NATO

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

As we see it, 2% is very much a floor: a base on which to build. We can be very proud to be one of the few nations in NATO that meet the 2% commitment, and we can be exceptionally proud of the work done under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon)—and, of course, that of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor before he moved to the Foreign Office—in establishing that all NATO members needed to spend more.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

There are various metrics by which our peacetime defence investment can be measured, one of which is how it compares with spending on other high-expenditure departmental matters such as health, education and welfare. Does my right hon. Friend recall that as recently as the 1980s, we were spending roughly the same on defence as we were spending on health and education? I am not saying we should repeat that, but given that we are spending two and half times as much on education as we spend on defence, and four times as much on health—and that was before the recent rise—does he not believe that defence has fallen a bit too far down the scale of our national priorities?

[Gavin Williamson]

I could see the excitement on the Chancellor’s face as my right hon. Friend outlined his proposals. I was not sure whether it constituted agreement that we should be setting those targets, but I am sure that we shall have to negotiate on the issue over a long period.

We must ensure that NATO is adapting—and continues to adapt—to the times, and also to the threats that it faces. Since its creation, we have always seen Britain leading from the front. Not only do we assign our independent nuclear deterrent to the defence of the alliance, as we have for the past 56 years, but our service personnel and defence civilians are on the ground in Eastern Europe at this very moment, providing a deterrence against Russian aggression.

 

It has been my privilege to see their dedication and devotion to duty in Estonia, where we are leading a multinational battlegroup, and in Poland where they are supporting the United States forces. And at the same time our sailors are commanding half of NATO’s standing naval forces, and our pilots, ground crew, and aircraft have returned to the Black sea region, based in Romania, to police the skies of our south-eastern European allies. Just last year UK forces led the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force and we became the first ally to deliver cyber-capabilities in support of NATO operations.

Meanwhile, UK personnel form a critical part of NATO’s command structure. So I am proud that the UK will be sending more than 100 additional UK personnel to bolster that command structure, taking our total to well over 1,000. As we look at the emerging threats and the challenges our nation faces going forward, it is clear that we must make sure that NATO has the resources: that it has the capability and the people to man those command structures, in order for us to meet those threats.

NATO needs the extra support to deal with the growing threats. The dangers we face are multiplying all the time and come from every direction. We are confronting a host of new threats from extremism to cyber-warfare, dangers global in nature that require an international response and a global presence. We are witnessing the rise of rogue states conducting proxy wars and causing regional instability, while old threats are returning.

Russia is a case in point. Back in 2010 Russia was not clearly identified as a threat. The focus of our attention was ungoverned spaces such as Afghanistan and Iraq, but by 2015 the emergence of new threats was becoming apparent to everyone and this threat has accelerated and increased over the last three years.

In 2010 our Royal Navy was called on just once to respond to a Russian naval ship approaching UK territorial waters; last year it was called on 33 times. Russian submarine activity has increased tenfold in the north Atlantic, to a level not seen since the cold war. The Russians are also investing in new technology, through which they aim to outpace our capability. They are concentrating on our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and we must be realistic and accept that we are going to have to invest in new capabilities to deal with these new threats.

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[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I believe that I am right in saying that this is the third defence debate this year to be held in the main Chamber and if the opening speeches—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman just as he is starting. I had omitted to tell him and the House that there has to be an initial time limit of seven minutes, which will begin not from when the right hon. Gentleman started, but from now.

[Dr Lewis]

That is very generous of you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

If the opening speeches in this debate are anything to go by, I think that the temperature will be very similar to that of the first two debates and show a welcome unanimity on both sides of the House about the importance of defence investment in peacetime to ensure that we minimise the chances of conflict breaking out.

The shadow Secretary of State referred to the importance of investing in the whole range of conventional capabilities. As far as I can see, that is common ground among all the main parties in this House, even though there are differences of opinion about the nuclear dimension. The difficulty that we face is that defence investment costs a lot of money, and defence inflation has been running ahead of defence investment. As a result, we repeatedly hear phrases such as “hollowing out” and “black holes in the budget”. It was useful that she said that she felt that defence investment, in real terms, had fallen by about £10 billion.

I do not think I am giving away anything more than I should by saying that in a few days’ time the Defence Committee will publish a new report entitled, “Indispensable Allies?”, referring to the defence relationship between the United States, the United Kingdom and NATO. In that report, we do some calculations and projections about defence investment. We can see that at every level at which we estimate gross domestic product to grow over the next few years, an extra 0.5% of GDP equates, roughly speaking, to £10 billion. That is why when my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) referred to the need to move towards 2.5% or 3% of GDP, we understood the sorts of figures that we are aiming to achieve.

It was slightly unfortunate that when we published our most recent report, “Beyond 2 per cent”, a few days ago, it coincided with the welcome announcement that £20 billion will be found for investment in the national health service. As I said in an intervention, while we obviously welcome the investment that is made in other high-spending Departments, it is important to remember how defence used to compare with those other calls on our Exchequer. At the time of the cold war in the 1980s, which is in the memory of most of us sitting in this House today, we spent roughly the same on health, on education and on defence. Now we spend multiples more on activities other than defence. Indeed, welfare—on which we used to spend 6% in the 1960s, just as we spent 6% on defence at that time—now takes up six times as much of our national wealth as does defence. So it is fairly easy to see that, by any standard of comparison, defence has fallen down the scale of our national priorities.

We have been very focused on Europe today because of the debate that took place immediately prior to this debate. It is worth reminding ourselves of the steps that led to the foundation of NATO. This may come as a slight surprise to some Members, but it actually goes back to the end of 1941, when three small European countries, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands—who had all been overrun by Nazi Germany and whose Foreign Ministers were taking shelter in London—made an approach to the British Foreign Office. They said, “We’ve tried being neutral. We’ve tried keeping out of power politics. It has failed. Our countries have been occupied by brutal aggressors. When this terrible war is over, we want Britain to have permanent military bases on our territory so that we can never be caught out like this again.” It was from that invitation given to the United Kingdom to base military forces in countries that had put their trust in pacifism and neutralism, and had that trust betrayed, that NATO ultimately came into existence.

The Secretary of State began by paying tribute to the people who made the ultimate sacrifice in a time of war. It is certainly the case that when a war breaks out, there is no shortage of people willing to make that sacrifice, and what is more, there is no shortage of money to be invested in fighting and winning that conflict. The question that always faces us is what to do in peacetime. There is a paradox of peacetime preparedness, if Members will excuse the alliteration, which is that we prepare by investing in armed forces that we hope will never be used. That is what we have to do, and it is a difficult battle to fight to persuade people in peacetime to invest money in things that we hope we will not have to send into action.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

In terms of future investment in something that we do not want to have to use, does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that some of that future investment could be lost through dollar dependency in the equipment plan, meaning that any additional moneys coming from the Government would be lost and have no long-term benefit?

[Dr Lewis]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman, who is a valued member of the Defence Committee, has argued that point consistently on the Committee. The Government certainly need to bear that in mind when placing orders for expensive new equipment, at least during a period of uncertainty when there is doubt that the pound will hold its value against another currency.

In conclusion, we have an opportunity in this NATO summit to show that we are leading by example. It was never the case that we were anywhere near the NATO minimum of defence expenditure. It was always the case that we were second only to the Americans. We must try to restore that situation, and that means raising more money for defence and spending more money on defence. Spending 2.5% of GDP will restore us to where we were a few years ago; 3% of GDP should be our target, because only that way can we be ready for the threats that sadly face us today and show no sign whatever of diminishing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

I listened very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, but I would not think that we should take any lessons on trade policy from Donald Trump.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

11. What recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on future funding for his Department.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

I have regular discussions with the Chancellor. The modernising defence programme will ensure that our armed forces have the right capabilities to address evolving threats. The Government are committed to spending at least 2% of GDP on defence, and the defence budget will rise by at least 0.5% above inflation every year of this Parliament, taking it to almost £40 billion by 2021.

[Dr Lewis]

I thank the Secretary of State for that helpful reply. Would he like to take this opportunity to endorse the suggestion by his immediate predecessor that we should aim to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament? Does he agree that that would be a useful staging post on the road to the 3% that we really need? Finally, would the forthcoming NATO summit not be an excellent opportunity to announce any such advance?

[Mr Speaker]

I thought the right hon. Gentleman was going to give us his usual mantra, “We need three to keep us free,” but it was incorporated in the gravamen of his question.

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[Mark Lancaster]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very valuable point. All too often, when we talk about our armed forces, we think purely of humans, but of course, for many centuries, animals have made a fine contribution, too.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If we cannot protect our service personnel from the Northern Ireland campaign by a statute of limitations coupled with the truth recovery process, who is going to be next: the Falkland Islands veterans, or even the last few from the second world war?

[Gavin Williamson]

As I touched upon earlier, it is clear that this House has a simple and clear view that we should always do everything we can to protect those who have served our country. We will look at all options to ensure that that is done.

Historic Allegations against Veterans

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

We have to draw a distinction: the police and armed forces were acting under statute. They showed immense bravery, professionalism and courage, and they were acting in support of the civil code and authorities. They were also acting under the Yellow Book—which the colonel, my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), knows only too well—and if they deviated from it, they were dealt with severely.

A number of colleagues present will remember the case involving the four soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. A farmhouse was broken into and two civil rights campaigners, Michael Naan and Andrew Murray, were shot. There was an investigation; two sergeants were charged with and convicted of murder and another was convicted of attempted manslaughter. All three were sentenced to long prison terms. The officer in charge, who was not actually present—though, to be fair to what happened afterwards, he covered up—was charged and given a suspended sentence, and he resigned his commission. It is fair to say, therefore, that events and incidents such as that were dealt with incredibly firmly.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I would like my hon. Friend to address the point that was raised in the earlier intervention. There is a natural repulsion that one feels about equating the treatment of soldiers with that of terrorists, but that pass, surely, has already been sold because the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 provides that anyone—whether soldier or terrorist—convicted of having killed someone unlawfully cannot be sentenced to more than two years in jail. If the price of protecting soldiers against trials so long after the event is that we also have to protect everyone else, is not that a price that we ought to be willing to pay?

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

My right hon. Friend has done a lot of work on this, and I pay tribute to his work and that of his Committee. I have a way forward, which involves the statute of limitations, which covers the whole of the UK, but I shall come on to that.

Let us look at what the Police Service of Northern Ireland is doing, because that is relevant to the Dennis Hutchings case, which I am coming on to. In 2010 the PSNI set up the Historical Enquiries Team which, as colleagues know, completed investigations into nearly 1,600 cases. The PSNI then set up its legacy investigation branch which, as I understand it from the consultation issued by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, will morph into an historical investigations unit.

That unit, I believe, will look at the remaining 923 cases, of which 283 involve members of the security forces. So far, five cases involving them have been or are being investigated, leaving another 278. The cost so far has been £35 million, so if every one of those cases is investigated, we are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds. A number of former members of the security forces have been investigated and charged, as I said, including two retired veterans of the Parachute Regiment now aged 68 and 65, who have been charged with the 1972 murder of the infamous IRA commander Joe McCann.

Another such case is that of Dennis Hutchings. I declare an interest, because I know Dennis and I have had long discussions and meetings with him. However, it is important to look at his case in a bit more detail. The incident took place in 1974, which was an incredibly tough, difficult year in the Province. More than 300 people were killed. There were numerous bomb attacks on the mainland, too. On the day in question, 6 June, Dennis Hutchings was leading a four-man patrol in an area where firearms and bomb-making equipment had been found two days before. There had been an exchange of fire two days before. Dennis Hutchings had been commended for his bravery and was subsequently mentioned in dispatches for the way in which he had controlled the patrol two days before, when one of his patrol was hit and badly wounded.

On the day in question, Dennis Hutchings and his patrol went back to a village called Benburb. They chanced on John Pat Cunningham, who was challenged to give himself up. He was behaving in a suspicious manner; he had a suspicious piece of equipment on him. He did not answer the challenge. He moved away from the patrol. They thought they were threatened. They opened fire. It was a tragic case of mistaken identity. It was an innocent civilian that was killed.

I want to stress that the case was fully investigated at the time by the regiment, the military police and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. It was investigated over a period of months. All the forensic evidence was looked at, the rifles were looked at, the bullets that were fired were examined in forensic laboratories, and witness statements were made. The men of the patrol were told by the Army legal service that that was the end of the case and they would have no more to fear.

Fast forward to 2011 and Dennis Hutchings was called before the Historical Enquiries Team. He was asked to go to Northern Ireland, where he was questioned over a period of time about the incidents that took place. He co-operated fully. When it became apparent that there was no evidence that would stand up in court, and that obviously no fair trial could take place, he was told by the PSNI investigators that that was the end of the matter—in 2011. He was told it was totally the end of the matter—that he could go back to his grandchildren, back to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), and enjoy the rest of his life, get on with the rest of his life. And that is what Dennis did.

We move forward to April 2015—four years on. There is a dawn raid on Corporal Major Hutchings’s home in Cornwall. He is in extremely bad health. He is arrested in a pretty high-handed manner, taken to Northern Ireland for four days’ questioning and then charged with attempted murder. The case is ongoing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I very much hope to be able to update the House and the hon. Gentleman in the not-too-distant future. We are very conscious of the importance of our deterrence, which is absolutely pivotal for keeping this country safe, and our submarines in the north Atlantic are absolutely central to that.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

When the threat from Russia receded at the end of the cold war, we understandably cut our defence budget to 3% of gross domestic product. Given events—from Salisbury to Syria—demonstrating that, sadly, that threat is now reappearing, should we not seek to get back to that sort of level of defence expenditure, and will the Secretary of State lay that pertinent fact in front of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend tries to tempt me. We have to be realistic about the fact that the threat picture is changing. It has escalated considerably since 2010—even from 2015—and we have to make sure that we have the right capabilities. That is why we are carrying out the modernising defence programme: to deliver the right types of capabilities for our armed forces to deal with the increasing threat that we face. We have to be realistic about the challenges—those posed by Russia are far greater than the challenges that were presented as an insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan—and how we get the right mix of military equipment and capability to deal with that increased threat.

Ministry of Defence

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I might be a touch over-optimistic, but I get the impression that a sea change is going on, at least in this Chamber. It was only in 2016 that we first started to debate whether 2% of gross domestic product was a sufficient investment for this country to make in defence in peacetime. At that time, it seemed fairly outlandish to suggest that we ought to be talking about 3% of GDP or even more. It is not outlandish to suggest that now. Of course, that is partly because of the shift in the strategic situation, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) outlined so comprehensively a few moments ago, but it is also partly because of the efforts of colleagues on the Government and Opposition Benches—I pay tribute to my old friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for doing this today—to bring this subject forward time and again to impress on the House and the country that we are simply not investing enough in defence.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford referred to pinstriped warriors in the civil service. I do not wish to point any fingers in any particular directions, but when the National Security Adviser appeared before the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy on 18 December and was asked whether it would be possible for him to recommend that the defence budget ought to be increased, given the fact that the security capability review that he had been conducting was supposed to be fiscally neutral, it worried me that he responded:

“When I said that the 2015 review was fiscally neutral, it was fiscally neutral within a growing envelope.”

In other words, he meant that there were certain absolute increases in the sums being spent. At a later stage, having tried to lump together the defence budget with all other moneys spent on security of one form or another to give a global figure of £56 billion, he went on to say:

“If we concluded that the total set of capabilities, optimised across that £56 billion, was insufficient to meet the threats, of course we would say that to Ministers. That is not a conclusion I expect to reach, but of course I always have the freedom to give Ministers candid advice.”

I am rather worried if our top security professionals do not feel even a twinge of doubt about the level of priority that we are giving to defence. When sometimes people stress the point, which is not without merit, that when we talk about spending 2% or 3% of GDP we are talking about inputs, not outputs in terms of capability, I say to them that of course it is true that we could spend a huge amount of money on defence, but if we spent it on all the wrong things, it would not do us a lot of good. Conversely, though, if we are simply not spending enough on defence, nothing that we can do will give us the outputs we need.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about civil servants, but the decision to cut the defence budget by 16% between 2010 and 2015 was not a civil servant’s invention. It was the political decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government at the time.

[Dr Lewis]

Yes, and I will come to the issue of how we can use the percentage of GDP to track what has been happening to defence in a moment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman—a former Defence Minister in the Labour Government, of course, and a very good one—will try to be non-partisan about this for the simple reason that successive Governments are responsible for what has happened.

What actually took place was, as has already been hinted at, something that has been going on over a very long period. Colleagues on both sides of the House have heard me recite this so often that I am afraid they might do that terrible thing and join in, singing the song with me. But I will just run through it again. In 1963, the falling graph of defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP crossed over with the rising graph of expenditure on welfare at 6%. So we were spending the same on welfare and defence—6%—in 1963. In the mid-1980s, as we have heard, we regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence, and that was the period when we last had an assertive Russia combined with a major terrorist threat—the threat in Northern Ireland. We were spending at that time roughly the same amount on education and health. Nowadays we spend six times on welfare what we spend on defence, we spend four times on health what we spend on defence, and we spend two and a half times on education what we spend on defence.

We have to ask what we mean when we say that defence is the first duty of Government. If it is the first duty of Government, it is a duty that is more important than any other duty, because if we fail to discharge it everything else is put in jeopardy.

[Toby Perkins]

I partly take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, if he is looking back to 1963 and the role of successive Governments from then to now. But it is also true that there was a substantial cut in defence spending in 2010-11, which bears no relationship to what happened in the previous 13 years. If defence spending had carried on increasing in real terms from 2009-10 to the present, £10 billion more would be being spent on defence than is spent under this Government. That is a substantial change from this Government to the previous one.

[Dr Lewis]

I will not defend what happened in 2010. I was a shadow Defence Minister for slightly longer than the duration of the second world war in the years up to 2010, and I was told retrospectively that the reason I never became a real Defence Minister was that it was known that I would not go along with what they were planning to do. So I am not inclined to lay down my life for the Cameron-Lib Dem coalition of those years. I did not do it then, and I will not do it now.

Having said that, it is all part of a bigger trend, and I come back to my projection of the situation. At the end of the cold war, as we have heard, we took the peace dividend. We had the reductions, which were reasonable under the circumstances. But in 1995-96—the middle of the 1990s and several years after we had taken the peace dividend reductions—we were not spending barely 2% of GDP on defence as we do now, but we were spending fully 3% of GDP on defence. From then on it was downhill all the way—

[John Spellar]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Lewis]

I will give way to my good friend the deputy Chairman of the Committee in a moment.

I can remember Tony Blair on HMS Albion in 2007, looking back on his 10 years as Prime Minister and saying, “Well, I think we can say that we have kept defence spending roughly constant at 2.5% of GDP if the cost of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are included.” But in fact the cost of operations should not have been included, because they are meant to be met from the Treasury reserve. The real figure over the Blair decade came down to 2.1% or 2.2% of GDP.

[John Spellar]

It is clear from the figures provided by the Library that while in most years there was an actual increase in defence expenditure during the years of that Labour Government, since 2010 it has been -1.4%, -1.4%, -4%, -3.3%, -2.4% and -2.9%, and in 2016-17 it did actually go into the positive, +1.4%. My friend should be clear that there was a step-change when the Cameron Government came in that led to year-on-year cuts, and our armed forces are feeling the effect of that.

[Dr Lewis]

What I am looking for today is agreement across the House that we recognise that we should not be having almost theological debates about whether we are just above or just below the 2% minimum guideline that NATO prescribes to its member states for defence expenditure, but that we have to get back to the level—at the very least—of what we considered appropriate for so long, right up until the mid-1990s, when the Labour Government came in, which was 3% of GDP.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Lewis]

I will give way one more time, but I want to concentrate on the bigger picture, because frankly neither of the parties has much to be proud about on defence expenditure since the mid-1990s.

[Mr Jones]

The facts do not bear out what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. According to the Library, the last time defence expenditure was 3% was 1993-94. After that, there was a 7% decrease in 1995, a 1% decrease in 1996 and a 5.7% increase the following year. The Labour Government came in, following the Treasury rules laid down by the previous Government, and in 1998 increased defence spending by 5.8%. The idea that the last Labour Government were following a trend that had been set is just not the case.

[Dr Lewis]

It depends whether the hon. Gentleman is talking about absolute figures or percentages of GDP spent on defence. In 2016, the Defence Committee produced a unanimous report called “Shifting the Goalposts? Defence expenditure and the 2% pledge”. We had the Committee staff use all available sourcing to draw up a definitive table of what had been spent on defence by Britain as a proportion of GDP over the past 50 years. The figures for the period we are talking about are: 1990-91, 3.8%; 1991-92, 3.8%; 1992-1993, 3.7%; 1993-94, 3.5%; 1994-95, 3.3%; and 1995-96, 3%. It then dips below 3% in 1996-97 to 2.7%, and thereafter it is down and down, with little blips here and there, until it is hovering around 2.5% because the cost of operations were included.

The point about all this is that we should not be arguing about who did the most damage. We should be agreeing about what we need in the future. If we are hearing a chorus of voices from the Labour Benches—it is music to my ears—saying that we have not been spending enough on defence and we need to be spending more, that is what we should be saying loud and clear to those people who seem to be perfectly content to spend the existing inadequate sums.

I do not wish to prolong my contribution, but I do wish to speak briefly about the equipment plan that was alluded to in some detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. The equipment plan of 2016 is for £178 billion over 10 years. That includes a small number—nine, which some would say was too small a number—of new P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, replacing a capability that was quite wrongly dispensed with after 2010. We are also supposed to be replacing 13 Type 23 frigates and supplying mechanised infantry vehicles out of this budget, and we are of course engaged in resurrecting carrier strike capability—another capacity that was temporarily lost after 2010.

The first report of the Defence Committee in the new Parliament was entitled, “Gambling on ‘Efficiency’: Defence Acquisition and Procurement”. The word “efficiency” was in inverted commas because we believe that the affordability of the scheme is predicated on an estimate of £7.3 billion of theoretical efficiency savings that are to be made in addition to some £7.1 billion that was previously announced. As we have heard, the National Audit Office thinks that the equipment programme is at greater risk than at any time since reporting was introduced in 2012. The truth of the matter is that we encounter black holes everywhere we look in defence. This brings me to my concluding point.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for the points he is making. We can starkly illustrate this issue. Training operations that had been committed for next year have been delayed, and we now hear that there are more. We also heard, very openly and honestly, at the Defence Committee last week not only that we going to have to cut mobile phone contracts and car hire contracts, but that—thinking about next year’s budget—£300 million has already been flexed in this year’s budget for a black hole in the Dreadnought class.

[Dr Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is a stalwart of the Committee. I hope that he will develop that important point if he catches your eye presently, Mr Deputy Speaker. Obviously there has to be flexibility and a means of making adjustments when adjustments have to be made to very large sums during the course of an annual budget cycle. But we are talking about an overall shortfall that is so great that we are not going to get anywhere unless we recognise reality and accept that defence should not be so far down the national scale of priorities that it has far left behind those areas of high Government expenditure with which it used to bear straight comparison.

I mentioned previously the National Security Adviser and his security and capability review. The House will know something of the difficulties that the Defence Committee has had in getting the National Security Adviser to appear before it on the grounds—he says—that defence was only one out of 12 strands in that review. The new Secretary of State for Defence has now had some success in regaining control of that one strand for the MOD. Nevertheless, there is something to be said for a very in-depth interrogation of the people who are currently charged with the overall design of our defence and security policy.

At the present time, there is a degree of complacency by people who work in these Ministries. Then, as if by magic, the scales drop from their eyes the moment that they leave. Dare I say this in relation to our most recent former Secretary of State for Defence? Throughout his tenure he played a very straight bat, constantly talking up how much more money was being spent on defence. But within a very short time of leaving his position he made an excellent speech—I believe it was on 22 January this year—in which he said not only that he feels that we need to spend more on defence, but that we ought to be spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament.

In the further contributions to this debate, I look to some magic formula that will take hold of our Defence Ministers, civil servants, National Security Adviser and all the rest who seem to think that all is well with the world when, confronted with threats such as we face today, we are spending a fraction of what we used to spend in percentage terms of GDP, and who are saying, “Everything is fine and we are on course.” We are not on course. We need to change course, and the direction in which we have to go is towards a significant uplift to 3% of GDP to be spent on the defence of the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

It was a deliberate strategy, in the Cameron-Osborne Conservative party, to ignore the facts and spin—“If we keep saying it long enough, people will believe it.”

The 2009 NAO report said that if the equipment budget was not increased at all over 10 years, it might be possible to arrive at a figure of £36 billion. How did they then get an extra £2 billion? I think the then Defence Secretary just added some personnel revenue costs to get to the £38 billion figure. What the report actually said, however—this point was completely ignored—was that the scenario it envisaged, of the budget remaining constant in real terms over the 10-year period, would lead to a £6 billion funding gap, which could have been managed over that 10-year period.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is right. The impression was given to the public, and to everyone else who wanted to hear this spin, that the £38 billion had to be found in year straightaway. That was a clear fabrication. We know that, because when the current Chancellor became Defence Secretary, following the resignation of the right hon. Member for North Somerset after two years, he suddenly announced that the black hole had disappeared. I do not know whether he was auditioning for his current job as Chancellor, but the idea that it is possible to get rid of a £38 billion in-year black hole in the defence budget in just two years is complete nonsense.

The Conservative Government used that as a smokescreen to allow them to cut the defence budget, as part of the Chancellor’s austerity drive, by 16%. The effect of that has been some of the decisions referred to earlier on, including the scrapping of capability such as Nimrod. Making people compulsorily redundant in our armed forces was completely inexcusable. Certainly, if the Government I was a member of had done that when I was a Defence Minister, we would have been rightly decried by the people who are always arguing for defence. Those decisions have had an impact on what is happening today. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) referred to the increased expenditure on the Trident programme. The £1.2 billion to £1.4 billion in additional costs happened because that decision was delayed. The deal done by the then Prime Minister David Cameron to get the Liberal Democrats on board in coalition delayed the programme, which built in costs.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

indicated assent.

[Mr Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is nodding. He and I kept raising that and asking why that decision had not been made. The costs arriving now are because of the decisions taken by the coalition Government. I accept all that has been said about increased defence expenditure, but we cannot get away from the core decisions that have led to the problems we have today.

The 2015 pre-Brexit strategic defence and security review announced an additional £24.4 billion spending on new equipment. Some of that, for example on the P-8, was to fill the gap the Government created in 2010 with a hasty decision to scrap the Nimrod. Reference was made earlier to the civil service making decisions. I am sorry, but it was not civil servants or generals making those decisions; it was Ministers making these decisions, including the right hon. Member for North Somerset and the current Chancellor, when he was Defence Secretary. They decided to reduce the size of the Army to 82,000. I asked a retired senior general, “Who came up with the figure of 82,000 for our armed forces?” He scratched his head and said, “We were just told that that was what the figure was going to be to fit the cash envelope.” We then had the construct of Army 2020, which is a complete political cover, to try to give the impression that we are going to keep the Army at nearly 100,000. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend very eloquently outlined in her contribution to the debate, that is not only not producing the additional personnel required, but is actually costing more than if we had not done that in the first place.

Another point about the 2015 review is that, again, hasty decisions were taken in ordering the P-8. There is a gap, created by this Government, in maritime patrol aircraft. The P-8 was to be bought off the shelf—the Apache contract was announced at the same time—from the United States. That was pre Brexit. The added costs in foreign currency exchange are now creating pressures on the defence budget, and that is before we look at the effect on the economic and industrial base of our country. It may seem an easy option to buy off the shelf from the United States, but that lets our own industrial base decline, and that is what is happening. I have not yet seen any meaningful commitment by the contractors, Boeing, to create real jobs in the UK. What angers me is that if it was the other way around and we were selling equipment to the United States, we would be unable to do so without a clear commitment to jobs and investment in United States industry. That is where the MOD woefully and shamefully let down the British economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

We have only just completed the budget for 2017-18, and I should be clear that we have yet to embark on the annual spending round for next year. Perhaps this differs from other Departments because we have an opportunity to make a case for additional spending. We have the opportunity to make the case for a defence posture and to say what is appropriate for Britain. I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman’s point at the moment, but the purpose of this entire process is for us, hopefully with the House’s support, to make the case to the Treasury and to the Prime Minister. That is what the modernisation programme is all about.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I fully understand the direction of my right hon. Friend’s argument and I realise that it has been a great success for him and the new Secretary of State to regain control of the process for the MOD. If, as a result of the MOD’s examinations, the minimum recommendations on what the country needs to be able to deter threats and defend itself successfully require a significant increase in the defence budget—frankly, that is the assumption that has underlain many of today’s speeches—can we rely on the whole ministerial team to stand together as one and say to the Prime Minister, “We simply must spend more on defence”? That is what is required.

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend hypothesises, but it is absolutely the case that we stand together to put forward a programme that will allow for the defence posture that we believe the country absolutely deserves. It is not just about asking for more money, which is obviously simple to do, and we will be lining up with other Departments doing exactly the same thing; we should also recognise that there are efficiencies to be found in the MOD itself. Indeed, as outlined in the 2015 SDSR, we are realising £7 billion of efficiency savings and moving to a more commercial footing, seeking to sell more of our world-class military equipment.

The most important reason for doing this now rather than waiting for the next SDSR in 2020 is that the world around us is changing fast. That raises important questions —arguably more so for Britain than for other countries—about exactly what role we aspire to play as a nation. The outcomes and recommendations of the defence modernisation programme will provide the evidence for how to answer the big questions. We are experiencing a chapter in which the conduct of war is changing at a furious pace. As the world gets more complex and unpredictable, ever fewer countries have the means, aspiration and, indeed, authority to help to shape it for the better.

As the Prime Minister said in her Mansion House speech last year, we are seeing resurgent nations ripping up the international rules-based order. Left unchecked, the growing threats could damage the free markets and open economies that have fuelled global growth for a generation, at the very time, post-Brexit, when we are seeking new trade deals around the globe. The task of a global Britain is clear: to defend that rules-based international order against irresponsible states; to support our partners in unstable regions by repelling the threats that they face; and to back visions for societies and economies that will prosper and help the world.

My concern, which I think is shared in all parts of the House, is that there is a tragic collective naivety about the durability of the relative peace that we enjoy today. That point has been repeated again and again in the debate. Our country, economy and values are vulnerable to a range of growing dangers, both state and non-state, that have no respect for our borders, including the rise of so-called sharp power—the deceptive use of information for hostile purposes and the manipulation of ideas, political perceptions and electoral processes. It is a model that is not new, but because of the speed and the low cost, which come thanks to the internet and so forth, it is far easier to procure.

My belief, which I hope is echoed around the Chamber, is that it has always been in our nation’s DNA to step forward when other nations might hesitate and to help to shape the world around us. However, to continue to do so will require investment, so I end by repeating my thanks to the Treasury for its support. It has to endure all Departments seeking to increase their budgets. We often say that it is only with a strong economy that we can consider any increase in any budget, but I politely add that without a strong defence, a strong economy cannot be guaranteed.

Last week, the Secretary of State spoke of 2% of GDP being spent on defence as a floor, not a ceiling. The message has to be clear: if we want to continue to play an influential role on the international stage, with full-spectrum capability; if we want to provide the critical security that post-Brexit trade deals will demand; and if we want to remain a leading contributor in the fight against extremism in the middle east and elsewhere, we cannot continue to do all that on a defence budget of just 2% of GDP. Two per cent. is just not enough. This is a question not just for the Government and parliamentarians, but for Britain: what status, role and responsibility do we aspire to have as we seek to trade more widely in a world that is becoming more dangerous?

Fatalities in Northern Ireland and British Military Personnel

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Seventh Report of the Defence Committee, Investigations into fatalities in Northern Ireland involving British military personnel, Session 2016-17, HC 1064, and the Government response, HC 549.

It is a pleasure to introduce today’s important debate under your chairmanship, Sir David. My interest in the topic was first sparked by contributions made at an end-of-term debate by my hon. and gallant Friends the Members for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), both of whom are here today, although sadly one of them, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, cannot contribute personally to the debate.

When the Defence Committee agreed to look into this question, we delved into it very much from the point of view of what was technically possible, and what was impossible for reasons of international law. From the beginning of the troubles in 1969 to the signing of the Good Friday agreement, there were 3,260 troubles-related deaths. Of those, 238 were the result of engagements by military personnel.

The Committee was particularly exercised by recent events. As a result of the much more recent campaign in Iraq, soldiers were being brought to court, and it appeared that thousands of cases would have to be investigated, despite the fact that at the end of long, tortuous and expensive processes, the vast majority were found to be without much, or indeed any, substance. The Committee was worried that a similar sort of process would now begin retrospectively in relation to the 238 military-related deaths that occurred during the troubles.

In the course of our inquiry, we took the advice of a panel of four distinguished lawyers who gave evidence. I drew a number of lessons from what they had to say. They told us that it would be possible to draw a line under the events of such a long period so long ago, if that was what was decided, but they assured us that it would not be possible under international law to do so in a selective fashion. They were quite clear that two conditions would have to be met if we wished to bring in, as the Committee felt that we should, a statute of limitations concerning troubles-related deaths up to the date of the Belfast agreement. I have already alluded to the first condition, which is that the statute of limitations should apply to everybody. The second condition, which is a requirement under international law, is that there must be a proper investigative process for deaths that have occurred, even though that may not lead—indeed, if there were a statute of limitations, definitely would not lead—to a prosecution.

I started to discuss the matter with various interested parties. The Democratic Unionists with whom I discussed it certainly want a statute of limitations applying to the military forces, the police and the security agencies, but they have grave difficulty with applying such a statute to former republican paramilitaries. Only yesterday, for the first time, I was given the opportunity to have a discussion, which I welcomed, with three of the Sinn Féin elected MPs. I think it is true to say that they were interested in something that already seems to apply to republican paramilitaries, but they were not interested in something that would apply to the military, the police or the security agencies. There is also a certain lack of clarity, to put it mildly, about the present policy. As we discovered in our discussions yesterday, there is even failure to agree on whether existing limitations on the sentences that can be given to convicted paramilitaries apply to service personnel as well.

What are the existing restrictions? I think we know what they are. As part of the agreements that have been reached after so many years, so many negotiations, so much death, so much tragedy and so much trouble, it was agreed that no matter how great the offence or how numerous the victims, if paramilitaries were convicted under the terms of the agreement, whether they had killed dozens, scores or even just a few individuals, they could not be sentenced to more than two years in prison. The likelihood, therefore, is that they would not serve more than one year in prison.

There seemed, however, to be no agreement on whether that restriction applies to the military. I do not know if the Minister will be able to enlighten us today; if not, I hope that he will write to us with a definitive answer. The Sinn Féin MPs definitely thought that it did, yet previously I had it explicitly put to me by a lawyer for one of the service personnel currently facing trial that the two-year maximum, no matter how heinous the offence for which a republican or presumably any other paramilitary is sentenced, did not apply to the military. If it does not apply to the military, the imbalance between the unlimited sentences that can be imposed on soldiers and the two-year sentences—one year actually served in jail—that can be imposed on paramilitaries is so egregious that it is hard to imagine that the Government would not seek to impose at the very least a cap for all who may be affected by any proceedings. However, I want to try to take a wider view, and I appeal to all who were involved, one way or another, in the tragedy that was the troubles of Northern Ireland to try to take the broader view, too.

It has been put to me in very stark terms that people who suffered losses during that period, even if it was only 40 years ago, cannot rest until those matters are resolved. I share their understanding of the matter, and can perceive something of what they feel, because my family was caught up in the holocaust, and the part of my family who were still in Poland in the second world war was annihilated, with the exception of one very small family unit that was saved by courageous non-Jewish Poles. Even though it happened a few years before I was born, I felt for years after the war that the people who killed them should be hounded forever, yet that is not the situation that we face today, because we have already decided that—in the interests of an overall settlement—there should be a limit of two years on the maximum sentence that paramilitaries can face, so by no stretch of the imagination can the punishment be said to fit the crime.

I come to the second element of what the distinguished professors told the Committee in their advice to us on what would and would not be possible under international law. Any statute of limitations would not only have to apply for everybody—because if it were applied only to the forces of the state, that would legislate for state impunity, which is illegal under international law—but would also have to be coupled with a truth recovery process.

We all know where we first began to hear about truth recovery processes: in South Africa, after Nelson Mandela came out of prison and changes occurred. The decision was taken in South Africa to draw a final line under all the horrors on whichever side, or by whatever part, whether we are talking about state authorities, revolutionaries or innocent civilians caught up in someone else’s crossfire. There, it was decided that in the interests of peace and coherence and the possibility of building some sort of united community, a line must be drawn, but that families must have closure and the best possible opportunity to find out what had happened to their loved ones. That led to people who had been involved in terrible activities coming forward and giving testimony, secure in the knowledge that, even if they were incriminating themselves, they would not be prosecuted. That is how there was some form of resolution for those people who had been bereaved, in the sense of public accountability and the discovery of the truth. It was not only a brilliant and magnanimous concept, but a legal requirement. There is a legal requirement to investigate; there is not a legal requirement to prosecute.

The trouble in the situation in Northern Ireland—I hope I will not strike the wrong note by seeming to be flippant at this point—goes back to the origins of the troubles in 1969. I went to university the following year, 1970, and while I was at university in Oxford, I made a friend called Martin Sieff. Members might deduce from his surname that he has the same sort of background as I do. I remember him trying to explain to me the depth of division between the communities in Northern Ireland. He said, “For example, there was one occasion when I found myself cornered by a gang on the street. They asked me that age-old question: are you a Protestant or a Catholic?” Martin thought he had the perfect, truthful answer; he said, “I am a Jew.” They said, “Yes, but are you a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?” I am not trying to be flippant; I am trying to indicate that there are irreconcilable and deep-seated beliefs at work here.

The role of the Defence Committee means that our concern has to be for the welfare of the service personnel. We do not wish to see hundreds of old cases reopened, in the absence of any new evidence, which would mean that they were highly unlikely to be successfully brought to a conclusion—if a conviction is regarded as successful. People would nevertheless be put through a tremendous ordeal at a late stage of their life. At the end of it all, in the vast majority of cases, it would almost certainly be found that they did nothing more than their duty and did not commit any offence at all. The Committee’s concern in the report had to be to make a recommendation about what should happen to those personnel. We were unanimous in our belief that a statute of limitations should be enacted for any troubles-related offences, or alleged offences, up to the date of the Good Friday agreement.

We felt that it is for the Government of the day to go wider and decide what other groups beside service personnel and associated police and agencies ought to be included, but we did not shy away from pointing out that the unanimous expert legal advice we received from the four professors made it quite clear that if a statute of limitations were introduced for anyone, it had to be introduced for everyone. That will be very difficult to accept for the different parties across that terrible divide in Northern Ireland that we are seeking to repair. The Unionists take the view that some people should benefit from a statute of limitations, but not others. The republicans take the view that others should benefit from a statute of limitations, but not the people whom the Unionists wish to see benefit.

I will go as far as I can without breaking any personal confidences, and it may be that I am misinterpreting the signals, but from my conversations with people on either side of the argument, I sometimes get the impression that they are held captive by the response they feel they have to make to the people who elected them and brought them to this House. I sometimes detect—perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I am misreading the signals—that, in their heart of hearts, they know that there is either going to be a solution that applies to everyone, or no real solution that applies to anyone, but they will never be able to articulate or promote that.

It is a step forward that the Government have said that they will hold a consultation in which a statute of limitations will be one of the options aired. I believe that sometimes people must seize the opportunity to take a lead. There is nothing of a legal nature to prevent this Parliament from enacting a statute of limitations. If it applies to everyone and is coupled with a truth recovery process, it will maximise the chance of people finding out what happened to their loved ones and of avoiding the poisoning of the settlement so far reached by a constant succession of cases being brought before the criminal courts.

I wish to end on another factor, which I hope the Minister will take back to his colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office. I was particularly impressed by it in the meeting I had yesterday with two Labour colleagues, in which I met the Sinn Féin MPs. From their point of view, it seemed to me—I hope I am not misrepresenting what they said—that one particular ongoing issue was the failure to hold inquests into the deaths of many of the people who died during the troubles.

If we could set to one side, as a route of trying to get to the truth, dragging a succession of old men through the courts when there is insufficient evidence against them, and if as part of an overall settlement we could all decide to go ahead with a statute of limitations that applied to everybody, that might open up the possibility of inquests being held. A combination of inquests being held into deaths that have so far not had inquests, and a truth recovery process in which people know they can come forward to say what happened without any danger of incriminating themselves, might be the basis of a step forward.

Today’s debate is only one piece in an enormous jigsaw that people have been trying to put together to come to a conclusion that enables the communities in Northern Ireland to live at peace with each other, and that—as far as we are concerned—ensures that soldiers who did their duty are not hauled through the courts many years after the event, when no new evidence is available. I hope that people do not have too great an expectation that the production of an individual report or the holding of an individual debate will do anything other than add to the momentum.

One thing that the Defence Committee can claim, however, is that we have focused attention on one specific remedy that offers a way forward. If it was a way forward with no disadvantages, of course people would have signed up to it or something similar long ago. There are disadvantages to every policy possible, and people will have to make sacrifices. People do make sacrifices, and have made them. The question is: is it better to go down the route of endless court hearings, deepening divisions and the poisoning of the more positive links that have slowly and gradually built up, or is it better to take a leaf out of the South African book?

I conclude with this thought: if it was good enough for Nelson Mandela, after all he went through and all that the people he represented went through, should it not be good enough for us and the Northern Ireland communities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis]

It only remains for me to express my gratitude to everyone who has taken part in the debate. I hope that any onlookers will realise and accept that we are dealing with the most difficult of issues, and are trying to do everything that decent people with good intentions can do to arrive at a fair conclusion.

I am grateful to those who have spoken today. I am grateful to colleagues such as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who have been highly active in this field in the past but could not be here today, for writing in support. I am grateful to the Minister, not least for making crystal clear that the sentencing Act does indeed apply equally to the military and to terrorists going on trial.

That said, it remains absolutely unacceptable that service personnel will have to go through the sort of ordeal that Dennis Hutchings is going through. It seems to me that there are only two ways to prevent that: getting rid of the international law that requires such matters to be investigated in the way that it does, and having a statute of limitations. The international law, namely the Human Rights Act, says that if we have a statute of limitations, it must apply to everyone. I see my good friend the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) dissenting from that proposition, but that is the testimony that we were given by legal experts. If there is a way in which we can do what the report does—that is, support a statute of limitations for service personnel and analogous organisations, such as the police and the security agencies—without incurring a breach of international law, I would like to know what it is, because the evidence that we were given was that we could not.

[Gavin Robinson]

I realise that it is probably improper for me to start a new debate during a concluding speech, but it depends on whether there has been an article 2-compliant investigation or not. If there has not been, the right hon. Gentleman is right; but where there has been, the option of a statute of limitations is open.

[Dr Lewis]

As I say, we sought advice, and the advice we got was that a statute of limitations can be brought in, but there has to be—or have been, as the hon. Gentleman says—an investigation. There has not always been such an investigation, so unless or until we can bring in such a statute, or can get out of the provisions of the Human Rights Act—no one seems to want to do that—we face the prospect of people like Dennis Hutchings being forced to go through a process, at a late stage in their life, that most fair-minded people would regard as unacceptable and that is unlikely to lead to a conviction.

I did not expect for one moment that we would solve this problem today, but I hope that we have clarified the issues, and have focused the Government’s attention on what needs to be done, so that we do not end up with our soldiers having to worry about not only warfare but lawfare.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Seventh Report of the Defence Committee, Investigations into fatalities in Northern Ireland involving British military personnel, Session 2016-17, HC 1064, and the Government response, HC 549.

Shipbuilding Strategy

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who has done a service—not for the first time—to the House of Commons, by bringing key defence issues for our consideration.

Having said that, I am going gently to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I did not know what line he was going to take until I heard his speech this afternoon and I shall be a little heretical myself, because there is a track record on this question of what we ought to do in terms of designing replacement frigates, particularly lighter replacement frigates.

The context in which one wishes to set this is the relentless decline in the size of the frigate and destroyer fleet. The House will probably not need reminding that we had more than 60 frigates and destroyers at the time of the Falklands campaign. By the time that my cohort came into the House of Commons in 1997, that number had come down to 35 frigates and destroyers.

The incoming Blair Government conducted the strategic defence review of 1997-98. That was where the twin concepts of the carrier strike force and the amphibious force making up the sea base, which would be able to exert land and air power from the sea in any particular theatre of warfare across the globe, was born. As a price for bringing forward the idea of the two super carriers, a modest cut in the number of frigates and destroyers was put forward, from 35 to 32 vessels. We all know what happened next: the 32 came down to 31; the 31 came down to 25; and the 25 then came down to the present woefully inadequate total of 19. That is the issue that the hon. Gentleman quite rightly wishes to address. If there had not been any changes in the method of warship design, I would have signed up entirely to his argument from beginning to end.

But the one factor that I wish people to take away from my contribution to this debate is the concept of a template warship. The phrase “modular build” is the one that we need to keep in mind.

I talked about the way in which the numbers of frigates and destroyers were reduced. Part of that process was the way we went about replacing the destroyer fleet. At the time we started introducing the Type 45 we were down to 12 destroyers, and the original idea was that those 12 destroyers would be replaced with 12 Type 45 destroyers. We know what happened then: the same process —the 12 went down to eight, and eventually we ended up with six. Why did that happen? It happened because of our insistence, and the Royal Navy’s understandable concern, that the new warships should be top of the range, ab initio, in every respect that can be thought of. When we do that and we keep adding, in the long course of a period of design and build, more and more requirements to a new warship, inevitably the price goes up and the number of units we can afford to build comes down.

I was fortunate enough to see the Type 45 destroyers close up at a very early stage. Being taken on a tour of the ship, I was struck by the fact that a very large area in the forward part of the ship was devoted to the ship’s gymnasium. Why did the Type 45 destroyer have such a large gymnasium? The answer I was told was that the space that was going to serve as a very large gymnasium was earmarked for the future, so that when we could afford to add a suite of tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles—surface-to-surface, long-range missiles, which we could not afford to equip the Type 45 destroyers with at the time—we would be able to remove the paraphernalia of the gymnasium and insert a module into that area, thus installing this massive upgrade in the weapons system at some future stage in the ship’s life. Warships are rightly designed to have a long lifespan; we are told that the new carriers, for example, are meant to last us for the next 50 years. So how much better is it—the answer is hugely better—to design them from the outset so that instead of having to rip the ship apart halfway through its life to upgrade it, we can easily add to its capacity?

In 2009, I published an article that got me into a lot of trouble. In the RUSI Defence Systems journal in February 2009, I said what was perhaps the unsayable: that if we were ever going to get the future frigate fleet back up to the sort of numbers we needed, we would have to design it in such a way that it was as “cheap as chips”. The First Sea Lord of the day, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, who is a great man, was not at all happy with that phrase. But I did not use the phrase lightly; I used it because now we have this technique of plug-and-play, of modular build. If we could design a template warship that had all sorts of empty compartments in it from the outset, and if we could get a large number of hulls into the water from the outset, by a process of incremental acquisition, we could arm them up so that, over a period of years, they would become more and more capable.

I see the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport nodding as a sign, I hope, of some approval of the line that I am taking. We are not disagreeing about ends; we are slightly disagreeing about means. I do not wish to see the Type 31e become more and more expensive before even the first one has been completed. I wish to see a hull design—I look to the Minister to tell us how that is progressing—that will enable us to maximise the number of hulls and to spread the cost of a really high-capability warship, which the hon. Gentleman rightly wants to see and I want to see at the end of the process, over a longer period of years. That is so that, when the defence budget gets the uplift that it needs—and we all hope it will if the Secretary of State for Defence is successful in his so far heroic but incomplete campaign to take on the Treasury—we can hope to start to reverse the terrible downward spiral in the number of frigates and destroyers that had rendered our fleet incapable of doing its duty. The Royal Navy, as we know, is very strong on doing its duty, and we need to give it the tools and the warships to finish that job, whatever job it is confronted with in the uncertain future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guto Bebb]

I regret that I did not hear the second part of the intervention, but the commitment on the purchase of the eight Type 26s was clear, and I will be on the Clyde on Thursday.

The second element of the strategy is design. It is about taking a new approach to design and construction. We want to challenge outdated naval standards and introduce new ones. In effect, I am repeating the comments of the Chairman of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East, but it is about forcing through advances in design, identifying new materials and looking at new manufacturing methods to try to make our shipbuilding industry even more competitive, which is part and parcel of ensuring that we have export markets.

The issue of the export markets for the Type 31 has been touched on by many Members. The figure of 40 frigates is the potential market that was identified for this type of frigate in 14 countries. That was part of market research that was undertaken. We have never argued that there are 40 potential orders for the United Kingdom; what we are saying is that there are 40 potential orders for that type of ship that will be open to competition from the United Kingdom.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Given what the Minister has said about the design, and given what we know we need the design to do, can he confirm that this will be British design done in Britain and not abroad?

[Guto Bebb]

The value of the strategy is in ensuring that we have a British-owned design. The whole strategy is building on the manner in which the aircraft carriers were built successfully—the block-building capacity. That is the strategy we have undertaken, and it will pay dividends.

The third element is exports.

National Security Capability Review

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): I rise to request urgent clarification of the radical reductions in conventional military forces provisionally proposed by the national security capability review, together with an explanation of the reasons for undertaking the review and the financial constraints under which it is being conducted.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

In the 2015 strategic defence and security review, the Government identified four principal threats facing the UK and our allies in the coming decade: terrorism, extremism and instability; state-based threats and intensifying wider state competition; technology, especially cyber-threats; and the erosion of the rules-based international order.

As the Prime Minister made clear in her speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet late last year, these threats have diversified and grown in intensity. Russian hostility to the west is increasing—whether in weaponising information, attempting to undermine the democratic process or increased submarine activity in the north Atlantic. Regional instability in the middle east exacerbates the threat from Daesh and Islamic—Islamist terrorism, which has diversified and dispersed. Iran’s well known proxy military presence in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere poses a clear threat to UK interests in the region and to our allies.

Like other Members, I have seen much of the work that our armed forces continue to do in dealing with these threats. It is because of these intensifying global security contexts that the Government initiated the national security capability review in July. Its purpose is to ensure that our investment in national security capabilities is joined up, effective and efficient. As I said in oral questions, since I became Defence Secretary I have asked the Department to develop robust options to ensure that defence can match the future threats and challenges facing the nation. Shortly, when the national security capability review finishes, the Prime Minister, with National Security Council colleagues, will decide how to take forward its conclusions. I would not wish to pre-empt that decision.

Although the detail must wait until after the NSCR concludes, I can assure the House that as long as I am Defence Secretary we will develop and sustain the capabilities necessary to maintain continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, a carrier force that can strike anywhere around the globe and the armed forces necessary to protect the north Atlantic and Europe; and we will continue to work with our NATO allies. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and I will be doing all we can to ensure that we have a sustainable budget, so that we can deliver the right capabilities for our armed forces.

[Dr Lewis]

I thank the current Defence Secretary—[Laughter.] That is not meant to be funny. I thank him for confirming what the previous Defence Secretary told the Defence Committee, namely that the capability review resulted from intensified threats to the United Kingdom. If the threats are intensifying, why has the review provisionally proposed radical reductions in our conventional armed forces, and why is it required to be fiscally neutral, as the National Security Adviser recently told the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy? Who has imposed that financial restriction? The Ministry of Defence? Unlikely. The Treasury? Almost certainly.

If new threats have intensified, is not more money needed, unless of course previous conventional threats have seriously diminished? If previous conventional threats have diminished, why did the National Security Adviser claim to the Defence Committee in a letter:

“Because the main decisions on Defence were taken during the 2015 SDSR, this review is not defence-focused”?

If this review is not defence-focused, and if the 2015 plan therefore still applies, why should thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen be lost, elite units merged or aircraft frigates and vital amphibious vessels scrapped, long before their out-of-service dates?

Finally, is it not obvious that we are bound to face such unacceptable choices as long as we continue to spend barely 2% of GDP on defence? Even after the end of the cold war and the taking of the peace dividend cuts, we were spending fully 3% in the mid-1990s. Defence is our national insurance policy, and it is time for the Treasury to pay the premiums.

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank the current Chairman of the Defence Committee—I think we are only ever current—for raising those points. In the NSCR, we are looking at the threats that the country faces, and everything that was done in 2015 is relevant today. As I pointed out, the Prime Minister herself has highlighted the fact that the threats are increasing, and we are having very active discussions right across Government about how best we can deal with those threats. There is an awful lot of speculation and rumour in the press, but that is what we expect of the press.

As I mentioned earlier, we need to ensure that we have the right capability, whether that is a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent, our special forces, or an Army, Navy and Air Force that have the right equipment and capability to strike in any part of the globe. That is what we have to deliver. I am afraid that I cannot be drawn on the details at the moment, but I will be sure to update the House regularly, as the national security capability review develops, on the conclusions of the review and how we can best deal with them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

I am sorry to have to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I can only repeat what has already been said: the Government take the security of our nation incredibly seriously. I think it is far more important to ensure that the review is robust, comprehensive and detailed than to rush to make announcements simply to appease the hon. Gentleman.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May we take a moment to acknowledge the courageous service of Surgeon-Captain Rick Jolly, whose death has just been announced? He was the only person to be awarded a gallantry medal by both sides in the Falklands war.

Will the Minister please take back to those conducting the review the united opinion on both sides of the House that any loss of frigates and amphibious vessels before their due out-of-service dates would be totally unacceptable?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting the very sad passing of Commander Rick Jolly. He was indeed an absolute legend, and the service that he provided in the Falklands is worth reading about. It is unique to have been given awards for gallantry by both the United Kingdom and the Argentine forces. I also note my right hon. Friend’s other point.

Defence

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. North Korea and China are threatening some of the rules-based international order—particularly, as he says, North Korea. We have to meet that threat, and this debate is partly about how we do that. We have to win the argument again with the British public on this. The British public have to be persuaded—or not, because they can say, “We don’t agree.” We as a Parliament have to make the case again for why it is sometimes important for us to be concerned about actions that are taking place thousands and thousands of miles away, and understand why they have an impact on our own interests and our own security here at home. It can no longer be enough just to assert a problem—we have to once again make the case as to why matters such as North Korea are important.

Just two years after the strategic defence and security review of 2015, here we are in the midst of another review, led by Mark Sedwill. I know—other Members have mentioned this to me—that the Defence Secretary is trying to pull away the defence part of the security capability to provide a longer time to reflect, and I hope he is successful in doing that. However, as it stands, we have a review that is shrouded in uncertainty and that we are now told is to be delayed. One particular thing that was said in the Committee is completely wrong and has to be changed by the Government. Mr Sedwill said that

“this exercise was commissioned by the Council as fiscally neutral.”

Fiscally neutral? How can we come to such a conclusion before all the strands of the review are finished? Surely this is about matching resources to threats, not the other way round. Let this be the line in the sand that ensures that this principle is at the heart of the decisions we take as we now move forward.

We see story after story appearing in the media, speculating on which capability may or may not be cut. Why does this speculation abound? Why are there not statements to Parliament? Why is there no explanation of what is actually going on? To be fair to the Minister, I know that he will be concerned about some of this, but it is not good enough for the Government to dismiss these potential capability cuts as mere speculation by saying, “We don’t comment on these” or “No decisions have been made”. I do not want—nor, I am sure, does any Member of this House—a statement to be made to this House in three months’ time telling us what is going to be done rather than this House having debated and discussed it and come to a view as to where we should go. I do not want, and I do not believe Parliament wants, to wait for a set of decisions to be presented to us as a fait accompli. That is not good enough. Our country deserves better. The public and Parliament need to be properly informed. I am certain that colleagues across this House believe that it is for Parliament to debate the issues, to inform the decisions, and to play our full part in the choices we make as to how we defend our country and its freedoms.

According to the permanent secretary at a hearing of the Defence Committee at the end of last year, it appears that the Secretary of State has, as yet, made no explicit request for additional funding from the Chancellor. Will the Minister tell us where the discussions that have been reported in the media have got to? Will he confirm what the Defence Secretary is now saying to the Chancellor? Has he demanded any additional funding? Where has the discussion got to, or not, as to whether there is to be any additional funding? Will the Minister also confirm whether the defence aspect of the capabilities review has been delayed?

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will probably be astonished to learn that the National Security Adviser—Sir Mark Sedwill, as he now is—wrote to me on 23 October and said:

“Because the main decisions on Defence were taken during the”

2015

“SDSR, this review is not defence-focused. Defence capability is one of several projects within the review.”

We are therefore finding difficulty in bringing the National Security Adviser to the Defence Committee because he says that the review is not defence-focused. Yet the first thing we will know about the review is when we are told what major defence capabilities are going to be cut.

[Vernon Coaker]

I could not agree more with the Chair of the Defence Committee. He is absolutely right. Sir Mark Sedwill says that the review is not defence-focused, but he also said to the Committee, if I remember correctly—he has certainly been reported as saying this in the media—that there is a need for us to increase spending on our cyber and intelligence capabilities. This is fiscally neutral, so where is the money going to come from? That is why we get the speculation about the cuts in defence capabilities to which the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) refers. Because this is fiscally neutral, we are looking to take money from one thing to pay for another. The whole thrust of my argument is that if one thing is a threat and another thing is a threat, we do not rob from one to pay for the other—we fund them both because our country would demand that we do so.

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[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). Not for the first time, he has given great service to the cause of defence. He was an outstandingly good shadow Defence Secretary, and as long as there are people like him in the ranks of the Labour party the prospects for a bipartisan approach to defence remain excellent. I must extend that praise to all 11 Members from the four parties represented on the Defence Committee, every one of whom is strongly committed to the defence of this country.

Until recent years, little attention was paid to a possible threat from post-communist Russia, because for a long time after 9/11 counter-insurgency campaigns in third world countries were thought to be the principal role of the armed forces. However, we are now spending just £0.4 billion on operations of that type out of an annual defence budget of about £36 billion. According to the 2015 SDSR, that budget should by 2020 fund 82,000 soldiers, more than 30,000 sailors and marines, and almost 32,000 RAF personnel, plus another 35,000 reservists. To these must be added some 41,000 civilians, many of whom, like those who serve in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, are service personnel in all but name. Finally, there are special forces, as well as new units that have been created to deal with cyber-security and counter-propaganda. Then there is all the equipment, which currently comprises over 4,000 Army vehicles, including tanks and artillery; about 75 Royal Navy ships and submarines, including the nuclear deterrent; and over 1,000 RAF fixed-wing and rotary aircraft. As a portent of things to come, the services also operate a mixture of large and small surveillance drones and 10 unmanned hunter-killer aerial attack vehicles.

All in all, we still have a fairly full spectrum of military capability, and in absolute terms—as I am sure we would all accept—£36 billion a year is a considerable sum. Set in historical perspective, however, that level of defence investment falls far below the efforts that we have traditionally made when confronted by danger internationally.

The Defence Committee published a report on defence expenditure in April 2016. Entitled, “Shifting the Goalposts?”, it attracted attention for highlighting the inclusion of costly items such as war pensions and MOD civilian pensions at a time when Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Osborne were scrambling to meet the 2% of GDP benchmark which, as we know, was set by NATO as a minimum—not as a target—for all its members. The Government were entitled to include such items in their 2% calculations, but they had never chosen to do so previously. It was therefore clear that by resorting to a form of creative accountancy, we were no longer strictly comparing like with like in overall expenditure terms.

Our report was especially revealing in its tables and graphs, which were well researched by Committee staff. They showed UK defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP, year by year, from the mid-1950s to the present day, and compared those data with the corresponding figures for spending on welfare, education and health. We found that in 1963 we spent similar sums—about 6% of GDP—on both welfare and defence. Now we spend six times on welfare what we spend on defence. In the mid-1980s, the last time we faced a simultaneous threat from an assertive Soviet Union, as it then was, and a major terrorist threat in Northern Ireland, we spent similar sums—about 5% of GDP—on education, on health, and on defence. Now we spend two and half times on education, and nearly four times on health, what we spend on defence.

At the height of the east-west confrontation, in every year from 1981 until 1987, we spent between 4.3% and 5.1% of GDP on defence. Between the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the failure of the Moscow coup in 1991, the cold war came to an end. Consequently, and predictably, a reduction in defence expenditure followed. That was known as the peace dividend yet—this is the key point—even after it had been taken, and even as late as the financial year 1995-96, we were still spending not 2% of GDP, which is the NATO minimum, but fully 3% of GDP on defence. That was without the accounting adjustments that have been used to scrape over the 2% line in the past few years.

To sum up, from 1988 when the cold war began to evaporate, until 2014 when we pulled back from Afghanistan, defence spending almost halved as a proportion of GDP. Now that we face a newly assertive Russia and a global terrorist threat, the decision to set 3% of GDP as our defence expenditure target can no longer be delayed.

[Toby Perkins]

I have also looked at the statistics mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, and he is absolutely right about the creative accounting. Even taking that into account, it seems impossible to reach the conclusion that we have ever spent as little as we currently spend on defence in comparison with our GDP.

[Dr Lewis]

That is absolutely right. It is a measure of how far downwards our expectations were managed during the reductions in percentage GDP spent on defence under the Blair Government and the Cameron coalition Government, that it was regarded as a cause for triumph and congratulation when it was finally confirmed that we would not be dropping expenditure below 2%. The matter had never been questioned at all prior to that period.

[Mr Francois]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and it is a pleasure to serve under his stout chairmanship of the Defence Committee—[Interruption.] I mean stout in personality terms.

In some ways, the situation is even more challenging than the one my right hon. Friend lays out. He has rightly given the figures in terms of GDP, but in recent years—as we heard in testimony from the permanent under-secretary—in almost every strategic defence and security review and comprehensive spending review, the MOD has had to sign up to additional sets of efficiency savings, now totalling some £30 billion over time. Not only does the MOD have a constricted budget, it has had to find those efficiency savings as well, which makes the situation even more challenging.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great experience as a former Armed Forces Minister, and he made a considerable input to our recent report, “Gambling on ‘Efficiency’: Defence Acquisition and Procurement”, by making that very point.

Quite rightly, the hon. Member for Gedling emphasised the current process involving the national security capability review, and he focused on the question of fiscal neutrality, which the National Security Adviser says he has been told to observe. When I challenged the National Security Adviser with that on 18 December, when he appeared before the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, he said, “Well, it’s not as if the defence budget isn’t growing; it is fiscal neutrality within a growing budget.” He then did something else, which is indicative of a worrying trend: he lumped together the £36 billion that we are spending avowedly on defence with all the other money that we spend on everything else related to security, and he started talking about a £56 billion budget. That lumping together of money for security and intelligence services, counter-terrorism and even the relevant aspects of policing with the defence budget, is a form of sleight of hand that causes me concern. That is what I wish to address in the second half of my remarks.

We have a real problem in this country because the tried and tested system for strategic decision making has broken down. In my years as a research student, my area of study was the way that Britain planned towards the end of the second world war, and the early period after it, for what form of strategy we would need to deal with future threats. I was struck by the fact that there was a huge argument between 1944 and 1946 between clever officials in the Foreign Office who wanted to make the Anglo-Soviet alliance of 1942 the cornerstone of our post-war foreign policy, and the Chiefs of Staff who wanted to prepare their assessments of what Britain might have to face militarily on alternative assumptions that that alliance might well continue—in which case all would be well—but that it might break down. There was a tremendous stand-off until 1946, when finally the iron curtain had descended and it became clear that the Chiefs of Staff, who had looked at the Anglo-Soviet alliance in theoretical terms and said, “Well it could work, but it might not”, had been right to be cautious, and the Foreign Office staff, who wanted to put all their eggs in the basket of being able to continue the wartime alliance into peacetime, had been wrong. I was very struck by the systematic way in which the strategic arguments were hammered out, and at the centre of it all was the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

The Chiefs of Staff Committee, as we all know, is made up of the heads of each of the three services. The shocking thing that I have to say to the House today is that one can now become chief of staff of any of the three armed services—one can become head of the Royal Navy, or head of the Army, or head of the Royal Air Force—and yet have no direct input into the strategic planning process. This is all part of the lumping together of military strategic planning with national security strategies that are vague and amorphous and, above all, primarily in the hands of civil servants.

If the civil servants themselves were steeped, as they used to be, in the subject matter of their Departments, that would be less of a problem than it is today. But some years ago, it was decided that those in the senior levels of the civil service—which are, of course, peopled by very clever and able individuals; that is not in dispute—should be able to hop from one Department to another. One might be at a senior level in one Department and then go for the top job in another, including, for example, the Ministry of Defence. What we have is a combination where formerly specialist civil servants have become generalists and the professional military advisers—the Chiefs of Staff—have become more like business managers serving as chief executives with an allocated budget to administer to their services. All their thoughts about strategy get fed through just one single individual—the Chief of the Defence Staff—who then has to represent all their views on the National Security Council. It is this melding together, this mishmash, of the military, the security and the civilian roles that is undermining what we need, which is a clear-headed and systematic approach to the strategic challenges facing this country.

[James Gray]

My right hon. Friend is making an extremely important point about the whole structure of decision making within the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence. Does he agree that he has not yet mentioned a very important element in that, namely Ministers? He has not yet discussed Ministers’ role in considering the strategy of the nation. Is it not particularly interesting that when Sir Mark Sedwill appeared before the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy the other day, he let us know that the review that is currently being undertaken by his Department was commissioned during the general election campaign, when presumably Ministers had their minds on something else? I would be interested to know exactly who it was who commissioned the strategy at that particular time.

[Dr Lewis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he made a very useful contribution to the questioning of Mark Sedwill on 18 December. The reason I have not really mentioned Ministers is that, frankly, Ministers do not seem to be having much of a role in this, either. What I did not say, because I did not want to dwell too long on it, is that the stand-off between the Chiefs of Staff and the Foreign Office in 1944 was finally resolved when it went all the way up to Churchill, who finally gave the Chiefs of Staff permission to continue doing the contingency planning for a possibly hostile Soviet Union that they wanted to do, and that the Foreign Office did not want them to do. The reality here is that there has been a loss of focus. There is no proper machinery, other than this rather woolly concept of a National Security Council, served by a secretariat, run effectively by the Cabinet Office.

In conclusion, what I really want to say is this. Constitutionally, we know what is right. That was confirmed when we spoke to the former Secretary of State for Defence in the Defence Committee and he was attended by a senior MOD official. We asked him, “Is it still the case that the Chiefs of Staff—the heads of the armed forces—retain the right to go directly to No. 10 if they think the danger to the country is such that they have to make direct representations?” The answer was yes, it is. But what is the point of their having that right if they are not actually allowed to do the job of planning the strategies and doing what they used to do as a Committee —serving as the military advisers to the Government? As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) says, ultimately, the Government always have the right to accept or reject such military advice as they get from the service chiefs, but the service chiefs ought to be in a position to give that advice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

My right hon. Friend is coming to his peroration, and I want to go back to his initial point, if I may try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker. The important point, which was also raised by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), was the comparison between defence, education and health spending going back a couple of decades. Of course we have had the cold war demise, but I would recommend that hon. Members read the Prime Minister’s speech at the Guildhall in November, which talks about the new threats that are coming round. I pose the question: as we try and passionately make the case for the necessary funding for our armed forces, would it be easier for that case to be made if the passion and enthusiasm for our armed forces on the doorstep, as we campaign for general elections and so on, was comparable with that for health and education? I pose that question because I think there is a role for all of us to play in confirming what status our armed forces should have in future.

[Dr Lewis]

I am grateful to the Minister for making that point in that way, and nobody could be doing more than he is, within the constraints of his office, to make the case. We all know that.

The reality is that defence is always difficult to get funded in peacetime because it is analogous to paying the premiums on an insurance policy, and people are always reluctant to pay the premiums, although they are very glad to have paid them when the time comes to call in the policy because something adverse has occurred.

[John Spellar]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Committee for giving way, but surely this is the role of Ministers. It is the role of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Defence to be providing that leadership, setting out that strategic vision, and therefore the reason for that expenditure. That is where the leadership has to come from.

[Dr Lewis]

I agree, but I think it is something more important than that. They must have a proper strategic planning machine at their service; otherwise, they are just a bunch of individuals giving their personal opinions.

It may suit civil servants to sideline the military professionals—to reduce the uniformed contribution to strategic planning to the input of one individual, the Chief of the Defence Staff. It may suit them, too, to sideline the Ministry of Defence and reduce its contribution to a single strand of a so-called national security strategy, but it does not suit the national interest to have inadequate specialist military pushback against politicians with poor strategic grasp and a political bee in their bonnet. That is how disastrous own goals, like the Libya fiasco, come to be inflicted upon us, despite the warnings of the then Chief of the Defence Staff against overthrowing the Libyan regime.

A single military adviser, no matter how capable, cannot have the same impact as the combined contribution of a Joint Committee of the heads of the armed forces. So it is not enough just to set ourselves a 3% target for defence expenditure, as indeed we must; it is vital also to recognise that our tried and tested machinery for making military strategy has been vitiated and largely dismantled. The Chiefs of Staff must once again be more than budget managers, stuck on the sidelines while politicians and officials call the shots and, as often as not, call the shots incorrectly.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

I would be interested in discussing that matter further with the hon. Gentleman. I am not sure whether I accept that point. The whole point of this is that we are talking about very difficult decisions, and I do not envy the Ministers on the Front Bench. We are shifting around money from an overall pot, which is just woefully, woefully inadequate.

Let me talk about personnel. First, locally, I was saddened to see the departure from Barrow shipyard of Will Blamey after only a few months in the job. I wish him very well. I know that he has a big contribution to make in the future and, hopefully, that will be in the field of the strategic defence of our realm. I welcome Cliff Robson as the new managing director. I say that not just to get it on the record, but to make the point that the challenges facing our submarine programme must not be all put at the door of the good men and women at Barrow shipyard.

There has been a level of mismanagement of the submarine programme as part of the suboptimal management of the entire defence equipment programme, and it may be reaching a critical point. It is not acceptable for the Government to lay blame at the door of people who are doing extraordinary work for the defence of the realm; Opposition Members will not allow the Government to get away with that. The Government are currently seeking to starve our future capability of the vital equipment budget, which is not great at the moment, but it is now vital in order to create future capabilities so that we can continue in the business of building submarines.

My final point on personnel relates to the ministerial team here. I am really glad to see the Minister in his place. From the fact that he kept his job in the reshuffle, I take it that he has been given the assurances he sought that the Army will not recede any further. I look forward to him making that clear in his winding-up speech. I welcome the new Minister for defence procurement, who comes in at a critical time. I hope that Opposition Members will be a constructive force in helping him to meet the challenge of arguing for greater resources and ensuring that they are properly spent. Let me finish on the Secretary of State, who is not a man I knew a great deal about. In fact, I get the sense that he is not a man that many in the armed forces knew a great deal about before he took his job. I look forward to working with him constructively, particularly on the future of the submarine programme.

This is a time for seriousness—for serious people and people who are able to establish a grip over their roles. In various roles, I have briefed a newspaper occasionally and ended up with a story, sometimes in The Sun and sometimes in the Daily Mirror. But I have looked at the way in which the Ministry of Defence has been run over the past couple of months, and, although I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has apparently intervened directly to save some military dogs and is personally cutting down on the Chancellor’s ability to use military flights, I question whether this shows that he is spending sufficient time ensuring that our equipment programme is up to scratch in a way that will be effective for the nation. He still has a window of time in which to prove himself, but he needs to do so in short order.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to give way at this late stage. May I just say that I, for one, want to give the new Secretary of State the benefit of every possible doubt, because what we need at this moment in time—the debate has really brought this out—is someone who is going to have a bare-knuckle fight with the Treasury to get the money we need for defence? The fact that he may not have much of a background in defence is not the main issue. The main issue is whether he will fight for money for defence and whether he can win that fight.

[John Woodcock]

It is, absolutely. I suppose it remains to be seen whether the tactics he has so far adopted continue and are effective. We will be as supportive as we can in ensuring that that is the case. I wish that the Secretary of State were here so that I could say this to him in person. I do not know what his other commitment is, but this has been a really important debate with many important contributions, and he would do well to listen to what has been said this afternoon by colleagues on both sides of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is much more optimistic than me. I have seen just this week, on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, how the Government do this kind of thing. They take every opportunity to pull the wool over people’s eyes. He need only ask his colleagues the hon. Members for Moray and for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, as well as the rest of the Scottish Conservative intake. We need a proper SDSR that takes account of the fact that we will no longer be members of the European Union, and of the fact that we have had currency fluctuations and the devaluation of the pound. I am in favour of taking more time if we get a more considered outcome, but the cynic in me suggests that that is not what is at play.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see that separating defence from the amalgam that has been created could be a good thing, by focusing attention on the purely defence aspect, as he acknowledges, and by giving a new Defence Secretary the opportunity to fight and win the battles with the Treasury that need to be fought and won.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am amazed that with their combined experience, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) appear so optimistic, and I fear they are trying to square a circle that cannot be squared. For more than a year, the SNP has called for a proper SDSR to take account of the fact that we are leaving the European Union, as well as the devaluation of the pound and currency fluctuations.

We must also address the nonsense that we have heard about 2% of GDP. The Government do not spend 2% of GDP on defence, and we should not let them get away with claiming that they do. That 2% includes things such as pensions, efficiency savings, and all sorts of things that it ought not to include. [Interruption.] I see that you are getting nervous about the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will conclude my remarks and say that I think we should have more such debates on defence in the House. I think we should do that in Government time, and that the Defence Secretary should have turned up to the first defence debate of his tenure. It should not always be up to the Opposition to drag the Government to this Chamber to explain their woeful record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I have said, it is for the Secretary of State to spell that out in more detail, and that will happen shortly, but that is the big question that we must ask ourselves as fiscal, and responsible, Conservatives. The money must come from somewhere, which is why we cannot simply rush in and say that it will be provided. The details need to come through, and I hope that we will hear more details from the Secretary of State in due course.

It is clear from the contributions that we have heard today, and also from the world around us, that the world does not stand still, and nor should we. We must be sure that we possess the right combination of conventional and innovative capabilities to meet the varied and diffuse threats that I have outlined. We must also retain our long-standing position as one of the world’s most innovative nations, and do more to harness the benefits of technological progress and reinforce our military edge. I can assure the House that the Ministry of Defence has no intention of leaving the UK less safe, or the brave men and women of our armed forces more vulnerable, as a result of this review.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will in a moment.

The House is well aware of my position on the size of the armed forces. I want to see the UK maintain its long-held military edge and its enduring position as a world leader in matters of defence and security. The Ministry of Defence and the Government as a whole share my ambition. I should also like to address the involvement of Ministers, and indeed generals and others in uniform, in the process. This has been run not just by the permanent secretary but by a team of generals. That point was touched on by the Chairman of the Defence Committee, and I give way to him now.

[Dr Lewis]

The Minister has just said that we will not be left more vulnerable. On 25 January last year, the then Defence Procurement Minister wrote to me to say that she could reassure me that the out-of-service dates for HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark remained 2034 and 2035 respectively, and that their roles remained vital. Surely that rules out the scrapping of those ships. They obviously still had a vital role to play in January last year. Why would their role be any less vital in January this year?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He asks an operational question about the amphibiosity of our capability. I stress to the House that we must maintain our amphibiosity, a capable Royal Marine presence and, dare I say it, a capable Para presence as well, so he can rest assured. I will not go any further than that because we are getting into the weeds of operational decisions, and more will become clear very soon.