expenditure while in opposition, and when they come into power they cut defence expenditure. In 2010, defence was not immune from austerity and the budget was cut by 16%. The smokescreen the Government put up—that they had inherited a £38 billion black hole in the defence budget—was complete and utter nonsense.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jones]

No, I will let others make their speeches.

Ministers kept repeating that claim. I kept asking them about it, but never got an explanation. I think it came from a National Audit Office report from 2009 that said that if the equipment budget was flat over the next 10 years, that might get us to £36 billion; if it rose with inflation, it would be about £6 billion in the defence capital budget. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) was talking about the two budgets conflated.

We then saw slash and burn, with stupid decisions such as the scrapping of Nimrod and the Harriers, vicious cuts made to people’s pay, and redundancies. That led us to a situation where we have an Army that, at 82,000 personnel, is the smallest it has ever been. No one has yet explained to me how that figure was set.

We are told that the defence budget is rising, but the foundations are shaky. If we look at the 2015 SDSR, we see a huge amount of it is based on billions of pounds of efficiencies that have not yet been and cannot be met. To return to the claim that Labour somehow left a £38 billion black hole, if the situation was so terrible, it is strange that two years in, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) eliminated it overnight.

In defence, we need honesty. There is a degree of consensus across the House on the support needed for members of our armed forces and for defence. What we need now is an honest stocktake, looking at our commitments and what we want to do in the world, and ensuring that, as the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) said, we fund not just the capital side—equipment is important—but the people. I hear all the time that we can do more with more sophisticated equipment, but as any military technician will say, mass and people are still important. We must invest in them over the long term.

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[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) on securing this timely and important debate, and on her enthusiasm and support for and her commitment to our armed forces and veterans. That is fantastic.

I must respond to the remarks of the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), whom I consider a friend, on how when Conservatives come into office we have to make some pretty tough decisions. The reason for that is very simple: every single Labour Government in history leave a mess to clear up, and we cannot defend our country if we are broke. As we regain our status as a sovereign, self-governing country—[Interruption.] I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman, so I ask for the same respect.

It is important that the UK is both a credible partner and a reliable ally. That means that the UK has to remain a tier 1 military power. We must retain a global reach and, if necessary, a sustainable level of effort either as a coalition partner or unilaterally. To achieve that, we must be able to field top-of-the-range equipment that can go up against any near peer competitor. We must not return to the situation when we deployed troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, where our forces were nicknamed “the borrowers” because we did not have adequate funding from HM Government to deploy and protect our people on those operations. We must also understand the threats that emanate from non-state actors or terrorists who seek to undermine our way of life and denigrate our resilience by attacking our critical national infrastructure in a cyber-attack. All that requires investment and a sustainable defence budget.

In the time I have left I will focus on the benefits of defence spending to our economy. The Royal United Services Institute estimates that for every £1 spent by Government on orders in the UK defence sector, well over a third—36%—is returned to the Treasury via taxation. The UK defence industrial sector is one of the world’s strongest, with an annual turnover of £22 billion, and it supports 260,000 jobs, many of which are highly skilled and well paid. I am proud to represent a constituency that is home to many of our world-class defence manufacturers, as well as the Ministry of Defence’s defence acquisition service at Abbey Wood, which employs roughly 8,000 people.

I am passionate about social mobility and apprenticeships. The Ministry of Defence is the largest provider of apprenticeships in the country; it has enrolled 53,000 civil service and armed forces apprentices since April 2015. Over 90% of military non-commissioned personnel now gain an apprenticeship as part of their trade training and first assignment. In 2018 the UK defence sector employed 4,400 apprentices. They are crucial to develop and continue our sovereign defence capability, and to develop the skills of our military personnel so that when they go back to civilian life after their service, they have the electronic and cyber skills and all the things they could need in future. As I said, 250,000 jobs are supported, so there is a huge argument for having a sustainable, properly funded MOD when we get to the comprehensive spending review.

Most of us would agree that we should, at least, maintain our minimum commitment of 2% of GDP: most would argue it should be nearer 3% to sustain what we are trying to do on a global stage and to continue our global reach. For social mobility, apprenticeships are a vital route to provide engineers and scientists, of which we are already short, and to give employees the necessary skills for our country for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We had that extra £1.8 billion in the most recent Budget because this is the exactly the sort of area we will look at. I assure him that I have regular meetings with industry and with the forces to talk about those very issues.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon Friend the Secretary of State would agree that the reserve forces are a crucial component of our armed forces generally, so will she update the House on how retention and recruitment is going? Specifically, are we managing to get former regulars to rejoin as reserves and bring their expertise with them?

Combat Air Strategy

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lewis]

All will become clear very soon, Mr Stringer; you have my assurance.

Just as we must not interrupt that cycle, whether it be for a nuclear-powered submarine that is an attack submarine or a nuclear-armed submarine that is a ballistic missile submarine, we must not interrupt it for frigate or destroyer construction. We face exactly the same problem with aircraft strategies: we have gone from the Typhoon to the F-35, and even as we are introducing the F-35—the fifth-generation aircraft—we must already be planning for the sixth. That is despite the fact that, as has been pointed out, one of the existing aircraft still has at least 20 years to go in its lifespan, and the other has only just begun a period in service with the Royal Air Force lasting probably twice that. The question that arises, therefore, is how the new generation of aircraft can be financed.

With that, we come back to the issue of what we are being promised. Whenever Prime Ministers or Defence Secretaries are in place, we are told constantly that all is fine and everything in the garden is rosy and flourishing, yet when Defence Secretaries leave their position, they immediately call for increases. Recently, one brave Defence Minister even said at the Dispatch Box that we are not spending enough on defence. Now, we find that the Foreign Secretary is saying that within the next five years we ought to increase defence spending by a quarter, and he even made a speech at Mansion House suggesting that over 10 years, the rate of increase should be that much greater.

Looking at the Tempest strategy, we have to ask ourselves how an aircraft of that degree of complexity, requiring so long to be designed and brought into service and demanding so much in the way of our resources, will be financed. The sole issue that I wish colleagues to consider today is that, if it takes 30 years to conceive and build the sixth generation of our air power, we will have to invest a great deal of money in it. We on the Defence Committee have worked across party lines to try to change the terms of the debate on funding aircraft, land systems and naval systems, as well as dealing with the issues that arise from what are commonly called the 21st-century threats in space and cyber-space.

It is a matter of concern that there have been indications that the permanent part of defence and security machinery has been advocating that we move away from our traditional profile and stance: of investing in such systems as those aircraft to a greater degree than the rest of our NATO European allies. Normally, as we know, the overall burden of NATO’s expenditure has been borne by the US superpower; the continental allies have put forth something below the minimum guideline and we have been somewhere in between.

It has been disturbing to see arguments being put behind the scenes that we should come to terms with the fact that we should not in future seek to outdo our continental European allies and should lower our expenditure to the level they invest. Personally, I feel that would be a disastrous mistake—it would mean that we would no longer be able to rely on retaining an industrial base that could produce and develop weapons systems of a complexity to keep us at the cutting edge of air power, sea power and land power, let alone protect ourselves in space and cyber-space.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

In this debate, we have spoken about sovereign capability, the industrial base, the agenda for jobs and apprenticeships and the economy. In his position as Chair of the Defence Committee, would my right hon. Friend say that we should always be seeking the capability to conduct unilateral operations? On that basis, is it not crucial, in terms of sharing intellectual property and technology with our partners in building the new generation of aircraft, to have the most reliable strategic partners who will enhance our capability to conduct unilateral operations?

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[Stuart Andrew]

I take that point completely, but I think the hon. Lady has a pessimistic view of what is happening. In the industries that I have visited I have seen a lot of new apprentices, and it has been encouraging to see female apprentices taking up the opportunities. I accept that we have a long way to go, but I get a sense that there is more of a commitment to work with schools through the years to encourage young people to take up such posts. When I visit factories, the most enjoyable part is meeting the apprentices, because they are full of enthusiasm and they recognise that they are taking part in a national endeavour to secure our nation’s future.

[Jack Lopresti]

My hon. Friend the Minister visits my constituency a lot, but he does not have to keep writing to me before he comes. May I suggest that the next time he visits, he drops into Aerospace Bristol, an £18 million STEM learning centre that houses the last Concorde that flew? It has been heavily supported by local industry and local government, and it is really worth a look. It pays tribute to the past, but, crucially, it also inspires the next generation of engineers and scientists.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am always happy to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency. I will certainly try to make room for that, as I said in the debate yesterday, if I am still here in a few weeks.

Military Aircraft Manufacturing

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of military aircraft manufacturing in the UK.

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. To avoid any doubt, if during the course of the debate I refer to the Eurofighter, I am referring to an aircraft and not to Euro-fighters such as yourself—a Euro-fighter in a very different context.

The aerospace sector in general is a key driver of the UK manufacturing economy. In 2017 the industry contributed £6.6 billion to the UK economy, amounting to about 4% of total manufacturing output. Across the length and breadth of our nation, 900 businesses were involved, employing in excess of 90,000 people. I want to focus on the defence and military section within that.

The aerospace sector has accounted for 87% of defence exports over the past 10 years. The UK combat air sector has an annual turnover of over £6 billion, supporting 18,000 jobs. In the supply chain on programmes such as Typhoon, more than 10,000 full-time equivalents have been employed over the past 10 years, with 40,000 people involved at the peak of the programme. There are over 1,000 companies nationwide, in defence, aerospace and associated industries.

My constituency of Fylde is home to the Warton and Samlesbury business units. In Warton, BAE Systems employs 6,200 staff, who focus on Typhoon, Hawk and the future air platforms currently being worked on by the Government. At the Samlesbury business unit, the F-35 programme is being generated. Between those two sites, over 10,000 people are employed. I am very proud that my part of Lancashire plays an integral part in the UK’s defence manufacturing sector.

The purpose of this debate is not to criticise the Government’s work, because the Government have been very committed. I commend the current Minister and his predecessors, as well as the Prime Minister, for the focus that has been given to military aircraft strategy. It is important that the Government recognise the importance of retaining sovereign defence capability. Any fool can go out and buy aircraft that are manufactured overseas, but it takes something quite remarkable to invest in this country’s sovereign capability.

It is very important that we do not lose sight of the fact that we retain such a significant work share in the F-35 programme because of the capability that the United Kingdom was able to put on the table. That capability had been generated over decades from programmes as far back as Harrier, as well as the Typhoon programme. Without investing in sovereign capability in design, build and development, if we seek a place at the table on another country’s defence aircraft platform, we might get the crumbs rather than the lion’s share.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is making an interesting and excellent speech. The economic benefits are obvious to see, as are the benefits of having those capabilities for domestic defence. Does he agree that having those world-leading sovereign capabilities also allows us to influence strategic decision-making processes on an international basis?

Carrier Strike Strategy

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Robert Courts]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that excellent point. I will refer to it in a little more detail shortly and I know that some of my hon. Friends will, too. I am keen to make the point that while the carriers are big grey ships that live in Portsmouth, they are not purely a Portsmouth matter. They have been built by constituents in all our areas and by companies across the whole United Kingdom. That has sustained the building of the carriers, but we need to ensure that they can be maintained and kept in service for decades to come. For that reason—it is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman made—I am asking the Minister to consider a strategy.

We need a whole-Government approach. It is no good us just looking at this purely as a Ministry of Defence issue. I am conscious that I am asking the Minister to do more than is in his power, but it has to be a cross-Government approach. We have to look at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to see whether we have the industrial base to ensure that the supply chain that built the carriers remains in place to sustain and maintain them in the years ahead. The hon. Gentleman’s point is absolutely the point I wish to make.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making a brilliant speech. I am just thinking about the point he made earlier about the improbability or unlikeliness of us using the carrier fleet to act unilaterally. Although it might be difficult to imagine such circumstances, we cannot rule them out. There may be a time when we will have to act unilaterally, possibly on a smaller scale than the Falklands conflict. It is also not strictly easy to make a comparison between the carrier fleet today and what we sent to the Falklands. The capabilities are infinitely greater, even if it is smaller in size.

[Robert Courts]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who must have read my speech in advance, because I will go on to make exactly that point. If he will forgive me, rather than respond directly to his intervention I will move on to the next part of my speech.

In the Falklands, as I have said, we had approximately 60 destroyers and frigates as escorts. Of those, eight destroyers and 15 frigates were part of the taskforce. In the course of that conflict, four of those were lost and many more were damaged, some very seriously. The initial concern is that a similar impact today would destroy about one third of the Royal Navy’s air defence fleet, which would be unsustainable. Of course, we need more than the minimum deployed in case such damage takes place. I appreciate, as my hon. Friend said, that history never repeats itself exactly, and I entirely accept that the Falklands was a one-off, probably unique event. We would need many more ships available if we were looking to support an invasion force, as we were then, particularly when operating at the other end of the world, a long way from supply chains. I entirely accept that, and the parallels are not precise.

I accept entirely that the Type 45s are vastly more capable than the Type 42s that they replaced. It is also true that they are the best in the world as air defence destroyers. Essentially, they combine the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke mission platform into one. They are better than each of them on a platform-to-platform basis, but it is not always the case that we can do the job with fewer. The Type 42s were the cutting-edge destroyers of their day, but as soon as the Falklands war started, we found their weaknesses ruthlessly exposed, particularly with regard to the survivability of damage. That was so horrifyingly exposed in the case of HMS Sheffield. I simply suggest that there comes a point where we need mass.

Although I want us to be able to act unilaterally—I do not disagree with my hon. Friend at all—we need to consider that in most cases we will not be doing that, so I simply ask the Government to consider a strategy for that. I am instinctively very reluctant to follow a line of argument that says that because a single platform is more capable than what it replaced, we can make do with less. I say that simply because all these high-tech platforms—this is true across the whole military capability—can turn out to be horribly vulnerable in ways we do not expect. I am thinking of the USS Cole incident with the speedboat packed with explosives. I am thinking of small drones, cheaply and easily available on the internet, that are packed full of explosives in a swarm capability, such that they overwhelm even the most potent defensive systems. I am thinking of the carrier killer missiles that we know are being developed by some potential adversaries. We can already see where the threats are. I simply say no more than this: while I accept that the parallels are not precise and the capability is streets ahead of what we saw when I was a child, there comes a point where we need mass, and we need to think about how we are going to provide that, given our finances.

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[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on securing the debate—I really enjoyed listening to his fascinating speech. His debate is on a topic of very strong interest to many people in my constituency—engineers, scientists and personnel from MOD Defence Equipment and Support, who have played a crucial part in realising the vision of new UK carrier strike capability.

We are fortunate in our country to have both a world-leading manufacturing defence sector and the best armed forces in the world. Many countries around the world use our forces as a reference for how theirs should train and operate. Our defence manufacturing industries ensure that the UK remains one of the top exporters of defence equipment and technical know-how in the world. That gives global Britain a strong platform as we seek to renew and enhance our trading and defence alliances around the world. I am particularly proud of the part that my constituency has played in bringing a new national carrier strike capability into being. Aircraft and the vessels have benefited, and will benefit, from the skill and creativeness of the men and women employed in and around Filton and in the broader south-west.

I will mention a few specific areas. Rolls-Royce’s involvement in carrier strike supports several hundred jobs at its Bristol site in my constituency. The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier MT30 gas turbine, and the anti-air warfare Type 45 destroyer WR21 gas turbine, are supported by Bristol. It is also worth getting on the record that the anti-submarine Type 23 frigates, which are powered by Spey gas turbines, are supported out of the Filton plant, and that the STOVL derivative engines for the F35B, which will fly from the Queen Elizabeth, were designed there.

Thales, a founding member of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, led the procurement of the glass flying control—FLYCO—position, fitted on to the rear island, which is the operational centre controlling all air operations. That links the ship’s operations room, navigation bridge, flight deck and hangar operations centre. Crucially, Thales provides the communications systems for both carriers. The systems, from wireless on board to satellite connectivity, allow personnel on the ships to talk to each other, the aircraft, the rest of the Navy and associated task groups, as well as allies, civilian vessels and air traffic, with complete security anywhere in the world.

BAE Systems has a networked visualisation suite at Filton, which allows the company to engage with the MOD and other customers in design reviews and approvals on an ongoing basis. I also pay particular tribute to the work done at MOD Abbey Wood in my constituency by more than 8,000 dedicated public servants, who will have been central to the acquisition of the ships, and the various sensors and systems on the ships and aircraft.

A national carrier strike capability is a clear outward sign of our intent to play an even bigger part on the world stage. We have heard much nonsense about Britain turning inward because of Brexit, but we have been a global maritime nation since the Elizabethan era, if not before. Our global connections might be underpinned by friendship and history, but such links are crucial and practically utilitarian. In a world where autocracies sometimes seem to have the upper hand, quiet diplomacy must always be backed by a credible capability. Our allies rightly look to us to come to their aid when they are threatened, or to act as a deterrent.

Many countries enjoy the opportunity to train with British service personnel. That helps to enhance and develop good relationships, which sustain a shared commitment to an open and inclusive world in which many might otherwise be tempted to appease or accommodate more powerful countries that do not necessarily have their best interests at heart, or share our values.

I, for one, was delighted when the Secretary of State announced the decision to deploy the Queen Elizabeth and a supporting group of escorts and auxiliaries in the far east in due course. That is a great reflection of our support for allies in the region, as well as a restatement of the freedom of navigation on the high seas, which is enjoyed by all. That is a tangible benefit that most people can understand of having carrier strike force capability. I am sure that the Minister agrees that if the carrier is going east of Suez and into the Asia-Pacific region, it would be great if it visited Singapore during the 60th anniversary of that country’s independence, which will be in 2025, to demonstrate the deep bonds between our two countries, and to emphasise our outlook being much more global.

We would do well to recall that we need to develop the carrier strike concept, and that by using F35s since the beginning, we have cross-trained with US personnel on an ongoing basis. That can only help our ability to operate and deploy with our key and closest NATO ally, the United States.

History shows us that we never seem to know where the next threat will come from. In a multi-polar world, we need to invest in capability that is agile and that will give policy and decision makers real, serious and tangible options. Carrier strike capability represents a sovereign capability, enabling our country to make choices that support our national interest. The challenges that we encountered during Operation Ellamy—the recent Libya campaign, when it was difficult for us to operate individually—demonstrated that the lack of proper carrier capability would inhibit our ability to act unilaterally in future, or even to act as well as we would like with some of our NATO allies. We now have an even greater opportunity to project the United Kingdom as a global presence, distinct from Europe, although we remain a firm European ally that will vigorously defend the continent’s freedom and security if necessary, through NATO.

The UK’s carrier strike capability will serve as a great way for our country to showcase some of the technology and innovation to which I have referred, specifically in my constituency. We need many more of the outstanding engineers and scientists who played such a central role in making the idea of new sovereign carrier strike capability a reality, so that we can enhance and increase our sovereign defence manufacturing capability well into the future. It brings together the best of British: great people, great ships, and great technical expertise and innovation.

However, we must always remember the purpose of our armed forces: to protect the national interest, our freedom and our way of life, and the security and protection of our people, using lethal force if necessary. I cannot think of a better way of doing that than with our carrier strike, and I cannot think of a better way than our carrier strike of enhancing our global position, being ambassadors to the world and tying together, as others have said, the three Departments of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence. That is something that we need to talk about a lot more.

A Better Defence Estate

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s questions and his party’s interest in these matters—perhaps we could meet and discuss them in more detail. He raised issues of representation that he has raised before, and our views on that issue have not changed. I will say that Scotland fares well from our defence posture as a representative nation. Our fast jets will continue to operate from RAF Lossiemouth, and the P-8As are being moved there as well. The Army is well represented at Leuchars Station, and there is Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde—the hon. Gentleman will be thrilled to know that our nuclear deterrent continues to be operated from that neck of the woods, and indeed, all submarines will be moving to those quarters. He welcomes the continuation of 45 Commando at Condor, and if my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) is able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that she will give her views on that. She has campaigned hard on that issue, and it was a huge pleasure to visit the marines there, and to see the real estate and its importance. I am pleased that we are able to retain that asset for the Royal Marines.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that all the money released from the disposal of any defence estates will be reinvested in the defence budget? At the beginning of his statement he mentioned the spending review and defence spending. On the off-chance that the Treasury is listening, what message would he send it?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am sure that Treasury Ministers are glued to the monitors as we speak. My hon. Friend is right—everybody knows that I am very much in favour of collective responsibility and not speaking outside my brief, but I would not be doing my job in the forthcoming defence spending review if I did not mention the pressures on defence spending. The first line of the strategic defence and security review states that our economic security is dependent on our defence, and if we do not get our defence right we will have no economy or future prosperity. It is important that we continue to invest in security for air, sea and land, as well as in the new dimension of space and cyber-security.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

Those missions will continue, and we will continue to have negotiations with the EU on how we can support those operations in the future.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I would like to echo your kind tribute to Paul Flynn, Mr Speaker. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family.

Is it not the case that the vast majority of our industrial collaboration with other European countries is done on a bilateral basis, which will very much continue once we leave the EU?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend raises an important point: 90% of all our collaboration with EU nations and EU defence programmes is done outside the framework of the European Union. I joined him in his constituency to visit Airbus and Boeing, and it was quite obvious how important those bilateral and multilateral relationships are to their growth. It is not through the European Union.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Of course, up until recently, we actually led Op Atalanta, which was the counter-piracy operation in Somalia, although that has now handed over to a joint mission between Italy and Spain. In the future, the Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear that, just because we are leaving the European Union, it does not mean to say that we are leaving our responsibilities over security in the European Union. We will look at contributing to missions where we can when it is in both the UK and EU’s interests.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as we regain our position as an independent and global presence on the world stage, it is even more important that the United Kingdom is seen as a reliable and credible partner and ally across the world?

Modernising Defence Programme

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady’s point is very valid. That is why I said that one of the key priorities is looking after the service personnel who serve in our armed forces. This is not just about recruitment, but about retention and looking at how we make the offer better and attract people who have left the services back into them. However, the recruitment issue that she highlighted is one on which we have already initiated a number of pilot programmes to make sure that we get the numbers of people applying to join our armed forces and shorten the amount of time that it takes from their application to them joining the armed forces.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend on securing significant additional resources for the vital work that is done by the MOD. Does he agree that that will provide reassurance to the men and women in our armed forces that the Government are prepared to put their interests first and that the UK will continue to invest in world-leading innovation, much of which is done by companies in my constituency?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend points out an important part of this—investment in new technologies—and if we look at the future combat air strategy and Tempest, we see that the ability for us to invest in new technologies so that we have a successor for the Typhoon aircraft is absolutely vital and incredibly important. If we look at some of the speculation that was going around the Chamber this time last year about us, there was speculation that we were going to be getting rid of the amphibious platforms, Albion and Bulwark, and that we were going to be reducing the number of frigates and destroyers. There was a lot of speculation, and what this quite clearly says is that that is something we are not going to be doing.

National Security Capability Review

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The threat that the hon. Gentleman talks about is what prompted the security capability review, and that is why we are looking at how best we deal with that threat going forward.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I am proud that we are one of the few members of NATO to actually maintain the 2% of GDP and exceed it. What can we do to ensure that other NATO members actually pay their fair share?

[Gavin Williamson]

That point has been echoed by not just myself but the US Administration. We need to make sure that everyone understands that every country in NATO has to contribute towards the collective security of Europe and that that is not something that can be outsourced to another nation.