Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament: China Report

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

For understandable reasons, in the MoD we regard Defence Intelligence as a pivotal part of our operation and defence capability. Quite rightly, it is highly regarded within the UK and globally. It is important that we share these facilities and what we can do with that capability with friends and allies, which we do. Particularly on the noble Baroness’s question, I say that the report indicated a need for us to have regard to what we are doing in this country to augment the infrastructure for engaging with China. She is aware that there has been increased funding, government wide, for a China capabilities programme that embraces Mandarin language training and in-depth diplomatic expertise. A lot of concerted work has been done across the piece.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I was very surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, passed up the opportunity to mention the Commonwealth, so I will jump in in his stead. The Commonwealth is strongly represented in many nations, islands and territories throughout the Indo-Pacific region. What strategy do the Government have to strengthen, reinforce and foster this network, and to counter China’s rather obvious attempts to undermine it?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

It is important that we have a coherent approach to the Indo-Pacific, and I strongly suggest that this is exactly what we have. We work bilaterally, minilaterally and multilaterally across a range of fora, with a range of countries in the region, some of which are Commonwealth countries and others which are not. The important thing is that we have a strategic united vision, which was demonstrated when I was at this defence dialogue in Seoul. It was uplifting and encouraging to see a unity of purpose, for everyone to stand together and, by doing that, to recognise the strength that this unanimity represents.

Ukraine

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I too welcome this overdue opportunity to continue the debate on the courses and potential consequences of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and of the horrific war that has been raging there for over a year and a half.

It is clear that Ukraine has made some progress in pushing back the invading forces over recent months, but it is also clear that the conflict is nowhere near over. As I said in our debate on 9 February,

“offensive action to retake and hold ground is a very different proposition from mounting a defence against the kind of unco-ordinated and poorly led attack that we saw from Russian forces last summer”.—[Official Report, 9/2/23; col. 1364.]

The ability to manoeuvre sizeable units with concentrated firepower, to clear obstacles, both natural and manmade, and to co-ordinate different force elements are all significant challenges to any military, particularly in the absence of air superiority. Of course, the offensive forces need extensive logistical support, technical capabilities and, crucially, significant weapons stocks.

Meanwhile, both sides in this war have learned important tactical lessons from their respective successes and failures. Both sides have demonstrated their resolve to sustain their military efforts over the long term and both sides have reasons to hope for a successful outcome. In the case of Ukraine, sustained financial and logistic support from the West, combined with local innovation, adaptability and enormous courage, have shown the world that Russia is hard pressed just to sustain its illegal gains to date, let alone increase them. But the very things that have benefited Ukraine have also, paradoxically, given the Russian leadership reasons for hope. Their calculus is that a protracted campaign will become increasingly unpopular in the West and that the political will to sustain the financial and materiel costs will erode over time, with a consequent weakening of Ukraine's military ability to resist. Putin no doubt believes that a Republican—not just a Trump but any Republican—victory in next year’s American election could be very helpful in that regard.

All of this underlines the importance of a Western strategy for the support of Ukraine over the long term and, in particular, of Europe developing a sufficiently robust military and industrial capacity to underpin such support. This means substantially increased investment within Europe. Such investment has been talked about in a number of countries, but in many ways, it has not yet materialised. It will, of course, be difficult to deliver in the current economic circumstances, but a failure to deliver it will have far worse consequences, so we must sustain the pressure and set an example in this regard.

There are, I know, some that cling to the hope that an early political settlement can be reached in Ukraine and that this will obviate the need for such a long-term commitment. There are many who hope that such a settlement will then enable a return to the status quo ante bellum—that life can somehow return to normal. They are all of them deceived. They are deceived because it is not just a matter of bringing an end to the fighting. That in itself seems far off and will be difficult to achieve, but even when that moment does come, we will still be faced with a Russia that bears responsibility for a mountain of war crimes—a mountain that grows in size with every day. The consequences of this and of our responses to the situation will be profound.

During the 20th century, the international community went to great lengths to restrict, as far as possible, the suffering and destruction that are the inevitable consequences of war. In particular, the development of the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law has imposed certain important constraints on competence. The use of force must be justified by the doctrine of military necessity. Attacks must never be directed against civilians. Unintended civilian harm must always be proportional to the anticipated military advantage, and appropriate care must be taken to spare the civilian population as much as is feasible.

It is certainly true that such requirements have and are still being ignored in some parts of the world, but until now, the major powers have held fast to the law and have in many cases taken or acquiesced to punitive action against transgressors. It is quite clear, however, that in Ukraine, Russia has made no attempt to comply with any of these legal requirements. Indeed, quite the contrary: it has made a bonfire of the rules. It is engaged in the deliberate and wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure. It has employed methodical violence against large numbers of Ukrainian non-combatants. It has arbitrarily detained and in many instances executed civilians. It has tortured and raped civilians. It has abducted and in many cases tortured a great many Ukrainian children. There are at least 20,000 documented cases of abduction, and some Russian officials put the number as high as 700,000. The truth is probably somewhere between the two, but wherever it lies, it represents an appalling situation. These are all war crimes. They are not just down to the actions of a few rogue individuals; they are state- endorsed crimes that are being committed on an industrial scale.

In March this year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on charges of the abduction of children—the first time such action has ever been taken against a Head of State of a UN P5 nation. Yet there is no prospect of Putin or any of his henchmen appearing in court. Russia has quite deliberately and unashamedly flouted the law of armed conflict in just about every respect. If its actions in this regard are, over time, allowed to pass unsanctioned, then the civilised world’s attempts to contain many of the worst effects of conflict will be in tatters.

President Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine is fighting not just to protect itself but to lessen the risks of illegal aggression elsewhere. He is of course right. That is one of the many powerful reasons why we must support his country in its struggle. But we must also accept, in dealing with a post-conflict Russia, that we will be fighting for the survival of the legal constraints on armed conflict. A failure in that struggle would signal a return to unrestrained savagery in warfare; that surely cannot be an acceptable outcome. There is, alas, no realistic prospect of prosecuting Putin and his accomplices, but the international community simply cannot resume its relations with him as if nothing had happened. It must accept at last that it is dealing not with a normal Government but, as I publicly asserted nine years ago, with a gangster regime—a regime that will tell any lie, betray any promise, and commit any crime in pursuit of what it sees as its interest. The West must respond accordingly. It must impose an appropriate cost on Russia.

That will inevitably have long-term consequences for international relations. There can be no return to the status quo ante bellum. I ask the Minister to confirm that the Government will continue the efforts that have already begun to document and publicise Russia’s abhorrent actions. I further ask what efforts they are making to encourage a long-term international strategy, most particularly amongst our European neighbours, to hold Russia to account for its many and manifold crimes. What consideration have they given to the long- term foreign policy and security consequences of such action?

The conflict in Ukraine has much further to run, but Ukraine will be successful if we hold our nerve and steel ourselves for the long haul. European nations, in particular, must up their efforts in security terms. So far, they have talked a good game; they now have to deliver. I do not exclude the UK from that stricture. Importantly, we must decide how to confront Russia over its heinous and premeditated crimes in Ukraine and what consequences that will have for European security in the years ahead. We have a responsibility not just to ourselves but to future generations to ensure the survival of the legal safeguards that our predecessors set on conflict, which were won only after untold bloodshed and are crucial if we are not to see a widespread return to such suffering.

Armed Forces: Remuneration, Housing and Family Support

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Yes, I can confirm to my noble friend that that initiative is under way. I do not have specific information about the extent to which sales have taken place, but I undertake to get that and I shall write to him. We are working on updating our accommodation offer to deliver the commitments made in the defence accommodation strategy. The Minister for Defence People and Veterans will be making a further announcement with more detail about the new accommodation offer later this month.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister update the House on the progress with unpicking the disastrous Annington Homes agreement, following the High Court decision in favour of the MoD earlier this year? Does not this sorry saga, in which billions have been lost to defence, illustrate the importance of taking a long-term view of value for money rather than responding to management whims of the moment and engaging in value destruction in response to short-term budgetary pressures?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord might be surprised to find that I am largely in agreement with his opinion. This is a long-standing arrangement; as he will be aware, it became the subject of judicial proceedings. We have been able to make progress, and I think the department has learned a great deal from that adventure, if you like. The noble and gallant Lord is quite correct that we can do better, and we are now on a much more sustainable footing.

Defence Policy (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Friday 30th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, as I did for a significant part of my military career. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who so ably led the International Relations and Defence Committee on which I have the privilege to serve, has very clearly set out the background to the report we are debating today.

Inevitably, given the delay in considering Select Committee findings, things have moved on. We have a refreshed integrated review, and we are still expecting an updated version of the Defence Command Paper. Nevertheless, a number of the key issues highlighted in the report remain both relevant and urgent, in light of the present international situation. I want to focus on just two of them today.

The first concerns a problem that has bedevilled all defence reviews: the balance between ambition and resource. This was of course a central element in the inquiry and is reflected in its subtitle, “From aspiration to reality”. The first version of the integrated review sought to draw attention to the growing strategic importance to the UK of the Indo-Pacific region—the so-called “Tilt”—and it was right to do so. Indeed, the International Relations and Defence Committee’s previous report, The UK and China’s Security and Trade Relationship, made that very point.

However, the extent to which such a tilt involves UK military capability is another matter entirely. Defence certainly has a role to play, not least through the AUKUS agreement and Japan’s welcome involvement in the global combat air programme. But the resources allocated to our Armed Forces simply do not allow them to make significant contributions in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

In his evidence to our inquiry, the Defence Secretary made it clear that our military focus must remain on Europe and the north Atlantic. That is a welcome clarification, not least given the current events in Ukraine. No matter how that conflict ends, or perhaps freezes, we in Europe will continue to face an unpredictable and resentful Russia—a Russia that will certainly have suffered some significant losses in Ukraine, but a Russia whose nuclear, maritime and long-range air forces will have remained largely untouched.

The central importance of Europe in purely military terms must be reflected in the balance of defence investment, and the evidence on this score is not good. Our ability to defend our own airspace, to achieve air superiority over the battle space and to contribute effectively to the defence and, if necessary, restoration of NATO territory is all at risk. Our bases and infrastructure in the UK—including our undersea infrastructure—are vulnerable to long-range attack, and the concentration of our forces in fewer locations means that we lack the resilience we once had.

Meanwhile, the course of the current conflict in Ukraine has underscored the importance of air superiority: fail to achieve it, and you risk something resembling a First World War battlefield on the ground. Our inability to field an armoured division that can fight effectively and enduringly in high-intensity conflict has become something of a national embarrassment as well as a strategic weakness.

All three services have some good equipment, but they lack many key enablers and, most importantly, adequate stocks of the appropriate weapons to fight intensively for anything other than a very brief period. The Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force are all too small, but enabling our current force structure to undertake sustained operations must be our highest priority for investment.

This is not just a matter of more money for the defence budget. We must also strengthen and expand the Western defence industries that we have allowed to atrophy over the many years of budgetary cuts and on which we and the rest of NATO rely for our sustainability. However, if we are to secure the necessary private sector investment in those industries, we will need more predictable, longer-range procurement plans. The frequent changes currently made in response to short-term budgetary pressures are simply not designed to inspire the necessary investor confidence.

The usual official response to these kinds of criticisms—I expect to hear it again today—is to assert that the Government have recently delivered the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War. That may be true, but it follows, and only partly ameliorates, some of the largest cuts, made by the same Government. It is rather like pushing someone into a river and then claiming credit for helping them to keep their head temporarily above water. We need serious, sustained and increased investment in our military capability and sustainability, and it must be focused on our ability to fight and win in Europe and northern waters.

The other issue I will touch on is the emphasis the Defence Command Paper places on technology and innovation. It sees these as a substitute, at least in part, for mass. In a sense, this is right. Throughout history, there are many examples of smaller but more capable forces succeeding against larger opponents. Once again, Ukraine has shown the advantage to be gained from innovation and novel uses of technology, civilian as well as military. Effects are what matter, but those effects need to be created in enough places and on a sufficiently enduring basis to achieve the desired ends, so size does matter.

Beyond this, though, we need to ensure that novel ideas make it through to front-line capability. A great deal of innovation comes from small, high-technology enterprises rather than large defence contractors. The very size of the latter, and their resultant bureaucratic processes, often robs them of the agility and independence of thought necessary for solutions that fall outside the box.

Fortunately, we have no shortage of such small, imaginative enterprises in this country. Unfortunately, those smaller companies face enormous obstacles in translating their ideas into marketable products—or, in defence terms, into front-line capability. For them, there exists something called the valley of death, where good ideas go to die. This is not a new phenomenon. How often have we seen something invented in this country, only for commercial exploitation and the associated economic benefits to move elsewhere? I see insufficient evidence that this problem is being addressed.

There are some welcome initiatives in the Defence Command Paper to develop unconventional thinking, but unless there are mechanisms and processes to encourage substantial private capital investment in new technology and innovative ideas, defence is unlikely to realise their benefits. This goes beyond the Ministry of Defence and requires a wider government focus, but it is one of the biggest risks in the Defence Command Paper, and therefore should be a very high priority for action.

Finally, with war raging in Europe and all the dangers to this country’s security, I am deeply disappointed that a debate on the UK’s defence policy has been tucked away on a Friday afternoon. The Whips will no doubt pray in aid the pressure of government business. The defence of this country and its people is government business; it is the Government’s most important business and it deserves much better than it has received in the scheduling of this debate.

Ukraine: Ministry of Defence Strategy

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I express complete agreement with the last point made by my noble friend. Yes, I agree with his proposition. We welcome China’s engagement with President Zelensky. We expect China, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, to stand up for the United Nations charter and for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We hope China will use its influence with President Putin to persuade Russia to cease its attacks, withdraw its troops and hopefully bring an end to the war.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made an important point in stressing information warfare, but he applied it rather too narrowly. Does the Minister agree that this information warfare needs to go far beyond the Russian population to other areas of the world that have been less than supportive of the campaign in Ukraine, particularly in what is perhaps inaccurately referred to as the global South, and that we need to do much better in this regard?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I think the House will concur with the principle of the noble and gallant Lord’s proposition. I can tell him that through diplomatic channels and, where we can, through MoD conduits, we make known to other powers that have been somewhat passive in their comments on this barbaric and illegal war that a more proactive response is necessary, that this is wrong and that history has shown us repeatedly that you do not achieve peace by pandering to a bully. People have to be prepared to stand up, call that out and act accordingly.

RAF: C-130J Hercules

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As the noble Lord will be aware, we have taken delivery of the full cohort of flight, that being 22 of these aircraft. It is the case that there were some niche challenges and some availability issues to do with global supply, but I reassure your Lordships about two things: all critical operational commitments are met and all critical operational commitments continue to be met. The issues around niche capabilities boiled down to two things: a small range of niche airdrop capabilities and a small range of air dispatch capabilities. I cannot give further detail on those but they are now being accelerated in terms of being addressed. On availability, I am pleased to confirm that the improvement there has been manifest. We have seen a 25% to 30% improvement in availability compared with 18 months ago.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the reference to niche capabilities makes this sound like something minor but we are talking about Special Forces operations here. Can the Minister tell the House by what date the Atlas fleet will be capable of the full range of Special Forces missions? Can she also say, given the difficulties with the serviceability of the Atlas, what the target rate of availability is for that aircraft fleet and how it compares with its current availability?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As the noble and gallant Lord will be aware, on availability, if we factor in planned maintenance for the whole fleet and retrofitting for some of the older A400Ms to bring them up to modern standards, there will always be an element of unavailability. On the matter of the Special Forces, the noble and gallant Lord will understand that I cannot comment specifically on their activities, but I refer him to the meeting on 17 May of the Defence Select Committee in the other place, when Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton—now Chief of the Air Staff—reassured the committee that he had spoken to Director Special Forces. He was clear that he was very impressed with the A400M and that it could achieve all potential courses of action.

UK Undersea Infrastructure: Hostile Activity

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I think we all agree that the overall objective of increasing our usage of renewable energy is laudable and to be commended, but my noble friend is correct that the installation of infrastructure brings with it an obvious degree of risk. As I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord West, across government there are a range of departments with responsibilities in this field. As far as the MoD is concerned, we actively monitor threat. When it comes to looking at, for example, Russian activity in either the Baltic Sea or the North Sea, noble Lords will understand that we regularly assess by our maritime presence what is happening. The Russians know that we know they know what we are doing.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, protecting against threats is clearly important but there is no such thing as perfect defence. With what degree of urgency are the Government addressing our resilience in this area of our critical national infrastructure?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord will be aware that we have operational assets which we can deploy. For example, in the wake of Nord Stream we deployed HMS “Somerset” to monitor what was happening. We also have our MROS programme; one of those ships has been bought and is currently being readied for operational activity, and the other is to be built.

Ukraine: Arms Supplies

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. This is certainly something that has been on our radar screen, and for that matter on the radar screens of our allies, particularly within NATO. For example, we have not been replacing like with like; we have been looking holistically at what our need is once we have supplied support to Ukraine. I reassure my noble friend and the Chamber that we are indeed engaged in the very issue to which he quite rightly refers.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the anticipated offensive will be an extremely hazardous undertaking. It will be made all the more perilous for the Ukrainians without at least local control of the air. How confident is the Minister that the Ukrainians have been given the wherewithal to be able to achieve such control?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I say to the noble and gallant Lord that it is interesting if we just put a little context around this. Russia planned a major offensive effort through the winter and, quite simply, has not succeeded. This is a slow-moving conflict, and both sides have effectively neutralised each other’s air power. That is a remarkable achievement for a country the size of Ukraine responding to an air force capacity the size of Russia’s. It demonstrates that this is about a multi-faceted approach, both strategically and in specific support for Ukraine, in trying to ensure collective help; the real clout of what we are offering is the aggregate effect of what every other country is doing along with the UK. I reassure the noble and gallant Lord that we are in daily touch with Ukraine, and we seem to be closely attuned to what it looks for.

AUKUS Defence Partnership

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the AUKUS programme, if executed well, will be very good news for this country. If executed badly, it could be a disaster. The Minister has given us some comforting words on reforms to procurement processes and engagement with industry, but it must be said that the performance of BAE Systems Submarines has been pretty woeful in recent years. Of course, it is not for the Government to run private companies, but industrial performance in this programme will be of strategic importance to this country. What long-term mechanisms and processes are in place to monitor and audit industrial performance, and what leverage will the Government have over the industries concerned? Industrial underperformance in this programme will need to be dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly—something that has not happened before.

The Minister said that the senior responsible owner would be in place for a “meaningful period”. What does she mean by a “meaningful period”? With regard to skills, which are a crucial area in this programme, she talked about what the Ministry of Defence is doing, but this is surely a nationwide issue requiring a nationwide effort. If this ambitious programme is to succeed, we will need all sorts of skills and all sorts of different people. Industries across the country are suffering from shortages—they cannot find sufficient welders—so is there not a case for a government-wide approach to ensure we have a sufficient skills base for such ambitious programmes as this?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes a number of important points; let me try to deal with them.

On the management of contracts and the willingness to have teeth and bite where that is necessary, I think the noble and gallant Lord would be encouraged to see the complete difference in approach in the MoD now compared with some years ago. That is partially because the MoD has woken up to the need to be much more effective in how it manages these enormous contracts with vast sums of taxpayers’ money. To be honest, it is also because we felt the bite from teeth—from your Lordships in this Chamber, from our friends in the other place, and from entities such as the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. These were unpleasant experiences for the MoD but what they signalled was an absolute need to radically reform and revise what we were doing.

In addition to all that, the one word of comfort I can offer to the noble and gallant Lord is this: bear in mind that this is a trilateral arrangement and agreement. There is, therefore, a triumvirate interest in ensuring that nobody is slipping and everybody is keeping up to the mark. That will be an added enhancer to how we monitor and regulate the performance of the contract.

On the important matter of skills, industries are already engaged—I have seen it at first hand—in really imaginative programmes in their communities with young people. I have been hugely encouraged when I have seen how they operate in different parts of the country. They are engaging with both primary and secondary schools. They are making these critical connections with young people, many of whom then make the choice not only to follow a career in technology but to do it with a particular company. That is one very positive way of trying to increase the skills base available to our industry partners.

At government level, particularly in the Department for Education, there is a recognition of the unrelenting need to reappraise constantly how we seek to improve the provision of skills and ensure that education is aligned with what the economy and industry are asking for. I do not have at my fingertips the details of what we have done so far but I would be happy to write to the noble and gallant Lord about that.

Ukraine

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. While it is his first in this Chamber, it is but his latest contribution to an already long and distinguished parliamentary career.

We are about to reach the ninth anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the first anniversary of the latest and most violent phase of the conflict, during which the total casualties have run into the hundreds of thousands—a butcher’s bill that will only grow, and grow rapidly, over the coming months. As this reality continues to unfold and the suffering of the Ukrainian people mounts, the question I hear most frequently is: how and when will it end? The answer, of course, is that nobody knows. Just about all wars begin and end in politics, and this one is no different. Eventually, there will have to be a political conclusion, but that appears to be a long way off and it does not imply, as some seem to believe, the appeasement of Russia.

In thinking about what it might imply for the near term, it is worth taking a step back and reflecting on broader strategic objectives. The Ukrainians are clear about theirs: the full restoration of their country’s pre-2014 borders, including the recovery of Crimea. The Russians’ position today is less certain. Their initial objective was undoubtedly the removal of the Ukrainian Government and their replacement by a regime friendly to, if not under the control of, the Kremlin. Whether events of the past year have changed this calculus is open to debate, but I doubt it.

Putin is certainly aware that making progress towards his original objective is a lot harder and taking far longer than he had imagined, but there is no reason to suppose that he has given up on it. To the contrary, there is much evidence to suggest that he is doubling down on his original intent.

As far as the UK is concerned, our strategic objective must be to ensure that Putin’s aggression is widely perceived to have failed; that such illegal assaults on the international order are seen as not just very costly but unlikely to succeed. But I believe we should go further. As I observed last week, in conjunction with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, Russia’s war in Ukraine is being spearheaded by the Wagner organisation—a group that has at the heart of its activities terror, torture, murder, rape and all other forms of brutality. A supposedly civilised world should not countenance the existence of such a force, and we should seek to eliminate its presence from the wider international scene.

From looking at these strategic objectives, it is apparent that they differ markedly. That is unsurprising in the case of Russia and Ukraine, but it is also true with regard to the UK’s aims and, I suspect, those of many other countries that support Ukraine. This makes it very difficult to see what shape a long-term political solution might take. However, there is far less uncertainty about the near term. This is because, if Putin’s aggression is to be widely perceived as having failed, Russia must end up in no better a position than when it started the conflict and preferably in a worse one. That means Ukraine recovering its southern coastline and at least some of the Donbass.

Both those outcomes are, at best, some way off, so for the moment we need not concern ourselves about how much further the Ukrainian Government’s ambitions might stretch. That may become a pressing issue if Russian forces are driven back significantly, but there are a great many bridges to cross, both literally and figuratively, before we get anywhere near that point. For now, we should focus our minds and efforts on those bridges, and not worry unduly about what forks may lie along the road in the far distance.

Our immediate priority, like that of Ukraine, must therefore be further reversals of Russia’s territorial gains. But Ukraine’s continued success in this regard relies not just on the sustained valour of its people but on the willingness of western nations to maintain their high level of material support. That, in turn, depends to an extent on the perception of military progress—something of a chicken-and-egg situation.

My conclusion from all this is that the Ukrainian forces will need to make demonstrable gains over 2023. That, though, begs the question of the means required to achieve such an outcome, so I turn to some detailed points and questions for the Minister.

We have seen the very recent, welcome decisions, by Germany in particular, on the provision of tanks to go along with the other armoured fighting vehicles and artillery already delivered and promised. We should be in no doubt, though, that offensive action to retake and hold ground is a very different proposition from mounting a defence against the kind of unco-ordinated and poorly led attack that we saw from Russian forces last summer. Tanks in sufficient numbers will be very helpful in this regard, but the ability to manoeuvre sizeable units with concentrated firepower, to clear obstacles, both natural and man-made, and to co-ordinate different elements, both on the ground and in the air, is a significant challenge to any military. Of course, the offensive forces need extensive logistical support, technical capabilities and, crucially, sufficient weapon stocks. The important aid that we and other countries have given to Ukraine has resulted in a multiplicity of equipment types, each with its own logistic tail and often with different ammunition requirements.

Can the Minister therefore tell the House what assessment His Majesty’s Government have made of the scale of development of Ukraine’s offensive capabilities and, in particular, of its sustainability in the light of the requirements I have outlined above? Is there more that we should be doing to improve the coherence of Ukraine’s capabilities rather than focusing just on quantity?

I turn to the air. It is clear that the continued existence of capable ground-based air defences on both sides has led to something of a stalemate. What advice and aid is the Ministry of Defence giving the Ukrainians to help them break the impasse, particularly in light of the advantage that air superiority would give an attacking force? I note the Government’s announcement yesterday that the UK will provide fast-jet pilot training for Ukrainians. This may be an important contribution to Ukrainian capability, but training pilots, even advanced training, takes a long time and they need aircraft to fly once they are trained—not that we have much to offer in that regard. Our Typhoon force is already overstretched maintaining the air defence of these islands and flying combat air patrols over NATO nations bordering the conflict.

Can the Minister explain how this initiative will fit into Ukraine’s broader operational plans? Is it intended to bolster the military effort in the present conflict or is it part of the longer-term development of the Ukrainian armed forces? Can he also say what impact this new undertaking is likely to have on our military? Given the signal failure, over the past few years, of the military flying training system to deliver sufficient capacity to meet the RAF’s needs, only compounded by the recent problems with the engine on the Hawk T2 aircraft, how confident is he that it can now rise to such an additional demand? Is this not yet another example of the stripping out of our military capabilities, which has gone on for so many years, coming home to roost? Until now, the Ukraine war has largely focused attention on the paucity of our weapon stocks, but this latest initiative highlights a much deeper and wider problem of capacity. Will the revision of the defence Command Paper address this?

Finally, I turn to an issue already raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and very ably highlighted yesterday by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, in the briefing on Ukraine that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, kindly arranged for us. Outside of the NATO area, Russia seems to be having considerable success in the battle of the narratives. This has important implications for the longer term. In the Middle East, Asia and Africa, the danger posed by Russia and the plight of Ukraine are widely misunderstood. There is indeed sympathy for Russia, which is supposedly facing encirclement by a hostile and aggressive NATO. I know that the Minister understands the importance of countering this narrative, but can he reassure the House that the Government are working hard with allies to develop a co-ordinated and sustained response? We may not be able to win over everybody, but at the moment we are winning over far too few.

The conflict in Ukraine continues to throw up many complex and difficult questions, but this is a time for clarity. We should not expect the war to be decided this year, but it will be a decisive period in determining whether both we and Ukraine are able to achieve our objectives. With that in mind, we should bend every sinew to promote Ukrainian military success over these crucial months.