Mr Mark Francois
MP for Rayleigh and Wickford · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Secondly, what actions is he as Defence Secretary, no doubt in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff, taking to push back against these pernicious in-year funding cuts imposed by the Treasury?”
“Taking him at his word, I must press him on some extremely worrying reports—first published in The Times on 3 September, and amplified in the Defence Eye journal on Tuesday—that British Army training is being seriously curtailed in order to provide in-year efficiency savings— “cuts”, in pub English— at the Treasury’s behest.”
“I am sure that I speak for the whole House in paying tribute to the Ukrainians for their fierce and determined resistance. They are fighting for the values of freedom and democracy, which this House has represented for centuries, so when we say, “Slava Ukraini!”, we mean it.”
“On behalf of the shadow Defence team, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new Defence Secretary—Labour’s third in three months—to his place and to thank him for advance sight of this important statement.”
“Tragically, a number of innocent civilians were murdered in Kyiv last night. On supporting Ukraine and brave President Zelensky, there has been absolute solidarity between ourselves and the Labour party.”
“On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan.”
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“I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this important and timely debate, which coincides with the NATO summit. I will make what is perhaps a point of consensus: yet again, when we debate the defence of the realm—the first duty of Government—the Reform Bench is empty; yet again, the plastic patriots have gone AWOL when we discuss the defence of this country. Count Binface clearly has them worried in Clacton. As I am a historian by training, perhaps I can offer some historical context. Arguments about military readiness are not new. The Roman military theorist, Vegetius, some two millennia ago, coined the now-famous phrase, “Si vis pacem, para bellum”—he who desires peace should prepare for war, in order to deter it.”
“When the Conservatives left office in 1997, we were spending around 3% of GDP on defence, and that downward trend continued under Tony Blair’s Government—although, in fairness, he was only doing what many other western democracies were also doing. Today, we face a revanchist Russia led by Putin—”
“NATO is the most successful defensive alliance in history, and article 5 is its absolute fulcrum. We must maintain our commitment to article 5 to keep all NATO nations safe. In 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill said that an iron curtain had descended, leading us into the cold war. In the mid-1980s, under Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, defence spending was gusting about 5% of gross domestic product. When the Berlin wall came down in 1989, countries across the west took a peace dividend. Francis Fukuyama wrote his famous book “The End of History” in 1992, and many in the west believed that the threat of world war had finally receded.”
“The Chief of the Defence Staff warned of the implications of doing that only the other day. The disastrous DIP also relies on a further £4.7 billion, which has not yet been cleared by the Treasury and will be subject to another public spending round. In other words, the two sums combined will be more than the £15 billion of extra money that was promised. There is practically no new money for defence at all. All we have been offered is Enron accounting and smoke and mirrors to try to pretend that there is a massive increase in defence spending—barely 0.01% of GDP over four years.”
“The chiefs of staff have been urging the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to invest an additional £28 billion in defence over the next four years, partly to enable them to implement Labour’s SDR. They were offered barely £15 billion instead. On closer examination, even that sum unravels rapidly. As we have heard, £10.7 billion relies on so-called efficiency savings, which is Whitehall code for cuts in MOD spending over the next four years, the bulk of which have not even been identified. On the day of publication, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee described that as an old accountant’s trick. It still does not disguise the fact that the MOD would have to make massive in-year spending cuts, including from operations and training, to recycle that money to fund the defence investment plan.”
“The former Armed Forces Minister said in his letter: “I have sat in the rooms, seen the assessments, and spoken to the commanders who will be asked to do more with less, and I cannot in good conscience stand at the dispatch box and defend a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task.” Moreover, the outgoing Defence Secretary revealed that he had been offered an increase in defence spending to only 2.68% of GDP by 2030—billions short of what the SDR authors required. The new Defence Secretary has tried to argue that he has been given some additional funding—a bit more than £1 billion—but that takes defence spending to barely 2.69% of GDP by 2030, a difference that does not even touch the sides. Sadly, it is worse than that.”
“The three co-authors of the SDR were adamant that the cost of implementing it was spending 3% of GDP on defence, and a year after the SDR was published, we finally received Labour’s plan for how to pay for it: the so-called defence investment plan. But that was not before Labour’s Defence Secretary and Armed Forces Minister—the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who is in his place—both resigned on 11 June after months of frustration with the Treasury over the paucity of funding in the plan. As the outgoing Defence Secretary powerfully wrote in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, “you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.” That is damning.”
“The Chief of the General Staff has warned that we might have to fight Russia by 2027, the First Sea Lord said 2029, and even the outgoing Prime Minister said that this might happen by 2030. How are we supposed to deter Putin without a single attack submarine currently at sea, with no new AWACS aircraft in service in the Royal Air Force, still, and with Ajax almost a decade late and still not in operational service, despite Ministers previously promising us that it was fine? That really is corrosive complacency, is not it? The threat is now, and we need to rearm accordingly, including by spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2029 at the very latest, if not earlier.”
“In a moment. We face a revanchist Russian led by Putin, who launched an invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, and then an even more brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As someone who visited Ukraine in February of this year, I remind the House that the Ukrainians would argue that they have therefore been at war with Russia not for four years, but for 12 years—longer than the first and second world wars combined. Against that rising threat, Labour produced its much-vaunted strategic defence review, and there was much good in it. However, it still contained echoes of the 10-year rule, declaring the Government’s intention, on page 43, “to deter, fight and win—with allies—against states with advanced military forces by 2035.” That is nine years away.”
“In other words, the document isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. The plan relies on extra money that does not exist. We will not deter the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping with such unfunded proposals. If Trotsky was right, and war is interested in us, we must rearm now to deter it. I reluctantly find that the Labour Government are failing the people of this country in the first duty of Government: the defence of the realm. If the incoming Prime Minister cannot plug the £5 billion black hole that he is about to inherit, he should make way for people who can.”
“No, I am summing up. Lord Robertson, the lead author of the SDR, told the Defence Committee only yesterday that “we are running out of years… the challenge is now bigger, more serious and earlier than we had anticipated, yet the defence investment plan does not come up to it.” General Barrons, his co-author, told the same Committee that “the Prime Minister is saying that Russia could attack NATO by 2030, and we essentially lost a year of mobilising for that.” Incredibly, even the DIP says on page 78: “The figures presented are indicative rather than precise cost estimates. They do not constitute binding commitments and are subject to the Government’s approval processes, affordability considerations and contracting procedures. Figures have been rounded and, therefore, may not sum.” You can say that again.”
“May I endorse your tribute to the late Sir George Howarth, Mr Speaker? May I also take this opportunity to welcome the incoming Minister for Veterans and People, the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey), to his new position? In the two years that he has been in the House, he has already established a reputation for independence of mind and for fearlessly speaking truth to power, regardless of the consequences. I am sure that will stand him in very good stead now. May I ask a specific question about Northern Ireland veterans? When the former Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), resigned on principle, partly over the legacy issue, he famously described Labour’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill as “unfit for purpose”. What does the Secretary of State think he meant by that?”
“We have been waiting for those amendments almost as long as we have been waiting for the DIP. Where is the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) on the legacy issue? Many regiments that hail from the north-west—such as the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, which has already mentioned once today, and, before it, the King’s Regiment, which traditionally recruited from both Liverpool and Manchester—did multiple tours in Northern Ireland on Op Banner. Has the Secretary of State had any indications that our likely new Prime Minister is going to do right by those former soldiers from his own region, scrap the benighted Bill, which helps Sinn Féin pursue our veterans via lawfare, and get rid of the whole nonsense altogether?”
“For the record, I am also proud of the stroke unit at Southend hospital, which provides a very good service, although it does not do mechanical thrombectomy; it defers to Queen’s on that. Well done to everyone who works in this area. I thank the House for its patience and indulgence. God bless all the people who work to save lives from stroke.”
“It is a wonderful, lifesaving technology and technique that the NHS has been doing for barely a decade, and we are getting better and better at it all the time. I pay tribute to the team at Queen’s, as well as all the other teams that do this work around the country, including, for the record, at the Royal London. Most of all—I hope the House will forgive my indulgence—I pay tribute to my wife. Being a Member of Parliament can sometimes be a time commitment, but being the husband of a woman who does this work can be a bit of a time commitment, too. Sometimes, when we are making plans to see people or go to dinner parties, I am not the long pole in the tent. I am very proud of what she does, I am very proud of what her team do, I am very proud of what all the people who work at Queen’s do and I am very proud of the national health service.”
“That is a tremendous responsibility, which is why we obviously need to have 24/7 cover. The service is also growing. Anecdotally, I can say that the bat phone rings more than it used to. On one level that is a good thing, because the technology is advancing all the time and patients can now be treated who could not have been treated a few years ago. However, that obviously puts pressure on Olivia, Dr Patankar and the team. I will make a plea to the Minister, if I may. I understand that the Government are evolving their strategy for stroke, as part of the 10-year plan for the NHS. Olivia and her team are keen to see that work evolve, but they are particularly keen to know what role there is for mechanical thrombectomy in the overall strategy. I have literally seen it at work for myself.”
“When the bat-phone goes, there is no time to grab a cup of tea and a slice of toast; she is in the car and gone. Can I just say that the sooner they finally sort out the chronic mess at Gallows Corner, the quicker and easier that journey will become? But I digress. There are only 25 hospitals in the country that perform the procedure. The reach of the department covers Essex and goes out some way into East Anglia, at which point it hands over to Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge. The department also has friendly rivals who do the procedure at the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel, which tends to cover Kent and south London, but that is on a rota. When the Royal London is off for a given week and Queen’s covers all the areas, it is responsible for a potential patient population of over 5 million.”
“One would think that all the activity happens around their head, but it does not. The surgeon stands by their groin, where they have gone in, and then uses a very fine guiding device—almost like a gaming console—to control the instrument, taking their lead from the image on the screen that is provided by my wife, the bomb aimer. That is how it works. Last year, the department at Queen’s performed something like 300 of those operations. It operates 24/7, so over the weekend the staff are on a cover rota, or on call, as they say in the NHS. If my wife is at home and the bat-phone—as I call it—goes, she has an hour to get from our home to Queen’s, get scrubbed up, fire up all the equipment and be ready to receive the patients, some of whom may be coming from as far as Norwich and some of whom arrive by air ambulance.”
“That is what that relatively new technique can achieve. As the radiographer, my wife guides the surgeon to the target. I call her the “bomb-aimer”. Last year, Queen’s had a “bring your hubby to work” day, and I was taken to work. The hospital has two operating theatres back to back, with an observation area in the middle, so we could stand there and watch the operation taking place on a large screen. We could see the instrument going up into the brain towards the clot, at which point it attached itself to the clot and withdrew it. I have to say that it was not for the faint-hearted; I was there with the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), and we stuck it out and saw the whole thing. It is a very odd procedure to watch, because the patient is lying anaesthetised on the operating table.”
“It usually enters the body through either the groin or the wrist, goes up into the brain, finds the blocked blood vessel and then extracts the clot, which can sometimes be a couple of millimetres long—not an easy target to find. When it is withdrawn, blood flow is restored to the affected area of the brain, helping to reduce permanent disability, particularly if the procedure is performed quickly. The department has a mnemonic: “Time means brain”—the quicker the operation can be performed, the more damage is averted and the greater the likelihood of recovery without complications. This was, admittedly, an exceptional case, but the team performed one of those operations on a man in his 20s within 90 minutes of the stroke occurring. He lived locally, and he basically walked out of the hospital a few hours after the stroke none the worse.”
“I say that because she works in the specialist neurointerventional radiography department at Queen’s hospital in east London. As the Minister will no doubt know, there are 26 specialist units around the country, and her team at Queen’s is very ably led by Mr Tufail Patankar, an internationally recognised surgeon and an absolute expert in his field. He has built up that team over time at Queen’s, and, from what I hear, he leads it very well indeed. The technique that the team uses is called mechanical thrombectomy. It is an emergency procedure for treating acute-onset stroke caused by a blood clot blocking a large artery in the brain—that is effectively what a stroke is. During the procedure, the interventionist neuroradiologist —the surgeon—passes a thin tube through an artery.”
“Friend the Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew)—a man I have always respected—in his place, and to see the Minister, whom I also respect. I have bumped into her in the Portcullis House lifts many times down the years, and it is wonderful to see her in a ministerial position. I wish to declare two interests. First, I am a long-time supporter of the British Heart Foundation, which does great work to research heart disease and improve the technology and techniques to combat what is still, I am sad to say, one of Britain’s greatest killers. I pay tribute to that wonderful charity. I also wish to pay tribute to my wife Olivia, who has worked in the NHS for some two decades now, and who revels in the title of lead neurointerventional radiographer. That is a bit of a mouthful, but if someone has a stroke, she is the girl they need.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate about preventing premature death from heart disease and stroke. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) on securing the debate and introducing it so ably. It is courageous of him to talk about the medical challenges that he has faced, and I am sure that the whole House wishes him the very best of luck on his journey. It is also nice to be with him in Westminster Hall, having spent five months debating with him in the Armed Forces Bill Committee. Stockholm syndrome kicked in, and we even started to like each other by the end, so it is doubly pleasurable to follow him in this debate. It is great to see the shadow Health Secretary, my right hon.”
“I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, not least as he is being so kind to me, but for the record it is my wife’s bat-phone, not mine.”
“For many years, stroke units have had access to thrombolysis—or “the shot”, as it is known in the trade. However, that is a very rough way of doing it, and it can have side effects and impede a patient’s recovery. Mechanical thrombectomy is a far more accurate way of solving a stroke problem, and with far less risk of subsequent side effects. That is why we are so keen to see its use grow, and I second my right hon. Friend’s request to the Minister.”
“I am sure that the potential new Prime Minister will have noted very carefully the commitment of the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley), who mentioned that he lost 4 lbs during the by-election; I have a pound coin, and I am happy to make it up to a round fiver to help him get his money back, if that helps.”
“Yes—don’t tell my wife! I thank the Minister very much for what she says about Olivia, her colleagues and all the others who work in the NHS in that field. I will chance my arm and say that they are based about an hour from London; if ever the Minister had time to pop along and see what they do in person, I think she would be both very welcome and incredibly impressed.”
“The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I want to turn to legacy. Our motion calls on the Government to drop the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which the Liberal Democrats, like the Conservatives, voted against on Second Reading. That Bill has now famously been described by the outgoing Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), as “unfit for purpose”. Is the hon. Gentleman’s party, like us, still opposed to the Bill, and does that also apply to his colleagues in the House of Lords?”
“Perhaps we can achieve some consensus on this: yet again, we are debating defence, our armed forces, and the people who keep us safe, but the plastic patriots of Reform cannot be bothered to turn up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people who wrap themselves in the flag should at least turn up to debate the future of the people whose job it is to defend it?”
“Does my right hon. Friend recall he and I and others having multiple meetings in the Northern Ireland Office when we were Back Benchers, going through the detail of the Bill—almost line by line on occasions—and trying to defend the interests of veterans, and bit by bit overcoming the resistance of civil servants at the Northern Ireland Office? Does he recall how difficult that was, and does he still believe, like me, that it was worth it?”
“When I served on the Defence Committee, just before the election, we went to RAF Marham and spoke to two F-35 pilots. We asked them how long it had taken since they first walked through the door of a recruiting office for them to be allowed to fly the F-35. One said he had been lucky, and it had been six years; the other said he had been unlucky, and it had been 10 years. Does my hon. Friend agree that the MFTS programme requires fundamental reform?”
“I have great respect for Lord Robertson, an accomplished former Defence Secretary and a former Secretary-General of NATO, who joined the Labour party in 1961. He is a Labour lifer, and when even he accuses the Prime Minister of “corrosive complacency”, does that not prove how utterly out of touch this Government now are?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity in giving way. The Finns have what they call a total defence concept, which is that in the event of an attack from Russia—they have much experience of that, historically—it is not just the armed forces who resist, but the whole of society. They have planned that for decades. We had something a bit like that during the cold war, but the Finns take it to a greater degree. Having been there, does he agree that we could learn a great deal from Finland?”
“Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin), who has just rejoined us, that it was a Conservative Government who, in 2014—after that first invasion, when the Ukrainians realised what was coming—began the programme known as Operation Orbital to train the Ukrainian armed forces to resist the full-scale invasion that they knew was coming. Had it not been for that programme—had it not been for the soldier’s instinct of Ben Wallace and the determination of Boris Johnson to equip and train the Ukrainians to resist the Russian invasion—the Russians would be having supper in Kyiv this evening. Perhaps, despite his incredibly partisan speech, the hon. Gentleman could give us some credit for that.”
“In his emotive poem, “The Soldier”, the war poet Rupert Brooke famously said: If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. Those fields are still there, as are the cemeteries, lovingly and respectfully tended by the staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. In Armed Forces Week, we pay tribute to their highly professional efforts, too. We still live in an extremely dangerous world. Across the House we stand four-square with the noble people of Ukraine, who have been fighting against Russian aggression not just for four years, since the full-scale invasion in 2022, but for 12 years, since the original Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas—a period longer than the first and second world wars combined. I say respectfully to the hon.”
“It is a privilege to sum up this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition in Armed Forces Week, when the nation pays particular attention and gives thanks to our armed forces, their families, veterans and cadets, for all that they do to ensure the security of this nation and its people. This debate has a historical aspect, too. A week tomorrow is the 110th anniversary of the first day of the Somme, the fateful occasion on which the British Army suffered some 60,000 casualties, killed and wounded—the greatest loss our Army has ever suffered in a single day. Their sacrifice must never be forgotten. Indeed, we must not forget the sacrifice of those who died in subsequent conflicts, up to and including Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Can the Armed Forces Minister commit absolutely that after crying wolf so many times, the Government are going to stick to the timetable and publish the DIP within the next fortnight, prior to Ankara? Or is it going to slip yet again? She laughs, but this is not funny. This is about the defence of the United Kingdom. Do Ministers not realise that what little credibility they have left is rapidly disappearing? Indeed, after Cabinet this morning, and even during the course of this debate, the BBC has reported: “No new major policies or spending decisions until new PM appointed, No 10 says”. Where does that leave the defence investment plan? Who is in charge of the clattering train? Who actually runs this country? Is it the current Prime Minister or the next one?”
“Then we were absolutely promised it by Christmas. Then we were definitely going to get it early in the new year. Now we are in the middle of June and still do not have the DIP. Ministers tell us that they have been working flat out. Well, they are now comatose. The new Armed Forces Minister assured the House last night that it would be published by the time of the Ankara summit in July, yet The Times reported this morning that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is minded to delay the publication of the DIP because he wants to take these decisions himself. Presumably whoever his new Chancellor turns out to be—we all pray that there will be one—will have something to say about that too.”
“Given the First Sea Lord’s increasingly, and rightly, dire warnings about Russian naval activity in the English channel and the North sea, perhaps the Minister could tell us how we are supposed to credibly deter Russia when not a single one of our £1.5 billion attack submarines is currently at sea? That brings me to the question of what has happened to the defence investment plan. The three well-respected authors of Labour’s much-vaunted strategic defence review were adamant when it was published, over a year ago now, that the price of implementing the measures in the SDR would be to spend 3% of GDP on defence. The detail of how that would be afforded and the actual programmatics were to be provided subsequently in the defence investment plan. We were faithfully promised the plan in the autumn.”
“Secondly, turning to the Army, there are media reports that it will cost an additional £1 billion—above the £5.5 billion already allocated—to fix the Ajax programme and bring it fully into service. Is that true? If it is, can we be assured that General Dynamics will pick up the bill, per its current £5.5 billion firm-price contract, and that not a single extra penny will fall on the British taxpayer? Incidentally, where are we on the Morpheus tactical communication system? Thirdly, how can it be that our entire fleet of Astute-class nuclear attack submarines are currently laid up for maintenance? The new Secretary of State chided me last week for discussing submarine movements on the floor of the House. I did no such thing. I was, in fact, discussing the total absence of submarine movements.”
“We absolutely stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their brave struggle, which we all hope that they will one day win. In order to help them, we need armed forces that can fight too. As the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) reminded us in his resignation letter, we need to plan for the next war and not the last. With that in mind, I would like to ask Ministers some questions on programmatics this afternoon. Having been in government for nearly two years now, Labour has to begin to take responsibility for something. I have three very specific questions for the Minister on military capability. First, where are we on the much delayed E-7 Wedgetail programme? When, if ever, will this vitally needed eye in the sky enter Royal Air Force service? When, if ever, will Boeing actually make it work properly?”
“No. [ Laughter. ] In February of this year, along with some 20 Members from this House—the largest ever parliamentary delegation to Ukraine as far as I am aware—I visited Odesa, Chernobyl and Kyiv. On 24 February, we were privileged to take part in the commemoration in Maidan Square to mark the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion. It is, in effect, Ukraine’s equivalent of Remembrance Sunday, and it was extremely poignant to be part of it. They lay lanterns with a candle at their memorial in much the same way as we lay wreaths in Britain. The principle is exactly the same: it is to remember those who gave their lives in defence of freedom and democracy. The Ukrainians are fighting for our values and, ultimately, for our freedom too.”
“Some of us on these Benches have literally spent years seeking to defend those who defended us; let us hope that the new Prime Minister will agree. There has been consensus on one point this afternoon—I heard it again and again—which is that the first duty of Government above all others is the defence of the realm, yet the Armed Forces Minister resigned, the Secretary of State for Defence resigned and now the Prime Minister has resigned. This Administration has failed. It is broken. It is going. It made many mistakes, but worst of all, it failed to defend this country. For that, it deserves to come to an end.”
“Member for Makerfield towards the benighted Northern Ireland Troubles Bill? If the new Prime Minister seeks some kind of reset for the Labour party, A good place to start would be to drop this dreadful piece of legislation, which threatens to put our soldiers in the dock solely to the advantage of those who sought to kill them. In lieu of that, he could agree to back the Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill, the excellent new private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), which will have its Second Reading on 4 September and which in essence seeks to curtail any further investigations, inquests or inquiries against our Op Banner veterans unless compelling new evidence as certified by a UK Supreme Court Justice is produced.”
“They and their comrades are now to be pursued through the courts via lawfare, actively aided and abetted by a Government who for months have promised multiple times to produce amendments to the Bill to protect veterans and, just as with the DIP, we have seen nothing of substance on which the House can rely, with no amendments and no letters of comfort for them, either. It is a matter of record that a number of those regiments who served in Northern Ireland on Op Banner came from the north-west of England, including from in and around the Manchester area. I think of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment and its antecedent regiments, including the King’s Regiment, which traditionally recruited from Liverpool and Manchester—they did many tours of Northern Ireland. I therefore ask, in all seriousness, what is the attitude of the right hon.”
“We are failing on both.” Nine former four-star officers have told the world that the troubles Bill represents a “direct threat to national security.” A group of former SAS commanders who were at the sharp end of the battle against republican terrorism told us: “Today every British soldier deployed must consider not only the enemy in front of them but the lawyer behind them… Make no mistake, our closest allies are watching uneasily, and our enemies will be rubbing their hands.” We absolutely cannot allow this situation to continue against those who defended the rule of law. Those who served in Operation Banner stood effectively as piggy-in-the-middle for decades between two warring communities. Over 700 of them were killed and thousands more suffered life-changing injuries.”
“He mentioned his battle in government, where he “set out the changes I believed were necessary, and the lines which I could not in good conscience go beyond. Those lines have not been accepted. I have run out of room to argue this case honourably from inside government. A serving minister cannot ask fellow veterans to trust a process he no longer trusts himself.” He went on: “We ask soldiers to fight for this country. In return, we owe them the kit to do the job and the loyalty to stand by them when it’s done.”
“Indeed, in NATO’s own readiness index, the United Kingdom ranks 31st out of 32 NATO countries, with the only one below us Iceland by virtue of having no armed forces to ready. As the Government disintegrate before our eyes, we can only hope that their successors are both competent and courageous and actually believe in defending this country, which clearly this collapsing Administration do not. Another area that we want to press Ministers hard on is the fate of their benighted Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. The hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak, who famously described it as “not fit for purpose”, spoke powerfully in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister in defence of Northern Ireland veterans.”
“Labour is also seeking £3.5 billion of in-year, self-inflicted, Treasury-driven cuts to the operational and readiness spending of our armed forces. That means fewer ships at sea, fewer planes in the air and fewer exercises on Salisbury plain—and the Russian and Chinese embassies must be laughing themselves silly. If Members will not take it from me, take it from the Chief of the Defence Staff—the professional head of the armed forces—who warned just a few days ago that if Labour continues on its financial path and does not fund the DIP properly, he will have no option but to cut back on readiness and training, which is exactly the activity that is meant to deter a potential aggressor in the first place. The blunt truth—as a Brit, I take no joy in saying it—is that this Government are the laughing stock of NATO.”
“Absolutely; industry is exasperated, from BAE Systems down to the smallest defence suppliers in the land. When we were in government, we published—with one year’s exception, I think—a detailed equipment plan every year so that industry could plan accordingly. That is what the DIP is meant to be, but still we do not have it. Labour Ministers tell us and their own Back Benchers again and again that they are increasing defence spending to the greatest extent since the end of the cold war. That is literally untrue. The Defence Secretary told the world in his resignation letter that Labour’s spending plans envisage going from 2.6% of GDP this year to 2.68% of GDP by 2030. That is a 0.08% increase over four years. How is that the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war? Help me out, someone over there. It gets worse.”