Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Francois and Oliver Colvile

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

As someone who flew Ryanair from Stansted over the bank holiday weekend recently, I am in favour in principle of just about anything that gets people on to aircraft more efficiently. The hon. Gentleman’s idea could be worth looking at, but he and the House might be interested to know that the MOD has been having much broader discussions with business and industry about how they can do a range of things for the armed forces community under the auspices of the armed forces covenant, and we hope to have something to say about that in the relatively near future.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Last week, I visited the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington DC and picked up a copy of a book, “Federal Benefits for Veterans, Dependants and Survivors”. Is my right hon. Friend willing to meet me to discuss producing a similar directory and potentially a website?

[Mr Francois]

I, too, have been to the States and met people in the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is important to remember that the Americans have a different way of doing it from us, because they do not have a national health service model. Nevertheless, the VA has a high profile in the United States—higher than the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency has in the United Kingdom. I would like to raise the latter’s profile so that more veterans and members of the public know what we do for the veterans’ community, and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to talk about precisely that.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Debate between Mark Francois and Oliver Colvile

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this announcement will not have an impact on the Royal Navy or the Royal Marines, which have already seen a reduction in their numbers? Will he also keep me in touch with the impact that the redundancies will have on the Army units attached to 3 Commando Brigade, and especially to 29 Commando, based at the Royal Citadel in Plymouth?

[Mr Francois]

Yes, I will attempt to keep my hon. Friend in touch, as he requests. The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were affected in tranches 1 and 2. Tranche 3 relates solely to the Army.

Military Covenant

Debate between Mark Francois and Oliver Colvile

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

I greatly welcome the opportunity to open this important debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. It is a particular pleasure to respond to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson). As he knows, I have taken an interest in Northern Ireland matters down the years. In fact, some years ago I visited Northern Ireland as his guest. We are debating a serious subject, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not mind my telling the House that I also bumped into him in 2009, when I was in Northern Ireland during the European elections. We were each separately with our respective campaign teams when we came around the same corner. As politicians do on these occasions, we exchanged some banter, and one of the right hon. Gentleman’s fellow campaigners described me as a “communist.” I have been called a number of things down the years, but that was a personal first for me. I have happy memories of that trip, and I was determined when I saw this debate coming up to get that quote into Hansard.

Let me begin by saying that we greatly value the contribution that all our armed forces make, and in particular that made by the Irish regiments over the years. The right hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues rightly touched on that. As evidence of this contribution, one statistic stands out. Some 173 Victoria Crosses have been awarded to members of the armed forces who were Irish. That is more than one in eight of all such awards, including the first ever Victoria Cross, which was awarded to Charles Lucas from Scarva—in the constituency of the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson)—which he earned while serving as a mate on HMS Hecla in 1854. Following a swift promotion to captain, Charles Lucas eventually retired at the rank of rear-admiral. So that is a not a bad start for the VC.

Continuing this naval theme, I should like to mention HMS Caroline, about which there has been good news following our decision to gift the vessel to the National Museum of the Royal Navy. It has agreed to keep the vessel in Belfast, where it has been berthed since 1924.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

HMS Caroline was built in the Devonport dockyard and it is the last surviving ship from the battle of Jutland, at which my grandfather was a gunnery officer on HMS Valiant. This is incredibly good news, therefore, and I will make sure everybody in Plymouth rejoices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend, but to give all due credit to the Royal Marines, my understanding is that they initially helped to develop the TRiM programme. It was such a success within the brigade and its commandos that it was exported to the rest of the armed forces. It is quite right to pay tribute to the Royal Marines as basically they came up with the programme.

[Oliver Colvile]

I suspect, if I may say so, that the programme is very good because the Royal Marines is a small unit able to deliver it, but there are many lessons to be learned.

Finally, the Royal Navy in Plymouth and Devonport, with the help of the Prime Minister, is doing an enormous amount of work on dementia, because it understands the impact on a family when personnel are abroad. We have a lot to do, and I would be interested to know when we are going to have the debate.