Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Debate between John Spellar and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I rise to speak as Deputy Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate. May I pass on the apologies of the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has had a minor operation this week? As we know, he has very strong views on our defence capacity and would probably have wished to express them fairly vociferously in this debate. The defence estimates cover a vast range of work, but I will need to compress my remarks to 10 to 15 minutes to allow other contributions.

This is a dramatic time for defence issues. The agony of Ukraine intensifies, as President Zelensky’s powerful address to us yesterday made clear. The crisis has, of course, been building for a number of years, as Russia has launched successive cyber-attack warfare in the Baltic states and kinetic warfare in Georgia, Crimea and the Donbas. It has now exploded dramatically and tragically in Ukraine. We declare our solidarity with the country, the people and the military forces of Ukraine.

How are we in the UK to react to the dramatic shift in international security relations? Clearly, our Government and Parliament now have to give an urgent and positive response to the long-standing demands of our Defence Committee that we must move towards 3% of GDP for defence spending. The Budget in just over two weeks’ time has to respond positively to that imperative. Colleagues on both sides of the House will speak about detailed aspects of the consequential changes to personnel and to equipment, not least reversing the proposed reduction in numbers of the Army. To leave them sufficient time, I will focus on the broader context.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member, my friend, for giving way. Surely one of the lessons of what we have seen in Ukraine is that a small group of utterly determined trained, or indeed untrained, men and women can use small arms and anti-tank weapons and stop a hugely bigger force. We are therefore just in time to reverse some of the decisions in the integrated review, such as scrapping 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, an infantry battalion that proved its worth in 2009 hugely gallantly.

[John Spellar]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention—I think he should have declared an interest. He is absolutely right; the defence estimates and the Budget need to reflect the new reality.

I want to concentrate on the broader context: the ideological battle that is taking place, and the institutional shake-up that is consequently required. Most crucially, we have to recognise the full-spectrum approach of our opponents. Commentators in the west often gabble glibly about hybrid warfare, but in the framework of cyber war as an alternative to kinetic capability, and often in a mechanistic way, rather than understanding the political context and the need for whole-of-society resilience.

The Soviet mindset, of which we are now seeing a resurgence, is quite different. For these people, politics—politik—is everything. All agencies of the state are engaged. For too long we have ignored the multidimensional attack on our society, but that is a luxury we can no longer afford. This also means that the integrated defence review has, to an extent, disintegrated, and requires a major revamp which should start immediately. This necessary intellectual rethink must now focus primarily on state-on-state conflict.

Over many years, I have posed a question a number of times to military figures, defence officials and academics. During the cold war, we based our defence and security posture on our assessment of “the Threat”, with a capital T, and I have asked what the Threat is today. Invariably, I receive the answer that we face a variety of threats, but that is not the right answer, because the question is “What is the existential threat to our nation and society?” It is not terrorism, Islamist or otherwise, ugly and vile though that is. Today we—the people of Ukraine, the people of Europe, and indeed the west more widely—know the answer. It is a revanchist Russia and its desire to re-establish the Soviet territory, although I accept that in the longer term, as the defence review states, a revisionist China may be a more significant challenge. That means that today’s estimates are fundamentally an historical document, as, indeed, is the review.

That is not just down to the violently aggressive attacks by Putin’s Russia, but is also, thankfully, a result of the vigorous response not only from NATO allies but from formally neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland, where for the first time there is a public majority favouring NATO membership. The most seismic public reaction has been in Germany, where the new Social Democratic party Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has rewritten decades of German policy of both parties in his historic speech to the Bundestag. Equally dramatic was the wide political support, including support from the German Greens.

Chancellor Scholz stated clearly that President Putin had created a new reality which required an unequivocal response and a dramatic shift to supply Ukraine with weapons. He also made it clear that making international solidarity possible required new, strong capabilities. Essentially, that means that Germany must invest more in the security of the country. He addressed the readiness crisis in the Bundeswehr, which has been widely publicised and has featured in discussions we have had with our German counterparts. He stressed the need for aeroplanes that can fly, ships that can set out to sea, and soldiers who are optimally equipped for their mission. He has designated a one-off sum of €100 billion to set up a special fund, and has pledged an annual 2% of GDP.

I suggest to the Minister—I should welcome his observations—that we may also need to revise the ideological decision made by his Government, although not by current Ministers, to abandon our bases in Germany. I do not think the indication that we might make some minor return meets the need presented by the current challenge.

This was an imaginative, bold and historic intervention. Scholz clearly, in Bismarck’s phrase, heard God’s footsteps marching through history, and managed to catch on to His coattails as He marched past. I hope that our Ministers see the significance of that intervention, and engage rapidly and deeply with our German colleagues to build on this new reality. I hope they will also engage with our own defence industry. The Financial Times reports that after Scholz’s speech on the Sunday, on the Monday the German Defence Ministry and defence firms were engaged in detailed discussions as to how to ramp up production. The MOD and ADS should take note, because that is the sort of national response that we need. I was talking with the industry yesterday, and this does not appear to have happened, particularly not in the supply chain, which is wondering where it fits into the changed environment.