Defence Spending and Readiness

Debate between Al Carns and Lincoln Jopp

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lincoln Jopp]

My right hon. Friend and fellow Scots Guardsman makes a good point. The zeitgeist throughout that period of time was to say, “Look, wars are a thing of the past. We can take risk against defence.” That risk has rarely crystallised, so people have been tempted to take more and more risk.

We have also seen it in the hypothecation of defence spending. I get an Army pension, which contributes to the 2% of GDP being spent on defence. The last time I checked—despite the Minister for the Armed Forces having threatened to mobilise me more than once—my pension was not making a huge contribution to our ability to face down a resurgent Russia.

Everyone was taking risk and passing on that risk to one another. Now, I am afraid, that risk has crystallised in that we do face real enemies, and those enemies are very close. We do have to rearm—I should declare an interest as a founder of the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament—but unfortunately our record on that is not great. The numbers were run the other day and of the 32 NATO members recorded we came 31st for rearmament. The only trouble is, in 32nd is Iceland, which does not have any armed forces. That is not a great record for going over to Europe and trying to convince our European and NATO allies that we are pulling our weight.

One or two other things happened in that period of time. First, the MOD got pretty bloated, in particular in procurement. It is deeply unhelpful that we are now on our third Procurement Minister in less than 22 months, which makes it look like we are not taking it seriously. Equally, it shows no consistency in the building of approach. When the Government came in, they appointed the national armaments director, who will be the second-highest paid civil servant in the country. I hope that he is a massive success. I tried to set up the national armaments director up for success before his appointment by asking two Procurement Ministers whether the director would be given carte blanche to tear up the book when it comes to procurement. One of them said not only would he be given the ability to tear up the book but that they would hold him to account for doing so. I said, “The last thing anyone on the Defence Committee wants is for the national armaments director to come in front of us, after being in post a year, to say, ‘Well, we did want to change things, but I wasn’t really allowed to.’” The way is set fair: the national armaments director can rip up that book.

When the Defence Committee went to Ukraine last year, we were briefed on its procurement structure, which is extraordinary. Ukraine has put together an Amazon-like marketplace with 1,700 sovereign Ukrainian defence companies as suppliers and the customers being the fighting brigades, who simply write a requirement for a new bit of kit. For example, let us say that the Russians have got a new screen so the brigades cannot fly their fibre optically guided munition right into the Russians’ command post and have it blow up on the general’s desk. The brigade simply writes up that requirement, saying “I need a pre-charge of some sort to burst through that screen so I can fly my fibre optic guided missile in and get the baddies.” That gets put out to industry, which churns the problem; the record, from flash to bang—from requirement to kit delivery—is five days. That is what can be achieved.

Hon. Members must look at what is being bypassed to achieve that level of agility: the whole of the military chain of command above brigade level, bypassed; the Ministry of Defence, bypassed; the Treasury, bypassed; and equally, all the regulators, bypassed. That should give the national armaments director a sense of where we have to go to generate the relevance.

I think I heard the Armed Forces Minister—I cannot remember whether it was the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) or the current one—say the other day that it is rather tricky buying drones, because as soon as we have them they go out of date, so we will not buy any. That is pretty defeatist. We should redo the way in which we are thinking about things so that our land forces in Estonia have drones.

[Al Carns (Birmingham Selly Oak) (Lab)]

On my comments on drones, there is a requirement to bring drones into the system so that training tactics, procedures, doctrine and concepts can be taught. The point was about drones going out of date within six weeks. The innovation the hon. Gentleman just talked about was changing so fast that if we were to buy en masse, the drones would be out of date over time. The right context is that there is a requirement to teach and train our armed forces to interoperate with drones.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I thank the former Minister for his intervention. There is a huge challenge to us, in that we have to turn our ploughshares into swords rather than the other way round. We need industry that is sufficiently flexible to flick the switch and turn the lawn mower factory into the drone factory in double-quick time.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Al Carns and Lincoln Jopp

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

I will make some progress.

New clause 2 would require the Secretary of State to lay a defence investment plan before both Houses of Parliament. The Prime Minister has been very clear that the defence investment plan will be published before the NATO summit, and we are working hard to finalise it. I recommend that the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) reads the NAO report which says that when we came into government, we were left a huge deficit and 47 out of 49 major programmes were not on budget or on time.

[Lincoln Jopp]

Have the Minister and the Veterans Minister now seen the defence investment plan?

[Al Carns]

I commend that fantastic question. Yes, I have seen the defence investment plan. Importantly, we are primarily focused on learning the lessons from Ukraine and acting upon them—something that the last Government failed to do at the right scale, hence why I left the military.

New clauses 1 and 6 seek to exempt members of the reserve forces deployed on operations from the ECHR, and would require any future Secretary of State to consider whether to make a derogation under article 15. The UK has binding international obligations under the ECHR, including in limited extraterritorial circumstances where we exercise control over individuals or areas. Those obligations have implications for the way UK forces, including reserve forces, conduct UK operations. I will not shy away from the fact that we hold our armed forces to the very highest legal standards, and time and again they deliver.

New clause 1 seeks to change domestic law, but it would not remove our international obligations. The UK cannot opt out on a case-by-case basis; doing so would simply shift cases to Strasbourg. New clause 6 is also unnecessary as the Secretary of State can already derogate under article 15 of the ECHR. I will read that again: new clause 6 is also unnecessary as the Secretary of State can already derogate under article 15 of the ECHR, meaning that the provision does not provide them with any additional powers. I do not want to be in the same club as Belarus or Russia.

North Atlantic Submarine Activity

Debate between Al Carns and Lincoln Jopp

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

We have a job to ensure that we communicate with and educate the population on the whole variety of threats, whether it is the threat posed by Russia in Ukraine or the threat emanating from the High North that comes into the Atlantic. A lot of people say that we do not have a frontline with the Russians. The reality is that we do; it sits in the north Atlantic. But those are not the only threats. There are also threats in the influence space and, of course, in cyber-space, which we must compete with while also responding to contingency operations in the middle east, as hon. Members have seen us do over the last seven weeks.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

The Prime Minister said, I think about three weeks ago, that the Royal Navy would go after sanctioned Russian tankers. Yet, if the press reports are to be believed, those very same sanctioned Russian tankers have sailed with impunity through the English channel. My question is this: why have we not done anything? Is there some legal bar, or is there a practical bar when it comes to Royal Navy resources to mount interdiction operations in the English channel?

[Al Carns]

I have a lot of experience, as does the shadow Minister, in boarding ships. The MOD is absolutely ready to go, but we must ensure that those ships meet certain criteria; as soon as they do, they will be boarded and deterred.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention

Debate between Al Carns and Lincoln Jopp

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

I thank my hon. Friend for his list. This Government have come into power and put in place a very clear, concise programme to increase recruitment and retention. There is a list: there is the armed forces discovery scheme, zig-zag careers, and the cyber direct entry scheme; the first cohort graduated in November ’25. We are scrapping a huge amount of red tape left by the last Government. If somebody had athlete’s foot as a child, they could not join the military, and people needed multiple sets of medical records. That was ridiculous. We also have financial retention incentives. [Interruption.] Individuals on the Conservative Benches can say that they know, but they did nothing about it; I lived it. We have done a single living accommodation review, and we have a Christmas travel payment. [Interruption.] There are great comments coming from the Opposition, but they did nothing about it. We have done it, and as a result we see a 13% increase in recruitment, and a reduction in outflow by 8% for the first time in 14 years.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

As the shadow Defence Secretary was reading out the letter from the squadron leaders and warrant officers that was published over the Christmas break, I looked across the Chamber, and was very surprised to see the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and two Defence Ministers shaking their head. We have had feedback from numerous generals, squadron commanders and warrant officers, so can I just understand where the Minister is coming from? Why does he think he is right and they are wrong?

[Al Carns]

I fully respect the hon. and gallant Member; he has experience from Northern Ireland during the troubles. I served in Northern Ireland in 2003, after the troubles. We absolutely respect those individuals’ views; we also respect the statistics on those who are currently serving, which we have looked through in the Ministry of Defence. I would welcome a discussion with many of the individuals who the hon. and gallant Member mentioned. Since some of the articles came out in the press, I have had discussions, multiple times, with several of them. We need to work together to make sure they are comfortable with the Bill, and we are doing so. On top of that, we have spoken to the Royal British Legion and other veterans, but when we come down to the common denominator, the statistics show that there is not a recruitment and retention issue caused by the Northern Ireland legacy Bill. As Members well know, the moral, physical and conceptual components are critical to fighting power, but in some cases, the conceptual and moral components are one. We must ensure that the Bill protects veterans going forward, which is what I will do. We will protect the moral component.

Irish Guards: 125th Anniversary

Debate between Al Carns and Lincoln Jopp

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Al Carns]

Another fitting tribute. I suggest that there will be many from across the House.

The Irish Guards have served with distinction in north Africa, Italy, Normandy and Arnhem, where the Irish Guardsmen led the ground assault to relieve the besieged British paratroopers. In the post-war years, they served with distinction in Palestine and Malaya and, in my lifetime, in Northern Ireland, the Falklands—although I was very young at the time—the Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and of course Afghanistan. I had the privilege of serving under a general who had served in the Irish Guards, and I learned a huge amount from him. He is an example of the exceptional leadership of individuals and young officers who have come up and grown up through that fantastic regiment.

The regimental motto lays down a pledge of unity: who shall separate us? That is hard-hitting and poignant. After 125 years of service, that motto has stood the test of time. The Irish Guards stand strong and united with a bright future ahead of them. They will be better equipped for warfighting as they have recently gained a new role within the Army’s advanced forces, and that will further bolster NATO and, importantly, European security.

As guardsmen, the regiment has also made an immense contribution in non-combat roles. In recent years, it has been particularly focused on training, including partners in Africa, and has countered security challenges as varied as violent extremism and the illegal wildlife trade.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I want to add my own words of tribute to my brothers in the Irish Guards. My warrior sergeant was a man a called Glyn Crawley. As a result of an accident he had, I think as a child, he only had one eye, and he was known universally as the “one IG”, which is one for the military among us to appreciate.

In the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, when we were Taskforce Lashkar Gah, we had Sergeant Dale Alonzo McCallum, who we inherited from the Irish Guards and who rebadged as a Scots Guardsman. He was tragically killed by sniper fire in Afghanistan. I paid tribute to him at the time as undoubtedly the coolest Scots Guardsman ever to walk the earth. No doubt his time in the Irish Guards prepared him for that role admirably.

The Minister may not be aware that the Irish Guards have also spawned the Blackthorn Rally, members of which go on two wheels and four to some of the craziest places in the world—not least the northern Sahara, Tanzania and Kenya. This year, for the organisation’s 10th anniversary, they are going to Colombia. Sadly, I will not be joining them, because I will be enjoying the joys of the Conservative conference in Birmingham instead. What this extraordinary group of mostly Micks do—

--- Later in debate ---

[Al Carns]

Absolutely.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I am very grateful for your forbearance, Mr Pritchard, and it is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship. [Interruption.]