Operation Herrick

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Dan Byles

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

So far, as I made clear to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), we have committed only to providing trainers and life support personnel in the Afghan national army officer training academy outside Kabul. We are, of course, dependent on Afghan national security forces for overall security in Afghanistan after 2014, but we will be collocated at Qargha, at the Afghan national army officer academy, with US forces who will be running a similar academy on the adjoining site. Detailed force protection arrangements have not yet been agreed, but they are likely to include elements of UK and US forces, providing protection to the combined facility.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Having served a nine-month operational tour of duty in Bosnia, I can attest to how long that is to be away from one’s family. Will the Secretary of State confirm that this is a one-off change to the way we do business, and that it will not represent a slippery slope and a longer-term change in doctrine?

[Mr Hammond]

It will not represent a slippery slope and it is not a change in doctrine. I am hesitant to call it a one-off since my hon. Friend has just given an example of another occasion on which nine-month tours were served. There are already people in theatre who are serving tours of nine months or longer in specific posts, so it is not unknown, but there is no intention to make a general change to the operational deployment of six-month tours.

Army 2020

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Dan Byles

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

This approach is being taken precisely to prevent the kind of disgraceful targeting of the Territorial Army that took place under the previous Government, when training was slashed in order to deal with a short-term cash problem. The long-term impact on reserve recruitment can hardly be overestimated.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

With regard to the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, will the Secretary of State tell us what has changed from just a few years ago, when the Army was actively moving towards multi-battalion regiments as being more flexible and more efficient formations?

[Mr Hammond]

The main things that changed are the fiscal crisis that we have inherited and the need to restructure our forces in the post-Afghanistan era. I say to my hon. Friend, however, that it is open for single battalion regiments to make proposals for future structural change. If they want to merge and look at changes within their divisional structures, they are absolutely free to negotiate them with other regiments and divisions and to make proposals on that basis.

Hostage Rescue Operation (Nigeria)

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Dan Byles

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk has just informed me that he will be in Nigeria next week. I am not aware of the Foreign Secretary’s forward travel plans, but, as I said to the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) a few moments ago, when we publish our defence engagement strategy shortly, Members will see that we are placing very great importance on the defence relationship with Nigeria. Defence Ministers will be responding to that document by pursuing the deepening and strengthening of those relationships.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I join colleagues in paying tribute to not only our special forces, but our intelligence services, for their professionalism and dedication, and for the unique global security reach they give our country. In particular, I welcome the message that this operation sends—tragic though the final outcome was—which is that in such a situation, the UK leaves no one behind and leaves no stone unturned in looking after the interests of our citizens abroad.

[Mr Hammond]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. That is absolutely our position: when a UK citizen is deprived of their liberty, wherever in the world, we will deploy all the resources available to us to seek their safe return.

High Speed Rail

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Dan Byles

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I will start with the good bits. I thank the hon. Lady for what I think was her support for the next stage of the process—going through the consultation and introducing a Bill later in this Parliament, if that is what we decide as a result of the consultation. I am also happy to pay tribute, as she did, to the work of my immediate predecessor in developing the case for high-speed rail, although it is worth noting that not all his predecessors seemed to have been quite so committed to the project.

I am afraid that it is the hon. Lady who lacks credibility, in talking about our failure to invest in the railway. She can talk about a decade of Labour investment as much as she likes. What most people will have noticed is a decade of driving us towards the brink of bankruptcy. What we have done is salvage a substantial programme of investment in rail infrastructure—a programme the scale of which neither she nor many commentators outside this place predicted we would be able to continue with—in the context of the extreme fiscal constraints that we face. We have gone ahead with Crossrail and Thameslink, and with a programme of additional rail vehicles—gone ahead with, not merely announced unfunded promises, which is her legacy. We will go ahead with the inter-city express programme, as I have already announced. We will announce to Parliament the details of that programme, along with the electrification associated with it, in the new year. The hon. Lady can go on all she likes about proposing £17 billion of additional investment. Her party has no economic plan, no policies and no credibility.

Turning to the specifics of the hon. Lady’s response, the high-speed rail investment that we are proposing will be approximately £2 billion a year over a period of 16 years. That is roughly what we are spending now on Thameslink and Crossrail, so large infrastructure projects can be funded while the investment in the mainstream main line railway is funded as it is now.

The hon. Lady asked about our commitment to high speed rail as a means of addressing the north-south divide, and she reeled off a string of tried and failed mechanisms for addressing that persistent problem. We have decided to take a new approach to closing the gap between economic growth rates in the north and south, and the experience of other countries suggests that investment in strategic infrastructure is the best way to deliver that outcome.

The hon. Lady asked whether the change of route and the exceptional hardship scheme will impact on the £750 million that has been set aside for HS 2 during this Parliament, and the answer to that is no. She also asked whether there would be an impact on other rail schemes’ budgets, and the answer is again no. The HS 2 budget is ring-fenced; other rail schemes are typically funded through Network Rail and through support to train operators.

The hon. Lady asked about the compensation scheme. I have indicated that we will seek to go further than has happened with previous such infrastructure schemes in the UK, because it is right and proper that individuals who suffer serious financial loss in the national interest should be compensated. She also asked whether we will be setting a precedent in that regard. She should be aware that developing European jurisprudence in the area of property rights and the need for Governments to compensate is pointing towards more generous compensation becoming the norm, and I suspect that that will be the case for future projects.

On construction costs, yes, we are of course anxious to get such costs down to something closer to European norms. The hon. Lady will know that Sir Roy McNulty is carrying out a review, one element of which relates to the cost of UK rail construction, and Infrastructure UK is also engaged in that issue. A report will be published in April. She asked whether the cost of the trains is included in the total figure, and I can confirm that it is.

The hon. Lady also asked about the assumption with regard to ticketing and to the prices of tickets. I can tell her that the business case modelling assumes the same ticket pricing structures as those that are now in place on the west coast main line. In practice, however, the west coast main line and High Speed 2 will be in competition with each other. The operator of High Speed 2 will have a very large number of seats to fill, and we anticipate that the processes of competition in the marketplace will create opportunities for passengers who are prepared to buy advance tickets and to shop on the internet to get bargains for travel between London, the midlands and the north.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the strength of our commitment to going beyond Birmingham. With respect, when her party was in government, its position was always focused on a line from London to Birmingham. It was us who took the debate beyond Birmingham and made the case for Manchester and Leeds. Indeed, the business case for this railway, for the connection to Heathrow airport and for the connection to HS 1 depends on a railway that forms a complete network linking Britain’s four principal population centres, so I can assure her of that commitment.

I put it to the hon. Lady, however, that if we had sought to carry out the detailed work required for a hybrid Bill that covered the entire route, including the legs to Manchester and Leeds, it is unlikely that we would have been able to introduce such a Bill until the end of this Parliament. Our decision was therefore to introduce a hybrid Bill to deal with the London to Birmingham section—which is already a massive undertaking—in 2013, and that, while that Bill is going through Parliament, we should continue our detailed work on the legs to Manchester and Leeds, so that they can be included in a further hybrid Bill in the next Parliament.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

The Secretary of State kindly visited my constituency to investigate the impact of the route there. He will recall that he himself noted how high it would be. There would be large gantries and viaducts crossing motorways. At the time, he said that he would ask HS2 Ltd whether it could do anything to mitigate the impact. He did not mention North Warwickshire in his statement; is he able to give people in the area any good news?

[Mr Hammond]

I think that my hon. Friend is referring to the point at which the railway will cross the M6 at Coleshill. At my request, HS 2 looked into whether it was possible to build under the motorway, but I am afraid that that is not technically possible. HS 2 has managed to reduce the height of the proposed flyover by a modest amount, but I am afraid that it will still be quite high at Coleshill.