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The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) for securing this debate. Quite apart from his position as Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee and his former role as Secretary of State, he has an understandable interest in the future of this long-established defence site, located in his beautiful Preseli constituency.
The barracks has been a feature of the Pembrokeshire coast since 1944 and, as my right hon. Friend set out, it has the unusual distinction of having served all three of our armed services. It first served as an operational airfield for the RAF, which operated Liberator heavy bombers there during the second world war, as he set out. It then served as a station for Royal Navy airborne early warning craft during the cold war. Finally, it has served as the home of the Army’s electronic warfare unit since the 1990s. The barracks has therefore played an important role in the military history of Pembrokeshire as well as that of Wales more generally.
My right hon. Friend brought us up to date by eloquently describing the links between the community and the service personnel of the 14th Signal Regiment, and the respect and affection in which they are held. I recognise that both they and the base’s civilian employees are important to the local economy. I therefore wholly understand his concern about the effects of the November 2016 announcement of Cawdor’s closure. I also understand that this has been a long story. The base’s closure was announced in November 2016, and I sympathise with his point that this has been a period of uncertainty for the community.
However, I must tell my right hon. Friend, with regret, that the intent to dispose of the barracks remains. The armed forces are now 30% smaller than at the end of the last century, but the defence estate has not yet been proportionately reduced in size. In many areas we use our defence estate efficiently, but overall it is too big, too expensive and has too many sites to maintain. That is why in the 2015 strategic defence and security review we committed to investing in a smaller, but optimised and efficient, defence estate. Military capability outputs have been at the heart of our defence estate strategy, and we are taking a transformational approach to better support the future requirements of our armed forces by generating special centres of specialisation and capability clusters.
Consolidating the defence estate enables the Ministry of Defence to concentrate its assets, investing in significantly better facilities to support the men and women of our armed forces. The Cawdor site, designed for the needs of the second world war and the cold war that followed, is sadly no longer fit for the vital and increasingly central purposes of electronic and cyber-warfare in the 21st century. Nor does the unit’s geographic location provide the easy synergies that the regiment needs with the units and organisations that it supports. We must ensure that the regiment can maximise its operational capabilities.
The Government understand the strength of feeling in those local communities impacted by the relocation of military units, here and elsewhere, and the deep-rooted histories and ties that are thereby sadly broken. I can reassure my right hon. Friend that careful consideration is being given to alternative uses for the site, with the aim of increasing the commercial use, driving regeneration and creating local jobs. We have a little time, given that the earliest date for closure is anticipated to be 2024, and I absolutely commit that my Department will work closely with Pembrokeshire County Council on potential future uses.
Stephen Crabb
I am very interested in everything the Minister is saying. Can he give me a commitment this afternoon that in his new ministerial capacity—he is doing a great job in the Department, by the way—he will take the opportunity to visit the Cawdor Barracks site in the near future and perhaps come and see the site for himself, but also take a moment with me to meet Pembrokeshire County Council, to talk about the plans for closing the site and what steps need to be taken in the years ahead, to ensure that that transfer happens with minimal impact on my constituents and in the most productive and useful way possible?
Jeremy Quin
I can absolutely commit to meeting my right hon. Friend here at Westminster. I would like to take the opportunity to visit the site and talk to the county council, but I cannot commit wholly to that—he will appreciate the pressures on diaries right at the start of one’s time in post. I would like to visit, and I will certainly make myself available in Westminster to speak to him about the application.
I would also like to talk to my right hon. Friend about the Crichel Down rules. Those rules normally apply only where sites are undeveloped, but that is something that we can take up and talk about in the context of this site, if that is helpful. As I have just outlined, we will work with the county council and that work will inform the engagement that we will also have with the Welsh Government, with the office of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and others on the potential alternative uses of the site.
The decision to close Cawdor barracks is an operational one, driven by the needs of the armed services, but it is no reflection on the Government’s strong commitment to maximising the contribution of Wales to the defence of the UK and maximising the benefits of the defence sector there. On the contrary, as my right hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and I, along with many other hon. Members, discussed in yesterday’s debate, Wales has made a first-rate contribution to the defence of the realm, and we are determined to maximise the benefits of the defence sector there.
To conclude, closures of established military bases inevitably have consequences for local communities, and my right hon. Friend has drawn that to our attention. Over recent years the Government have had to make a number of such difficult decisions in respect of bases around the UK. Our armed forces need facilities and accommodation that fully meet their operational needs. However, we recognise that the closure of this long-established site will inevitably have impacts on Pembrokeshire beyond the defence community. That is why my Department is working actively with the local authority and others to identify the most beneficial future use of the site. I commit myself to continuing to do so, with the help and assistance of my right hon. Friend.
Question put and agreed to.