The Chairman of the Defence Committee, with whom I am pleased to serve, mentioned the Atlantic Charter. I am very proud of the fact that that charter was brought in by the post-war Labour Government of Ernest Bevin and Clem Attlee to deal with the existential threat that this country was facing.
Looking at the current review, everyone recognises the linkages between the elements of defence, security, foreign policy and development. As US Defence Secretary Mattis said:
“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately”.
As a member of the Defence Committee and a previous Defence Minister, I also have to be concerned that the Defence budget is not carved up to fund the other areas, because that is what we were facing in the earlier policy review. There was a glaring need to expand cyber and intelligence capability. That was obvious, but it was all within a zero budget. Something had to give, and if there had not been cross-party uproar, it would have been the Defence budget, with a catastrophic impact on equipment, troop numbers, facilities and morale. That is still a threat, and it would be a huge mistake.
Our previous ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, recently gave evidence to the Defence Committee. He said:
“I would be really worried about reducing further the size of the British Army. I say that in part on the basis of my experience in Washington. I would go into the Department of Defense and occasionally to see General Mattis myself or to take people in to see him and his predecessor under the Obama Administration. One of the things that both would say consistently is, ‘You are already too small—in terms of your Army. I mean, 80,000 just isn’t good enough. You need to be above 100,000. It is a big mistake to reduce to the level you are at. For goodness’ sake, do not go down any further and expect to retain your current level of credibility in Washington.’”
Ironically, one of the outcomes of the dither and delay that we have seen on the strategic review that has been to our advantage is that we can relate to the new Biden
Administration and the new policies that are rapidly reshaping internal and external policy for the United States. We must certainly work with the Biden Administration to reinforce NATO after the instability of the unlamented Trump regime, but we need to have credibility in order to do that.
That brings me to the second underpinning of our defence and security strategy, which must be resilience, not only in our service personnel, crucial as that is, but in their support, both from civilian employees and also in industry. Surely even the dinosaurs in the Treasury have learned from the covid pandemic that the cost of running down capacity is penny wise, pound foolish on an exponential scale. That is why the mood of the country has shifted, and the pressure will be on the Ministry of Defence to back British industry wherever possible—so I say to the Defence Department: get on with the support ship contract! We must also value the work and commitment of the support personnel and cut out the pernicious dogma that private provision is always best. It has a role, but as we can see from what is currently happening at Faslane, the bean counters are splitting the contracts into smaller competing packages, leading to a complexity of multiple providers and interfaces and a lack of a clear line of accountability. And that on our nuclear deterrent base—really?
6.18 pm