Defence Command Paper Refresh

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his work on the report and for his campaigning. Let me also say, however, that procurement has started to improve. In 2009-10, the average time delay on a project was 28%; it is now 15%. The average cost overrun was 15% on a project in 2009-10; it is now 4%. The direction of travel is improving. The number of civil servants at DE&S went from 24,000 to 11,000, so we are cutting away the bureaucracy and the direction of travel is improving. In my time as Secretary of State for Defence, I was also determined to put to bed some of the problem projects that we were all inheriting. I am pleased to say that, as I speak, Ajax is back on track and starting to be delivered to the units. The units are starting to train in it now. We could all have a discussion about whether we would have chosen Ajax all those years ago, but fundamentally it has not cost the taxpayer any more money and it is being delivered to our frontline. I was determined to put that right, or take other steps to deal with it. That should always be the case.

The other thing that I have always tried to do, which is not in the document but which I recommend in defence procurement, is to never defer—either delete or deliver. If you defer, it costs hundreds of millions of pounds. Deferring the aircraft carrier cost £1 billion under the Labour Government. Deferring the F-35 cost £500 million. Deferrals create the black holes. Delete or deliver, but don’t defer.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I too thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of a draft statement, albeit that there were one or two additions on delivery. I also, perhaps pre-emptively, join in wishing him well in whatever comes next. Although I have not directly shadowed him, I certainly pass on those thoughts from my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Dave Doogan), who has worked closely with him over a period now.

I will start on a positive note. I welcome a number of the points made. I very much welcome the fact that people are put front and centre. That is absolutely critical in anything we do in defence. People are what make it work, and if we are not supporting the men and women of the forces, what are we doing at all? There is probably that more we can do, even beyond this. While it will not surprise Ministers to hear me say that we need to support those serving, we also need to continue to look at what we are doing to support our veterans. I know that the Minister is working on that, but it is an area in which we need to try to do more.

I also welcome the recognition of some of the accommodation conditions. I welcome the fact that steps are being taken and matters looked at, but that needs to be moved forward at a greater pace.

I note that the Secretary of State says we are going to spend over £50 billion for the first time next year. I wonder whether he can tell us how much of that is simply down to inflation created by this Government. I am not trying to be awkward, but that is clearly quite a significant factor.

We have also heard of the ongoing and long-lasting issues around procurement, with reports showing that roughly £2 billion is wasted each year in failed equipment programmes and cancelled procurement contracts. Is the Ministry of Defence making the necessary reforms to make its procedures better, and will they deliver value for money?

Recruitment and retention issues have been flagged up; the Haythornthwaite review clearly highlighted those. Is the right hon. Gentleman confident that the steps being taken now on the skills agenda will be the necessary actions to address recruitment and retention issues?

Finally, the Haythornthwaite review highlighted cyber capability as a major issue. Is the right hon. Gentleman confident that the steps being taken and outlined today will do enough to deliver that capability in the way that we all want to see?

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[Mr Wallace]

The military could definitely take a leaf out of the civil service’s book. I look at how senior civil servants can flex, do step-ups and step-downs, take breaks or sabbaticals, and I think, “Why can’t we do that for our military?” Why can people, if their life circumstances change, not step up or step down? That is what we are trying to do with these changes in the Haythornthwaite regime. If we do that, we will match the demands of generation Z. The younger generation want more and more different things. It is not just whether they work in defence, but whether they work in the civil service or in the private sector. All employers face the challenge of how they will do that and keep people longer, so that they get investment both ways—into their businesses or whatever.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I believe that he said he might be returning here tomorrow. As I have a number of Ministers here, I wish to take the opportunity to say how important it is that no announcements are made in statements that have not previously been given to the Opposition.

Just in case I am not in the Chair tomorrow, I will take this opportunity to wish the Secretary of State well in whatever he decides to do next.

Ukraine: Update

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

If you would indulge me, Mr Speaker, there were lots of questions and I will do my best to answer them all. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and his party for their support, which, as he said, has been ongoing and enduring throughout this process. That is what allows the UK to be prominent in standing tall for international human rights and defending Ukraine.

The right hon. Gentleman asked what scale of support Ukraine will need; I cannot be too specific, as I do not want to set out to the Russian Government the exact inadequacies or strengths of the Ukrainian armed forces. However, it is safe to say that the Ukrainians will require an ongoing commitment that grows to the size of divisions in its armed forces. Also, in the last year we have seen Ukraine grow its own army, to hundreds of thousands of men and women under arms, who are now equipped not only with western equipment but with captured or refurbished former Soviet or Russian equipment. The Polish Government have donated more than 200 T-72 tanks, for example.

The key for all of us in the next phase is to help Ukraine to train and to combine all those weapons systems in a way that can deliver a combined arms effect in a mobile manner to deliver the offensives required to achieve the goal of expelling, which the right hon. Gentleman also asked about. It is the UK Government’s position that Putin’s invasion fails and Ukraine restores its sovereign territory, and we will do all we can to help achieve that. This package is part of that. The Challengers should be viewed alongside the 50 Bradleys from the United States. Those are effectively the ingredients for a battlegroup with divisional level fires of either AS-90s or other 155 howitzers. The 14 tanks represent a squadron, and the 50 Bradleys would roughly form an armoured infantry battlegroup.

We are trying to take the Ukrainian military, with its history of Soviet methods, and provide it not only with western equipment but with western know-how. In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question, the training will be delivered almost immediately, starting with Ukrainians training in the UK and in the field, so to speak, either in neighbouring countries or in countries such as Germany, where we saw the artillery train with the Dutch, I think, at the beginning of this process. The training of these Ukrainian forces will be administered and supported in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, with the US being in the lead for much of that formation training. It is incredibly important and supportive of the United States to do that.

There will be no UK forces deployed in Ukraine in this process. As I have said, that is because our job is to help Ukraine to defend itself and we can do that from neighbouring or other countries. Yes, I know the training cycle. I was a trooper in the Scots Dragoon Guards in 1988 and I started my time in a Chieftain tank, which you would be lucky to see in a museum these days. The Ukrainians have shown us, in their basic and specialist training, that they are determined to go back and fight for their country, and their work ethos and the hours they put in are quite extraordinary. I am confident that, on one level, they will soon be showing us the way to fight with this equipment.

The right hon. Gentleman referenced the Army cuts. I have come to this Dispatch Box on numerous occasions and admitted how woeful our Army’s equipment programmes have been in the past and how behind and out of date they have been. That is why we have committed investment of more than £24 billion in Army equipment alone over the next 10 years. As I have said, I am bringing forward Deep Fire and Recce and getting Ajax back on track, as well as our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability, the Challenger 3 tanks, the Boxer fleet, plus many other investments in the Army. This is incredibly important. I take it seriously and I know that the right hon. Gentleman does too. We have to deliver an Army that can stand shoulder to shoulder with its peers, never mind its enemy, and it is important to say so.

On the Leopard coalition, as it is calling itself, it is being reported that Poland is keen to donate some Leopard tanks, as is Finland. All of this currently relies on the German Government’s decisions, not only on whether they will supply their own Leopards but whether they will give permissions for others to do so. I would urge my German colleagues to do that. These tanks are not offensive when they are used for defensive methods. There is a debate in Germany about whether a tank is an offensive or defensive weapon. It depends what people are using it for. I would wager that if they are using it to defend their country, it is a defensive weapon.

Also, we are not on our own. This is a joint international coalition. I know that there have been concerns in the German political body that it does not want to go it alone. Well, it is not alone, and I think that the conference in Ramstein will show that. I pay tribute to the commitment by the French to put in the tanks at Christmas time, and we are obviously joining alongside them. They are the key to unlocking the Leopard, and we will do all we can to help that.

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question on the international fund is imminently: I will announce it in the next couple of weeks. We had $27 billion-worth of bids to a fund that has reached $500 million. I am very grateful for the recent Swedish donation to the fund, which we intend to keep growing, but I want to make sure that the fund is spent sustainably. It is not a petty cash or slush fund though which people can just go and buy something. I want it to be invested in things such as production and supply chains. Whether it is maintaining tanks or artillery supplies, an active production line is needed.

That goes to the right hon. Gentleman’s last point about being too slow to place orders. One of the reasons it has taken time to place orders, as he knows, is that there is sometimes no supply chain and we have to wait for a supply chain to be reinvested in, redeveloped or re-founded with new suppliers before we can get a price for the taxpayer or a contract delivered. That is what happened with NLAW. As much as we would have loved to have placed that order on the next day, some of the supply chain was 15 years old and we had to find new suppliers. Then we got a price and some partners. By placing an order with Sweden, we reinvigorated the supply chain and, hopefully, more jobs with it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chairman of the Defence Committee.

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

This conflict will not end any time soon. Putin is moving his country to a war footing as he prepares for a spring offensive. Tactically speaking, it is very welcome that we are finally seeing some serious, NATO-standard tracked hardware gifted to Ukraine. It is another example of the UK leading and ever pushing the envelope of international support for Ukraine.

As other nations follow our lead, maintaining so many NATO variants of vehicles and equipment—tanks, armoured personnel carriers and artillery pieces—will not be practical in the long term. Will the UK consider leading again by establishing a western-funded, Ukrainian-operated weapons factory and assembly line in eastern Poland so that Ukraine can become self-sufficient in procuring and replenishing the military kit and munitions it needs for its long-term security, without fear of the facility being targeted by Russia?

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend’s suggestion is correct. He is right to say that, unless there is a supply chain or, indeed, a sustainability package behind all this gifting, these vehicles and artillery pieces will become junk on the battlefield when they run out or wear out, so it is important that we think in that way. That is why we will be putting in some recovery vehicles with the Challenger 2 donations. There is a lot of thought going on right now about the sustainability of supply chains, which ties into the international fund, as I am looking for intelligent application of the fund to stimulate just that.

Ukraine has shown itself to be incredibly successful either at reverse-engineering what it captures from Russia or at designing and developing its own equipment. It recently opened a production line for 155 mm or 152 mm shells, and it is now manufacturing within the country. We will get to where my right hon. Friend wants to be by using the international fund or Kindred to fund supply chains over the border. If Ukraine approaches us with ideas for transferring intellectual property so that we can make equipment for Ukraine, or so that Ukraine can make the equipment here or anywhere else, I would be very open to doing that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I welcome the detail and the substance of the Secretary of State’s statement. Moreover, I believe the timing is very welcome as we close in on the first anniversary of the outrageous attack on Ukraine by Putin and his forces last February.

All of us, regardless of our political allegiances or differences in other areas, must stand up for the international rules-based system, the right of sovereignty and the value of self-determination where they are under attack, not simply at the outset of conflict, when hackles are raised and outrage piqued, but as we endure almost a year of the conflict’s effects on these shores, in our homes and on our industry and wider resources, and as we continue to witness Russia’s hybrid terror heaped upon the people of Ukraine. Now is the time to double down on the west’s support and commitment to Ukraine in defending itself against this aggression. It is time to leave Putin in no doubt that the west’s resolve, politically and in every other respect, is there for Ukraine to see.

I would like to know three things. The Secretary of State said on 12 December that he would not pursue sending redundant UK Warrior infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine because they are tracked vehicles weighing 28 tonnes and because of the logistical tail that comes with them. So what has changed in a month to allow him to now send a squadron of 68-tonne Challenger tanks, with the very much more complex logistics and support burden that go along with them? Can he also set out the duration of the period between this announcement and those Challengers 2s having operational effect within the Ukraine battlespace? And given that European NATO nations must doubtless follow this development with similar donations of Leopard 2 tanks, is he prepared to review not just the number of Challenger 3s, but whether the Challenger 3 will be the right solution for the UK going forward at all? When we see the Challengers and Leopard 2s going toe to toe with the same peer adversary, we will see much more clearly which is the better tank.

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[Mr Wallace]

I or my officials will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. He will have noticed that in the statement, I announced £28 million for minefield breaching and bridging capabilities—combat engineering that is desperately needed.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Historical Inequalities Report

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I would like first of all to place on record that this commission and some of the previous commissions have taken some really strong steps to fix what was wrong when it was identified. The area of regret is that we did not do a lot of this much earlier. I would also like to say that we should not forget that, whatever the circumstances were, many of those people gave their lives to defeat fascism and to defeat people who challenged our freedoms, both for themselves and for us. That sacrifice was, in my view, worth it, given the freedoms that we enjoy. It is really important not to forget, in this report, that it was not for nothing. Those people did not give up their lives, whatever the circumstances were, for nothing. Certainly in the second world war and others, the threat to our freedoms was real.

As I have said in earlier answers, I will continue to ensure that the commission is supported by the Department and by me as its chair and as Defence Secretary, as the members of the commission continue to work to ensure that we always commemorate our dead and those who made sacrifices, whether in the first world war, the second world war or in all the other conflicts. We owe it to them. How we do that sometimes changes. A visit to the national arboretum is also a sobering and emotive experience, as we see individual units, regiments and conflicts celebrated, or commemorated, slightly differently. That is very moving, and it will be a good way to look at how we can unite people around our Commonwealth in the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement.

Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Our strategic threats are from China, which grows stronger each day from manufacturing trade, and Russia, which is threatened by China and relies on fossil fuel exports. Instead of focusing on cutting one in eight soldiers and stockpiling nuclear weapons, what discussions has the Secretary of State had across Government about using COP26 to put a carbon tax on trade, in order to check Chinese power and to help transition Russia from fossil fuels towards a wood economy for construction, to tackle climate change, so that holistically, we can protect the world without escalating the risk of war and destruction?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sure the Secretary of State will find a way of answering what was a slightly wide question.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman actually raises an important point. At the beginning of the Command Paper is a chapter about the global trends and the direction. Climate change poses a security threat because it could deliver instability, poverty and problems in other parts of the world that would drive migrant flows and increase friction over precious resource. That is absolutely true.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to point out that one of the ways we are going to tackle our security threats is working together across the whole of Government to deal with them. The direction of travel on climate change will hopefully be set at COP26. Defence will play its part in both trying to solve its own emissions and making sure that it provides stability in some of the poorest countries, such as Sudan, where we recently had people, to make sure that the security threat sometimes delivered by climate change does not boil over and threaten regional stability.

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[Mr Wallace]

I am not quite sure whether the hon. Lady now belongs to a party that does want to belong to NATO or does not. If it does want to belong to NATO, which I think is its current position this week, it is, of course, a nuclear alliance and therefore she is tacitly accepting the existence of the defence provided by nuclear weapons. So there is a sort of sleight of hand there. She should also know that, despite the polls, in the last actual vote on being a member of the United Kingdom, the people in Scotland who wanted to stay in the United Kingdom won and the quote was “not for another generation”.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Dr Julian Lewis.

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[Mr Wallace]

First of all, the Russians will look at the fact that we have learned the lessons of Crimea and elsewhere and will be investing in deep fires, which were a place where we were deeply vulnerable. They have not been upgraded, which has allowed the Russians a strategic edge. They will look at the fact that we are starting to invest in ballistic missile defence capabilities and anti-missile capabilities, which we have been missing for many, many years, which is why our adversaries went there. They will look at the fact that we will invest in a multi-role surveillance vessel to protect our critical infrastructure, because the Russians worked out that we had not invested in that protection. They will see that we have seen what they are up to and we are going to do something about it. They will also see that the area where they seem to have got away with the most—the sub-threshold or grey zone, where they have inflicted cyber operations, corruption and all sorts of espionage on this country and her allies, and our citizens—is where we, too, are going to be, to compete back against them.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We have another 12 questions to get through and we have run rather over time already, so I urge Members to be brief.

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[Mr Wallace]

I think we have a volunteer here, Madam Deputy Speaker. If my hon. Friend is ready to deploy, I have somewhere I can send him next week. I have asked the Chief of the General Staff to make sure that the initial funding for starting and equipping is rolled out to at least one regiment. We obviously have to start to train them up. It is a new discipline and an addition to what they have already done, and that will take time to establish. Like my hon. Friend, I am keen to get on it as soon as possible, and then perhaps he can deploy as their honorary colonel or something.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement.

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. First, on the issue of military willingness to engage, he knows we are of course incredibly keen and eager to offer whatever assistance we can. I will address his questions on the range of those subjects one by one.

One of the reasons why we invest in people as planners in the heart of Departments and local government is to ensure that we shape that ask as it develops and to ensure that we are dealing in the art of the possible, as well as with realistic deployment requests. Sometimes we get initial requests for thousands of people, but once we scale it down and work through what is required, it ends up being a couple of hundred.

That has been partly because some of the Departments or local authorities are not used to MACA. Funnily enough, Departments used to using MACAs, as indeed local government or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government would be—local authorities that have had significant flooding in their time—will be used to that relationship, but for others this is a new experience.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the scale between the designated force and the force actually used. He is right to say that 20,000 were earmarked for the covid response at the beginning and that 4,000 to 5,000 were deployed. That was at any one time. As he knows, our forces work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so we rotate many of those personnel through. Right now, 5,000 might be deployed at any one time, but people will be earmarked to become much more ready—in a higher state of readiness.

To be at 24-hour readiness, or ready within a few hours, places a huge demand on anyone—in effect, to be sitting in your house or barracks waiting to be deployed—so we rotate the forces through the different readiness stages. One stage might be to be ready to move in 24 hours, one might be with three days’ notice or one might be with one week’s notice. Those different readiness stages mean that they can either get on and do their day job, or basically just stand and wait. Therefore, of a force of about 14,000 who are currently earmarked, yes, we have 5,000 today, but I suspect that by the time we have got through this phase—if all demands remain the same—somewhere between 10,000 to 12,000 of those 14,000 personnel will have been used at some stage on the covid response. The 5,000 who are on today will come off, get a period of rest and build-up time with their families, and then come back again. The force has a fixed amount in terms of where we draw the different readinesses, but the deployments are drawn through that process. Of course, all armed forces personnel are able—“available” would probably the wrong word—to help the Government in their resilience and defence; that is obviously the purpose of their job.

We have over 100 people in the planning process for the vaccination roll-out across the whole United Kingdom: in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. We also currently have 21 quick reaction vaccination teams, who are usually staffed by a doctor, some combat medics and nurses. Their job, in a team of six, is to deploy as required. We are holding 229 teams in reserve, should we wish to deploy all 250. The limiting factors at the moment will be the delivery schedule and timetable of the vaccines themselves; of course I could deploy 100,000 soldiers tomorrow, ready to vaccinate, but if the stock is not there, we would be better off deploying them in other ways.

The Government are very keen, and the Prime Minister is determined, to ensure that we match the pace of stock delivery with the pace of delivery into people’s arms—the jabbing. We are very clear that we can do more to assist. The Prime Minister knows that and has indicated that we will be called on as the NHS requires, but we should not forget that the NHS is also recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers, former clinicians and former nurses who are able to do the vaccinations; it is not a purely military response.

In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question on testing and tracing, we have had a one-star within the organisation of test and trace from very early on. We originally earmarked 1,500 personnel for schools testing. We have reduced that down to about 800, who stand by to help not only where needed in the schools that are currently taking key workers’ children, but also with talking to people, through webinars and other remote methods, about how to administer lateral flow tests. We stand ready to do more if required. We have scaled the number of personnel down slightly simply because of the school closures, but we stand ready to increase that number if required.

Let me turn to the personnel themselves. When they deploy on a MACA task, such as the 800 personnel deployed to Manchester, they will be tested before they go and throughout the process. They will abide by whatever the current NHS guidelines are: if they feel ill, they should get a test; and if we feel that they are going in front of people who are vulnerable, we will also take steps to test them. If people test positive, they are very quickly isolated. I can get the latest figures for the House, if that helps. The lateral flow tests have opened up a huge amount of much more easily accessible testing to do that.

I am grateful for the right hon. Member’s support of our Defence. I assure him that both the Prime Minister and I are determined to lean into this problem, and to maximise our efforts wherever we can. Wherever we see an opportunity, instead of waiting for an argument about who does what, we offer to do it. That is why only recently the House will have seen us fly out those vaccines to Gibraltar. We put them on a plane, get them out there and get it done. We can have all the arguments we want after the fact; let us get on with it. We are all—I know this includes the loyal Opposition—united in working to help deliver this. Defence is doing its bit, but we should not forget that it is doing its bit alongside the amazing people of the NHS, who are on the frontline in their tens of thousands, day in, day out.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We have one hour put aside for this statement, which I can extend slightly, but not by too much, so I ask colleagues to ask brief, succinct questions and to provide fairly brief answers.

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[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I know his part of the world very well, having represented Aberdeenshire, in North East Scotland, in the Scottish Parliament with him 21 years ago. He reminded me of that the other day—I had hair then! This is why at the beginning of this we deployed helicopters up to Kinloss to make sure we look after the highlands and islands, and we stand by ready to do that. Notwithstanding the fact that we have planners in the Scottish Government to help, we have not received a MACA request for the use of some of these quick reaction vaccine teams, but they are there for the taking if they are asked for; I am happy to support and sign off any such request. Obviously, some of the vaccine is coming from abroad and we need to distribute it to the fingertips of the UK.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I wish to remind Members that we are halfway through the allocated time and we have got through only five people. May I therefore press colleagues to ask short, concise questions?

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con) [V]]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his Department is working with the Department for Education to ensure that schools that must remain open, especially those in Rother Valley, have the support, guidance and materials they need to offer rapid testing to their staff and students over the coming weeks?

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[Mr Wallace]

Yes, I can. I visited the north-west region hub at Preston on Thursday and spoke with a number of leaders of the councils, including my hon. Friend’s. We are helping right now. What is really important here is that Whitehall recognises that local authorities are very, very important in finding those people who need a vaccine or need testing.

One of the lessons of Liverpool was that even when we set up a testing site literally outside the front door of certain people, the key people who we need to be tested or vaccinated do not always come forward. The local authorities will be a key plank in making sure we close the final mile on vaccines. That is why we will continue to work with them, both as the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health and Social Care.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the statement.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister has now added mind-reading to his many skills. The Minister, who is actually a good friend of mine, has just made an accusation against me and has not given me the right to reply to it. It was his Government, in 2010, who set up IHAT and Northmoor, not the Labour Government.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I do not want the point of order to become a subject of debate, but obviously—[Interruption.] Thank you; I can cope. Obviously, the Secretary of State has referred to the right hon. Gentleman, and he may feel it appropriate to give way.

[Mr Wallace]

It is a shame that the right hon. Gentleman used up more debating time by raising a bogus point of order, but nevertheless, in case Opposition Members think the way to conduct a Third Reading is to shout people down, I will repeat that this legislation is one very important part of the jigsaw. We must not forget, given the point raised by the Opposition about the thoroughness of the investigations, that it was not under their stewardship that the investigative capability of our armed forces was strengthened; it was not under their stewardship that the training for men and women about detention of suspects was improved; it was not under Labour’s stewardship that article 2 compliance was met, often, on some of these investigations that allowed those lawyers to come back and repeat inquests, inquiries and investigations into our veterans.

On the other hand, it is we, a Conservative Government, who have commissioned and started implementing a service justice review programme, who appointed a respected former judge to review and scrutinise the investigative process, and who have brought legislation to actually do something about it.

The Government have listened to many of the contributions throughout the Bill’s progress, but we have been unable to accept the amendments because they would have undermined rather than strengthened the Bill. In the case of the Opposition, they are simply, as it turned out, opposed to its aims, as Momentum has boasted today.

Despite all the warm words and sympathy, the Labour leopard has not changed its spots. In this week of all weeks, with Remembrance Sunday approaching, veterans up and down the country will note Labour’s opposition and recognise what fair-weather friends they are. However, this Government have been determined and resolute in acting to protect our armed forces, and that is why I commend the Bill to the House.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Debate between Ben Wallace and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

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

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

No amendment has been selected, so I call the Minister to move the Second Reading.

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The men and women of our armed forces are some of the most professional and capable people this country has. They risk their lives to keep us safe, uphold our values and support society whenever the call comes. I know the exceptional and often dangerous tasks that we ask them to do, and the war memorials sadly record the price of that sacrifice that they sometimes have to make. Our support for them should not be confined to the occasional act of remembrance, but should be real and should recognise the things that they do in our name.

In 2004, Phil Shiner, a lawyer, went fishing. He fished for stories, he fished for victims and he fished for terrorists. Phil Shiner and his company, Public Interest Lawyers, fished for people from whom he could make money and to accuse British troops of wrongdoing. By the time Phil Shiner and his like had finished, he had dragged before the courts 1,400 judicial reviews and 234 compensation claims against hundreds of troops. Alongside him on some of those occasions was another law firm that will be, I am afraid, all too familiar to some on the Opposition Benches—Leigh Day. From 2008, those types of firms hauled industrial levels of claims before the courts—never mind the fear and worry and the endless investigations triggered into the men and women of our armed forces. What mattered to the ambulance chasers was the money—the legal aid income, the commissions on compensation claims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I will crack on. The House has heard the point from the Liberal Democrat spokesman. I venture that I will side with the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland on his views regarding whether this provision does or does not prevent torture. I think his judge of the law is pretty succinct, although I have not always agreed with his views. [Interruption.] I shall carry on.

In conclusion, the Bill is about doing the right thing by our troops. Our soldiers and values must uphold the highest international standards. The Bill is not an amnesty, a statute of limitation, or the decriminalisation of erroneous acts. We will continue to protect the independence of our prosecutors and our service police, and we will investigate and, if necessary, prosecute service personnel who break the law. But what we will not accept is the vexatious hounding of veterans and our armed forces by ambulance-chasing lawyers motivated not by the search for justice, but by their own crude financial enrichment.

This House should reflect on how lawfare has ranged way out of control. All too often, the victims have been the very people who risked life and limb to keep us safe. The Bill is a measured step, making provision for the unique circumstances our troops find themselves in on operations overseas. I commend the Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I remind colleagues that many right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate, so Back-Bench contributions will be limited to five minutes to start with. We will have to review the limit as we go to allow as many people as possible to participate.