Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Permanent Mission to the International Maritime Organization

 

Précis of Parliamentary Activity on 2^nd March 2015

 

Topics discussed / written about in the UK Parliament today. 

 

House of Lords – oral questions

 

Strategic Defence and Security Review

 

Lord Rosser (Lab): To ask Her Majesty’s Government what, if any, preparatory work has been, or is being, undertaken in advance of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review; and whether any such work will be made available, subject to not compromising national security, prior to the general election.

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD): My Lords, preparatory analytical work is under way to refresh the risk-based assessment approach taken in 2010. As the review will formally begin after the next election, no decision on its final scope or approach has yet been made. The Government have no plans to make any preliminary work available prior to the general election.

 

Lord Rosser (Lab): I thank the Minister for that response. In the light of that response, is it this Government’s intention that there should be a real opportunity, including sufficient time, for an open discussion about our defence and security strategy prior to the 2015 SDSR being finalised? The previous Government produced a Green Paper on defence and security before the last election. From what the Minister has just said, there appears to be no comparable document forthcoming from this Government in respect of the 2015 SDSR. Why is that, particularly when future defence and security strategy is one area where Governments normally seek to achieve some degree of consensus?

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I agree that debate and search for consensus are important, particularly as we now face a remarkably diverse selection of security threats. The 2009 Green Paper was indeed about defence and not about security in the broader sense. I remind noble Lords that, in the national security strategy 2010, only two of the eight tier-one and tier-two threats identified were directly military; the others included pandemics, climate change, cyberattacks, organised crime on a transnational basis, terrorism and surges of migration.

 

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD): My Lords, given that the French Government invited the former UK National Security Adviser—now the British ambassador in Paris—to take part in their recent defence review, could my noble friend the Minister say whether the Government intend to invite an appropriate official from France to participate in next year’s strategic defence and security review?

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, the House of Commons Defence Committee raised that question in its report last year. The Government’s response said that,

 

“we have already had preliminary discussions in particular with the US and France following our engagement in the French Livre Blanc and US Quadrennial Defense Review processes”.

 

This question is out there, but to be decided by whichever Government emerges after the next election.

 

Lord Touhig (Lab): My Lords, each night some 500 veterans sleep on the streets of London and towns and cities across Britain. I mean in no way to diminish the importance of the strategic defence review, but can the Minister indicate when the Government will honour the spirit of the Armed Forces covenant and face up to this crisis? Our defence depends on the commitment of the men and women of our Armed Forces and we owe them a duty of care when they have left the services.

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I of course acknowledge the importance of the noble Lord’s point, but I merely stress that I am answering for the Cabinet Office and the Government as a whole. We are talking about a security and defence review that involves the majority of departments in Whitehall feeding into an overall view of threats to our domestic and international security.

 

Lord Soley (Lab): The world is a much more dangerous place than it was in 2009, when that that report was well received. Now there is a danger of conflict between European Union states and Russia, and there is a profoundly dangerous conflict in the Middle East as well. Surely there is a case for a debate, as my noble friend on the Front Bench suggested. We really cannot carry on as if there were not a problem emerging in the world that makes the world a much more dangerous place than it was five or six years ago.

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, the 2010 SDSR was undertaken at speed, in the context of a very wide gap between defence spending commitments and the Treasury’s ability to fund them. We may hope that after the next election we shall have a little more time—perhaps a matter of six to nine months—before the conclusion of the SDSR. I remind noble Lords that in 1997-98 Labour’s defence review took well over a year. That will allow more time for the sort of debate about our role in the world, the threats we face and how much we devote to meeting these different threats than we had in 2010.

 

Lord West of Spithead (Lab): My Lords, the Minister is deluding himself there, because the driver will be the CSR, which will have to gallop down the track very fast. I was disappointed with the Minister’s response to my noble friend on the Front Bench, in terms of the ability to go out and talk to various other people. Does he not believe that we need something like the National Security Forum, and an ability to talk to academe and experts on military affairs, so as to get an input from all parties, moving very fast? The CSR will hit us and we will have to make decisions about spending that will have a huge impact on the military.

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, the process of consultation and debate with outside bodies is well under way. The noble Lord makes his points about involving those parties, and I myself have been to see some of them. I was at the Royal United Services Institute and at Chatham House discussing precisely those broad issues behind the SDSR, so the process of consultation with outside experts is under way. I wish we had seen more, for example, about Labour’s approach to defence and security, which might have fed into a more public debate before the election.

 

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con): My Lords, as the SDSR of 1998 sought to reduce the Reserve Forces, and the coalition’s recent SDSR moved in the opposite direction, if my noble friend is still serving in a coalition Government in the next Parliament, in which direction does he think it is likely to go?

 

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, as the noble Lord has remarked, we are in a much more acute security situation, not only in eastern Europe but in north Africa and across the Middle East, than we were five years ago. One of the questions that whichever Government emerges after the next election will have to consider is what spending priorities are, and how far we need to raise the issue of security within that. I again stress that an SDSR is not just about military spending: there are a wide range of other security threats—some very long term—which that includes.

 

 

Astute-class submarines

 

Lord West of Spithead (Lab ): To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the time to build an Astute-class submarine has reduced as the shipyard has gained experience of building that type of vessel.

 

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever) (Con): My Lords, the build time and commissioning for each Astute-class submarine continues to reduce as lessons are learnt. For the first boat, HMS “Astute”, this took 170 months from the start of manufacture until operational handover to the Royal Navy. The second boat, HMS “Ambush”, achieved this in 149 months.

Lord West of Spithead (Lab): My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. As he will know, the first build of any class always takes longer. Perhaps he could write to me with the answer to this question: how long has HMS “Artful”, which is the third of the SSNs, taken from laying down to sea trials, compared with HMS “Agamemnon”, which is the one that is being built at the moment? All the information I have is that these lengths of time are suddenly starting to stretch out, which means that more money will be spent. Is the Minister aware that the US is now very concerned that the stretching out of timescales may impact on any future submarines, and worried about the impact on the common missile compartment that the Americans are funding to a large extent, but that we will be using?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I will write to the noble Lord on the point that he asks about. The Astute submarine programme required the UK’s nuclear submarine design build capability to be re-established following a 10-year gap since the delivery of the last Vanguard-class submarine. The consequences are still being felt across the whole of the submarine enterprise. Further improvements are still needed and we are working very closely with our key suppliers to ensure that they make those improvements.

 

Baroness Wilcox (Con): My Lords, will the Astute class have female submariners this time?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, women officers and ratings will be able to serve on Astute-class submarines from about next year, but this will not be the first class to do so. Seven women officers have completed the submarine officer training course and are now serving in the submarine service on board the Vanguard-class submarines, and in headquarters appointments. Women ratings will commence training this year.

 

Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab): My noble friend and the Minister have already referred to the positive experience effects that one always gets in building any class of vessel, or in any engineering project, but does he recall that in addition to those effects that one can expect, there was a particular problem at the beginning of the Astute-class programme because of the break in continuity and expertise from the previous submarine-building programmes of the Trafalgar class? Does he therefore accept that it is vital that we do not run into those problems again, and those excess costs and wastes of money, and that this time there is absolutely no gap between the end of the building of the Astute programme and the beginning of the successor class programme?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. Designing and building submarines is one of the largest programmes, and most complex activities, that the MoD and UK industry undertake, and the noble Lord is well aware of that. Addressing the technical issues associated with nuclear submarine capability is exceptionally challenging, and is reflected in the time it takes to design and build a submarine.

 

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD): My Lords, in view of the vulnerable international situation, have the Government been in discussions with BAE Systems about how to speed up the production of these necessary submarines with Tomahawk missiles if the international situation gets worse, or are we stuck on a timetable that has no connection with the international scene?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. We continue to look for ways to optimise manufacturing schedules. For example, we are introducing new technology to support modular build, an innovative means of testing and commissioning different systems.

 

Lord Elton (Con): My Lords, the stretching out of delivery times affects the cash flow of subcontractors, and those difficulties can be hideously compounded by delays in the settlement of their bills. Is there oversight of the rate of settlement of bills and, if so, is it satisfactory?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I cannot answer my noble friend’s question from the Dispatch Box, but I will take it back to my department and undertake to write to him.

 

Lord Lee of Trafford (LD): My Lords, can my noble friend give an indication of the extent of Soviet submarine activity off our shores and our ability to maintain surveillance?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am aware of this but it is probably difficult for me to say too much about the subject from the Dispatch Box.

 

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I was not going to ask about that subject but, as we know, at one stage we had 16 attack submarines but now we have six, and that has an impact on antisubmarine warfare by submarines. My question really goes back the build rate—the drumbeat—of these submarines. The drumbeat was extended unnaturally because we did not wish to have the submarines coming off the production line quickly. That means that each boat costs more than it should have done. Is that not correct, or does the Minister believe that we had to build them over that timescale?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, the noble Lord is right but we are working with industry to try to speed up the manufacture of these submarines, and I think we are being very successful in that initiative.

 

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con): My Lords, could my noble friend give a word of description of how the naming of warships occurs in the Royal Navy? Contingent on his answer, would HMS “Adaptable” be a possibility?

 

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I wish I could answer that question. For the benefit of the House, I have mentioned the first three submarines: HMS “Astute”, HMS “Ambush” and HMS “Artful”. The fourth is called “Audacious”, the fifth is “Anson” and the sixth is “Agamemnon”. For the seventh, we are still waiting to decide on the name.

 

House of Commons – Oral questions

 

Conflict zones – edited for the purpose of brevity.

 

Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the Government’s counter-terrorism policy and implications for individuals travelling to the Iraq/Syria conflict zones.

 

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May): As the Government have made clear repeatedly, the threat we face from terrorism is grave and is growing. The House will appreciate that I cannot comment on operational matters and individual cases, but the threat level in the United Kingdom, which is set by the independent joint terrorism analysis centre, is at severe. This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely and could occur without warning.

 

The Government have consistently and emphatically advised against all travel to Syria and parts of Iraq. Anyone who travels to these areas is putting themselves in considerable danger, and the impact that such a decision can have on families and communities can be devastating.

 

The serious nature of the threat we face is exactly why the Government have been determined to act. We have protected the counter-terrorism policing budget up to and including 2015-16, and increased the budget for the security and intelligence agencies. In addition, we have provided an additional £130 million to strengthen counter-terrorism capabilities and help address the threat from ISIL, and we have taken significant steps to ensure that the police and the security services have the powers and capabilities they need.

 

Last year, we acted swiftly to protect vital capabilities that allow the police and the security services to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to clarify the law in respect of interception for communications-service providers. This year we have introduced the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. This has provided the police with a power to seize a passport at the border temporarily, during which time they will be able to investigate the individual concerned—and I can confirm that this power has already been used. It has created a temporary exclusion order that allows for the managed return to the UK of a British citizen suspected of involvement in terrorist activity abroad. It has strengthened the existing terrorism prevention and investigation measures regime so that, among other measures, subjects can be made to relocate to another part of the country, and it has enhanced our border security for aviation, maritime and rail travel, with provisions relating to passenger data, no-fly lists, and security and screening measures.

 

Since its national roll-out in April 2012, more than 2,000 people have been referred to Channel, the Government’s programme for people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism, many of whom might have gone on to be radicalised or to fight in Syria. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 has now placed Channel on a statutory basis. It has also placed our Prevent work on a statutory basis, which will mean that schools, colleges, universities, prisons, local government and the police will have to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. Already

2 Mar 2015 : Column 680

 

since 2012, local Prevent projects have reached more than 55,000 people and have helped young people and community groups to understand and challenge extremist narratives, including those of ISIL.

 

In addition to this work, alongside the checks we already conduct on a significant number of passengers who leave the UK, we have committed to reintroducing exit checks, and arrangements to do so will be in place by April 2015. These will extend our ability to identify persons of interest from a security, criminal, immigration or customs perspective. And as the Prime Minister stated last week, the Transport Secretary and I will be working with airlines to put proportionate arrangements in place to ensure that children who are at risk are properly identified and questioned.

 

The Government are taking robust action, but we have been clear that tackling the extremist threat that we face is not just a job for the Government, the police and the security services; it needs everyone to play their part. It requires educational institutions, social media companies, communities, religious leaders and families to help to protect people vulnerable to radicalisation and to confront this poisonous ideology. If we are to defeat this appalling threat and ideology, we must all work together.

 

Defence and Security Review (NATO) – edited for the purpose of brevity

 

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, for the year ending with 31 March 2015, for expenditure by the Ministry of Defence:

(1) the resources authorised for use for current purposes be reduced by £618,573,000 as set out in HC 1019, and

(2) further resources, not exceeding £426,760,000 be authorised for use for capital purposes as so set out, and

(3) a further sum, not exceeding £426,834,000 be granted to Her Majesty to be issued by the Treasury out of the Consolidated Fund and applied for expenditure on the use of resources authorised by Parliament.—(Mel Stride.)

Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con): I should like to begin by talking about the House of Commons Defence Committee’s report. The key element in the report, and in what I hope will be my relatively brief remarks, is that Russia poses a significant and substantial threat to Europe. That argument has been made in great detail by the Defence Committee and, in the months since the report was published, it has become increasingly evident that it is correct.

I remind the House that, while we were working on the report, we had a statement from the Foreign Secretary that he had been assured by Lavrov that Russia would not invade Crimea. Four days later, Russia invaded Crimea. We then heard a number of specialists and analysts say that Russia would not go into eastern Ukraine, but it then did so. We also heard people say, after the Malaysian airliner was shot down, that that would be the moment at which Russia would back off because it was embarrassed by what it had done. Russia did not back off. People then made it clear that Russia would not extend its activities to Mariupol or Odessa, but as we can now see, separatists with Russian support are moving towards those two cities.

What does this mean for the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defence, NATO and defence spending? The House of Commons Defence Committee’s report focuses on two things: the conventional threat posed by Russia, and the threat that we describe as next generation warfare, ambiguous warfare or the asymmetric threat posed by Russia. Although those two things are related, it is worth analysing them separately.

On the conventional threat posed by Russia, the report argues that, through its Zapad exercise in 2013, Russia showed its ability to deploy almost 70,000 troops at 72 hours’ notice. The current estimate is that it would take NATO almost six months to deploy that number of troops. Russia has also displayed its ability to fly nuclear bombers to Venezuela and to exercise for a full amphibious assault on a Baltic state. It has upgraded its nuclear arsenal and it is committed to spending $100 billion a year on defence. All of that is taking place in the context of a decline in NATO defence spending.

Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con): I thank the Chairman of the Committee for giving way so early in his speech. One of the reasons that he has had to consider only two aspects—namely, conventional and unconventional warfare—is that our strategic nuclear deterrent is still in place, and if either the Opposition or the Conservative party has anything to do with it, that will remain the case. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be madness to think about disposing of our deterrent and ending our continuous at-sea deterrence? Is it not strange that there is not a single Member present who represents the party that proposes that we should abandon that continuous at-sea deterrence—namely, the Liberal Democrat party?

Oh, the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) has just appeared. I hope that he disagrees with his party on that matter.

Rory Stewart: That is an invitation to go into exactly this theme: in terms of responses to the Russian conventional threat, we have planned, for 20 years, for fighting enemies in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. We have planned on the basis of such expeditionary warfare. The planning assumptions at the base of Future Force 2020 or the strategic defence and security review were about being able to put 6,600 people—or 10,000, in the past—into the field and maintain them there for enduring stability operations. We have not really thought about taking on an enemy such as Russia. In the national security strategy, the threat of what we have seen done by Russia was marked down as a tier 3 or bottom-level probability.

That means a lot of things: it has implications, of course, for nuclear weapons; it has implications for many capacities that we have got rid of in Britain over the past 20 years, such as our ability to exercise at scale —in the mid-1980s we used to be able to exercise with 130,000 or 140,000 people, whereas last year we were exercising with about 6,600 people, at a time when Russia was exercising with about 70,000; it has meant that we got rid of our significant capacity in wide-water crossing—that is engineering; it has meant a reduction in armour, because we did not expect to be fighting tank battles; and, more relevantly to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), it has also meant that we need to think much more seriously about ballistic missile defence, and about chemical, biological and radiological and nuclear.

Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I accept my hon. Friend’s Committee’s recommendation that as a minimum we have to spend 2% of GDP, but even at that level how many of these missing things could we put back into our capabilities?

Rory Stewart: That is a very good question, which I hope to be able to deal with towards the end of my speech. The assumption of spending 2% of GDP on defence, which is essential because we organised an entire NATO summit around the idea of doing that, is of course the hope that as the economy grows, defence spending will grow and we can make the necessary five-year planning, which will return confidence to the armed forces and allow us to make some of these investments. The question is a good one, because we would still face significant constraints in relation to Trident and to operating our aircraft carrier. If we wanted to make significant investments in restoring armour capacity, even 2% of GDP would be pushing it.

Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab): I apologise for coming in late. About 30 years ago, when Denis Healey, as Defence Secretary, looked down the road at the defence needs, he said that modern warfare for the future would rely more on conventional weapons than nuclear weapons and that sort of thing. On the hon. Gentleman’s other point, although we may not have planned for any war with Russia, I imagine the United States has, because it plays “war games”, for want of a better term, and examines various scenarios. What does he think about that? Does he know anything about that?

Rory Stewart: The hon. Gentleman rightly says that we have not been focused on Russia, and the United States certainly has more capacity, but it is striking that even the US significantly reduced its capacity to deal with an adversary such as Russia. There has been a lot of criticism within the entire Pentagon administration about the focus on counter-insurgency warfare, and a man called Colonel Gentile ran a huge campaign to try to get the US to focus more on conventional threats. Britain has got rid of a lot of our Russian analysis capacity. One thing my Committee’s report pointed out is that we got rid of the Advanced Research and Assessment Group, which did the basic Russian analysis, we sacked our Ukraine desk officer and the defence intelligence service reduced its Russian analysis. The same has been happening in the United States, although it is now building this capacity up rapidly, but when we go to Supreme Allied Commander Europe and look at the American capacity, we see that that Russian capacity is being built up from a very low base again, which is troubling.

I do not wish to speak for too long, because I know many Members wish to contribute, so let me return to the basic framework of my argument: conventional; unconventional; and what we should be doing. I have set out the conventional, so what should Britain be doing? The Committee believes we should be looking to exercise at a larger level, so we should begin to return to some of the kinds of exercises we did in previous eras, which involve exercising at least at a divisional level. Encouragingly, NATO is beginning to look at an exercise at a level of 35,000 people—we would like to see more of that, and we would like politicians and policy makers to be involved in that. We would like to see all-armed exercises. We are going to be looking closely at Norway 2018, which seems to be a big opportunity to do this.

We have to look carefully at this very high readiness taskforce. One thing the Committee recommended was the setting up of a deployable force under SACEUR like the allied rapid reaction corps, which could go out and respond rapidly within 72 hours to a Russian threat. It was a very good sign at the Wales summit that that commitment was made, but the details need to be improved dramatically. The framework nations are struggling to provide 5,000 people and they need to produce one brigade standing up, one currently in exercise and one standing down. We have not yet seen what is happening with the enablers. We need to see whether they will be able to move forward with ISTAR––intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance—and whether they are going to have the cyber-capacity connected. Here is another question, perhaps for the Minister: France has committed as a framework nation, but are we certain that it is committing its troops uniquely to SACEUR or are we in danger of a situation in which people are double-hatting? In other words, are the French retaining the ability to deploy their brigade to Africa when it suits them, so that this very high readiness taskforce will then be a second-order call?

But it is on asymmetric warfare that we need to focus most of all, because although Russian tanks crossing the border into Estonia would be a high-impact event, we estimate at the moment that it is a low-probability event. It is not one we should ignore, because of course were Putin to do it, we really would not know what to do. Were Putin to roll tanks across and take over even a mile or two of Estonia, NATO would be in a very serious problem. As the Swedish general Neretnieks has pointed out, it would be very difficult—it would require very considerable political will—to get Russia out of that situation. But the most likely move is asymmetric warfare first.

Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): On that point about capacity, it is interesting to note that in 1989 there were 5,000 US battle tanks stationed in Europe, whereas now there are 29. The capacity is not there, even if we look just at what the Americans are providing, never mind our failure to provide.

Rory Stewart: That is a significant point. It is true that, ultimately, the theoretical NATO capacity dwarfs that of Russia, but a lot of this stuff is extremely difficult to deploy; many nations are very reluctant to pay the money required to exercise; a lot of this money is absorbed in pension schemes; and our problem is that we are defending an enormous, multi-thousand-mile border, where Russia could, should it wish, cause trouble all the way from the Baltic to the Caucasus. We have to deal with that entire area, which may be very difficult to do, even with the 3.3 million troops we currently have in NATO.

Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op): The hon. Gentleman referred to Estonia. Clearly, under article 5 of the NATO treaty all the other 27 member states would have an obligation to respond to an armed attack on Estonia, but there is a level of ambiguity, given the hybrid warfare that the Russians are engaged in and have been engaged in—cyber-attacks and others. Given that Putin does not necessarily wish to invoke a major military conflict, how does NATO deal with those hybrid attacks?

Rory Stewart: The hybrid attacks are exactly what I was getting on to: the asymmetric and next-generation warfare attacks. As the Labour former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has just pointed out, the conventional attack is a low-probability, high-impact event. Much more probable is this asymmetric, hybrid warfare. In other words, we are more likely to find cyber-attacks of the kind we saw in Estonia in 2007, and separatists popping up claiming that they are being abused or that minority rights are being abused in places such as Narva, in eastern Estonia. As we saw, 45% of the Russian population of Latvia supported the Russian occupation of Crimea in a survey at that time. So what are we supposed to do? The answer is: it is really difficult and we absolutely need to raise our game in three areas. As has been indicated, those are cyber, information warfare and special forces operations.

Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con): May I start by warmly congratulating the Chair of the Defence Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), on what I thought was a masterly speech, both in detail and in content, and with which I agree entirely?

I think I can leave out the stuff about how we all agree that defence and security is the most important responsibility of any Government, because we all know that is the case and, by and large, we all agree on it, but the character of conflict has changed profoundly and new threats have arisen. As we look to the future and prepare for it over the next several years, we really must prepare ourselves to meet some very different challenges.

As in any other area of our public obligation, if we have a strong economy—and we do—that will enable us to build strong armed forces and obtain the structure we need. There is absolutely no point pretending that it would be sensible, wise, prudent or in the national interest not to commit to spending the 2% target. Indeed, I would go further and say that failing to do so would be a terrible slur on Britain’s honour.

The question of the threat is quite clear. Threat consists of capability and intent. So what threatens us, our way of life and our prosperity? The world wars and the cold war of the 20th century were waged between states or by sponsored surrogates. They defined our capabilities. The emerging challenges of the 21st century that threaten us, our way of life and our prosperity are not so much Médecins sans Frontières, but Menace sans Frontières. They are transnational forces such as fascist theocracies, little green men, organised crime and cyber-anarchism, and they are not defining our defence capabilities; they are merely defining our attention—and a short attention span it is, too—while our political and public intent is watered down and neutered, since today, alas, perception is reality.

The world is increasingly connected—iPads, iPhones, the internet and social media—but it is not at all well informed. The power of propaganda, mischief and misinformation allows faceless entities to shape the debate and, alas, our will. Our current narrative, I regret to say, is clumsy, outdated and thoroughly outmatched.

This last century we sought capability dominance that would overmatch our enemies, and in the round we achieved it. This century has already demonstrated possible enemies who have successfully achieved capability avoidance and are moving our best defences rapidly towards capability irrelevance. For example, strategic deterrence kept the world from war for 40 years because it deterred. Today the threat of use in North Korea and even the threat of ownership in Iran allows small nations to gain great leverage with tactical capabilities, whether real or perceived. Frankly, neither country is seriously deterred by our strategic forces, and the future holds every possibility of small-scale tactical nuclear use.

The operating environment has shifted from one of near certainty, in the cold war, to a period of uncertainty, in the war on terror, and it will move further left towards the unknown. In that space, investment in people and technology, with genuine blue-sky thinking and leading-edge research and development, will be absolutely essential while maximizing our existing equipment and capabilities through innovative integration. Colossus and Ultra shortened the second world war by two years. Who foresaw and invested in those as war weapons in 1939? Our universities and science laboratories provided the knowledge and advancement that allowed us rapidly to blend national expertise to defeat Germany. I recommend that anyone who has not yet seen the “Churchill’s Scientists” exhibition at the Science museum to do so. Today, robotics, advanced computer studies, telematics, teleonomics and bioscience offer the same, but they are not seen or really much supported by defence.

We must express the new defence challenge in terms that people can understand. There is of course a need to have contingent forces capable of operating to the old threat of war or proxy war, but that should not be the main effort. The present challenges require us to prepare for how we anticipate them to evolve, using current capabilities adapted and integrated for best use in the near term.

The future threats to our country are truly wicked, and they continue to evolve and challenge us. Investment in people and advanced science, in close collaboration with our closest and most reliable ally in this field—the United States—should determine the course that defence must now take.

Sir Gerald Howarth: My right hon. Friend is right, and it is significant how Russia has behaved, particularly with the annexation of Crimea. I remind hon. Members that I questioned the Foreign Secretary before Russia invaded to see whether he had heard any indication from Lavrov that it had no intention of using military force, but four days later, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border said, it did.

Recently, a whole raft of people have been drawing attention to what is going on. The Defence Secretary spoke of Russia as a “real and present” threat, and the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Sir Adrian Bradshaw, also warned us and said there was a danger that Vladimir Putin would try to use his armies to invade and seize NATO territory, calculating that the alliance will be too afraid of escalating violence to respond. Sir John Sawers, former head of MI6, has said that Russia poses a state-on-state threat. He also suggested that we must have dialogue with Russia. I find that idea attractive, but I do not see how we can possibly have dialogue with a man who is intent on redrawing the map of Europe.

It is not just in Europe that we face severe challenges. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) said, we face a multiplicity of threats. We can all see what is happening in the middle east. Syria is on fire and the Arab spring has left turmoil in north Africa. Now ISIL is running rampant in Iraq—thank goodness we have intervened there to check its advance, because if Iraq and all its oil revenues had fallen to it, that would have been hugely damaging to the whole world, not just the middle east.

Iran is still declaring its ambition to achieve nuclear weapons. That matter is still unresolved. We know North Korea’s filthy weapons are available to anybody who wants to pay good money to buy them. China is ramping up its military activities. I do not know how many right hon. and hon. Members have seen what is going on in the South China sea. I refer again to Jane’s Defence Weekly—this is not a particular plug for it—which has been running a hugely instructive series of articles on what China is doing in the South China sea: creating runways and port facilities on a whole raft of disputed uninhabited islands. The most significant land building in the Spratly Islands is on Fiery Cross Reef. It is shaping up to be the site for China’s first airstrip in the Spratly Islands.