Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Wallace and Holly Lynch

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

T7. The transition to the new NATO force model must be complete by this year. Can the Secretary of State update the House on how prepared the UK is for more capability at greater readiness, so that we can continue to play our leading role in NATO?

[Mr Wallace]

The Supreme Allied Commander Europe recently issued his regional plans, which extend to 3,000 pages of detailed proposals for the defence of Europe. From that will stem a donation conference at which all the member states will present their contributions to the plans. Within that, we will develop the new force model that will contribute to the new force structure of NATO. Once we have got through that period of the next few months, we will be able to tell the House exactly what we have put forward, how ready it is, and whether it meets the ask of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Ukraine

Debate between Ben Wallace and Holly Lynch

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Yes. The operation we run to teach Ukrainians, with bases in Cumbria, Yorkshire, Wiltshire and down at Lydd, started life as a three-week course. It is now over five weeks and is fully equipped. Our forces and international forces are now learning from Ukrainians, because a number of their directing staff who return have been on the frontline. I had a conversation with a platoon commander who had himself used British NLAWs to destroy two Russian tanks. We are learning from each other about what to do, which is incredibly important for our resilience and our future. It also helps to refine the course. We are now teaching Ukrainian non-commissioned officers: we are doing an NCO course to ensure that we develop their junior leadership, too.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

The Royal United Services Institute has confirmed that component parts from the UK are appearing in Russian weaponry. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the Government are looking at further sanctions, much like those announced by the US in October, to prevent both Russia and, for the reasons he outlined, Iran from being able to use UK components in their weaponry being used in Ukraine?

[Mr Wallace]

It is an incredibly important point that time and time again we see international components. I noticed that in some of the Iranian drones there were, I think, 28 components that came from the United States, all through smuggling, illicit means or dual use issues. One job our intelligence services have is monitoring and trying to understand supply chains, to find when covert agencies or covert agents of Russia, Iran or others are out trying to buy them, and ensure that we frustrate them. That is easier said than done in a world where highly complex supply chains exist—indeed, you can do anything on the internet and DHL will deliver it in 24 hours to a third country—but it is a really important part of our vulnerability in the west. Our intellectual property can be stolen and we have to do more to keep an eye on it. We have done quite a lot more recently, but this is a timely reminder of what we are finding inside Russian equipment.

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Debate between Ben Wallace and Holly Lynch

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I absolutely will support any request from the Welsh Government to increase vaccination delivery to people in Wales.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab) [V]]

I have had very positive feedback from Calderdale Council on the support from military planners, which has been incredibly welcome. However, the biggest challenge for planning ahead has been the intermittent supply of vaccines. Will the Secretary of State assure us that he is working closely with public health colleagues to align supply of the vaccine with the deployment of military resources, in order to get as many doses out as quickly as possible?

[Mr Wallace]

Yes; vaccine delivery or actually jabbing into people has increased on a daily basis and is consistently increasing towards meeting the Prime Minister’s target of the middle of February. The hon. Lady will know that in Yorkshire and Humberside we have four planners in South Yorkshire, four in Humber, five in West Yorkshire, 86 personnel supporting community testing in Kirklees, and one environmental health officer supporting the South Yorkshire region as a whole.

Police Funding

Debate between Ben Wallace and Holly Lynch

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this important debate. West Yorkshire police is the fourth largest force in the country and, as I have outlined many times before, it is facing new types of crime as well as old types of crime. However, a 35% reduction in funding since 2010 has resulted in almost 2,000 fewer officers and members of staff, which represents a reduction of 20% of the force.

To give the House a sense of the pressures facing the force, on any one day in West Yorkshire there is one police officer on duty for every 2,097 members of the public. On average, the force will make 136 arrests every day, with a staggering 43 of those related to domestic violence. They will attend 38 house burglaries, 44 thefts from vehicles, 16 thefts of vehicles, four serious violent crimes, seven robberies, 57 assaults, 17 sexual offences and 159 incidents of antisocial behaviour, and deal with 141 incidents of domestic abuse in total. Non-recent child sexual exploitation and abuse investigations now account for 33% of all investigations within West Yorkshire police. A third of all the investigative capacity in the force is dealing with non-recent CSE. There were 184 offences relating to modern-day slavery in 2016, compared with just 19 three years ago.

Firearms will be the main focus of my speech today. There has been a particularly disturbing increase in the discharge of firearms in West Yorkshire over the past two years, with firearms predominantly being used by organised criminal gangs as a means of resolving disputes and of intimidating rivals and innocent members of the public alike. Members will not need me to remind them that it was a firearm that facilitated the murder of our friend and colleague Jo Cox by the right-wing extremist Thomas Mair. Sadly, we are no strangers to extremism in West Yorkshire, with several Prevent priority areas presenting a continuously evolving threat for the Police to assess and manage.

For all the great things about West Yorkshire, the prevalence of extreme ideology and violent and organised crime means that our firearms capabilities are incredibly important. As the shadow Minister said in her exceptional opening speech, the Government announcement in April 2016 that they were setting aside £143 million of funding in order to hire an extra 1,000 armed officers by spring 2018 was welcome and would have reversed the effects of the 1,000 armed officers lost between 2010 and 2016. However, only 650 of those officers have been recruited so far.

I want to ask the Minister specifically about the inter-operability of authorised firearms officers and about variations in the duration and the type of training they receive. With the exception of counter-terrorist specialist firearms officers, who train for much longer, I am aware that the length of training of firearms officers to meet armed response vehicle standards varies between 10 and 12 weeks in different forces, but it is accredited by the College of Policing. However, the requirements for other firearms officers, such as Ministry of Defence police or diplomatic protection officers, are different, and they may train for in the region of four weeks to meet different standards.

If the threat level increases to critical and we deploy Operation Temperer, and all AFOs—authorised firearms officers—with significant variations in training and experience are redeployed all over the country, how do we manage their interoperability? Of the around 6,250 authorised firearms officers in the UK, what proportion are trained to ARV standards and what proportion do not meet that standard? In the event of Operation Temperer being deployed, I fear that some firearms officers could find themselves in situations for which they have not trained. As the uplift is proving slower to deliver than expected, would it not make sense to ensure that all AFOs are trained to ARV standards to have confidence in that benchmark and in the interoperability of armed officers?

[Mr Wallace]

I would be pleased to answer those specific questions. As for the ARV part of the uplift, we are over and above the original plans, so we are above target and the process is now complete. For the CTSFOs, which is the higher standard—I have been to visit Wakefield, where they do some of their training—the importance of that role is that they have to be so specialised that there is a high failure rate. We must ensure that we maintain standards, but we are on track to fulfil that requirement at the same time.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to the Minister. I am looking to uplift that basic standard, so that all our firearms officers meet a threshold and that we have faith in the basic training.

Finally, the Policing Minister will be well aware—other hon. Members may not be—that we are running into a number of challenges and differences of opinion in relation to the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill or “Protect the Protectors” Bill, which will be back for its Report and Third Reading on 27 April. From my experiences of shadowing the front line and of the brilliant police parliamentary scheme, which I would recommend to all colleagues, I have felt the increased vulnerability that comes when officers are regularly single-crewed; there are simply fewer of them and risks come with that. Over the course of the campaign and the Bill’s journey through Parliament, it has enjoyed cross-party support, as we all share a sense of outrage at seeing emergency service workers spat at, attacked or assaulted.

I have shared horror stories in this Chamber on several occasions about emergency service workers having been spat at and about the anxiety of having to wait for test results, take antiviral treatments as a precaution and, on occasion, adhere to restrictions about interacting with close family and friends based on advice given by medical professionals. The Bill’s purpose is to alleviate those fears for 999 and NHS workers, wherever and however we can, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has done sterling work leading on the Bill, and I are open to any and all means of getting there. I therefore ask the Policing Minister to continue to engage with us and other MPs to keep that dialogue going between now and 27 April, as we seek to do right by those dedicated emergency service workers, who have high expectations of this Bill, in order to protect them from the vile act of being spat at and the anxiety that follows.