Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Heappey

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

5. What progress his Department has made on improving the readiness of the armed forces.

[The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

Mr Speaker, thank you very much indeed for your words at the beginning of questions. I also thank the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). You were both very kind indeed to say what you said.

The UK armed forces are meeting all of their commitments, but there is no mistaking that they are very busy, as one would expect at such a turbulent geopolitical time. People across the Army, Navy, Air Force and strategic command are working incredibly hard, and we are very grateful to them and their families for their forbearance while they do so. The Government are investing £1.95 billion extra in our resilience and readiness, but more than investment is needed, which is why all three services are getting back into the business of being ready for warfighting. The 3rd (United Kingdom) Division recently exercised its combat service support echelons for the first time in decades; the Royal Navy is operating concurrent task groups as well as forward presence, a test of our naval logistics; and the Royal Air Force is refining its abilities to disperse the force through its agile combat employment mechanism.

[Ian Blackford]

Of course, we commend the efforts of all those in our armed services, but the Defence Committee’s “Ready for War?” report substantiates that our armed forces are constantly overstretched and are being deployed above their capacity. When are the Government going to respond appropriately to the scale of the geopolitical challenges by driving up recruitment and retention and making sure that we can face the challenges that we see ahead of us—that we can take them full-on, and are ready for whatever comes our way?

[James Heappey]

There is no escaping the fact that the world is incredibly complicated at the moment. In the Euro-Atlantic, we face the challenge of Russia; in the middle east, the challenge of Iran and its proxies; in the Indo-Pacific, the growing competition with China; and then across Africa and other parts of the world there remains the challenge of violent extremism. At a time of such crisis, one would expect the armed forces to be as busy as they are. That does not mean that we should take for granted the effort that they are putting in, but if we were not reaching for them as extensively as we are right now, we would have to question when on earth we would reach for them, given the demands on our nation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ian Blackford and James Heappey

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend is right to point to the importance of the training effort. That gives me the opportunity to reflect on this week being the 10-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Crimea, which gave rise to Operation Orbital. Since then, across Operation Orbital and Operation Interflex, 60,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained. Continuing to train them, not as individuals but increasingly as formations, is undoubtedly the key to unlocking the real potential of the Ukrainian armed forces.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

We have all seen the events that have taken place in the past few days regarding the Russian offensive in Ukraine. They must act a wake-up call to all of us. This is our problem, and our fight, with the Ukrainians, to defeat Putin. We need to make sure that we step up the amount of ammunition and arms that we ship to Ukraine. We need to do that with our European partners, and we need a plan, not just for the short term but for the long term, so that we defeat Putin. What talks are the Minister and the Cabinet Secretary having with our European allies to ensure that Ukraine wins this war?

[James Heappey]

Such conversations happen all the time. Only last week, the Secretary of State was at the latest donor conference, followed by NATO Defence Ministers. I was in Norway a week or so earlier, having exactly those conversations with allies. As the right hon. Gentleman suggests, while traditional armaments such as artillery ammunition are important, so too, increasingly, are the novel precision weapons systems that the UK is very much at the forefront of supplying to our Ukraine friends.