NATO and International Security

Debate between John Healey and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

My right hon. Friend is right. Clear and consistent communication is part of having an effective deterrent in place. It is not simply about the weaponry at hand.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman dare to go a little further and acknowledge the truth, which is that it is the responsible possession of nuclear weapons by responsible democracies that has kept the peace, and that it would be a mistake ever to get rid of nuclear weapons entirely as that would increase the likelihood of the major state- on-state warfare that we saw before nuclear weapons existed?

[John Healey]

I would agree with the contention that possession has helped to hold the peace, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has just pointed out, possession is a necessary but insufficient component of effective deterrence. The communication that my right hon. Friend has just talked about is part of a picture of effective deterrence, alongside political leadership of countries and alliances.

If the House will allow me, I shall move on to the strategic concept and the weeks ahead. Next month, as the Secretary of State has said, member nations will set NATO’s strategy for the next decade, with all democracies now facing new threats to their security. NATO’s last strategic concept was agreed in 2010. It declared:

“Today, the Euro-Atlantic area is at peace”.

It sought a strategic partnership with Russia, it had limited reference to terrorism and it made no mention at all of China. The proximity and severity of the security threat in Europe now demand a clear break with the principles-based platitudes that have been the hallmark of NATO’s previous public strategic concept. The nature of the threat is both clear and urgent. Russia has attacked Ukraine, overridden the NATO-Russia Founding Act, breached the Geneva conventions, buried the Helsinki Final Act, made unilateral threats of nuclear attack against NATO and stands accused of crimes against humanity and genocide.

The Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said:

“Regardless of when, how, the war in Ukraine ends, the war has already had long-term consequences for our security. NATO needs to adapt to that new reality.”

Most importantly, NATO has to adapt its primary task of collective defence.

When the Labour leader and I visited Estonia in February to thank our British troops, they told us about NATO’s tripwire deterrent, which the Secretary of State mentioned, with forward forces giving ground when attacked before retaking it later with reinforcements. The horrific Russian destruction of Ukrainian cities and the brutal shelling of civilians makes it clear that such a strategy of deterrence by reinforcement is no longer conscionable. NATO must instead aim for deterrence by denial, which is the operational consequence of NATO leaders’ commitment to defending every inch of NATO territory.

I am not sure whether that is covered by the combat effectiveness the Defence Secretary spoke about, but it implies a very serious strengthening of military capability, with more advanced systems, more permanent basing, higher force readiness and more intense exercises.

Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces

Debate between John Healey and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the Prime Minister’s 2019 election pledge that his Government would not cut the Armed Services in any form; further notes with concern the threat assessment in the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, that threats from other states to the UK and its allies are growing and diversifying; calls on the Government to rethink its plan set out in the Defence Command Paper, published in March 2021, CP411, to reduce key defence capabilities and reduce the strength of the Armed Forces, including a further reduction in the size of the Army by 2025; and calls on the Prime Minister to make an oral statement to Parliament by June 30 2021 on the Government’s plans to reduce the capability and strength of the Armed Forces.

Our thoughts across the House today are with the Queen and the royal family as they prepare for the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral on Saturday. His distinguished wartime career in the Navy was followed for decades by that same dedication to serving his country at the side of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

We have called this Opposition debate for Members from all parts of the House to debate the Government’s defence and security plans as set out last month in the integrated review, the Defence Command Paper and the defence and security industrial strategy. Our starting point is the Prime Minister. He said at the launch of his 2019 election manifesto on behalf of all Conservative Members here:

“We will not be cutting our armed forces in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed forces”.

He may take the pledges that he makes to our armed forces and the public lightly; we do not. The integrated review confirms:

“State threats to the UK…are growing and diversifying”,

yet the defence review is a plan for fewer troops, fewer ships and fewer planes over the next three to four years.

I am disappointed that the Defence Secretary cannot be here to answer the growing chorus of concerns about his defence plans, but for today we entirely accept his attendance at the NATO special meeting on Ukraine. That in itself reinforces the warnings in the Defence Command Paper, which said:

“Russia continues to pose the greatest nuclear, conventional military and sub-threshold threat to European security.”

That heightens the widening concerns about cutting the strength of the UK’s armed forces in the face of growing global threats, instabilities and uncertainties.

There are so many serious flaws in the defence review and the industrial strategy. There is no assessment of current or future capability, no strategic principles or assumptions and nothing about how the Ministry of Defence should be structured or staffed in order to best provide national security. There is no recognition that the UK’s research capacity has been run down over the last decade by deep cuts to defence research and development, and no plan to absorb the £6.6 billion now pledged over the next four years.

There is no system for identifying and supporting the small companies that produce so much of our invention. There is nothing about what defence can get from greater advances in civil industry or what it can provide to civil industry and civil society. There is no explanation of how we will sustain the forward-deployed, front-footed, persistently globally deployed and engaged armed forces with so few ships and transport aircraft. There are no evident contingency plans to replace the losses of key equipment in conflict. There is nothing about mothballing equipment retired from service, like so many other countries do, rather than disposing of it on the narrow grounds that it saves money. I could go on, and I will on other occasions, but for today, our debate and our motion focus on the central concern about decisions to cut the strength of our armed forces in the face of growing threats and in breach of the Prime Minister’s personal pledge at the election.

In view of the interest—I am delighted to see that Members from all sides want to contribute to this debate —I want to make four main arguments and then look forward to what colleagues have to say. First, on numbers, with the threats to the UK growing and diversifying, there is a strong case against, not for, further cuts to the size of our armed forces. The Defence Secretary has announced that the Army’s established strength will be cut by 10,000 to just 72,500 over the next four years. That will be the smallest British Army for 300 years. Ministers can only promise no redundancies because all three forces are already well below the strength that the Government set out was required in the 2015 defence review.

Of course we must develop new technologies in domains such as cyber-space and artificial intelligence, but the British infantry—as the Minister knows better than anyone—has been the foundation on which the defence of the UK has relied for over 350 years. New technologies have always been harnessed to strengthen its capabilities, but they have never replaced entirely the need for boots on the ground.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I have some sympathy for the right hon. Gentleman’s position, because when I was the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, I spent a lot of time criticising the then Labour Government for cutting the size of the infantry and the Army. The clear implication is that the next Labour Government would be spending more than the present Government, so how much more money would a future Labour Government be putting into defence compared to what we are spending, which, of course, has increased already?

[John Healey]

Sadly we are nowhere near another election at this point. We are at this stage in the parliamentary cycle with these plans on the table, and our interest is in the Government getting this right. The decisions taken now will set the shape of our defence forces for the next 10 years. The decisions taken now will be the framework with which a future Labour Government, after the next election, will have to live.