Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Cairns and Jeremy Quin

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the impact of the future soldier programme of reform on the army estate in Wales.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

My right hon. Friend has fought and fought for the retention of more military personnel at St Athan. At his request, I visited the site personally and re-evaluated our options. Unfortunately, the historic agreement entered into with the Welsh Government does indeed make such—[Interruption.] I do apologise, Mr Speaker, and I apologise to my right hon. Friend—I wanted first to give an answer on future solider in general before getting on to the specifics—[Laughter.] I know exactly what my right hon. Friend is going to ask, because he has been assiduous in demanding more troops at St Athan.

Before I get on to that, future soldier is good news for Wales, bringing additional investment into the Army estate of around £320 million. I know Brecon will be delighted that Brecon barracks—the headquarters of the 160th (Welsh) Brigade—will be retained. We have identified Caerwent training estate for investment to host not one but two units—including the Queen’s Dragoon Guards—and, in north Wales, a new reserve unit of the Royal Welsh will be established in Wrexham.

[Alun Cairns]

I associate myself with the comments made about our friend and colleague Jack Dromey.

The Welsh Government’s refusal to extend the lease of the land at MOD St Athan effectively blocked a new major military unit coming to St Athan. What reassurance can the Minister give to the soldiers based at west camp? Do the Welsh Government have any right to the land on which they are based? If so, are they at risk of being evicted in the same way as those soldiers who were based at east camp?

[Jeremy Quin]

No, they are not. The good news is that the Ministry of Defence holds the freehold for the west camp land, which was not covered by the historic agreement made with the Welsh Government. My right hon. Friend has tackled me on this issue on so many occasions, and I went to visit the camp. We could not put new units into St Athan given the historic agreement with the Welsh Government, but west camp is MOD freehold and we will retain our forces there.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Alun Cairns and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con) [V]]

I, too, congratulate our armed forces on, and thank them for, all of their work over the past year in combating covid, particularly through the vaccine roll-out. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement. He will have seen some of the best of innovation in new technology in defence when he visited the Sierra Nevada Corporation in St Athan in my constituency a few months ago. Does he recognise that established brands, often with long-standing relationships with the MOD, are often seen to be less of a risk in comparison with new, young, innovative companies that could offer new opportunities for the MOD? So will he agree to offering guidance throughout the procurement process when there is a better opportunity for partnerships with young innovative companies, which might be seen to be an opportunity with less risk at that time?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and I well remember visiting the Sierra Nevada Corporation with him last year—it was an eye opener. I hope that it is seeing opportunities from various changes to the Army, including the ranges. I am sure those there will be putting their minds to it. We will be publishing later this year a refresh of our small and medium-sized enterprises action plan. I am proud that we have driven up the amount of funds going to SMEs to more than 19%, from about 13% in 2013-14. There is more work to be done, and in order to help that process not only are we ensuring that we are maintaining DASA—the Defence and Security Accelerator—a fantastic process of providing seedcorn funding to develop smaller companies and give opportunities to help the MOD—but we will be expanding from Northern Ireland to across the whole UK the defence technology accelerator, which has been working very well in Northern Ireland. It helps to exploit and pull through technology that is being developed by smaller companies. So there will be a package of support and an SME action plan will be produced later this year.