Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. The whole end of Afghanistan should be a deep inflection point for the west and our attitude to the utility of force and what we can actually achieve in the foreign policy space. What does victory look like? What are victory and defeat actually going to look like in Ukraine?

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I am sure that this will come up in the debate, but it is also about retention. We do have a problem in the military, across all the services, in retaining not only the people who are playing a supporting role, but those who are on the frontline. Can my hon. Friend say a few words about that?

[Johnny Mercer]

Yes, but I will finish here, as my final points are around the people. It really pains me deeply how these people feel after they have spent time in the military. For many of us, it was the most amazing time of our lives. People like me were incredibly lucky and had a great time, but there are many people, including many families, who feel very bitter about it. We have done that by the decisions we have made around investment in their housing, health, and education. They felt it when the Prime Minister decided to take £2 million out of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs.

Clearly, there is a review coming, which I am pleased about, so I say to Ministers that it would be ludicrous not to reinstate what has been cut. I also urge them to please think about the secondary and tertiary effects of how we look after people. It is not just a lonely, boring old song that some of us sing. Those of us who have been right at the tippy end of the spear in this nation’s operations will say that the most important thing to how our people fight and what makes them fight is the moral component. Our decisions in this place and how we advocate with our constituents about defence matter and they make a difference. I urge Ministers to take that with them as they move forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I will try to be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was struck by a letter in The Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago from Lieutenant General Sir James Bucknall. It is short, and it should be required reading for all Members. His final paragraph ends with the line:

“There needs to be an honest, unvarnished appraisal of our current capabilities.”

As has already been said by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), plans do not survive first contact, and in these instances we need to review them, and to do so at pace.

There are just four points that would like to make in this debate, because I suspect that all the other points I would have made have already been made far more articulately and far better than I could have made them. The first is on recruitment, which my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) mentioned. It is extraordinary that the stats for the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army are all higher. In the 12 months running up to 30 September 2021, the Royal Navy had an uplift in recruitment of 4.3%, the Army had an uplift of 25.2% and the RAF had an uplift of 8.2%. The staggering difference between the three services and the way in which the Army succeeds show that there are lessons to be learned by the RAF and the Navy on how they can encourage that level of recruitment.

As I said earlier in my intervention on my hon. Friend, the concern I have is about outflow and retention. Even the briefing document we were given for this debate talks about the fact that there is a problem with staffing and retention in the Defence Nuclear Organisation, and it is not just limited to that area. It also occurs in the Army and the Air Force, and in some of the places where we really want to have our staff because there is a national security need for it. This needs to be addressed immediately, and I hope that the Government will be able to give some clarity in their summing up.

On housing, a number of Members have touched on the idea that we must ensure that our armed forces personnel are given the best services and that they have the equipment they need. That point also stands for their families and for the housing and accommodation they are given. I am proud that I have the Britannia Royal Navy College in my constituency, as Private Stone said earlier, but we occasionally have a problem there when we find it difficult to staff people who are coming down to train future recruits, and to put them into suitable housing within the vicinity. We have been fortunate in that we have always managed to get through those difficult situations, but the problem is going to become greater, because house prices in coastal areas such as mine are shooting through the roof. I respectfully ask the Minister to refer to some points on housing for armed forces personnel, because this is going to come up time and again.

I think I have been very clear in my time in this place about my support for international development and the aid budget. One of the things that came up when we were having the debate around foreign aid was whether we should look at certain reforms, and if we return to 0.7%, I would really like us to look at ways in which some of that money could be spent through the Ministry of Defence to support our armed forces to undertake humanitarian missions. There is real value in those sorts of things—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. Fine, but I think there is real value in having the ability to unilaterally send in humanitarian forces using our defence budget.

The last point I would like to make is that our military academies have extraordinary export value. We attract an enormous number of foreign students who come through them and pass out, and we should cultivate that further. I am particularly pleased that the current captain of the Britannia Royal Navy College, Captain Roger Readwin, has done a fantastic job in attracting cadets from all over the world to pass through this historic college. More of that would not only give us the ability to learn from other countries but ensure that we strengthened our defence relationships with countries around the world.

The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) says that he does not like slogans. Well, I like “global Britain”, but I think it needs to be fleshed out. If we are going to talk about global Britain, we have to prove it in the things that we do. I have said before that this is about the four pillars of trade, defence, diplomacy and development. If we can ensure that our defence is linked with other countries around the world and that we can help to train people in this country, that will send a strong, positive message and provide us with armed forces that are able to respond to some of the problems we are facing. The fragility of the world is more apparent than ever. If we are to play a part in global Britain and if that is to have real meaning, we must adapt as well as update.