Veterans Update

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend is a good friend of mine, and I remember him making that brave decision. Many of us on this side of the House who know him well—and many on the other side—pay tribute not only to his decision to come out at that moment, but to his ongoing campaigning for LGBT people and, indeed, for all those across society who have had to make such difficult decisions in their lives. I can give him an assurance that we will absolutely hold to the spirit and the intention behind the recommendations, that we will do everything we can to implement them, and that only when we encounter difficult technical challenges will we seek another way of fulfilling the intention. All that will be done in a transparent manner, not behind closed doors. We will ensure that when we have a problem, we discuss it; and when there are two sides to the argument—as with the veterans badge—we will consult the community as closely as possible. I also ask Members to recognise that in the case of some of the recommendations there will be no perfect answer: some people within that community will have a different view, and we must find a way of accommodating that as well.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesman.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I hope you will indulge me for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know that this may be the Secretary of State’s last time at the Dispatch Box in this role—let us see what the summer brings—and I have to say to him, as a former member of the Defence Committee, that I found him hard-working and determined. We might not have always agreed on a few things, but when it came to issues that I found particularly important as a member of that Committee, especially the High North and the north Atlantic, he always answered the questions in a way that the Committee wanted to hear. I commend him for his work in his current role, and you never know—we might see him back in Holyrood, where it all started.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I think it quite appropriate that this last appearance—possibly—at the Dispatch Box should be one in which he rights, as he said, a historic wrong. I also commend those who have played a part in bringing us to this point—I see Craig Jones and Caroline Paige in the Public Gallery. I commend them and everyone else who has worked for this so hard for so many years.

Those of us on these Benches welcome this statement. Being a member of the gay community has never been a barrier to martial accomplishment. Let me give a little history lesson: from Achilles to Frederick the Great, and from James VI to even William III, we should be clear that LGBT people have served with distinction at every level of the armed forces for as long as humanity has existed. I appreciate the Secretary of State’s candour about his own time in service. I also appreciate his clear use of the term “the LGBT community.” It is indeed welcome that his Department has not sought to play a part in other issues that are a distraction from the reality of the LGBT community, and I am extremely grateful for that.

While acknowledging the work that has brought us to where we are now, can I ask the Secretary of State what work his Department is doing not only to widen access for LGBT personnel, but to push back against the pernicious idea that LGBT inclusion is contrary to the interests of the armed forces and our national security? While we may want to talk about medals, which is great, perhaps we could hear something about pensions for the spouses of those who have not lived to see this point in time.

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[Mr Wallace]

The feeling of rejection that those men and women must have felt will stay with many of them all their lives, which is something we have to do our very best to help solve. It must have been awful for people to think that they were helping society, and society, at that time, telling them that they did not belong. Wherever they are, we should help to look after them and urge the regiments and the veterans associations—I am president of the Scots Guards Association in Lancashire—to reach out and ask them to rejoin the family if they feel excluded.

The tragedy of those who have taken their lives goes to the heart of the importance of the suicide strategy, which was raised at Prime Minister’s questions today. We must make sure that we are alert to the needs of those people who are taking their own lives and to any sign of rejection, and not just for the time that they are in the military.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

That concludes proceedings on the statement. The whole House appreciates the determination and sincerity with which the Secretary of State has come to the House today to make this statement himself. If this is his last appearance at the Dispatch Box, as he predicts it might be—one never knows—then the whole House will join me in wishing him all the very best.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

If the hon. Member had been listening, he would know that, in our Defence Command Paper, we are investing in air defence, electronic warfare, signals intelligence and communications—all the things he has just reeled off—but maybe he did not bother to listen originally. [Interruption.] I think it is interesting that Labour Members are heckling. We have not heard about a single penny of their defence plans in the last few years. Even the Royal United Services Institute speech by the shadow Secretary of State himself could not put a finger on the money. First and foremost, we are investing in our defence, and we have had a record increase since 2020. That compares with the Labour Government record: in 1997, they inherited 2.7% of GDP, which continued to fall all the way through, and only at the very last minute, when they had a £36 billion black hole, did they try to rectify it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I am conscious that there is a statement to follow, but may I just pause and say thank you to the Defence Secretary and his team for the tireless work they have done in trying to secure additional funding of £11 billion and an increase in defence spending of 2.5%? It was not to be, and our military will be affected by that, not least our land forces. However, I do welcome the AUKUS agreement, which will secure hundreds of highly skilled jobs up and down the country. Is any part of the £3 billion of additional funding for the nuclear enterprise part of the £10 billion reserve for Dreadnought, or is it ringfenced for the AUKUS procurement programme, and is any of the £5 billion coming through subject to VAT, which would of course mean that one fifth of it will go back to the Treasury?

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[Mr Wallace]

As my hon. Friend will know, all Departments are within their current comprehensive spending agreement, and the next comprehensive spending review is due in 18 months to two years’ time. Although all Departments, including those of Defence, Transport, and Health and Social Care suffer from pressures with higher inflation, it is right to ensure that we live within the envelope and, where possible, seek relief for a range of challenges. That is what I have been seeking for the next two years with the Treasury. I have also said consistently that the most important thing is the headmark for the long-term direction of defence spending, so that it is no longer declining, as it has done for the past three decades, but is on an upward trajectory. Since 2020, it has been on that upward trajectory. This grant of extra money continues that momentum, which is incredibly important, and I hope that the headmark will soon be announced in detail.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

In November, the Defence Secretary told the Defence Committee that

“yes, the inflationary pressure on my budget for the next two years is about £8 billion”.

From the media briefing at the weekend, we know he has a welcome £5 billion earmarked for stockpiles and the UK’s nuclear programme, but the armed forces will see that funding as a defeat for the MOD in Government. There is no new money for pressures on the core defence budget or to help deal with capability gaps, or even to deal with that inflation. The National Audit Office has already said that the MOD cannot afford the capabilities needed in the 2021 integrated review, so how will the Secretary of State ensure that precisely the same does not happen again with today’s 2023 integrated review?

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[Mr Wallace]

So what the National Audit Office says is not true, Madam Deputy Speaker—it made it up. It said that when the Department signed the contract for the aircraft carriers, it was aware that the overall defence budget was unaffordable. Labour Members were party to the crime at the time, but they will not come to the House now and be honest about their role in it and the things that need to be done to fix it in the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We will not have interventions from people who are sitting down. There are plenty of opportunities to ask questions when you are standing up.

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[Mr Wallace]

In defence of my colleagues in the Treasury, the Treasury is trying to balance an economic situation post covid that means we have to make sure that we cut our cloth and return to an economic credibility that is so important for growing our tax receipts and our income. One role I can play is to come to the House and be honest about the state of our armed forces. I can be honest about what caused the 30 years of challenge that both my hon. Friend and I experienced serving in the armed forces, and honest about what we can do to fix things. That is the first thing. The Defence Command Paper will ensure that we are very clear on where we will spend the money to make sure that the future is secure for the men and women of the armed forces.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

On military personnel, what is the Secretary of State’s understanding of the recruitment crisis in defence, with the Army in particular and especially in the Royal Regiment of Scotland? The 4th Battalion the Highlanders satisfies almost 20% of its vacancies from the Commonwealth. Is it the poor service accommodation, mediocre pay, lack of career opportunities or substandard equipment that is driving young Scots away from a career in the British Army?

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[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who served with me in the Department. I miss his time in the Department. One of the biggest drivers of cost overruns is a decision by the Government of the day to defer decisions about whether they should cut or delete something. Deferring the aircraft carrier under the Labour Government cost £1 billion. Deferring the F-35 buy under this Government cost about £500 million. If we defer things, they cost more in the long run. That is always the battle that the MOD has with the Treasury and others. That is one of the fundamental challenges and one of the cost drivers. However, many other projects are delivered on time and successfully and our men and women in the armed forces have some of the world-leading equipment they need to do their job.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister, Chris Evans.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I join the other voices welcoming you back to your position, Madam Deputy Speaker? I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that the House has missed your ability to turn people to stone with just a few words when they fall foul of the rules in this place.

Much of the innovation in the defence industry comes from the small and medium-sized enterprise sector. However, many SMEs tell me that there are real barriers to entry and to gaining access to Government contracts, and that when they do gain that access, they find that some primes are slow to pay, especially when projects are delayed. This leaves them demotivated and demoralised and with a poor experience of working with the Ministry of Defence. How will the Secretary of State ensure that SMEs have better access and are encouraged to be involved in a thriving British defence industry?

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[Mr Wallace]

I completely concur with my right hon. Friend. Defence is not a discretionary spend and not an add-on; it is a core function of any state and especially of this Government. I have been very grateful since 2020 that we have turned the corner on this and started to rebuild that momentum. The extra money that I have got for this week is continuing that momentum, but he is right to say that the important thing here is that deterrence is cheaper than having to go to fight the war if it goes wrong, as we see when we look at the cost to the people of Ukraine and to their economy. We need to make people change this culture that we have got used to since probably the early 1990s where somehow defence is discretionary—it is not. I am pleased that the Prime Minister recognises that, as he did when he was Chancellor in 2020, and we need to continue on that trajectory.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The House will be thankful and grateful to the Defence Secretary for updating it on the latest Op Shader activity. If there are any questions that cannot be raised this afternoon, we will return to them. On tonight’s AUKUS announcement in San Diego, does the Defence Secretary recognise that this has Labour’s fullest support? We want Britain to play the biggest possible role in building the new Australian submarines. But beyond the subs, how will he develop the pillar 2 collaboration on artificial intelligence, cyber and hypersonic missiles?

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[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend is incredibly right to point out how important France is to us. It is our main partner in Europe. It has similar-sized armed forces, with a similar expeditionary status and ambition. I speak to my colleague almost every two weeks—sometimes every week. I spoke to him twice last week, including my visit at the beginning of the week. A partnership on which we worked was more of the CJEF—the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force—where we work with them, training and exercising together; there is more work on complex weapons through MBDA, which is a great international consortium with factories in Bolton and Stevenage; and we are working together to make sure that we have the same requirements in shared operations, where we can work together in areas such as West Africa, where British, French and European interests are under threat from the likes of Wagner.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving such thorough answers, which I am sure the House appreciates, but I ask him to be a little quicker, because it would be good if we managed to get everybody in. I call Ruth Jones.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

T4. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is good to see you back in your rightful place.Labour’s dossier of waste in the MOD has found that at least £15 billion of taxpayers’ money has been wasted since 2010, so can the Minister explain to people in my constituency of Newport West why this Tory Government have failed to get a grip of the defence procurement process and have failed to secure value for money for the taxes that they pay?

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[Mr Wallace]

As a Tory, you think about resigning most of the time—over the years. I am interested in trying to deliver for the men and women of our armed forces. I went into politics because the men and women of the armed forces needed and deserved better, and I am determined to try to stick that through. But I am also worried about the direction of threat for this country and for the world: not only what we have seen in China, as I think has been quoted—equipping for war, as they announced last week—but we have seen 83.4% enriched uranium being discovered, as the International Energy Agency has published in its report. That is weeks away from 90%, weapons-grade, should that be a decision. I have seen a growing problem with Russia and its violent extremism spreading across Africa. The threat is going up across the world, and we are more anxious and more unstable. I think that means long-term investment from whoever the Governments are over the next 10 to 15 years.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Flick Drummond to ask the final question.

Ukraine Update

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

On that last point, included in the increased package is more body armour, alongside what was donated by many countries in the conference in February. I am slightly in danger of entering into Home Office questions here, although I know that they took place yesterday. Although I was a Home Office Minister, one of the greatest delights was not being the immigration Minister, but the security Minister. All I will say is that I understand the feeling in the House, so does the Home Secretary and so does the Prime Minister, and we are working to resolve that matter as quickly as possible. As for the internal details of different immigration schemes, I gently refer my hon. Friend to the Home Office.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I will protect the Secretary of State from the temptation to stray outwith his own territory.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I, too, give my thanks to the Defence Secretary for his work and that of his team and for his compassion. I am afraid that I am going to raise another visa issue with him. My constituent is trying to get his young niece to the UK after she fled her home in Ukraine. After endless bureaucratic checks and delays, they have been told today that she has to travel nearly 300 km across Poland to get the decision on her visa. The Defence Secretary will understand that refugees such as my constituent’s niece have already made long and challenging journeys from Ukraine to Poland and now have to make more journeys just to get the decision. My constituent calls the Government’s approach to people fleeing the war in Ukraine “inhumane”. Given the meeting on the visa process that the Secretary of State mentioned, can he press on the Home Secretary the need to offer a compassionate and human response to refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine?

[Mr Wallace]

I do not want to run the risk of making you angry, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will say that I would be delighted to pass that case to my Parliamentary Private Secretary and press the Home Office to resolve it. If I indulge myself here, Madam Deputy Speaker will rule me out of order, because this is a question about the Ukraine situation through Defence.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The Secretary of State is steering a careful and wise course, and I will endeavour to help him in doing so, but it is the case that the Government are acting as one, and we all recognise that.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

President Putin was clearly counting on a quick victory, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend not only on his statement, but on the far-sighted view of training Ukrainian troops and, indeed, on supplying defensive weapons. What assessment has he made of the effectiveness of both that training and the defensive weapons in theatre, which, of course, can never be tested except in theatre?

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[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, because Russia has not given up its false flags and false narratives. In fact, it has shut down nearly every avenue of information for its people, which again shows the fear that it is under—I think only yesterday TikTok was stopped in Russia. We absolutely must challenge those false flags, and we do—she has heard me call them out publicly. At some stages we did that by declassifying intelligence early, which we do not normally do. We should also be genuinely worried when false flags drop breadcrumbs leading to chemical weapons, nerve agents and biological weapons, because we all worry what is behind that in the first place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House to keep us updated and for his thorough answers to a very large number of questions.

Points of Order

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I will take the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) first and then come to the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood).

I thank the hon. Member for Belfast East for his point of order and for giving me notice that he intended to raise it. I will repeat what Mr Speaker has said many times from the Chair: if an announcement is to be made by a Department or a Minister, it must be made first in this Chamber. Any announcement must be made to Parliament. If there was an article in The Daily Telegraph or any other medium, I cannot comment on its veracity; that is not a matter for the Chair. However, it most certainly is a matter for the Chair if an announcement has indeed been made by other means than to this House and in this Chamber.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I think that there has been a slight element of confusion, Madam Deputy Speaker. The management of the three services—the Navy, the Army and the Air Force—is obviously a matter for the chiefs of staff. As they manage their services, throughout the year they make thousands of decisions about activity, deployments, training and so on. This is not a matter on which a single statement would have been made by any Government. I think the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) was referring to a newspaper article, but there are hundreds of announcements on a weekly basis. I think that that is where the point that he refers to comes from.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for responding to the point of order. I take it from what he says that he is undertaking that if any notable announcement is to be made by him or his Department, it will be made first in this Chamber and to this House.

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[Mr Wallace]

indicated assent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s assent.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

What is appalling is the straw man being put up time and again by a Labour party half-funded by these ambulance-chasing lawyers. That is going to damage our reputation. No apology for the money they took from a number of them—no apology whatever. What we should recognise is that many of—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Do not shout in the Chamber.

[Mr Wallace]

Much of the mess we are having to come and clean up today is because of your illegal wars, your events in the past and the way you have run the safety of our forces. To put up straw men and make wild allegations that are wholly inaccurate, and disputed by people much more learned than the right hon. Gentleman, does a disservice to our troops and is all about making an excuse for not supporting the Bill. We will see tonight whether or not he supports the Bill.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government published an online harms White Paper about a year ago. It is really important that we encourage or make internet service providers and internet companies take a slice of responsibility. They cannot be agnostic on some of the poison that is spread on the internet, whether by cyber-bullying, sexual exploitation or, indeed, radicalisation. That is where we all need to go next.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I do not think it necessary to suspend the sitting. As long as hon. Members leave in a careful, spread-out fashion, that would suffice. I thank them for leaving so gracefully.

Bill Presented

Coronavirus Inquiry Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Sir Edward Davey presented a Bill to require the Prime Minister to establish a public inquiry into the Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 September, and to be printed (Bill 168).