I would like to thank the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and my right hon.
Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for securing tonight’s debate. The integrated review so far has been a matter of delay, confusion, contradiction and vague statements. It was announced in 2019, and the House was told that it would be completed early in the new year of 2020. Then it was to be January 2021, and then the Secretary of State for Defence said it would be in February, only for the Prime Minister to advise us a day later that it would not be in February. We are now told that it is expected in spring this year. The Government’s response to the Defence Committee’s report, aptly named “In search of strategy”, was incredibly poor. Their response to the International Development Committee’s report was not only poor but dismissive, and their response to the Foreign Affairs Committee did not fare much better.
I appreciate that this is a difficult review. It is vast in scope and it comes at a time of global instability, emerging threats and increasing risks on the back of a decade of decline, the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, food insecurity, non-state actors, allies who do not always behave in the way we expect them to, and enemies we know of and those we do not know yet, but the actions of this Government to date have not increased our status and standing in the world; they have diminished them. We are isolated from Europe and out of step with the new US President when it comes to arms sales in support of the Saudi-led offensive operations in Yemen. We need to be consistent in our approach to human rights abuses. We should call them out in every single country where they happen. The fact that we do not do so is leading to questions about our values and priorities on the international stage. The merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office has damaged our soft power and our reputation for international humanitarian co-operation.
In spite of the delay in the review, funding and policy decisions relevant to it have been announced, such as the increase in defence spending, which was welcomed across the House. However, this raises the question: what is the desire behind spending this money? It appears to be funding without a strategy. What has not been so welcome is the repeated reports of cuts of 10,000 soldiers. I understand that emerging cyber-technology and grey-zone operations need investment and that warfare is always changing. In this ever-changing landscape, though, the one constant in warfare throughout history has always been and always will be our brave forces personnel, and to diminish their numbers would be a grave mistake. Defence Secretaries in the previous two US Administrations warned us that our Army was too small, and just last week Lord Darroch, the former British ambassador to the US, warned that further cuts could put our transatlantic defence relations at risk.
I am always struck that, when it comes to defence and foreign affairs, vague and nebulous words and concepts are used that serve only to hinder understanding and the delivery of our aims. So I make a plea that this review should not suffer from the same problem as previous ones, such as the 2015 SDSR. In Committee, we heard that the review repeatedly used phrases such as “rules-based international system”, yet officials were completely unable to describe exactly what this meant. It does not bode well that MPs across this House continue to seek answers on this issue and get none.
It does not bode well that people around the world are no longer clear what we stand for. I urge the Government to stop making vague promises, stop making contradictory statements and offer some answers very soon.
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