National Security and Defence

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement.

As I said last week in the House, the first duty of a state is to protect its own citizens. At the moment, this country’s overwhelming focus is on the threat we face from terrorism and how we can best ensure the defeat of ISIL. Labour supports the increased expenditure to strengthen our security services that the Prime Minister has announced to protect against the threat of terrorism. However, faced with the current threat, the public will not understand or accept any cuts to front-line policing. Everyone will be very concerned about the warnings we know that he has had from security officials and the police that the cuts will reduce very significantly the ability to respond to a Paris-style attack. Cuts affecting neighbourhood policing will damage the flow of vital intelligence that helps prevent such attacks. Will the Prime Minister give an undertaking now that police budgets after the spending review will be sufficient to guarantee no reductions in police or police community support numbers and to protect areas such as helicopter cover?

Will the Prime Minister also confirm that the Government will meet in full the request from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and his advisers for the further resources they say are required to counter attacks such as those in Paris? The public, quite rightly, expect that.

We are naturally focused on the immediate threats today, but it is disappointing that there is insufficient analysis in the national security strategy of the global threats facing our country and people around the world, including inequality, poverty, disease, human rights abuses, climate change and water and food security—[Interruption.] I have no idea why Conservative Members find food security such a funny subject. The flow of arms and illicit funds enables groups such as ISIL to sustain themselves and grow.

Let me join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the men and women who serve in the services. We must look after their interests in the decisions we make and pay particular attention to their welfare while serving and, just as importantly, when they have retired. Is the Prime Minister concerned that the latest Ministry of Defence survey showed that 25% of those serving plan to leave as soon as they can or have already put in their notice, and that the number dissatisfied with service life has risen to 32%? Does he think it is a coincidence that those results come at the same time as the Government have capped armed forces pay and changed pension arrangements?

Although the Prime Minister is talking tough about defence spending today, the facts are that under his Government it has fallen in real terms by 14% and we saw many soldiers with many years’ operational service putting their lives on the line being sacked days before becoming eligible for full pensions.

Does the Prime Minister not agree that changes proposed by the Chancellor to tax credits breach the spirit of the armed forces covenant? Will he confirm that the plan to cut the annual income of a corporal with two children by £2,300 a year will now be reversed and that such a family would not be made worse off by any other welfare cuts the Chancellor may be planning? What damage does the Prime Minister think will be done by the big cuts being planned to the civilian support of the armed services?

The country is united in its respect for those who serve, but there is widespread concern about how far lessons have been learned from recent military interventions. Will the Prime Minister confirm that he will update and revise the review in the light of the forthcoming findings of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war? What is his response to this month’s United Nations report that all sides in the continuing conflict and anarchy in Libya are committing breaches of international law, including abductions, torture and the killing of civilians, and that ISIL militants have consolidated control over central Libya, carrying out summary executions, beheadings and amputations?

Last week, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg)—the former Deputy Prime Minister—wrote:

“Britain failed to provide meaningful backing to Libya in the wake of our air strikes there…We must learn from our mistakes.”

What lessons has the Prime Minister learned from the intervention in Libya in 2011, which, regrettably, has been followed by appalling chaos, persistent violence and the strengthening of ISIL?

Does the Prime Minister believe there is any prospect of Afghanistan maintaining its own security in the near future? How does he see Britain’s role in helping to ensure that that happens, given the huge commitment made over the past 14 years and the ultimate sacrifice paid by 456 members of the British forces? How will he apply lessons learned in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere to Britain’s role in the escalating war in Iraq and Syria, ensuring that further disastrous mistakes are avoided?

Britain does need strong military and security forces to keep us safe and to take a lead in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, working with and strengthening the United Nations. I recognise the increased commitment to the UN in the Prime Minister’s statement. There is no contradiction between working for peace across the world and doing what is necessary to keep us safe at home—in fact, the very opposite is true.

My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) will be leading a review about how we deliver that strong, modern protection for the people of Britain. Our review will seek to learn the lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and look at our military capabilities and requirements in that light. We owe it to the members of our armed forces and to the country as a whole to engage in the kind of review which is sadly lacking today.

The review will consider carefully and fully, on the basis of evidence and with the widest consultation and expert input, whether it is right for the UK to commit so much of the defence budget to continuous at-sea nuclear patrols, and if not, what alternative investments in our security and military capabilities would be required to meet the threats we face and ensure skills and jobs in our defence industries are fully protected. It will focus on the failure of the last Government to replace the Nimrod MR4A, leaving Britain to rely on asking for French planes for its airborne maritime capability. Why have the Government now chosen a replacement with virtually no UK defence content when it is in service?

Will the Prime Minister confirm—he was just talking about this—that the reduction in the number of Type 26 frigates we are procuring from 13 to eight will not impact on the Navy’s ability to protect the carriers? Can the Prime Minister give some reassurance to the workers on the Clyde? Last year, they were told that 13 ships would be built; now it is eight. Can he confirm this is simply a first batch and the commitment of 13 frigates still stands?

Our review will question the wisdom of British arms sales to repressive regimes with links to the funding of terrorism, and be firmly founded on the importance of human rights across the world. It will recognise that security is about much more than defence, and look to fulfil the huge potential this country has to lead the way in peacekeeping, conflict resolution and peace building.

We have a highly professional and experienced diplomatic corps—some of the best diplomats in the world—as well as world-class peace and conflict research academics. Does the Prime Minister not agree that the severe cut in the Foreign Office budget is clear evidence of the Government’s determination to sacrifice our place in the world on the altar of misplaced austerity? Will he commit to a human rights adviser in every embassy?

I return to everything that is uppermost in people’s minds—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the Leader of the Opposition is approaching his last question.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed, Mr Speaker. I am saying that we must have the police and security services fully resourced and able to do what is necessary to protect the public. I ask the Prime Minister to think very hard about the remarks made to him by senior police officers and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in this respect, and to assure the House today that those cuts in policing services will not go ahead.

[The Prime Minister]

I think the best that can be said about that is the longer the right hon. Gentleman went on, the less he had to say.

Most of the right hon. Gentleman’s statement was spent talking about the importance of having troops within the UN, the importance of shipbuilding on the Clyde, the importance of investing in defence, and the importance of having high morale among our armed forces. Yet only two months ago, he said:

“Why do we have to be able to have planes, transport aircraft, aircraft carriers and everything else to get anywhere in the world? Why?”

Is that the same right hon. Gentleman who is now sitting opposite us thinking of all these uses for our armed forces, when just a few months ago he thought there was none?

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the police. Let me tell him that we are safeguarding investment in our counter-terrorism policing, and indeed increasing the capabilities that they have. There will be a full statement on Wednesday on all the spending decisions that we make. He might want to have a word with his shadow Chancellor, who very recently signed up to a proposal, at a time when we face this heightened security threat, to

“Disband MI5 and special police squads”

and to “disarm the police.”

The Leader of the Opposition thinks that they should not use their weapons; the shadow Chancellor thinks they should not have any at all. That is presumably what passes for a defence policy.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a series of questions. Let me answer them all. First, he asked how we set out the threats. We publish a risk assessment. The whole point of a national security strategy is to bring together all the threats we face as a nation—state-on-state threats, terrorism, pandemics, climate change and others—and set out in one place how we evaluate them and how we will respond to them. That is something that never previously happened.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about morale in our armed forces. There are no proposals here to reduce the proposals we have made on pay and increments in our armed services or to change the very generous pension arrangements. One of the best things for morale in our armed services is that those serving in our Army, Navy or Air Force and those who are planning to join our Army, Navy or Air Force can see that there will be a bigger Navy with more ships, there will be a bigger Air Force with more planes and people, and our armed services will be better equipped and supplied than they ever have been.

The right hon. Gentleman asked why we do not have human rights advisers in all our embassies. To me, advising on human rights is part of the role of an ambassador.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about learning lessons from previous conflicts. We are determined to do that. That is part of what the inquiry into the Iraq war should be about. However, we have not waited for that inquiry to learn the lessons. That is why, as I will explain on Thursday, it is so important that we bring together military strategy with diplomatic strategy, political strategy and development strategy. All those things should go together.

The right hon. Gentleman asked what lessons were learned from the Libyan conflict. Clearly we need to make sure, in such situations, that there are Governments and states that can continue, but I do not apologise for one minute for stepping in, with France, to prevent Colonel Gaddafi from murdering his own people in his own country.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the maritime patrol aircraft. It is right that we order them not only to protect the deterrent, which he, of course, wants to get rid of, but to make sure that we have greater safety, greater security and greater search and rescue functions.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the frigates. There is a real opportunity for Britain here. We are ordering at least eight Type 26 frigates, which have the full capabilities, but we will also look at developing a new multi-purpose frigate not only for ourselves, but, hopefully, to sell overseas. That opens the possibility that the number of capital ships in the Navy will go up, rather than down.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about ship workers on the Clyde. We have seen a great boost in naval shipbuilding because of the carriers. We want to keep that going, which is why two maritime patrol vessels will be built even before the frigates start being built.

The right hon. Gentleman told us a bit about his review. We look forward to that review, which will be carried out by Ken Livingstone—someone who has absolutely no idea about defence, but every idea about attacking hard-working Labour Front Benchers who try to do their jobs.

Finally, on a day when we are discussing a better equipped Army, a bigger Navy and a bigger Air Force, perhaps we ought to end with a quotation from the right hon. Gentleman who, as recently as August, said:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world instead of taking pride in the size of their armed forces did what”

others

“have done and abolished the army and took pride in the fact that they don’t have an army”.

I know that it is depressing for Labour Members, but they might as well know about it. That is the view of the Leader of the Opposition.