NATO — House of Commons, 2018-06-20
Topic: Defense
Mark Lancaster (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to have the opportunity to wind up this debate. I intend to carry on from the very constructive way in which the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) wound up for Her Majesty’s Opposition. We have indeed had a constructive, passionate and wide-ranging debate. I am grateful to hon. Members for their ongoing and active engagement with these important issues, especially as we approach the NATO summit in Brussels next month I declare an interest. As a reservist of some 30 years, I have vivid memories of my own NATO experience, serving on NATO operations in Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan. That experience left me with a profound appreciation for the difference the alliance can make in the world. Today, as a Minister, I have been privileged to see how both our civilian and our military personnel, whether at NATO headquarters or deployed on operations, continue to champion the global good. I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to all those who have served NATO with distinction, not just today, but in days gone by. They are the bedrock of our defence Hon. Members have made a number of important points today and I will endeavour to deal with them but, if I do not get to everyone, I will write to those concerned. I hope they will understand if I do not take interventions, unless they are absolutely vital, because otherwise I will have no chance of dealing with everyone. The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) started, rightly, by demonstrating the common values we share across the Chamber. I do not intend to break with that by taking a partisan approach to this debate, and I do not doubt for one second her Front-Bench team’s commitment to defence—the same commitment we have heard in every speech today—but she will understand why there is concern in the House about some of the historical comments her leader has made, which is why I hope all Labour Members will do their bit to maintain the consensus on how we move forward The hon. Lady rightly highlighted the need for interoperability. As she will be aware, this morning the Royal United Services Institute land warfare conference took place, at which I spoke. I was delighted to highlight how 3rd Division, very much the core of our land forces, divisions being the smallest formation at which the full orchestra of war can be used, recently operated on the Warfighter exercise in the United States. Some 1,400 British personnel plugged very effectively into the US 18th Airborne Corps, fighting alongside the US 4th Division, demonstrating how we are completely interoperable, as a tier one nation, with our US allies Crucial to that, as we move forward with MDP, is the perhaps less glamorous side to MDP: our ability, and the necessity, to invest in our communications infrastructure, such as Morpheus, an open architecture communications system. Rather than nations buying closed architecture systems, which do not communicate with each other, we have to move forward in this modernised way The hon. Lady was also concerned about the future of the DSACEUR. I can reassure her that there is no link to Brexit. We hold that post simply because we, as the UK, are the second-largest contributor to NATO. I can only repeat the Prime Minister’s words at Munich, where she said our support for European security was unconditional My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) highlighted the importance of working with allies, and of course that is very much in the spirit of the NATO summit. Almost every hon. Member across the House highlighted the need for 2% to be a floor, and almost every voice wanted to see that increase. That sends an incredibly powerful message from this Parliament. I will not get drawn into an argument about how we define spending; I can only say that we follow the NATO standards and that we are committed to increasing the defence budget by 0.5% above inflation each year The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) highlighted how we can now add cyber and space to the traditional domains of land, air and sea. Indeed, several hon. Members asked about that challenge. I am pleased to say that NATO has recognised cyber as a domain and agreed that it could be a reason to trigger article 5—article 5 already provides for that—but that is not to say that we should avoid discussing Lord Hague’s comments about an article 5B; indeed, it is probably vital that we do discuss them Along with the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) and for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), the hon. Gentleman also highlighted the importance of the high north, our appreciation of it and our need to operate in it. In March, I was delighted to be able to join HMS Trenchant on Ice Exercise, and to spend two days underneath the north pole, under the ice. It is a remarkable experience, especially coming back up through the ice. That, I hope, is a clear demonstration of how seriously we take this threat, and we will of course continue to operate up there. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West also mentioned concern about our aerial reconnaissance: that is why we are buying our new P-8 aircraft, which will be located at Lossiemouth.