Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Iranian armed forces have a significant capability. We do not, at the moment, advocate a military solution to this crisis. We advocate a solution based on pressure and engagement, and on persuading the Iranians to engage with the legitimate concerns of the international community. Should the situation evolve, it is certain that, if the UK took part in any action, it would do so as part of an international coalition.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The ramifications of any military action against Iran are enormously unpredictable, not only for our forces in the middle east but for the wider region, so I am glad to hear the Secretary of State confirm that our main thrust is diplomacy. Although we are enormously worried about Iran’s intentions, I hope he can tell the House that we will do everything we can to avoid any military dimension.

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Because of the strategic position occupied by Iran and the vital nature of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s economy—oil supplies transit that waterway—any action, or even suggestion of action, will be deeply destabilising and debilitating. We remain committed to the process of engagement with our European allies and others, which includes the use of economic and financial sanctions to bring pressure to bear on the Iranian regime. There is very significant evidence, particularly the declining value of the Iranian currency, to suggest that such sanctions are beginning to have an effect and to cause fracture within the Iranian leadership.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Contrary to a lot of the noises off that we have been hearing, most people visiting the Olympic games and most people living in London will be hugely reassured by the presence of our armed forces. They bring resilience and reliability to the security arrangements. When a soldier is scheduled to be at place A at time B, you can bet your bottom dollar that he will be there.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

What will be the effect of the ludicrously last-minute commitment for our armed forces on post-operative leave entitlement for those returning from Afghanistan?

[Mr Hammond]

I have answered that question in the House before. People who came back from Afghanistan in April will have had their post-operational leave scheduled. It is possible that some people who have post-operational leave scheduled for the period of July and August will be asked to reschedule it. However, I can confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that everyone will receive their full entitlement of post-operational leave, or any other kind of leave, and that people who have to change their personal arrangements and incur any financial loss as a consequence will be fully reimbursed for that loss.

Defence Reform

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. Let me quote from the evidence given to the Select Committee by the former Secretary of State. In response to a question from a Member, he said:

“There is a huge ability to reduce a very large proportion of that. My guess is that of that £38 billion we are talking of something like £8 billion to £9 billion, and that is a ballpark figure.”

During that evidence session, he gave a commitment to the Select Committee Chair that he would write giving details of how he arrived at that figure, but he did not. The Committee was still waiting for that information when the report was produced, but it did not appear. I heard one of the Government Front Benchers scoff when I said that certain things move in and out of budget, but they clearly do. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is right: the Government racked up everything in the programme over a 10-year period and assumed that it would all be delivered. That is similar to the argument used about pension black holes, the assumption being that all the money is paid out, today. That is not the way the defence procurement budget is structured.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Government obviously intend to keep the myth going, and who could blame them for that? However, can my hon. Friend explain how, on two separate occasions—we should remember that this Government have only been in power for a little over two years—two separate Secretaries of State can have claimed that the £38 billion gap has already gone and that the budget is now in balance? If the imbalance was as large as they alleged, how on earth have two separate Secretaries of State been able to claim within two years that the budget is in balance already?

[Mr Jones]

My right hon. Friend, like me, knows the MOD budget very well. Clearly, what the Government have done is to take out in-year capability. We should also remember the reductions in armed forces personnel—the people who are paying for some of this. My right hon. Friend is correct: the idea that such a big black hole can be filled in two years is complete nonsense. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), says that it is 10 years, but that is not the impression the Government have been giving. All their decisions, such as slashing personnel numbers, are predicated on this £38 billion black hole. Earlier last year, the previous Secretary of State stopped using that figure—for a while. Suddenly, under the new Secretary of State, it has come back. The Government have got to explain their use of it, because it is the entire raison d’être for some of the cuts they are making.

Carrier Strike Capability

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We inherited this programme, and frankly I am not interested in trading insults with the Opposition about what happened in the past. What I need to do now is take the carriers that are in build and that are being built under a contract that makes it more expensive to cancel them than to complete them, and put them to the best possible military use for the defence of this country.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has taken, and is announcing, the right decision today, and I understand how difficult it is to perform that kind of U-turn and how uncomfortable it must be. But I cannot go along with him on the excuse—the reason—that both he and the Prime Minister decided to give for that decision. That is that the facts have changed and therefore we are changing the decision.

I reviewed this decision, taken by my predecessors. The fundamental facts were there at the time and have not changed. We have been up an extremely expensive cul-de-sac for the last 18 months as a result of a shambles of an SDSR, and I can only congratulate the Secretary of State on bringing some sanity to it; but he ought to understand the problem that he will give himself in sorting out procurement work—which, yes, is problematic and was in our time—if he cannot find a way of being straight about why the decision is being taken and the fact that the previous decision was taken in the face of clear advice to the contrary.

[Mr Hammond]

I refute that last comment absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman is in a better position than many in the House to understand the complexities and the challenges of defence procurement, but to say that the facts have not changed is simply wrong. The risk profile of the STOVL aircraft is dramatically different now from what it was in 2010, when there was a very real risk that the variant would be cancelled. The cost estimates for fitting the EMAL system, and the understanding of the complexity of that task, have matured through the work that we have done since the SDSR. Although I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s endorsement of the substantive decision, he is simply wrong when he says the facts have not changed.

Hostage Rescue Operation (Nigeria)

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. The judgment was that, first because of the apprehension of members of the group earlier in the week and secondly because of the presence of significant numbers of Nigerian troops not very far from the compound in question, it would be taking too great a risk to defer the operation. The military judgment was that despite the risks involved, there was a greater chance of rescuing the hostages alive by acting immediately.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

These are always the most difficult decisions to take. Our condolences must go to the families of the two men, and our profound thanks must go to our special forces, who acquire and are then prepared to use skill and bravery to carry out operations of this kind. We must be enormously grateful to them for doing so.

May I return to the issue of the unfortunate discord between us and the Italian Government? Is the Secretary of State able or prepared to say anything that would explain some of the complexities that would arise from a nation’s attempts to embed another in the kind of decisions that would be necessary to keep them completely and absolutely as one in such circumstances?

[Mr Hammond]

I think it fair to say that throughout the long months of captivity there were very good and full discussions and exchanges of views with the Italians, and that they understood very clearly our direction of travel and the way in which we sought to advance our understanding of the situation and then bring it to a close. The circumstances that arose on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning represented an accelerated closing of a time window which simply made it impossible to consult as fully as one might ideally have liked. I am assured that information was continually being transmitted between intelligence agencies, as is the norm between allied agencies, but that there was not enough time for the discussions at Government-to-Government level that we might have had if a further day, or even 12 hours, had been available to us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Howarth]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for that extremely helpful and gallant question. If I may say so, looking at the shadow Secretary of State, that was a scheme set up by the current Opposition, who were then in government. It was a three-year scheme. They believed in performance-related pay and so do we.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

There is a belief in industry that we will lose at least 30,000 jobs in the defence sector over the coming period. Although people in that sector applaud the Government’s stated export support, they fear that it has no substance if it is not backed up by a strategy, no matter what title the Government choose to use for that. There is not a free market. If the Government do not develop some kind of defence strategy, other nations will gain at our expense, as they are potentially doing in India with a product inferior to that which we have to offer. Will the Government think about the need for some kind of defence strategy, which they clearly do not have, despite what they say?

[Mr Howarth]

It is pretty rich for a former Labour Secretary of State for Defence to criticise us when his Government did not have a defence review for 13 years. We have undertaken that defence review and indicated that we have a strong policy of support to industry. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), has set out his White Paper in which we support British industry. This Government, led by the Prime Minister, have done more than any previous Labour Government to support British defence exports. That is a strategy. The 16 visits that I have made overseas are beginning to bear results. Just to give one example, BAE has sold three offshore patrol vessels to Brazil.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The trajectory of the force draw-down to the end of 2014 will be determined by the evolution of events on the ground. No prior decision has been taken about the pattern of that draw-down other than that 500 troops will come out next year, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has announced.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It was widely reported in the press that the Secretary of State had proposed to the National Security Council a draw-down that was accelerated beyond that originally envisaged. Will he tell us what the time scale for decision making is in Afghanistan? I agree with him that this is a very complex theatre of operations, and we have an absolute duty to make things as right as we can as we exit from our combat mission in Afghanistan.

[Mr Hammond]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the National Security Council discussed strategy on Afghanistan last week and a number of different scenarios were considered. It is clear that we must have regard to the decisions that the United States has yet to make about the pattern of its force draw-down. We will want to look again at this issue once it is clear how and when the United States will draw down its forces, but we have made no fixed commitments, other than to reduce the force level by 500 next year and to be out of the combat role by the end of 2014.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am happy to join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to British servicemen and women for their work in training and mentoring Afghan national security forces on the job. Looking forward, the Prime Minister has made a commitment that Britain will take the lead role in the Afghan national officer training academy, which will be established just outside Kabul and will train the bulk of officer recruits to the Afghan national security forces.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The progress at the operational level in central Helmand that the Secretary of State reports has been achieved by the bravery of troops, yes, but also by the fact that in the past year or so they have had sufficient troop density in the area of operations to carry out an effective counter-insurgency operation. Is he now taking decisions that will effectively widen the area of responsibility, but with the same number of troops? That will surely have an impact on force density, which will potentially undermine their ability to succeed in the way they have in the past couple of years.

[Mr Hammond]

The simple answer to the right hon. Gentleman is no. I understand very well the concern that he expresses. He is referring, I think, to stories about the level and speed of US Marine Corps withdrawal from central Helmand, and indeed from the wider Helmand area. We are very clear that it is the increased force density that has secured the success of the British mission, and we have no intention of allowing that force density to be diluted in a way that damages our future prospects of success.

Afghanistan

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his views. I am sure other Members of the House are familiar with them. That is not the view that the Government take. The Government take the view that we are embarked on a process. The Afghanisation of security is progressing. We have set out a timetable for the draw-down of forces, and we will continue to engage actively with the processes of nation-building, reconciliation and Afghanisation of security over that timetable.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his position. Is he yet able to say anything to the House about the Government’s policy on the need for co-ordination across the whole of ISAF of the draw-down of troops between now and 2014 towards the end of the combat mission? I am concerned. We are already backfilling in the upper Gereshk valley and we are operating out of area, as he said, on Highway 1. If we take that too far, we will damage the troop density that has given our troops the ability to make the operational progress that they have made. The Secretary of State needs to watch this. Our troops are enthusiastic to help. They see a job that needs to be done and they want to go and do it. If he allows that to go too far, it will damage their ability to operate.

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and thank him for his welcome. Some points of information: the operation on Highway 1 has concluded, so we are no longer operating out of area on Highway 1. We are not backfilling in the upper Gereshk valley. The upper Gereshk valley is part of the UK area of operations. The US marine corps moved into the area in order to protect contractors carrying out a blacktopping of the strategically important Highway 611. That is now complete, and we have retaken control of it.

On the crucial issue of draw-down, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We cannot talk about the profile of UK draw-down to the end of 2014 and beyond in isolation. We have to look at what the United States is doing, and we will obviously have careful regard to the announcements of US intentions and take the advice of the military in responding to those.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

The Ministry of Defence police are, sadly, as everybody else is, touched by the strategic defence and security review because of the £38 billion black hole that we were left, but I envisage a future for the Ministry of Defence police—providing security for our service personnel and their families—and I visited them in Portsmouth dockyard only last month.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The future of European security will be enhanced by military capability, interoperability and co-operation; it will not be enhanced by an unnecessary duplication of military headquarters. What more can we do to convince our European colleagues that that is not a sensible proposal, particularly at a time when defence budgets are falling across the continent?

[Dr Fox]

The Government oppose, and I have always very strongly opposed, any concept of an EU military headquarters—and we will continue to do so, whether any proposal is made up-front or attempted with permanent structured co-operation through the Lisbon treaty. NATO is the cornerstone of defence in Europe, and it shall continue to be so, because it brings the United States into the defence of Europe. Such a concept would be a diversion, as the right hon. Gentleman says, and a dilution of scarce resources; it would not produce one bullet, one battle tank or one aircraft; it would be pretentious; and it would be bureaucratic—none of which commends it to me.