UK Defence Spending — House of Commons, 2021-06-24
Topic: Defense
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), my colleague on the Defence Committee. I am pleased to see not one, but two Defence Ministers on the Front Bench who have come to listen to our thoughts today The debate is particularly relevant because this is Armed Forces Week. I hope that both Ministers will join me in using it as an opportunity to recognise and celebrate what our services do for the nation. It is a chance to give thanks to all our forces for what they do in keeping our nation safe and working with allies to protect our interests and defend our values When we speak of the armed forces, we mean not just our regular and reserve forces, but the cadets, our veterans and, importantly, the families and loved ones who support those who wear the uniform. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude This week is important because the bond between the armed forces and society is critical. Our volunteer forces are drawn from society. If the general public are less aware of what our forces do and the role they play in keeping us safe, fewer people will step forward and consider joining the services. As we have discussed today, we are more likely to get an increase in defence spending if the nation understands the threats. People will support our call for increased spending if we take the nation with us It has been said many times in this Chamber that we have arguably the most professional armed forces in the world—highly trained, well equipped, extremely professional and, consequently, revered by our allies and feared by our adversaries. As a former regular soldier and now a reservist, I have no hesitation in recommending to any school leaver a career in the armed forces. To them, I say: "You will learn things about yourself you never knew, go places you never expected, and develop skills and build confidence that will help you for the rest of your life. The first time you march off the parade square, having completed your training, you will make your mum and dad so proud." We thank all those in the armed forces who serve and continue to serve Today’s debate is about defence spending. I think the Government’s integrated review paints the changing threat picture very fairly. By anybody’s calculation, the world is becoming more insecure. Authoritarianism is on the rise; extremism is active not just in the middle east, but increasingly in Africa; both Russia and China are presenting fresh security challenges that we have yet to fully address; and our international organisations are less able to uphold international standards. I would argue that our threat picture, collectively, is greater than during the cold war when defence spending was at 4%, yet today it remains at just above 2% Quite rightly, the integrated review calls for new capabilities to counter emerging threats, particularly from cyber and space, but it is clear that without extra funding, that has come at the expense of our conventional forces. The emergence of new threats does not mean that the old ones have disappeared, yet here we are, cutting back the Army by 10,000 troops and reducing the number of tanks and armoured fighting vehicles, as well as our Typhoon and F-35 fleets and our Hercules heavy-lift aircraft We will also lose two Type 23 frigates. We have frigates and destroyers in the surface fleet that are global leaders in their class, but we simply do not have enough of them. Our Royal Navy is now overstretched and we need to increase its size. I certainly praise the efforts of HMS Defender in ignoring the intimidation of the Russians in the Black sea yesterday, but if we are to step forward with our allies as we should to defend and protect international waters and show a presence in the Caribbean, the Gulf, east Africa, the Mediterranean, the North sea and now the Arctic, as well as a tilt to the Indo-Pacific, as commanded in the integrated review, we will need a bigger Navy The Government put forward the counter-argument that we can lean on autonomous and unmanned assets. New technologies can certainly help, but they should be seen as enablers rather than as replacing manpower. We cannot replace boots on the ground.