Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend’s assertion that we need to look at how we provide maritime surveillance cover. That will be part of the strategic defence and security review in 2015. However, I am afraid that he cannot argue that this incident demonstrates that need. In fact, this incident shows that we are perfectly capable of maintaining an intelligence picture through imagery, signals intelligence and reports from our NATO allies of movements of Russian ships without having access to maritime patrol aircraft.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

In the light of this incident, will the Secretary of State tell the House what he is going to do to plug the capability gap in maritime surveillance that has been created by his Government, apart from relying on Twitter?

[Mr Hammond]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not have time to amend his question following my last answer. We will review the provision of maritime patrol cover in the strategic defence and security review in 2015. We will look at the need for it and at how it could be provided, including the possibility that it could be provided through the use of unmanned aerial systems. It is a bit rich for him to say that the gap in maritime patrol cover was created by this Government. What this Government did was to recognise the reality that his Government had been investing in aircraft that would never fly, would never be certified and would never be able to deliver a capability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

I think I have dealt with this on a previous occasion. We are aware from anecdotal evidence that some applications have been lost in the system—

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

How many?

[Mr Hammond]

By definition, we cannot answer that question. Every effort has been made by the application of additional manpower to the system, going back manually checking records, to make contact with anybody who may have got lost in the system during the past year, and I welcome the opportunity to place it on record that we would welcome being contacted, as my office has been, by anybody who is so affected who wants to pick up the threads and re-embark on the process. We will make sure that that happens.

IT Systems (Army Recruitment)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

First, we need to be careful about succumbing to the temptation which there always is in this House to blame Capita.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

You did.

[Mr Hammond]

No, I did not. It is Atlas that has failed to deliver an IT platform that Capita can utilise effectively.

To answer the question of the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), just under 1,000 personnel are involved. Some of them have been surged into front-end recruiting and are acting as military recruiters on the ground, and others are providing manual support for administrative tasks that should be, and ultimately will be, carried out by the IT platform.

Defence Procurement

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that his Front-Bench spokesman welcomed the competition and said that we needed to test the GoCo proposition against the DE&S plus proposition—

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Read Hansard.

[Mr Hammond]

I have the Hansard quote in front of me. The former shadow Secretary of State welcomed the competition and said that we needed to test the two propositions against each other, which is what we have done. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) makes an assertion that I can tell him is wrong. I have always recognised that there are significant risks to the GoCo proposition and significant potential benefits from it. The challenge is to weigh the risks and the benefits and we would not be able to do that until we received the bids, which is why we had to run a competition.

We have seen the proposal that has been worked up by the DE&S plus team only in the last three weeks. It has worked behind a Chinese wall and has made clear that it believes that there will have to be an injection of external private sector skills in the form of an external business partner, in addition to the freedoms and flexibilities that it seeks within the organisation. That is the model that we are now going to put in place.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) for the constructive way in which he has engaged with the Opposition. We are not used to that—certainly not from the Secretary of State—on Bills or things to do with defence. The Committee as a whole gave a good and detailed examination of all aspects of the Bill. I accept that parts of it are still developing as we speak. Events this week have shown that with the withdrawal of one of the contractors for the proposed GoCo.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) for her work on the Bill. I also add my best wishes as she should hopefully become a grandmother for the second time in the next few hours. May I also thank the members of the Committee, the Clerks and the witnesses who came before us? I thank, too, the Minister’s hard-working civil servants who, at times, had to think on their feet when replying to some of the points that were made. I thank them on behalf of the Committee for their work.

I do not think that there is any disagreement in the House that we want to ensure that we procure the best equipment and support for members of our armed forces. In the debate this afternoon, it has been recognised that we should thank the men and women of our armed forces for the contribution they make to our safety. We often take that for granted, but we should never do so because they put their lives at risk to ensure that we can sleep safely in our beds at night.

The first part of the Bill concerns defence procurement. The Government have put forward two options: a GoCo or DE&S-plus. It was clear in Committee and is still quite clear that there is a determination within the MOD that a GoCo should be the way forward—

[Mr Philip Hammond]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry that the Secretary of State says that, but that was not the tenor of what we heard in Committee. Clearly, the withdrawal of one of the potential bidders has left serious questions about the future of the GoCo. We will certainly look closely at how the process goes forward.

[Mr Hammond]

For the sake of the record, I have said many times before in this House and say again today that we are open-minded about the choice between the GoCo and the DE&S-plus solution. We understand that the GoCo will bring certain advantages, but DE&S-plus might bring different advantages. We will weigh the two in the balance and select the solution that is in the best interests of the taxpayer and the armed forces.

[Mr Jones]

I am pleased to hear that, but I am also rather sceptical about what the Secretary of State says. Clearly, the emphasis in Committee and the mood music have been that the GoCo seems to be the main show in town, and there has been scant examination of what DE&S-plus will do. We must ensure that as the process goes ahead and the Bill goes to the other place proper scrutiny is maintained. Not only is this a major change to how we procure defence equipment in this country but it will have an impact on our relationships with international allies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for his work in Committee. He raises an interesting point, as one of the concerns raised in Committee was what would happen after the nine-year process as regards renegotiating the contract. We will now have only one contractor who, if successful, will certainly be in pole position come the renegotiation at the end of the contract, whether or not any others are able to bid. We must consider those issues very carefully in the coming months as the process develops.

The other issues on which we spent a lot of time and about which there are still concerns are those on intellectual property and single-source procurement, about which we had numerous discussions in Committee. I think that industry still has concerns on those points. Part of the process is about not only reassuring the work force but ensuring confidence about working with the defence sector, because it is a major employer in this country. It is also important to ensure that we are at the leading edge of not only defence technology but security technology. Full involvement of the sector throughout the process will be very important. I think that the Bill will have an interesting passage through the other place.

We spent most of the afternoon on the reserves part of the Bill. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), the shadow Secretary of State: Labour Members—and Members generally—look with pride on the contribution that reservists make to our armed forces. I have seen them at first hand, in both Iraq and Afghanistan; they are very brave men and women, doing a fantastic job on our behalf.

On the process ahead, I welcome the Government’s slight change of heart on producing an annual report. May I say thank you to the Secretary of State for including mental health in that report? If he wishes for any assistance with the organisation involved, in terms of how it approaches that, I am quite willing to engage, or point him in the direction of other organisations that will be interested in knowing how mental health can be seen as a priority, because there is an issue, whether we like it or not, with reservists and mental health. I know that the Government have followed through on work that we did in government and have added to that, in terms of making sure that veterans’ mental health is seen as a priority.

On the overall position of reservists, after this afternoon’s debate, I would say that the jury was still out, but we did get some clarification from the Secretary of State on the reduction in the Regular Army. Remember, when the strategic defence and security review was first announced by the Prime Minister, there was to have been a reduction of 7,000; then the figure went down from 95,000 to 80,000. I think the Secretary of State was very candid this afternoon: that was about money, not about what was best for our armed forces.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Or about spending it in different ways.

[Mr Jones]

Well, we can have a debate about that; the Secretary of State still bandies around the £38 billion figure. What he and many others seem to forget is that there was also the impact on the defence budget of the 9% decrease that this Government brought in as part of the SDSR.

On monitoring how the changes go forward, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has done a fantastic job. He has been an assiduous champion of reservists for many years. When we were in government, he worked closely with the then Secretary of State to try to improve the lot of reservists. He raises an interesting point about the issues between the regulars and the reserve forces. There has been, in some quarters of the Army, a view that somehow the reserves are second-best. It will be important to ensure that that is not the case going forward.

It was interesting to hear General Sir Peter Wall say that the proposals were the way forward. When we were in government, he was part of the senior command of the Army that recommended the £20 million cut for the reserve forces. It is important that senior officers in the Regular Army fully buy into the process, because that is how we will make sure that we have the joined-up approach that we require.

The Secretary of State has moved a lot this afternoon; he has gone from holding the position that we should not have annual reports to giving a commitment to them. However, we need parliamentary time, so that the report does not just sit on a shelf in the Library, but is debated on the Floor of the House. I tell him gently that the more engagement he has, not only with the Opposition, but with his party’s Back Benchers, the better, when it comes to making sure that the best intentions that we all have for our armed forces are realised.

The nonsense that we are still going through—we are being barred from speaking to senior officers, and barred from military bases—is not helpful. When I had a role in the Ministry of Defence, I took the view that the more engagement that parliamentarians, irrespective of political party, have with members of the armed forces, the better—and not only for MPs’ understanding; members of the armed forces also get a lot out of coming to understand how this place and politicians operate.

[Mr Hammond]

For the record, we have, as far as I am aware, arranged for the Opposition Front-Bench team and individual members of it to visit military bases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Hammond]

I am sure we have. If the hon. Gentleman wants to contact me—I have said this to the shadow Secretary of State—and let me know where they would like to go and when they would like to go, we will facilitate it.

[Mr Jones]

That is a very good change of heart. [Interruption.] It is a change of heart; that is not what has been going on over the past few years since the right hon. Gentleman has been Secretary of State. I know it is an issue that the Chairman of the Select Committee has raised as well. I take that at face value and we will test the system, as the Secretary of State has made the offer on the Floor of the House.

We will not press the motion to a vote—[Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering away. The shadow Secretary of State wrote to the chiefs of the armed forces, wanting to meet them, and I have here a note from this afternoon which says that the MOD just rang the shadow Secretary of State’s office to say that the pre-arranged meetings with several chiefs have been cancelled because there is a change in protocol and he must now arrange the meetings through the Secretary of State’s office. Under the old process, the request would be made and the Minister would sign it off at the end. I know that he is paranoid about leaks, and the process is not helping.

I conclude by wishing the Bill well when it goes to the other place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend suggests, the reason a two-boat solution was not considered in the review is that it did not meet the hurdle test of providing a credible deterrent. I am actually rather more interested in the views of official Opposition Front Benchers on this matter than the views of our coalition partners. I welcome the fact—[Interruption.] Hang on a minute. I welcome the fact that the first visit in office by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was to Barrow-in-Furness, the home of Britain’s submarine fleet.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

On the alternatives review, at Defence questions on 2 September the Secretary of State told my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who had asked about costs:

“If he submits a written question to me, I will ask the Department to produce the best estimate”.—[Official Report, 2 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 5.]

I have now tabled a number of parliamentary questions, but the Government seem to be refusing to produce a figure. May I gently ask the Secretary of State when he will produce the answer to my questions?

[Mr Hammond]

I am rather glad that the hon. Gentleman asked me that question. Let me tell him that the Cabinet Office has the lead on this matter because it was a Cabinet Office review. Any question that is phrased in general terms will be answered by the Cabinet Office; were a question to be phrased in very specific terms as to Ministry of Defence resources, then it would fall to me to answer it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. Friend has made an extremely good point. It seems often to be forgotten by those who advocate an alternative that we must make a choice about whether to sustain a submarine building industry in the United Kingdom. I, for one, believe that it is essential to the UK’s strategic interest for us to maintain a submarine-building capability, and that further points to the use of a submarine-based continuous-at-sea deterrent.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Government’s Trident alternatives review covered a large number of options and was described in this House by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury as the “most comprehensive study” of our nuclear deterrent policy. Will the Secretary of State enlighten the House as to why the alternative being put forward now by the Liberal Democrats of two boats conducting irregular unarmed patrols was not considered as part of that comprehensive review?

[Mr Hammond]

The review considered a three-boat alternative and a four-boat alternative; it did not consider a two-boat position, as that was not considered a credible deterrent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

An unclassified summary of the Trident alternative review will be prepared by the Cabinet Office and published as a Government document.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

In January, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury told The Guardian newspaper that the coalition review of Trident would compile a “compelling” list of alternatives. It was suggested in the Financial Times recently that the review will come down on the side of a submarine-based ballistic missile system. In the light of that, will the Secretary of State tell the House when the review will be published, and if it comes down on the side of a submarine-based system, will the Government consider bringing forward the main gate decision into this Parliament?

[Mr Hammond]

I cannot comment on the findings of the review, which is not yet concluded and has not yet reported to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there is no need to bring forward the 2016 main gate decision point. That decision will be made in 2016, in order to deliver the new submarines into service from 2028, when they are required.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and disappointed that the sole representative of Scottish separatism in the Chamber today had disappeared before we reached this point in proceedings. I have indeed seen the recommendations of the House of Lords report. As my hon. Friend will know, the Government’s position is clear: Scotland benefits from being part of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom benefits from having Scotland in it. We are confident that the Scottish people will agree. However, in the event that they voted to leave the United Kingdom, the referendum, rather than being the point at which Scotland would leave the Union, would mark the beginning of a lengthy and extremely complex set of negotiations between the Scottish and UK Governments on the terms of independence. If an independent Scotland wanted to change the arrangements for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, the considerable costs, complexity and time scale involved in delivering alternative arrangements would inevitably be a major feature of the negotiations. It is therefore incorrect to suggest the need for an immediately deliverable contingency plan for the deterrent. However, the House will be aware that the MOD plans for a huge range of contingencies. For reasons of national security, we do not comment publicly on plans relating to the nuclear deterrent.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The MOD underspent its budget by £3 billion last year: a total of £1.6 billion is being carried forward, and there is now a shortfall of £1.4 billion up to 2015. Further to the question asked earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), can the Secretary of State tell the House why the MOD is not using some of that money to backdate the pay increase from May to April announced in the Budget?

[Mr Hammond]

A significant proportion of the underspend in 2012-13 is, in fact, the result of delayed spending on equipment programmes and will be needed to be spent in 2013-14 and 2014-15. As the hon. Gentleman will also know, part of the underspend is being used to meet the additional reductions in the budget announced by the Chancellor in the autumn statement and the Budget, which is why we are able to meet those requirements without cutting into the delivery of our core outputs in 2013-14 and 2014-15. To amplify the point about the pay settlement that is effective from 1 May, I will say this: the practical reality is that the MOD’s pay system is quite fragile, and the possibility of making a retrospective change was considered significantly high-risk. It would introduce a significant risk of a catastrophic breakdown in the pay system. We therefore—

Army Basing Plan

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I hope the document that has been distributed will answer some of the right hon. Gentleman’s questions, particularly about providing the certainty that personnel and their families will want in terms of where they are going and when they are going to go there. I note that his references at the beginning of his remarks about multi-role brigades and the subsequent evolution of the Army force to match the resources available made no reference whatever to the legacy that we inherited from the previous Government, which has been one of the key drivers in our efforts to deal with the challenges ahead.

Let me try to deal with some of the right hon. Gentleman’s perfectly legitimate questions. He asked me about the £1.8 billion capital spend. Essentially, he sought assurance that this money had not been found at the expense of the budget for employing our forces. It is, of course, a capital budget quite separate from the resource departmental expenditure limit budgets of the Department and it is largely a budget that was in the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s capital spend programme, supplemented by some of the capital underspend from last year, which we have been allowed to carry forward.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It will be taken away from Army housing.

Afghanistan (Force Protection)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I begin by joining the Secretary of State in paying tribute to Sergeant Gareth Thursby and Private Thomas Wroe, both of 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, and Lance Corporal Duane Groom of 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards. Our thoughts and prayers are also with those who were wounded over the weekend. Although we in this House take decisions concerning national security, it is the actions and bravery of such people that determine the safety of our country.

Labour Members have been consistent in our support for the mission in Afghanistan, and we will ensure that the best course of action is taken for our forces and for the stability of Afghanistan. The increasing frequency of green-on-blue attacks demands a response of proportionate strength. I start by saying, then, that we welcome the measures that have already been announced regarding recruitment and vetting, and agree that Britain’s resolve should not be shaken by recent events. Green-on-blue attacks are not new, and it is a concern that additional measures were not put in place earlier. When the issue was raised in March, the then Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), said that

“we have changed our procedures in the light of events”.—[Official Report, 26 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 1148.]

Events have proved that any changes that were made were clearly insufficient. I therefore invite the Secretary of State to confirm that he has confidence in the new measures, and that they are making a lasting difference.

What does the Secretary of State consider to be the principal motivation behind the attacks? To what extent does he believe that they are co-ordinated by the Taliban? That is not to be taken as a given, but it should be taken into consideration as we advance the political process. Do recent events change the Secretary of State’s view that it may be possible to draw down further troops in 2013, as he articulated in recent press articles? When will he be in a position to give the House the details of those withdrawals?

The House will want to know if there has been an assessment of the security lapse at Camp Bastion, and the measures that have been taken to enhance security there and at bases throughout Afghanistan.

As ever, we offer our support to our armed forces and the Government’s mission, which remains a national priority.

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the Opposition’s continuing, unstinting support for the strategic objectives in Afghanistan, which are very much in the UK’s national interest.

I should make it clear that, as we understand it at the moment, the attack on Camp Bastion was not an example of a green-on-blue attack. Our current understanding is that Taliban operatives dressed in US army uniforms were responsible, so that attack should be distinguished from the earlier attack, which killed the two members of the Yorkshire Regiment at the Afghan local police base.

The hon. Gentleman asked about my confidence in the new measures that have been taken. I have confidence in them, but they will not all have an immediate impact. The ANSF has grown quickly and it is clear, with the benefit of hindsight, that some of the vetting processes that were used during that fast expansion phase may not have been entirely adequate, so a re-vetting process is now being carried out. Sixty individuals have already been expelled from the Afghan national army, and hundreds more are under investigation.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the motivation for the attacks. I believe that there are four groups of attack motivators. Infiltrations, which the Taliban organise, are certainly going on. There is radicalisation, and last week’s events, with the distribution of the inflammatory video across the Muslim world, did not help. Some attacks are clearly motivated by personal or cultural factors in a society where relatively petty disputes are routinely resolved by resort to violence. Some of the attacks are by Taliban operatives, who have stolen or obtained uniforms.

The hon. Gentleman asked about my comments in Afghanistan about draw-down profile. Military commanders on the ground are telling me, in sharp contradistinction to what I was hearing from them only four or five months ago, that they now believe that their force requirements during 2013 will allow scope for draw-down from current numbers in 2013 on our way to our objective of complete draw-down by the end of 2014.

Several immediate actions have of course been taken on Bastion security: increase of patrols in depth outside the wire; full manning of all watchtowers; increased patrolling inside the base; and additional deployment of intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance assets. Notice has also been given to a number of settlements that have grown up close to the wire that they will be removed so that we have a clearer field of fire outside the base perimeter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is repeating an assertion that he made when I made the statement. I sat down afterwards with the Chief of the General Staff and went through his process again to reassure myself that I could say with confidence to my hon. Friend that the assertion he is making is simply not correct. Looked at over a decade, the recruitment figures for the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers speak for themselves. I am happy to have a meeting with him and go through the numbers, if he would like to do so.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Three former senior figures from all three services wrote in The Daily Telegraph this morning of “cynical” cuts to our armed forces and described the plans for Army 2020 as “unbelievable”. Does the Secretary of State not think that with a collapse in confidence at such a high level and morale among the ranks in free-fall, along with his risky strategy on the use of reservists, his decision on 2020 should be another candidate for a possible Government U-turn?

[Mr Hammond]

As usual, plenty of criticism and no constructive suggestions from the Opposition. In relation to the letter this morning, the key word is “former” senior officers. I take my advice from senior serving officers in the military. This is a plan designed by the Army to secure the future of the Army. They are confident that they can deliver it and I have confidence in their ability to do so.

Army 2020

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have been treated to a lecture on the strategic context by a member of a Government who did not conduct a strategic defence review in 12 years. We have been told about reductions in the Army by a shadow spokesman who wrote to his party’s leader saying that they would have to examine the structure of the Army and that he recognised the need for manpower reductions. The Labour leader wrote back to him saying that

“we can expect to have to make further savings after the next election”.

What we have not heard from the right hon. Gentleman today is any kind of plan for how he would manage the £38 billion deficit in the Ministry of Defence’s budget that we inherited from him—no plan, no clue.

Let me address some of the specific points that the right hon. Gentleman raised. He referred to Germany and France. Germany spends 1.2% of its GDP on defence, while this country spends 2.1% of its GDP on defence. He talked about France. France is only at the beginning of a fiscal review that will lead to the production of a new livre blanc in the spring for the French armed forces. If he knows that there will not be cuts in the French armed forces, he is better informed than I and better informed than most of the French politicians and staff officers to whom I talk.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about sustainability. One of the achievements of the work that has been carried out over the past few months—it has been a huge piece of work—is the maintenance of capability through an intelligent approach to the challenge of doing more with less. We are using the reserves more intelligently, using our contractors more effectively and reshaping the Army—this process is about the shape of the Army in the future—to improve the tooth-to-tail ratio. We are ensuring that the manpower cuts are made in the areas that will have the least impact on the Army’s fighting capability. I assure him that the Army will be able to deliver the SDSR outputs required of it.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the strength of individual units. He referred to a leaked letter from the colonel of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The Army has looked at the recruiting ability of regiments and battalions not at a spot-point in time, but over a period of 10 years. It has looked at the demographic projections in the areas where the regiments and battalions recruit and drawn the appropriate conclusions.

The right hon. Gentleman clearly does not understand how a public duties incremental company works. The 100 or so men who make up the PDIC in Scotland will be drawn in rotation from the other battalions in the Royal Regiment of Scotland, so no one will serve a career in the Army being, as he disparagingly put it, photographed by tourists.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the arrangement of affairs within the regiments where battalions are being lost. He asked specifically about the Green Howards and the Duke of Wellington’s. When battalions are withdrawn, it is for the regiments to decide how the antecedents and the thread behind those battalions are merged into the other battalions.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the reserves. We are talking about an Army reserve of 30,000 trained strength, not 15,000 as he mentioned. Reserves will be deployed on operations. That is what will give the Army its sustainability in the future. On an enduring operation, we would expect the first six-month tours to comprise less than 10% reserves, with the reaction forces making up the bulk of the land forces.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It’s 12 months.

[Mr Hammond]

It is six months. In the fourth and fifth turns of the handle, we would expect reserves to make up as much as 30% of the deployed force.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

It is down to individual circumstances. We have given a clear commitment that as long as someone who has suffered injuries on active service is in the process of treatment or rehabilitation, where it is appropriate for them to remain in the Army, they will so remain. Once they have completed the rehabilitation process, we will do our very best to find positions that they can fill in the Army. Many service people who suffer disabilities as a result of their service have been found positions that they can continue to hold down in the Army, but we cannot give a guarantee that nobody will be medically discharged after they have completed the rehabilitation process.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Given that the Secretary of State’s statement about supposedly balancing the defence budget relates only to the 45% of the budget spent on equipment, how will his announcements this week of compulsory redundancies in the armed forces affect the other, unaccounted for, 55% of the budget? When can we expect the details of how he has balanced the rest of the budget?

[Mr Hammond]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was here when I made my statement, but he is completely wrong; my statement related to the whole budget, not simply the equipment plan. As he will know, the announcement of a reduction in the size of our armed forces was made last year. We are now making a series of tranches of redundancy announcements, of which the one due tomorrow will be the last for the Royal Navy and the RAF, to get us eventually to armed forces of the size specified for Future Force 2020 in the strategic defence and security review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend will recognise that by doubling the operational allowance for the armed forces, exempting them from the pension contributions increase and continuing the incremental pay system, we have sent a very important signal to them about the importance that we attach to them. I think that most members of the armed forces understand that we are facing some very tough decisions in order to get the MOD budget back on track and ensure a sustainable future for our armed forces, and that the restraint was necessary to achieve that.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Frozen pay, reduction in the pension and compulsory redundancies: can the Secretary of State explain how that squares with the Prime Minister’s statement in The Sun this morning that he intends to uphold the military covenant and support our servicemen and women?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, and our intention is to maintain services while creating sufficient flexibility at the margin to allow franchisees to operate their businesses in a way that makes them more efficient. That is a complex balancing act. Nobody wants train services to be reduced as a consequence, but if we are absolutely prescriptive about the timetable, down to officials detailing the precise time of every train stop at every station, the scope for improving the efficiency of our railways will be severely limited. It is a balancing act, and we are determined to get it right.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Is not the point, certainly on intercity franchises, that the concentration is on improving journey times for long distances, which has an adverse effect on small commutes, for example from Chester-le-Street in my constituency to central Newcastle, which is only a 10-minute commute, but is a well-used service? As a result of the way in which franchises are structured, fewer trains are stopping to carry commuters on that vital route.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right. We need to get the balance right between long-distance intercity services, where stops disadvantage long-distance travellers, and short-range commuter services. In many cases, it is not appropriate for long-distance intercity trains to have a service pattern that is organised around the local commuter travelling pattern. We need local commuter trains to deliver that.

These are complex issues. Our view is that train operators are best placed to deliver services to their users in a system that incentivises them to deliver the services that passengers want. That system has not existed hitherto under the revenue-sharing arrangements in which the Government collect most of the additional revenue taken at the fare box by the train operator. Putting those incentives back in place will deliver better services and greater efficiency.