Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme

Debate between Charles Walker and Andrew Murrison

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

It is a great pleasure, Mr Walker, to serve under your serene and enlightened chairmanship. As I am in the mood, let me express some further sentiments—they are heartfelt—about the contribution to the scheme made by Sir Neil Thorne. Twenty-five years ago, we lived in a very different sort of world. We still had in this place a large number of Members who had served in the second world war or had pretty contemporary experience of national service. Sir Neil rightly identified that that would not be the case forever, and that is where we are today.

Sir Neil designed a scheme, 25 years ago, that would ensure that Members of the House and others understood a little bit about service in the armed forces and how defence works. That is important because, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) said, although we get involved with a whole raft of things here, the most important thing that we do in Parliament—as it has always been—is connected with the armed forces. That is absolutely central to what Parliament is all about, and it is just as well that we have among us some understanding of defence and of how those who populate defence conduct their business. That is what the armed forces parliamentary scheme has been all about.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) first on securing the debate; secondly, on his hard work up to this point in securing the scheme’s future; and, thirdly and most importantly, on his election as chairman of the armed forces parliamentary trust. I fear that he is something of a rarity in Parliament today in having a really detailed understanding of the armed forces, and I can think of no better person to take the scheme forward to its next stage.

The scheme has interfaced with well in excess of 200 parliamentarians during the past 25 years—people who are then much better placed to contribute meaningfully to debate in this place. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made an interesting point about trust and openness. I repeat that the world was different 25 years ago. Today we are much more open and transparent in how we approach issues, and if there was any difficulty at all 25 years ago in exposing parliamentarians to what sailors, soldiers and airmen got up to, that is far less the case today. One of the hidden benefits of the scheme is that it allows that level of transparency, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the number of instances of abuse of trust on the scheme has been very small over time.

Following the extraordinary vignettes that we have heard, which were terribly colourful, I fear that my contribution to this debate will be rather more prosaic. Nevertheless, it is important to put on the record how we have come to this point. Having accepted the excellence of the scheme—I reiterate that it is excellent—we must understand that we are in a different place today from 25 years ago. Public expectations of bodies that interface with parliamentarians are different from what they were in the 1980s. It is interesting—is it not?—that we should be discussing lobbying and transparency in this fortnight. It is appropriate that we should be making real inroads into the next stages of this scheme during this short return to Parliament in September, because it is lobbying and transparency that would worry people—if not the public, then certainly the press—in relation to the scheme.

I am mindful of the involvement of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) in attempting to review the position of all-party groups, and of the recommendations that he has made. Although the scheme is not an all-party group, it is nevertheless an organisation that involves parliamentarians and commercial sponsors. Potentially, therefore, if the Ministry of Defence and Parliament had not taken the gardening action that I think has been appropriate, the scheme might have been open to criticism, however ill-founded. All of us who have lived through the past five years or so in this place know full well that if we do not take timely action, events will overtake us. What we have done has been absolutely necessary.

There are a number of people in Westminster Hall today who have been intimately involved with, or at least had cognisance of, what has been going on in respect of the scheme since November 2010. That was when the previous Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), and the previous Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), together with Mr Speaker, decided that the scheme needed to be moved on to the point that we have been discussing today. Without detaining the gathering here today unduly, perhaps I can say that it has been a long, complex and protracted experience, with a surprising level of complexity involved. As convenor of the process during the past 12 months or so, I am deeply grateful to all those who have been involved in it and contributed to it. It has involved some people of great seniority who are well respected in this place and beyond, all of whom have brought their collective wisdom to the piece and contributed to what we have today.

I think that it is true to say that there is one thing worse than being asked questions as a Defence Minister, and that is being asked questions that are ill-informed. Having taken part in defence debates since 2001, both in opposition and in government, I am always aware of the massive contribution made by the armed forces parliamentary scheme in ensuring that the debates we have in this place are properly informed. Those who have taken part in the scheme carry a deep and intrinsic sense that they know what they are talking about. This morning, a number of hon. Members have talked about the ethos of the scheme and about what really matters to them, which is trying to get under the skin of those who populate defence in order to try to understand what makes them tick.

Although I have never been a member of the scheme, from my personal observation of it I know that it really cuts both ways. First, it is extremely useful for the men and women who serve in our armed forces to know that Members of Parliament are not a race apart and do not—at least in the main—have horns growing from their head. When one gets past the inevitable question or joke about one’s expenses, including quips such as, “You’ll be filling out your expenses form, won’t you?”—isn’t that amusing?—one finds that the degree of empathy that Members of Parliament have with the men and women of the armed forces with whom they are billeted is of a high order.

I think that all of us have spoken to constituents and others who have experienced parliamentarians on the scheme and who have by and large come away from the experience impressed with the interaction. That is reassuring. I am talking about extraordinary valuable citizens in the armed forces—they are citizens like no others. We owe it to them to assure them that parliamentarians who have a huge influence on their lives and careers have their interests at heart, and certainly understand what makes them tick.

I am sure that the scheme will be hugely popular. I am given a lot of assurance in making that assertion by the fact that 35 parliamentarians have enlisted for what we might call the interim scheme, which is currently operational. It is in no way a substitute for the previous scheme or indeed the scheme that will succeed it, but at least it allows Members of Parliament to have some sort of continuity of interaction with the armed forces. I am delighted that in this interregnum we have been able to facilitate a programme of visits to military establishments, so that we can continue that programme now that the trust—under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire—is able to take up the reins.

In closing, I reiterate my thanks to Sir Neil Thorne, who has done the House, and our discourse and our debate within it, a huge service over a protracted period of time. I have no doubt that the scheme—now under its new guise as a charity, which had to be established to give the public the assurances that they rightly expect of organisations of this sort—will be a massive success under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire. We can look forward to the next 25 years with a great deal of confidence as the scheme, which is now a trust, goes from strength to strength.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank all colleagues for the excellence of their speeches and the brevity of their interventions.