Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

It is, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government is talking about. When someone has been away for 10 years —perhaps they have been abroad, serving in Germany with the Army—they should have the opportunity to register for a house and to get precedence in the area where they lived for all their life before joining the armed forces to serve their country.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Birmingham city council was probably the first specifically to ring-fence new social housing provisions for ex-members of the armed forces. Is the Minister aware of any other councils in the west midlands following suit, as, although what Birmingham does is magnificent, it is not sufficient?

[Mr Robathan]

Here I call on the help of my civil servants, because I am not aware of any other councils in the west midlands following suit. I applaud Birmingham city council—under, I think, Conservative administration —for putting this to one side—[Interruption.] Then under Conservative administration. I applaud the council and, as the hon. Lady will know, we are encouraging the community covenants that lead to such activities.

Defence Budget and Transformation

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is much interest in this matter among right hon. and hon. Members. Accommodating that level of interest will require brevity in questions and answers alike.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State was enormously helpful last Thursday when he told me that procuring an aircraft carrier was slightly more complicated than buying a bottle of milk or a box of eggs. I wonder whether he will be equally helpful today. He keeps referring to the £38 billion black hole. Will he tell us how much of that £38 billion he assesses as being due to contractual commitments and therefore outside the scope of his cuts, and how much of it as being outside those contractual commitments?

[Mr Hammond]

As the hon. Lady will know, my predecessor took some difficult decisions to cancel programmes that were contracted, which incurred some costs. One of the changes that we are now making will ensure that we do not commit contractually to projects earlier than we need to, so that if the MOD needs to restructure a programme or introduce flexibility, it will be able to do so without incurring such penalties.

Carrier Strike Capability

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. I made the precise point, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), that the cost of converting the second carrier to EMALS cats and traps was likely to be prohibitive; that has emerged from the work that has been going on. Completing the two carriers in STOVL configuration gives us optionality. It means that they can both operate the STOVL aircraft; that the 2015 SDSR can decide whether to bring the second carrier out of extended readiness and deploy it during periods of refit or extended maintenance of the first carrier; and that subsequent SDSRs can decide whether finding the extra crew and meeting the maintenance cost is an appropriate use of naval resources, depending on our assessment of the threat risk.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I am still trying to understand precisely what the new facts are that the Secretary of State so recently discovered. He mentions risk profiles and cost estimates, but surely they were known. Would it not be wise of him either to be more specific or, even better, to publish the advice that would show us what those new facts are?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady will remember that I spent three and a half years in a shadow Treasury brief, during which time I developed a healthily jaundiced view of the Ministry of Defence’s procurement process. Now that I am inside the Department and see the process from the other side, I understand that it is a little bit more complicated than nipping down to the local supermarket to buy a carton of eggs or a bottle of milk. These are immensely complex projects. The way they typically work is that they start with a high-level estimate, informed by the best information available. One then commits funds—this costs money—to do a more detailed appraisal that identifies the technical and financial challenges and risks around the project. That is precisely what we have done. In terms of the appropriate management of a large, complex project, the MOD has followed exactly the right process. It has delivered us the facts to which I referred, and we have drawn the appropriate conclusions from them.

Afghanistan (Troop Levels)

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I have no doubt about the growing competence, capability and confidence of the Afghan national security forces. They will inevitably fight a different type of campaign after 2014 from that fought by ISAF. I have a high level of confidence in their ability to hold the ground against the insurgents. The UK Government recognise the need for an Afghan-led reconciliation process, but the basis for that must be that the people who are involved renounce the use of violence and agree to pursue their objectives by political means.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Following on from the previous question, we talk about insurgents as though they were a uniform group. Has the Secretary of State made an assessment of whether the pattern of who the insurgents are has changed and of the differentiated response that is therefore required?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. One striking statistic shows the percentage of the reintegrees—horrible word—who have joined the peace and reconciliation programme whose original gripe with the Afghan Government had nothing to do with ideology, but was a land dispute or some other local dispute that led them to feel disfranchised and disillusioned with Afghan society. Sometimes it was a reaction to the corruption that is still, I am afraid, only too endemic. She is right that there is a hard core of people who are ideologically motivated, but there is also a much softer group of insurgents who are alienated from Afghan society but not ideologically motivated against it. That represents fertile territory for the reconciliation programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I spent some time with HMS Montrose in September last year before it sailed to the south Atlantic. During the discussions over deployment, it became clear that the supply routes to the Falklands for fresh provisions were being severely impeded. Will the Secretary of State say something about the security of supply to the Falklands of fresh food and other services, and about the deployment of the Navy?

[Mr Hammond]

As the hon. Lady knows, an air bridge is operating via Ascension island and other routes into the Falklands are available. The Government are concerned about the actions and statements of some states in respect of access to their ports for Falkland Islands-flagged vessels. We will keep this issue under close scrutiny. We always have the option of increasing the frequency of the air bridge, should that become necessary.

Afghanistan

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am sorry to say to my hon. Friend that I think that that is a slightly optimistic assessment. I do not need to get to Afghanistan to make that assessment. We know from history that areas that are subject to divided—weak—Government and poor security are likely to become safe havens for international terrorism. It is very much in our own national interests that we support the Afghan national Government to be a strong, unifying and inclusive force and secure the development gains that have been made, as well as the Afghanisation of the security process. That will be the Government’s agenda.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

2014 also happens to be the end of the second term of President Karzai, who has led us to believe that he will not seek reappointment—which would also be unconstitutional. That means that at the very time when we are withdrawing troops, we require political stability. Can the Secretary of State give us some indication of his thinking on how that political stability in Afghanistan can be provided?

[Mr Hammond]

The draw-down of troops will take place between 2012 and 2014, and the profile of that draw-down has not yet been decided or confirmed. At the same time, the Afghan national security forces will be taking an ever greater role in maintaining security in the country. I would like to think that by that stage the political process will be able to go on in a constitutional fashion, while the Afghan national security forces protect the security of the country and the population and create the stable baseline that will allow for that political process.

Defence Responsibilities

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I agree that it would be surprising if anyone did not want that peace to occur, but we have to accept that there are forces in that country, and even more in the diaspora, who do not want anyone to deal with the current Sri Lankan Government. My point is this: however much people may regret what the current Government have done or dislike them, unless we deal with that Government and get proper reconciliation, we will not be able to get peace in that island. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) shouts “Foreign Office” from a sedentary position. The Foreign Office, through the Foreign Secretary, agreed that I should make that visit and, indeed, cleared the speech that I gave, as it believed that because of the contacts I had developed over time in Sri Lanka, I was in a good position to try to take the process forward. In respect of achieving peace, what matters is what works, rather than what is a departmentally strictly delineated process.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has twice failed to respond to a specific question, so may I ask him for a third time? When was he made aware that first the permanent secretary and then the Chief of the Defence Staff were concerned about this relationship, what was the advice given to him, and what he did he do as a result of that advice?

[Dr Fox]

As have I said, I was not aware of any direct approach from them. The first direct approach I can remember was when my current permanent secretary came to me in August and said that she had grave concerns about the use of a business card that had “adviser to the Secretary of State” printed on it. She asked what I was going to do about it, and I was able to reply to her that I had already, in June of that year, decided to stop those cards and demand that they not be used again.

Defence Reform

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The specific work on that is currently being done by Bernard Gray but, as I said in the statement, it is now important that we increase the length of tenure of many such posts, otherwise we are wasting talent. If the MOD were a private company, it would be number three in the FTSE. The idea of having the most senior people in the private sector stay for 18 months or two years, and then rotating them round because it is “good for their career experience” would not hold water in the private sector, and it no longer holds water in the MOD.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State started his statement by referring to our being in the premier league of military powers. In the view of the three chiefs of the services, we are currently not a full spectrum power. If these reforms are implemented, will we again be a full spectrum power, and if so, when?

[Dr Fox]

I refute the idea that the United Kingdom is not among the leading defence powers in the world. We have the fourth biggest defence budget, and we have extraordinarily capable armed forces, which are among the most professional and best trained. If that does not put us in the premier league, I do not know what does.

Armed Forces Covenant

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Legality has to be a foregone conclusion in this House if we are to take our appropriate place in the international family of civilised nations. As to the Government’s duty in sending our armed forces into combat, I would say that they have two clear duties: one is to ensure that we maximise the chance of success of their mission; the second is ensuring the minimum risk to them in carrying out that mission. Both those duties imply that the armed forces must be properly equipped for any task that any Government ever send them to carry out.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I particularly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement about three cycles of IVF for the injured when they come back. He will know that that is virtually the first thing that the young men who return to the Queen Elizabeth hospital from Afghanistan will ask about. He also mentioned prosthetics. When it comes to rehabilitating soldiers, we are doing things with them—and doing them better—that are not yet happening in the NHS. What work is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that what we learn from the treatment of our veterans can be translated back to the NHS and the wider population?

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Lady makes two valuable points. As regards the first, on IVF, it is bad enough that we often deny mobility and life chances to individuals, but to deny them the chance of producing another generation is worse, particularly when it is something that we can avoid. We should avoid it, and doing so sends out an important signal about the pastoral care that we are willing to give to our armed forces. Today’s announcement is a key one, which I think will be welcomed across the whole country.

On the hon. Lady’s second point, I think many of us will celebrate the fact that the care we give our armed forces is so much better than others might receive in the NHS that parity is being demanded. That is not a bad position for a country to be in, in terms of the care it gives to service people. The work we are undertaking with the Department of Health will set out to see what lessons the NHS can learn from the treatment of those who have been injured in military action and I believe that that is a very proud moment for the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Howarth]

I pay tribute to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—indeed, I was speaking earlier to the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) who leads for the UK on that, and I would very much like to meet other Assembly representatives. However, I ought to point out that NATO is principally a military alliance. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear last week, three principles will guide any intervention in Libya: demonstrable need, a clear legal mandate, and solid support from the region. That is the policy that NATO has adopted.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that NATO reform would be pretty meaningless unless we can convince our fellow NATO members to step up to the plate and spend 2% of gross domestic product on defence?

[Mr Howarth]

I have to agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Lady. That point has been made by the NATO Secretary-General to those recalcitrants, and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to his counterparts. She is absolutely right and I am very pleased to support her.