Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I think that the last part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question anticipated the result of any competition that will take place, and I am not going to comment on who or what is going to win if we progress to that stage with competent bids. It will be important for all the bids to include an element of UK capability, and we will ensure that we take that into consideration. It is important to us, and to the skills in this country, for the customer—the MOD, which is spending all that money—to secure not only an export market but a UK base.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Project Tempest is delivering and investing in a future fast jet programme. However, given what we are hearing about the potential closure of Brough, may I ask what conversations the Secretary of State is having with BAE Systems about replacement training jets, and what investment he is planning to make in some new Red Arrows?

[Mr Wallace]

I shall have to write to the hon. Lady about the Red Arrows, because I was not expecting that question, but the Tempest project is an important signal to BAE Systems that the Government are committed to another generation of fast jets. I shall be meeting representatives of BAE soon, and I shall ensure that its desire to be part of the programme is reflected in the locations of its workforce around the country.

Combat Air Strategy

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

As ever, Mr Stringer, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is an honour to have worked with the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on this issue for what is now a significant period of time. As an Opposition Back Bencher, there are very few opportunities to make a real difference or change Government policy. One of my most confusing moments as a Member of Parliament was when the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), gave me credit for the change in policy—so I will now be taking credit for everything that everybody is doing on the issue.

I alert the House to my registered interests; I have the great honour to be the GMB lead in manufacturing. I must also apologise for the fact that, since business is quite interesting in this place at the moment, I have managed to get into the bizarre position of co-sponsoring debates in this Chamber and the main Chamber at exactly the same time. You have kindly given me permission, Mr Stringer, to go between the two debates as the afternoon progresses, so I will be going from combat air strategy to child food poverty in an easy step from one room to the next.

I welcome those who are watching from the Gallery—not least the Unite reps from Brough, who have travelled quite far to hear about the future of their sector, about what we care about and about what we are doing to fight for them. It is a great thing for us all to meet skilled men and women who deliver day in, day out, contributing in different ways to our national security—it is something I love to do. I have had the pleasure of visiting the team at Brough and other BAE sites to see how it works.

We asked for a defence aerospace industrial strategy at the beginning because it has several different components for Members from all parties, ranging from our national security to our sovereign skills and the wider defence family. We can forget that the reason for our sovereign skills capability in the sector is our own national security. It is about the men and women who come together at times of national crisis to develop the capabilities that our armed service personnel need to protect us. It is never, ever just about the platforms; it must always be about the people who design them, make them and use them to keep British citizens safe. We need to look at our defence industrial strategy in the round, so we should be talking about our defence family, not just our military family or the defence manufacturers.

What have we achieved so far? What have I achieved so far? Some 1,000 people are currently working on Tempest. We must not underestimate the fact that none of them was doing this two years ago. We came to this House and said that a new fast jet takes 30 years from conception to build. This Government did a wonderful thing in appreciating that as soon as we have commissioned and bought one platform, we need to consider the next.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I am loth to interrupt the hon. Lady when she is making such an eloquent speech, but the annunciator seems to think that she is somebody else—it may be confused by her being in two places at once. Perhaps whoever is operating it could amend that.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I am not sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) has ever spoken on defence industrial strategy—well, she has now—but it would be very helpful if I had a clone so that I could be in both Chambers at once today. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for highlighting that point.

Tempest has 1,000 people and £2 billion already invested and committed, both from the sector and from the Government. Moving forward, that will lead to potentially 22,000 jobs in the wider supply chain. When we talk about sovereign skills and investing in UK plc, that is exactly what we mean.

As the hon. Member for Witney highlighted, we asked for a strategy, not a platform. We asked how the Government would look at our combat air strategy in the round, and what the defence aerospace plan was for the next 30 years. I am delighted with what we have—but, as ever, Minister, it is not enough. We have seen recently how difficult it is to train new pilots and how long the waiting times are. In no small part, that is because of the delay in replacing the Hawk training platform.

The Hawk has done our country a huge service for many years and is still flown by the Red Arrows—although I think they could do with an upgrade, too. However, the Hawk is probably coming to the end of its natural life, and there are competitors that have positioned themselves, even to provide training for the F-35. We need to talk about what replacement aircraft we will need for the F-35 and what Tempest will finally look like. We need to talk about all this in the round, not just for a single platform.

The very talented men and women at Brough need some guarantees about their future. They need to know—as does the whole wider supply chain, not just BAE Systems—what we are talking about for the sector’s future, so I have specific questions for the Minister about plans for a training platform. What conversations is he having with the wider industry about what we will do to develop a new platform? If we are not going to do that, are we really talking about buying something off the shelf? That will be no good for sovereign skills as we seek to leave the European Union.

My other question to the Minister is about Brexit—sorry, I mean Tempest, although I have many questions about Brexit. There are currently four significant players involved in the design process. We have a huge opportunity with Tempest that we have not had before, because it is a blank piece of paper. Our weapons systems can be built into the platform, not added to it; the way the ejector seats operate can be included at the beginning, rather than the end; and the way we refuel can also be included at the development of the new platform. As we saw with the Rafale, not only does adding an in-air refuelling system make the product ugly, but—not that I am partisan—it adds challenges to stealth capability and the ability to be located on radar. We have an opportunity to do this all at the beginning, so we should be talking not just about the four companies, but about how we work with our small and medium-sized enterprises and the extraordinary companies driving change, and how they can access the programme with the four main partners.

With the Select Committee on Defence—our Chair, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is in his place—I had the privilege of visiting the Paris air show last week, as did the Minister. We saw the opportunities available for UK plc, and we also saw where our international allies are looking to fill gaps in areas that we are not ready to participate in. Can the Minister share with us what conversations he is having with our international allies about working collaboratively?

We are leaving the European Union, I hope, at the end of the year, but that does not mean that we are leaving the continent of Europe. Continuing to work with our allies to develop a platform over which we can be in more control than we have been with the F-35 gives us the opportunity to build our security and financial relationships with allies by which we are currently challenged. Will the Minister inform us what we are doing?

It is a great thing to be able to talk about defence, work on a cross-party basis with so many colleagues, and continue to work with the hon. Member for Witney on the issue. We are grateful for what has happened so far—we just want more.

Armed Forces Day

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. I shall deal with the threats that we face in a minute, but she is right to point out that a campaign to do with climate change is taking place outside the building at this moment. I believe that, in the long term, climate change is the biggest threat that we all face but need to face up to. If we are to be the custodians of values and standards, that must include looking after our planet, in which regard Britain can take a leading role.

The second point that I wish to stress is that Armed Forces Day is all about civilian society saying thank you to our armed forces. It gives civilians an opportunity to say, “We are really grateful for what you are doing.” That does not just mean us, perhaps through speeches in the Chamber; it does not just mean the town mayor taking the salute as the parades walk by; it does not mean just the crowds showing their appreciation by clapping and saying, “Thank you very much indeed.” It also means our being able to say, “Thank you for keeping us safe,” and ensuring that we do so regularly.

This is a one-day event when we say thank you, but a thank you should be said on every single day of the year, and the importance of that should be reflected in the armed forces covenant. We highlight the event and it has a profile, but we have that duty every day—not just the Ministry of Defence, but every Whitehall Department. That is why it is so critical that the Ministerial Covenant and Veterans Board, which brings together the responsibilities of other Departments, can point the finger and say, “The NHS: is it providing the necessary services? Local government: is it providing the necessary housing, or are we disadvantaging the people whom we promised we would look after?”

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces covenant, I am delighted that we are having this debate. The Minister has touched on the impact of other Departments and Veterans Gateway, and how they should be working together. Does he agree that there is a significant problem with the Home Office in respect of serving personnel and their families, especially Commonwealth soldiers who need visas?

[Mr Ellwood]

Not for the first time, I find myself in agreement with the hon. Lady. We have had Westminster Hall debates on this issue, and we have made the case for the Home Office to reconsider. There has been a communications problem, in that those who are making the trip have not been made aware of the consequences of bringing family members. We are correcting that, but no one should be hindered from doing what is best, given the contribution that our Commonwealth friends make to our armed forces. We shall have to see where things move in the next couple of months and what the appetite will be, but I am absolutely behind the hon. Lady in wanting this matter to be addressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Smeeth]

Does the Minister agree that we as employers in this House—every single Member of Parliament—should become covenant employers in our own right and that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority should work with us to deliver that? We should not have to go through the MOD to deliver that; we should all be encouraging everybody to promote the covenant both in this place and in our constituencies.

[Mr Ellwood]

Let us go further than that: shall I write to IPSA and invite it to become a signatory to the covenant? Perhaps that is what should happen.

[Ruth Smeeth]

That would be a wonderful intervention by the Minister, but I have tried to make that suggestion in private to IPSA and have not been very successful, so any help the Minister can give me to ensure that IPSA allows us all to become covenant employers would be very welcome.

[Mr Ellwood]

I suspect that following this debate IPSA will be more aware that there is an invitation heading its way.

Another organisation that I hope is well aware that there is an invitation on the way, because I have written to it, is the BBC. I make the following point directly—although the BBC will probably cut this because our debate is being broadcast by BBC Parliament. Our veterans—2.5 million of them—are changing in profile. Sadly, in the next 10 years that number will diminish and go down to 1.5 million, because we will lose the second world war generation. The television is so important to many of these elderly people, who are on their own and use it for company and so forth; we have heard all the debate about this. I simply ask the BBC to look carefully at this issue. Its contribution to the covenant could be to allow our veterans to continue having that free TV licence. I have written to the BBC but have yet to have a reply; I look forward to receiving something in the post very soon indeed.

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[Nia Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. None of us wants to see any of our serving forces and their families living in substandard accommodation. There are certainly issues to be addressed in respect of Amey and forces housing.

In respect of the future accommodation model, we do not want personnel to be pushed into the private rented sector without any choice. Indeed, a recent Army Families Federation survey demonstrated that, if the availability of the accommodation currently on offer was reduced and a rental allowance offered instead, only 22% of respondents would definitely remain in the Army. The insecurity, variable quality and limited availability of the private rented sector is a concern, and it is not clear how the additional costs of private sector rents would be met.

The armed forces community encompasses not only current and former personnel but their families, who provide a crucial support network to service members and who experience the demands of forces life at first hand. The nature of service life means that many forces families have to move house repeatedly, including to postings abroad. One difficulty that some service families face is finding new schools for their children, especially if they resettle outside the admissions cycle.

A recent Children’s Commissioner for England report highlights how service children are sometimes not placed in the most appropriate school with siblings or other forces children from the same unit, causing further and unnecessary distress. It can help if local authorities have better awareness of the needs of service children. For example, Rhondda Cynon Taf Council has a dedicated education officer who works closely with the families of serving personnel, and with schools, to ensure that the children of service members are supported in their education. The fragmentation of education in England, with admissions in the hands of academies or academy trusts, makes such work more difficult.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one issue that is really difficult for many schools to understand is the impact of Remembrance Day on children whose parents are serving? There might be only one or two children of service personnel in each school, and when children are taught about what may be happening in various areas of conflict, it means something slightly different to those whose parents could be out there. That is why education is so important, as is making sure that the covenant applies.

[Nia Griffith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to make sure that children are properly supported and that a structure is in place within the local authority to ensure that schools are properly educated to understand that.

Obviously, we are very concerned about this fragmentation of education in England, with the academies and academy trusts being a bit of a law unto themselves. What consideration have the Government given to this issue, and what conversations has the Minister had with his colleagues in the Department for Education to try to assist with the admissions process in particular?

The families of Commonwealth personnel, who make an important contribution to our armed forces, experience particular challenges owing to the Government’s minimum income requirements for bringing in spouses or children to this country. We on the Labour Benches believe in scrapping these income requirements so that all personnel are treated equally. I urge the Minister to prevail on colleagues in the Home Office to make that important change.

The nature of the work that our armed forces undertake—keeping us safe and representing us abroad—means that some people will not be in regular contact with service personnel if they do not have friends or relatives who serve. That is why Armed Forces Day is so important. It is an opportunity to say thank you, to show gratitude and appreciation and to commit to supporting our armed forces community the whole year round.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan]

Of course, and people in many professions go back to their old schools and tell the students about their careers. We have seen the mess that has been made of recruitment—the amount of money that has been spent and the poor results—so maybe we should go back to using members of the armed forces as primary recruiters.

At all stages of the recruitment process, recruits should have confidence in its inclusivity of all identities of gender, sexual orientation, race and religion. When considering recruitment, it is important that we are also looking at the labour markets. Who are the military trying to recruit, where are their challenges, and who are they up against when trying to get the very best? If we need to consider the increased use of reservists to ensure that people have skills developed outside the military that can be used inside the military, then that should be done.

Armed forces pay scales reflect an outdated approach. Recruits will start with significantly lower salaries and more distorted pay scales than those in the police or fire services. In July 2018, the MOD announced that personnel will receive a 2% salary increase with an additional one-off payment of 0.9%. However, as the current inflation rate is about 2.2%, the armed forces’ annual rise of just 2% is still below that.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is even worse for those in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, who were not entitled to a pay rise at all, which is why they are currently consulting on an industrial dispute?

[Carol Monaghan]

It is incredible that we treat those personnel as separate when they are actually fundamental to the operations that we engage in.

Giving pay rises that are below the rate of inflation has a negative effect on the forces’ reputation as an employer that nurtures and respects its employees. The Scottish Government have taken a progressive approach towards public sector pay, delivering a guaranteed 3% increase to all those earning below £36,500. We believe that, as a minimum, a similar offer should be made to all armed forces personnel.

Much has been made of the tax bands in Scotland with regard to military personnel. Will the Minister say what are the plans for mitigation for personnel in England who are earning less than £33,000 and are currently being taxed at a higher rate than their counterparts in Scotland? My hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) mentioned an independent representative body similar to a trade union that would help to ensure that the interests of personnel were addressed properly. It would be able to negotiate on pay and conditions, and to look at other structural issues, but unlike normal trade unions it would have no right to organise a strike. Clearly that would undermine the integrity of our armed forces, and we could not allow that to happen. In many cases, a representative body works extremely well—for example, the Danish Reserve Forces Association, which describes itself as a negotiating organisation. It looks at contracts and pay but also provides legal assistance to personnel who need support in cases related to their service in the armed forces. This is something that we need to consider seriously.

Quality accommodation is fundamental to the welfare of personnel and their families. There are major issues with the MOD estate in terms of work space, living accommodation and training facilities, and a lot of it is in old, unsuitable buildings. The current management of the housing estate has provided extremely poor value for money for taxpayers. The performance of CarillionAmey in managing service accommodation has been shockingly poor. We do our personnel a gross disservice in continuing in this manner.

The education of forces children has been mentioned. There are big issues with continuity of education. It is right that we start considering military personnel children as having adverse childhood experiences, because their experiences potentially have an impact on their educational success. In Glasgow, when people fill in their annual update of contact details and other information, there is a tick-box that says, “Are the parents military personnel or veterans?” If the box is ticked, that is highlighted in the young person’s records and allows intervention if required. That is a very simple thing that could be done.

Veterans who have incurred physical injuries during their service should be assured that they will receive a commitment to lifelong specialist medical care. At the moment, these services are primarily led by charities, and we know of many such charities operating in our constituencies and throughout the UK. Stanford Hall was recently opened as a new facility for personnel who have suffered extensive injuries, such as limb loss. It takes over from Headley Court, which was the previous centre, but there is an issue with Stanford Hall: it is mainly for serving personnel, not veterans. It seems ludicrous that we cut people off at that point.

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[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

It is an honour and privilege to speak in this debate, and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham). I find myself in the unenviable position of being the first member of the Defence Committee to speak today, but I see two colleagues in their place: the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) and the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois).

I have the greatest privilege to be the chair of the all-party group on the armed forces covenant and a vice-chair of the all-party group for the armed forces, with responsibility for the “senior service”, the Royal Navy, as I enjoy reminding the First Sea Lord on a regular basis. It is a privilege to be able to talk about how wonderful our armed forces are: those who currently serve and their families who support them day in, day out; and the veteran community and the people we call on to look after them. This is an opportunity that all of us should enjoy.

On Sunday, in my great city, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), there will be our Armed Forces Day parade. It is a wonderful event and I hope they stay in sunshine—not least because Saturday is my birthday. It will be a wonderful event, as it is every year, with hundreds and hundreds of children who will visit—

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

For your birthday!

[Ruth Smeeth]

I am being heckled by my hon. Friend. It is indeed my own birthday party.

What is so wonderful about our Armed Forces Day parade is the intergenerational conversations that happen, with our service personnel, our veterans community and our cadets—sea, air and Army—talking to each other and telling stories. This is what is so important. They are a community and a family, and we need to respect them at every opportunity.

Locally, we are privileged to have our own veterans community, the Tri Services and Veterans Support Centre, which is based in Newcastle-under-Lyme but serves all of North Staffordshire. It is run by Geoff Harriman, who does a huge amount of work for our veterans. It has been established for only three years, but five D-day veterans visit every week for a cup of coffee or tea and a biscuit, and tell their stories. Given recent anniversaries, I feel it is incredibly important that I name them so that they are on the record: Bert Turner, Harry Gould, Jim Wildes, Daniel Harrison and Norman Lewis.

I would like to tell the House the story of Bert Turner. Bert was in Bomber Command and was shot down twice during world war two. He is a D-day veteran. He delivered Paras—I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is in his place—on to the field during D-day. His stories are extraordinary and they are all true. Day in, day out he flew sorties to ensure that we were safe. He gave up his time, even when he was shot down and could probably have taken slightly longer to recover. He got back in a plane to keep fighting with his comrades. He is an inspiration to all of us. He was also one of the people who went to Normandy for the D-day commemorations, and we thank the Royal British Legion and everybody who arranged his transport. His story and others have to inspire the next generation. That is why twice a year with the local cadets in Stoke-on-Trent—I am proud to be their honorary president—we arrange “Vets and Cadets”; we have pie and peas for our veterans and cadets, so that the war stories continue.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I am grateful to my fellow Defence Committee member for giving way. On behalf of the whole House, I wish the hon. Lady a happy 29th birthday, seasonally adjusted. I absolutely commend the initiative that she mentioned. I want to mention another D-day veteran—Reginald Francois, my father—and I am immensely proud of that. She is right that we owe all these men a debt. My father taught me never to take living in a free country for granted. That is why I think “Vets and Cadets” is wonderful, because those who served can teach those who follow them the importance of freedom, and the fact that freedom is not free.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention and, more importantly, I thank his father for his service.

Not only have we had the opportunity to celebrate our D-day veterans, but next year we as a country will be able to enjoy VE-day. This gives the whole country the opportunity to thank everybody who served then, who serves and who will serve, as well as their families and everybody involved. It annoys many of us that we focus on our veterans’ community only on Remembrance weekend and that we are able to ignore them for the rest of the year. We should not. They need our support day in, day out, because let us be honest: they earned it. Many of us in this Chamber believe that we act in public service every day, but the hours that we are away from our families and that we commit to our constituents are nothing compared with what we ask our armed services to do for us in every corner of the planet, without hesitation. If they dare to say, “No,” they are no longer in the armed forces. We thank them and their families, which is why I am adamant that this House should become a covenant employer, as should every Department. They should not just be covered by the Government saying, “But the Government signed up to the covenant.” Every employer in this country should turn that into a reality.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

One of the challenges we have with the covenant and Government Departments is to see in a practical way the well meant and written covenant pledges. An issue being raised with me relates to the Treasury, and the MOD has had to help those serving in Scottish parts with changes to taxation through the Scottish legal system to make sure that they are not disadvantaged by location. Another issue that has appeared is stamp duty tax. For a short time, serving personnel have the ownership of two homes and the Treasury models are not working to support them. Again, that challenge is for the family as much as for the serving personnel. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Treasury perhaps needs to focus a little more closely on its covenant commitment?

[Ruth Smeeth]

I could not agree with the hon. Lady more, as I do on most, if not all, issues. One thing that we miss with those who are currently serving is the burden that is placed on their families, who have to deal with not only the tax burden and costs associated with moving up and down the country but whether they have the right qualifications—if a teacher is suddenly deployed to Lossiemouth, for example, they might not be able to teach. If a member of our serving personnel gets a traffic ticket, their family has to sort it out if they have been deployed. The responsibility for all the small, day-to-day things of living fall on the families who are left behind, male or female, which is why we need to make the covenant real.

My concern about the covenant is that so many people say that they support it but do not know what it means. My wonderful city became a signatory to the covenant five years ago, but none of the people who signed it still holds the post that they held then. Unfortunately, my city has decided that its version of supporting the covenant is resending an RBL email once a quarter. That is not delivering the covenant—yet there are many places that do even worse. We have to make the covenant real. We need an ombudsman—I know that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) supports that—and we need to ensure that the covenant means something to everybody.

Among those who do not understand what the covenant is are those who would be its beneficiaries. They do not know how or when to access help, and do not come to us and ask for it. One of the issues in this House is that too many of our teams do not know how much support is out there for serving personnel. That is why the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and I organised an event in this place two weeks ago, so that our staff could meet people from veterans charities to learn how to get support for our constituents who are veterans when they need it. There are two questions that all of us should ask our constituents when they come to us for help: “Have you ever served in the armed forces?” and “Are you a member of a trade union or trade body?”. We can help them in a way that no one else can if we know those two pieces of information. We have to make sure that they can get the right support, from places as diverse as the charity SSAFA, Veterans UK and even the right part of the NHS. Obviously, in all our constituencies, there are many small veterans charities that can also assist.

I appreciate that many other people wish to speak, but I want to point out that this week is the centenary of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, a wonderful charity that has supported hundreds of thousands of people across the country over the last century. It has chosen to launch a wonderful campaign this week to mark its centenary. It is asking the wider community to identify RAF veterans, because it believes that more than 100,000 RAF veterans are not getting the support that they need, warrant or could do with. It is asking all of us to put those veterans back on the radar, which is appropriate for the RAF. I have today tabled an early-day motion on the subject; I hope that everybody in the Chamber will sign it.

There is nothing more important than ensuring that the people who serve, and served, our country get support from everyone in this place. I thank everybody for their support today.

Veteran Suicide

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will carry on with my story, and explain a bit more about this personal case.

David was let down by the crisis team that turned him away because he was not in its records, and he was let down when a two-hour stand-off with eight police officers and two negotiators did not result in his sectioning for his own safety. He was let down by the home treatment team when it did not respond to 26 phone calls made by his loving wife, and refused to come out to support him. On 9 October 2018, David Jonathon Jukes, a veteran of five conflicts and a hero by anyone’s standards, took his own life. That truly harrowing tale is indicative of many other instances of veterans being passed around by Departments without any kind of tailored approach to their mental health services, and that is why we are here today.

There are about 5 million members of the armed forces community in the UK, and about 15,000 men and women leave service each year. It is important to stress that the majority of those individuals do not experience a decline in mental health upon their transition to civilian life, but we are here to talk about those who do. Last year, 58 veterans took their own life. That is a shocking statistic—but most important, a shocking loss of life.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate. While the official figures state that there were 58 veteran suicides last year, numbers from the third sector and supportive organisations suggest that there were closer to 100, if not more. Is it not the case that one challenge with this issue is that we do not have the data we need to assess the scale of the problem?

[Stephen Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is something I will be coming on to later. This issue transcends party politics, and for me, today’s debate is about cross-party co-operation.

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[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right. There is a stigma around this issue, and it is crucial that we learn from our allies; we can learn a lot from them.

The need for tailored care is exemplified by a survey commissioned by Help for Heroes, which found that nearly 30% of veterans are put off from visiting mental health services on the grounds that they believe civilian services will not understand their needs. Serious funding issues are also hindering the provision of care to veterans: only 0.07% of the £150 billion NHS budget is allocated to veteran-specific funding.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend is so articulately putting forward the findings of the Defence Committee’s report on mental health services and the needs we have. I am interested in the fact that only £10 million of the NHS budget was spent on these issues last year. One of the biggest challenges that Help for Heroes has identified is that the Ministry of Defence has a responsibility to look after veterans for only 12 months after they have left the service, but some veterans are only coming forward with these challenges five years later. Does my hon. Friend agree that the MOD’s responsibility for veterans’ care should continue for five years after they have left the service?

[Stephen Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank her for her valuable contributions to the Defence Committee, which has raised a number of the issues. That figure that I mentioned is less than it costs to buy two Challenger tanks. That is what we are dealing with today. How can we expect to provide care for veterans like Dave when such an insultingly small amount of money is on the table? It is not just funding that is damaging development in this area; we are lagging behind in so many other ways.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Of course our commitment to EU security, European security and working with our NATO colleagues will continue after we have left the EU. That is why we are working on ambitious future arrangements. People know that they can rely on the armed forces of the United Kingdom.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that I am a huge advocate of the combat air strategy, and had the first debate on that in the Chamber. Given that we are about to leave the EU and Team Tempest is so far showing impressive signs of movement, when will we discuss a replacement for the Hawk so that we have a full package and a training aircraft, and can secure the jobs at Brough?

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Lady is right about the future combat air strategy. We are in negotiations and discussions with other partner nations. When it comes to the issues around Hawk, we have done an enormous amount of work to try to get more orders for the Brough site. I recognise how important that is. I have visited Kuwait myself to try to get that order over the line. It is still a work in progress, but I hope that we will be successful.

Carrier Strike Strategy

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

May I correct my friend and colleague, the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts)? Women will be serving on the aircraft carrier, too; it will not just be men.

[Robert Courts]

The hon. Lady is quite right to correct me. I meant “men” in the global sense of “humanity”, but of course I was referring to men and women. I am sorry about that.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Moving on, may I alert the Chamber to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? I am also a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the armed forces, and its lead on the Royal Navy—something that I am incredibly proud, as a woman, to be doing. You are going to get some grief today, my friend.

Let me briefly give my own perspective on some issues that have been already been addressed. The Queen Elizabeth class is exquisite: its ships are beautiful and will be a wonderful addition to our Royal Navy, as long as we ensure that we have enough crew to staff them—I will not say “man” them. The people who will serve on those platforms are incredibly important and we face challenges in recruiting them, but today I wish to speak about the wider military family, because the people who make the platforms are just as important for our national security.

Our capacity to continue to be a tier 1 military country depends on having a wider military-industrial complex to build our national security capabilities. Whenever I visit Rosyth shipyard or other defence establishments, I am always struck not only by people’s professionalism, but by their dedication. As the Minister knows, they build our ships because they know that their friends and family may well serve on them. It is important that they know that they are doing a perfect job to ensure that the best possible platforms are afforded to our service personnel—the best in the world for the Royal Navy.

The Queen Elizabeth class is an extraordinary feat of engineering. Some 11,000 people in six shipyards have touched the pieces of metal that were used to build its extraordinary capabilities. The platform represents £6.2 billion of capacity and equipment, not counting the F-35s that will be on it, or even the tableware that our service personnel will eat off; as MP for the Potteries, I am sure that the Minister will reassure me that the tableware will be purchased from my constituency. Please, Minister—give me a nod.

I want to consider the aircraft carrier in the widest possible context, because it demonstrates the challenges that we face in the sector, not only in procurement for the carrier itself, but in securing the carrier strike group over the longer term. It has been 12 years since 2007, when the then Secretary of State signed off the paperwork for the aircraft carrier and finally launched the programme to start the process of building it. Flight trials are happening this year. Even from the moment we agreed to build, it took us 12 years to get to this point, but prior to that there was a decade of debating, designing and determining the concept of our future aircraft carrier.

The project has challenged our shipyards. It has challenged us on whether we have the resources, the skillset and the domestic sovereign capability to build the platform. During the lifespan of the Queen Elizabeth class, we will have to replace the Astute programme and update and replace the Type 45. We will also have to replace the Type 23 with the Type 26, and then start talking about the Type 26’s replacement—all in the lifetime of this capability. By that point, we may even have seen one Type 31e.

Just ensuring strike group capability for the Queen Elizabeth class requires a long-term plan for procurement, so my urge, demand and request to the lovely Minister is that we look at the longer term. We need to consider the steady drumbeat of orders needed for our domestic industry to deliver the long-term capabilities that we require. We are still not sure how many fleet solid support ships we will actually get—we could probably do with three.

We should recognise how fabulous these platforms will be and what is required for their use, both from a military perspective and from one of diplomatic and soft power. We should also remember the people who made them: our constituents up and down the country. My constituency could not be more landlocked, but my constituents helped to contribute to the Astute class and the Dreadnought class. This is a national programme, with national consequences, making a national contribution to our GDP. I urge the Minister to give me my steady drumbeat of orders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate led by the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who gave an excellent introduction. He set out the history of carrier strike capability in the UK with aplomb, and spoke highly of our capability and future opportunity, which was fantastic.

[Sir Graham Brady in the Chair]

I share the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), who raised issues about industrial capability. I speak with a degree of interest: I think I am the only Member who was actually involved in the design and construction of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers in Glasgow. Let me mention one of the most striking aspects of being involved in the project. When I first started as a graduate at BAE Systems, the chief engineer gave us a briefing on the Queen Elizabeth class and talked about the complexity of the project. One thing he said really struck home; he put up an aerial photograph of RAF Lossiemouth and said, “You’re looking at 5.6 million square metres of real estate. We have to condense the same number of aircraft movements into 0.3% of the space. That’s how we deliver the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier.”

That shows just how complex the delivery of an aircraft carrier is; an airfield is being compacted into 0.3% of the usual space, and we are trying to deliver the same intensity of operations at sea in all weather conditions. That is why, in a nutshell, an aircraft carrier is such a complex project. It is probably among the top five most complex engineering projects ever undertaken by mankind. It is a great testament to British engineering that we have been able to achieve this capability, despite the challenges posed by the inconsistent construction runs and feast-and-famine orders that have plagued our shipbuilding industry for decades. I think that is what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North hinted at, as did the hon. Member for Witney. He talked about the bad decisions made in the 1960s. An example is the cancellation of the CVA-01 aircraft carrier project, which was intended to be called HMS Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth—we got there only 40 years later. The TSR2 strategic bomber was also cancelled at that time.

It seems that history has a habit of repeating itself. I lament the very poor decisions made in the 2010 strategic defence and security review, which destroyed the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft. That is now recognised as a failure of judgment, and we are trying to replicate what we had, but with the loss of British sovereign capability to build large fixed-wing aircraft like the Nimrod. Looking at the failure to adapt our shipbuilding capabilities for the long term, I fear that the national shipbuilding strategy has a series of flaws that we have to be aware of.

On the construction of the aircraft carrier, there was real difficulty getting match-fit again in order to deal with the scale of the project. That is largely what I was concerned about in Govan. I have a photograph of me standing in bay 1 of the ship block and outfit hall at Govan as lower block 4 was being transferred out of that hall and on to a barge in order be taken to Rosyth. The size and beam of the aircraft carrier was dictated by the fact that the shipyard was built by a Norwegian company to build gas tankers in the late 1980s and 1990s. The width of the aircraft carrier was determined by the size of the hall. We were building it in a shipyard that was never designed or constructed to build an aircraft carrier—the whole structure of the carrier was designed around our industrial limitations.

It feels like we have not learned from the mistakes made and the constraints imposed by industry in this project, which is why we have not really looked at how the national shipbuilding strategy is getting us to upper-quartile performance in world shipbuilding. That is a glaring omission from the document. I hope that the work of the all-parliamentary group on shipbuilding and ship repair, which is bringing forward a review of the national shipbuilding strategy in the next few weeks, will offer constructive and positive suggestions of how we can improve that strategy. It is critical that we get this right.

Looking at the threat to the shipbuilding industry, in Glasgow, 2,723 people are supported on a full-time-equivalent basis by the shipbuilding industry. It supports an additional 3,220 jobs in Scotland, which speaks to the scale of the aircraft carrier project. It supported 8,000 shipyard workers in—I make a slight correction here—eight shipyards. If Scotstoun and Govan are included as separate, distinct shipyards, there are eight. Never confuse Govan and Scotstoun as a single shipyard—that is a fatal error in Glasgow.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I think my hon. Friend might want to raise this issue with the Minister, because that the data available on the Royal Navy website says otherwise.

[Mr Sweeney]

We must correct the Ministry of Defence; otherwise, some fairly indignant Glaswegians will be coming to bang on its door.

The issue goes back to the drumbeat of orders, and stability in the order book. I used to sit with colleagues in the shipyard and we would look at resource planning. We would plug in different projects and see the curve of labour demand over the next 10 to 15 years. We knew that redundancies or contractions would have to be made at some point, because the loading of the shipyard’s work programme was not smoothed; there was failure by the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury—in terms of financing projects—and the industry to co-ordinate properly to ensure as stable and smooth a curve as possible. That kind of curve would have delivered learning-curve benefits, industrial efficiency and the confidence to invest in world-class infrastructure and processes, and would create a virtuous cycle that delivers a world-class, competitive edge that would mean we could sell ships around the world at a competitive price, and deliver a sustainable and growing shipbuilding industry.

If we can optimise that equation, we will be in a good place, but I fear that the national shipbuilding strategy will not address that issue. One of the symptoms is the Type 31e. It is a laudable aspiration, but the reality is that we are committing the same mistake time and again. We are going to year zero and designing and building a new platform from scratch every time. That is a total failure to understand how industry works. The Americans have been building the same class for the last 30 years, with incremental improvements to the same platform. We need to work to that sort of concept. There is no reason why we cannot adapt the Type 45 and Type 26 hulls for a number of different uses. Building the ship as a raw steel box is only about 8% of the overall capital cost; it is how it is fitted out that drives the cost into the platform. If we can get a standardised, basic ship type for each type of ship needed for the Royal Navy, we can drive efficiency into the programmes, get more hulls into the water, and build a rigorous, carrier strike battle group around the Queen Elizabeth class, which would allow us to get the bulk back into the Royal Navy.

I have spoken to the Royal Navy, which says it has 19 escorts, but it needs 24 to meet all its planning needs. The Navy needs to bridge that gap, but how will we do it? There is no explanation of how that is happening. I would say that we need another 24 plus. We had 32 escorts as recently as 20 years ago. How do we get back to that situation? I do not think that Type 31s will solve that problem. How do we fix that issue? It is not just about looking at the aircraft carriers, which is a fantastic class of ship in isolation; it is about how we build that resilience into the carrier strike battle group. If we do not get a correct and efficient escort proposition, we will not meet that need. That goes back to getting our industrial capability correct—something that is not being addressed by the national shipbuilding strategy.

Another symptom of the problem is the fleet solid support ships competition. If you ask me, it is absolutely insane even to entertain the idea of an international competition for this, because it belies any understanding of how to drive value into the project. Looking at the fleet solid support ships, 6,700 jobs will be created or secured, including 1,800 shipyard jobs and 450 apprenticeships. Some £272 million will be recycled back into the UK economy through wages and supply of payments to the Treasury. Those figures must be weighted in the judgment for the UK bid on fleet solid support ships, and they must be weighted into the need to sustain the critical mass of industrial capability that the aircraft carrier left as a legacy at Rosyth.

In the next few years, we are potentially looking at over 1,000 job losses across the Babcock group, and at the closure of Appledore, which built the bulbous bows for the aircraft carrier. There are huge industrial capabilities at risk. Look at the Rugby site, which builds electric motors for the integrated electric propulsion system for the Type 45 and the aircraft carrier—one of the most fantastic industrial achievements of the UK. That is at risk again; General Electric proposes closing that strategically important site. These things need to be gripped by the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury, because we are losing a war of attrition on our industrial capability in the shipbuilding industry.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I want to touch on the capability that we are losing from General Electric. We have already lost one of the capabilities, which was in Kidsgrove in my constituency. We were given assurances that the capability would be sustainable long term after its redeployment to Rugby and Stafford, yet we are losing it. Industry is just not supporting us in the right way if that is not part of the sovereign skills capability and it knows there is a steady drumbeat of orders.

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is critical that we look not just at the first-tier equipment manufacturers, such as BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, in which the Government have golden shares and can direct operational decision making to an extent, but at the second and third-tier supply chains. After all, 3,000 people involved in the aircraft carrier project were in the supply chains. We need to look at the industrial capabilities that are critical to maintaining sovereign capability. It is clear that General Electric has made an operational decision to move that capability to France. That is not in the British national interest, so we need to make it clear that we will not accept that. It is as simple as that. It is the Government’s duty to make that case and use whatever leverage is required to make General Electric change its mind. The Government are there to correct negative market decisions, and that is what needs to happen to sustain our industrial capability.

My vision is of a better national shipbuilding strategy that looks to the future and the capabilities that we need to sustain, and ensures that we have a long-term capital investment proposition with the Treasury that reflects the complexity and long-term nature of shipbuilding programmes, finances them properly on a multi-year, generational basis, and invests in the capital infrastructure that is required to get our shipyards match-fit. It is a great tragedy that the world-class shipbuilding capability on the Clyde has not been realised, and that we are still building Type 26s in the same old hall built by a Norwegian company for gas tankers in the 1980s. It has served us well, but when the business case was made for building that hall in the 1980s, we sure as hell did not think we would be building aircraft carriers and Type 26 frigates in it.

This is about not just the narrow business case of one programme and the investment for building Type 26s in the shipyard, but all the other ships that will follow in its wake. This is a 50 to 60-year capital investment programme. The industrial benefit of doing that is enormous, and the Ministry of Defence has not addressed it. I hope the Minister will address that point, because it is crucial that we start to think about this in those terms. The silo mentality about projects does not serve our defence industrial capability. We need a much broader view and much more integration to secure our skills base. We must infuse our ageing shipbuilding workforce with more apprentices. We need sustainable training programmes and a stable demand pipeline through programmes such as the fleet solid support ships, which should be plugged in to take up the slack that has come from the downscaling of the aircraft carrier programme.

Similarly, why are we not planning for a proper replacement for HMC Ocean, rather than retrofitting merchant vessels? That is a rather foolish and superficial way of doing it. Let us build a new helicopter landing platform, a replacement for the Albion class and a world-class shipyard that is able to deliver them. That is what we need to do to pull all this together and realise the industrial legacy of the Queen Elizabeth-class programme, which was an exemplar of British engineering. It was a truly world-class, world-leading programme. We talk about building the space shuttle and the international space station, but the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier is up there with the most complex engineering projects ever undertaken by the human race. We should have a great national celebration of that achievement. Let us make the most of the legacy.

A Better Defence Estate

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I am sure that Treasury Ministers are glued to the monitors as we speak. My hon. Friend is right—everybody knows that I am very much in favour of collective responsibility and not speaking outside my brief, but I would not be doing my job in the forthcoming defence spending review if I did not mention the pressures on defence spending. The first line of the strategic defence and security review states that our economic security is dependent on our defence, and if we do not get our defence right we will have no economy or future prosperity. It is important that we continue to invest in security for air, sea and land, as well as in the new dimension of space and cyber-security.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that I have grave reservations about the consolidation of the estate, not least because it could take a military family away from other communities across the country. That presents challenges in recruitment and in the general understanding of the military. How is the Minister engaging with communities and the wider military family, given that we have delayed some of these proposals yet again and are just providing more uncertainty?

[Mr Ellwood]

First, I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the detail and energy with which she pursues these matters. It is important that we scrutinise these issues carefully. As I have said, there is huge engagement, not just with unions and so forth, but with other stakeholders, including the families federations. Operational requirements are hugely important, but we must also recognise the impact on local communities. We are moving towards more of a hub perspective so that we can consolidate our assets, save funds and liberate spaces for the necessary housing commitments, but we should not lose sight of what we are offering and of the need to ensure that it is practical and welcoming so that it encourages the next generation to step forward. I was privileged to speak in front of her all-party group on the armed forces covenant a few days ago, and I would be delighted to sit down with her and discuss these matters in more detail.

Modernising Defence Programme

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The first is to make sure that we develop both the technologies and capabilities where we see our adversaries moving so quickly. That may be artificial intelligence or autonomous vehicles. Secondly, it is to make sure that our forces are properly ready and able to have a much better forward presence right around the globe. We want to use our armed forces as a deterrent against our adversaries so they can see that we are willing and able to act if and when it is required. Thirdly, it is to make sure that we look after the service personnel who make up our armed forces and that we put in the right investment to make sure that they are properly supported in doing the amazing job that they do in defending our country.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

This has been a supposedly urgent and immediate review, which has taken over 12 months. It has dismissed the strategic defence and security review and we have been waiting for proper decisions to be made, yet we have seen none today. Will the Secretary of State confirm that what we are now waiting for is the CSR next year?

[Gavin Williamson]

What we would agree with is that the SDSR 2015 clearly identified the challenges that this country faces, but we also recognise that our adversaries are investing in new technology, so we have put in place the ability for us to start investing more money in those technologies. The hon. Lady rightly points out that the comprehensive spending review is going to be very important to the Department to make sure that we get the right investment going forward.

Veterans Strategy

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The whole House, indeed the nation, is indebted to the efforts of Prince Harry, who once again was able to come to the games, which are his creation. The Invictus Games Foundation has now got into a steady drumbeat of bringing together people from across the world every second year, and I am pleased to say that we will now hold a domestic event in the interim years, which again is all about bringing together and supporting those, whether they are in the armed forces or are veterans, who need to be given support to move forward. This has been hugely successful.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

On Monday I had the privilege of launching the “Walking Home for Christmas” campaign with Invictus games medallists. The campaign, with Help for Heroes and Walking with the Wounded, is targeted at veterans whom we struggle to support over the Christmas period, when they are at their most vulnerable. Does the Minister agree that it is at this point that we need to honour the covenant and make sure that we not only respect those who served during world war one and world war two but now remember those who served more recently?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. The Ministry of Defence works with Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion on making the Invictus games a reality and in pushing forward Prince Harry’s vision.

The hon. Lady is also right to illustrate the changing requirements of our veterans. The profile will change. Over the next 10 years, the numbers will move from 2.5 million to 1.5 million, and many of the latter will be veterans from the Afghan and Iraq campaigns. Indeed, they do not even call themselves veterans, which is interesting—they see themselves as ex-forces, leaving the veteran label to national service and second world war personnel. Either way, she is right that that support should be there.

None of this was in place when I departed the regular forces. I do not mean to say that we have got it right—it is a moving force that morphs as we develop—but I am pleased that we have the building blocks to advance our support for veterans. The 10-year strategy is based on the covenant, which the hon. Lady mentioned. The covenant is often raised in Parliament, and it is the nation’s commitment to making sure that anybody who has served is not hindered by their service or held back because of what they have done. That message needs to go out to every single Department, not just those in and around the MOD. It can be tricky for a Department that perhaps is not military facing to be aware of its responsibilities to veterans and armed forces personnel.

Our second pillar of support is the veterans board, chaired by the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister, which brings together the Secretaries of State of the various Departments so that local government is held to account. I encourage every Member of Parliament to visit their local authority and ask, “Who is your veterans champion? Who is the person who will help to challenge or deal with matters of homelessness and housing?” The veterans champion will be the focal point in their area.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I met a veteran earlier this week who went to his local authority to say that he was homeless and needed support. He had been out of service for four months, and he was told that there were others in the queue who were more relevant, including refugees who had just arrived. He ended up homeless and was supported by Help for Heroes. Does that not suggest that local government is still not fulfilling its obligations under the covenant?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point. First, let me say that screening does take place; medicals are done to make sure that people are fit for service. He touches on a science that is still evolving, and which I have only just started to learn about. Someone who is subject to a blast injury might stand up and walk away from it, but be unaware that their DNA has been shunted in some way that could have long-term impacts. We are still coming to terms with recognising that, and we need to advance our understanding of it. The Royal Foundation, which is supported by Prince Harry and Prince William, is providing funding for us to look into this and get a better understanding of what is happening. That goes along with our studies with the Forces in Mind Trust. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight something that understanding brain injuries is pivotal, particularly if they happen prior to someone’s signing up or on the battlefield.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Is the Minister aware that Blind Veterans UK has initiated some research in this area to see what the difference is between PTSD and brain injury?

[Mr Ellwood]

We could almost have our own debate on this issue, first because of its importance and secondly because we are talking about exactly the sort of advancement we need to undertake to look after and care for our veterans.

Let me move from the detail and step back to the wider support we provide to our armed forces. I have mentioned the armed forces covenant as the overall policy and the Veterans Board getting Departments working together. We also have the gateway, and Cobseo, the Confederation of Service Charities, is doing a far better job of bringing together like-minded charities to work together. They are now working on cluster lines, so the employment cluster is bringing the relevant charities together and the same is happening for housing and mental health. They are doing far better work in co-ordinating their activities, as has been touched on.

Another strand or building block, which we have sort of skirted over so far, is our entire mental health strategy. I look back at my own time serving, when even a mention of any form of mental injury was a no-no; people did not raise it whatsoever, not just in the armed forces but in society. We are now seeing a far more open-minded approach to this issue, whereby people are putting their hand up and saying, “Yes, I have had a problem with this.” If people do that at an early stage, help can be brought in and it can prevent problems from incubating.

Our new approach is encouraging parity between physical and mental injury, so that we promote better practice and tackle the stigma attached to mental health, which helps prevention in the first place. We are also getting better at detection. Whether someone is a platoon commander or a ship commander, they are encouraging people to step forward and look out for mental ill health, and then the individual involved or a friend of theirs may put their hand up. We are saying, “Put your hand up, get yourself checked out. It is okay to do so. It is okay to say you are not okay. Get it treated. Get it sorted. Get yourself back on the frontline, without fear that you are going to be affected in your promotion or long-term prospects in the armed forces.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He will be aware of recent work being carried out by the Ministry of Defence through a medical symposium to try to tackle these very issues. Sometimes, some of the medical reasons for not joining are frankly quite archaic. To give a brief example, if someone has had childhood asthma, they cannot join even if they no longer have it, even though the chances are that it will not return until that person is probably in their 50s, when, of course, 99% of service personnel will have left.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Minister is celebrating current recruitment levels. Will he explain why the Scots Guards is currently under-recruited by 36%?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am not celebrating current recruitment levels. What I am saying is that we are all aware of the challenges facing the defence recruiting system some months ago, but given that this is a long pipeline, I am confident that the hopper at the start of that process, which can take up to a year, is now at a five-year high. I hope and I am confident that we will then see that slowly come through the system, which will result in an increase in the number of our service personnel.