Afghan Interpreters: UK Relocation

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

We are very conscious of the security implications, particularly for our personnel within Afghanistan, not least within the embassy, and we constantly review that security situation. I wish to reassure the noble Lord that there is a very good relationship between the MoD and the Home Office. Our officials are regularly in touch, and there is regular and robust collaboration between government departments—not just these two departments, but also with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the fourth Oral Question, and I call the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Unidentified Flying Objects

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As I indicated earlier, we have no opinion on the existence of extraterrestrial life and we no longer investigate reports of sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena. We have no plans to conduct our own report into UAP, because in over 50 years no such reporting has indicated the existence of any military threat to the UK.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.

Defence: Continuous At-sea Deterrence

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I can add little to what I said to my noble friend earlier, but I confirm to the noble Lord that we make a continuous assessment of threat—where it is emerging and what its character is. We are clear, as he will understand, that the critical adjective in relation to our deterrent is “credible”; for it to remain credible, our judgment was that we had to increase the number of warheads.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the fourth Oral Question.

War Pensions: Uprating

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I know that the Royal British Legion has come up with its own calculation. To answer the noble Baroness’s question, I am not aware that the Treasury has done so. However, the principles should be clear here. Under the Armed Forces compensation scheme and the war pensions scheme which preceded it, an injured service man or woman is assessed on their level of disability, and based on that assessment they are compensated for their deemed loss of earnings in civilian employment. After that, the guiding principle is that the real-terms purchasing power of the annual payment should be maintained, and it is therefore indexed to the consumer prices index, which, as I said, is the index applied by the DWP to all disability benefits.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)]

My Lords, the Royal British Legion is very clear in saying that war pensions are losing value compared with military and civilian salaries. It is inexplicable that our injured and disabled comrades cannot have the same as others in society—the triple lock. Is it not a sad commentary that the Royal British Legion and others are correct in saying that, in this case, we are not all in this together?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the triple lock applies only to the basic state pension. Members of the Armed Forces will therefore benefit from the triple lock once they reach state pension age, but there are broader issues to be considered here. One is that maintaining parity with social security disability benefits is in principle the right thing to do, but secondly, there is the affordability issue. As a Government and, I believe, as a nation, we have to stick with the long-term economic plan and we have to continue to live within our means.

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I can give my noble friend that assurance. The SDSR was designed specifically not to affect operations in Afghanistan.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, a bald e-mail that states, “Start applying for your retirement”, is indeed indicative of a dysfunctional system in the MoD. The Secretary of State in the other place earlier today failed to take ministerial responsibility for this, which we regret. Instead of barbs with puerile comments, would it not be correct for the Secretary of State to take that ministerial responsibility and report back to this House so that we could say that this military covenant will not turn into a shambles?