Included in my responsibilities is the duty to uphold the duty of care to our workforce. We were all appalled by the reporting we saw of the incident involving members of the RAF Regiment at the weekend. The RAF police are investigating the incident and the victims have been offered our full support. The Chief of the Air Staff and I had a discussion about the incident over the weekend and he has, with my support, acted quickly. He has removed officers from the immediate chain of command without prejudice pending the findings of the police investigation, and the unit involved, the Support Weapons Flight, will be disbanded with immediate effect. Bullying, harassment and discrimination has no place in our armed forces. I will not tolerate it and nor will the Chief of the Air Staff.
What proportion of servicemen and women are currently deployed in UN peacekeeping, what was it last year and how is it set to change over the next three years?
I can write to the hon. Lady with the exact proportions. All I can say is that there has been a significant increase recently, with the deployment to Mali of our forces to assist in the United Nations mission there. We also have a number of forces deployed in Somalia, assisting that fragile state in trying to come to terms with the consequences of the civil war. The Government are determined to continue to contribute to UN missions wherever we can, lending military support—not necessarily operational support, but in the logistics, the enabling and humanitarian aid.
Russia is rearming, Daesh is regrouping and China is nudging us out of military and trade partnerships across Africa, yet we are about to witness a shocking reduction in our conventional hard power and full-spectrum capabilities. That is overshadowed by the fanfare of announcements promoting a tilt towards niche capabilities, including electronic warfare and autonomous platforms. Yes, we must adapt to new threats, but that does not mean that the old threats have disappeared. Severe cuts to our infantry regiments, main battle tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and Hercules C-130s will worry our closest allies and delight our competitors. Regarding the F-35 jets, does the Secretary of State agree that cutting back our order from 138 to 48 will mean that, if required, we could never unilaterally operate both carriers in strike mode simultaneously?
I have listened to my right hon. Friend’s consistent messaging over the last few months. I think the thing that we can all agree with is that, as he said at the weekend,
“we must modernise—but first let’s agree the threat—& then design the right defence posture.”
That is exactly what we have been doing. Obviously, in the Ministry of Defence, we have made sure that we have been doing that in conjunction with our serving personnel, our allies and the threats. I think playing by the Ladybird book of defence design is not the way to progress.
Why are Britain’s full-time armed forces still 10,000 short of the numbers that the last defence review, in 2015, said were needed to meet the threats and keep the country safe, which the Defence Secretary’s Government pledged to meet?
I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman. We are 6,000 under. The strength is 76,500 from the 82,000 that was pledged. He will of course know—it is well documented—that under the previous coalition Government and Conservative Government there was not a satisfactory outcome by the recruiting process. That has now been fixed. Until the covid break, we were on target to fulfil the pipeline and target for that recruiting. We have to make sure we continue to invest in that. That is why we are investing in people. We will continue to invest throughout the process and next week there will be announcements that put people at the heart of our defence review.
The Secretary of State may want to check the numbers. I was talking about the full-time armed forces, not the full-time Army numbers. He has rightly said before that our forces personnel will go to war alongside robots in the future, but robots do not seize and hold vital ground from the enemy. They do not keep the peace or rebuild broken societies, and they do not give covid jabs. Size matters and no Government can secure the nations with under-strength armed forces. Is it not the truth that over the past decade we have seen our armed forces run down—numbers down, pay down, morale down—and that all the indication from stories ahead of tomorrow’s integrated review is that Ministers are set to make the same mistakes as in the last reviews, with our servicemen and women paying the price for cuts and bad defence budgeting?
The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget that for the past three or four decades we have had that characteristic, where Government after Government have been over-ambitious and underfunded the defence policy. His Government did it. The Governments before mine have done the same things. I only have to point him, as I do during at every defence questions, to the National Audit Office report into the processes of his Government in 2010 and our previous Governments to show that the biggest problem is that we have been promising soldiers, men and women of the armed forces equipment they never got, or numbers gains when just tying them up alongside. That is not the way to confront an enemy. The way to confront the enemy is to invest in the people, give them the right equipment to take on the threat, and make sure they are active, busy and forward. As a soldier, being active, busy and forward is what keeps you engaged and in there.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
A cyber-security conference is one of the only places on earth where women never have to queue for the loo. That is because there are so few of us in the industry—approximately 10% when I left in 2019. Given that cyber-security is vital to our nation’s defence and that there is a global talent shortage, how will the Government work with industry to encourage more women into cyber-security and to address the skills gap?
I am sorry that that has been my hon. Friend’s experience. I think in the public sector it is cyber-security. In the intelligence services I worked with when I was Security Minister and in key parts of the armed forces, such as the Signal Regiment, there are higher proportions of women. I think that is something on which the state can lead. That is why the state signed up and sponsored the CyberFirst campaign, designed to stimulate among girls at school an interest in cyber and to invest in them. Hopefully, we are seeing an increase in that. But she can rest assured that with the next stage of the defence review she will see us making sure that, loud and clear, the sign “women are welcome” will be put above the door.
As I mentioned at the previous defence questions, workers at RAF Leeming have been striking since January over a £5,000 pay disparity. Just last week, Faslane and Coulport workers walked out over low wages and the looming break-up of their single bargaining unit. What action can the Minister take to stop these loyal staff being exploited?
The hon. Lady refers to two bits of potential industrial action. I have written to her about RAF Leeming in the last month. Obviously, it is a source of concern when employers and employees fall out, but I am not going to get into discussions on the specific action involved. We urge all those involved to come to an agreement.
I very much welcome the Government’s efforts to forge new trade links with India. However, given we share many common security threats and the fact that it is a key strategic ally in the Indo-Pacific region, can my hon. Friend outline what efforts are being made to better strengthen our defence relationship with India?
The Minister for the Armed Forces (James Heappey)
The UK Government are committed to working with the Government of India and increasing our efforts to combat shared threats. In particular, the UK is focused on increasing bilateral maritime co-operation in the Indian ocean and on ensuring a closer defence industrial relationship in line with Prime Minister Modi’s made in India policy. We are also committed to uplifting our defence education and training relationship to enable us to work together more effectively. I am certain that my hon. Friend and our friends in India will be hugely excited by what may follow in the integrated review.
The MOD itself estimates that its equipment plan is underfunded by about £8.3 billion in its first five years. We also know, for example, that the MOD will need to spend perhaps billions of pounds to bring its single-person living accommodation up to even a basic minimum tolerable standard. Will the Minister tell us how much of the additional money that the Prime Minister trumpeted at the spending review in November will be genuinely new money and how much of it will be swallowed up to fill these and other existing black holes in the defence budget?
I am not going to prejudge in advance of the announcements that are going to be made. They will all be made in the next eight days or so. The hon. Gentleman will be able to see for himself, but I assure him that we have gone through the numbers very closely and there is a lot of new money coming into defence—a £24 billion increase in the amount of money being spent on defence. We can see an awful lot of benefit coming through to our armed forces and our personnel.
With the Government’s integrated review due to be published imminently, potential investment in programmes such as Tempest would clearly align with the Government’s agenda for skills, development and social value. The defence sector employs unique, high-end design and manufacturing capabilities across the UK, with significant export potential, so how will constituents benefit from this?