Russia’s Grand Strategy

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:05 pm on 19 January 2023.

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Photo of Philip Dunne Philip Dunne Chair, Environmental Audit Committee, Chair, Environmental Audit Committee 4:05, 19 January 2023

I am very grateful. I am well aware that my right hon. Friend, who, when we were in post was responsible for personnel primarily and then became armed forces Minister, has taken a particular interest in procurement of late. I have not always agreed with everything he has said, but I think we are absolutely as one on this issue.

What should we be looking at, in the refresh of the integrated review, to deliver the strategic shift that is needed in UK military capability? First, there must be an immediate restoration of the manpower that has been cut from the British Army. It is very clear that what is happening in Ukraine is a land conflict. Our Army’s land capability has suffered cuts for years, perhaps because it has been given lower priority in the allocation of funds for new capability. That is largely because it is easier to cut a small programme, either by deferring it for a bit or by cutting a bit out, than to cut a major programme, which takes years longer to achieve, as is typically the case in the air and maritime domains.

We also need to prioritise land capability from an equipment perspective, so the second thing that the refresh needs is to look at the capability and capital equipment that the British Army requires. The Chairman of the Select Committee listed a number of items that he would like to see restored or improved.

We need to learn clear lessons about what the current conflict is delivering from the state-on-state aggressor in the Ukraine. I do not have a military background and have not studied the doctrine as the Minister has, but it is very clear that taking territory on a modern battlefield requires the ability to manoeuvre at scale under armoured protection. It is vital that our infantry mobility and our power projection on land, at scale, be restored. As we have heard, much of our equipment is now decades old. Although some of it remains more effective and capable than what an adversary might have, we just do not have enough, and what we do have is getting pretty tired.

We also need to be able to clear territory in advance, so we need artillery capability and agile unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering force across a battlefield. Air protection is critical to that, so we need air defence and a variety of UAVs. Much of our UAV capability has been built around delivering precision fire remotely, which has been very effective in theatres in which we have been operating, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, but would be much harder to deliver at scale across a wider battlefront.

New capability and equipment cannot be effective unless we have manpower trained to use it, so the integrated review also needs to provide adequate funding to allow force-on-force armoured training at scale, access to training areas and the ability to experiment with novel groupings and battlegroups at scale. We are in danger of giving up the capability that we had; I am thinking in particular of the training ground in Canada.

To achieve this, we need agile procurement, as I called for in a paper in 2018. That approach has been provided through the urgent operational requirements system and by individual commands through the rapid capability offices that have been established, which are doing well at bringing in new capability, often procured off the shelf but typically at a small scale. What we are talking about today is on a different scale, so we need to consider acquiring some capability off the shelf. We do not have the luxury of a 10-year procurement programme that may slip, as has often been discussed in this Chamber. We have to contemplate that approach, even if it means not necessarily buying British all the time.

We can continue to provide Ukraine with equipment. We have taken a lead in Europe in providing equipment— I command the Government for their stance—and in training the brave Ukrainian soldiers in its use. However, the conflict is going on for longer than the aggressor intended and longer than any of us would like. We must assume that it will continue, and that supplies will be needed, for some time. In the integrated review, we must be prepared to backfill our own supplies of munitions and increase our own stockpiles and capability. That takes time, and it takes treasure. We need to establish strategic reserves as a consequence of the integrated review, which will allow us to sustain our own forces and those in Ukraine for a long time. We have to demonstrate to the Russians that the UK has the resolve to stand fast behind Ukraine, and the resolve to ensure that NATO is in a position to act as a deterrent to any extension of this conflict beyond where it currently is.