Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The military’s response is a response to help civilian authorities meet requirements. We have made it clear that enforcement is not our job. Our job is to help the police, backfilling to help to free up the police should they need to do more on the streets. Our main job is logistics, planning, mass—for example, for mass testing—and things such as helping to deliver the vaccines with our specialists.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State has rightly praised the armed forces and referred several times to reservists and the work that they have done, especially in dealing with testing at the border with France before Christmas and over the new year period. In that vein, will he reconsider his decision—and, indeed, reverse it—to cut the number of training days for reservists, as they are clearly hugely important to our response to the pandemic?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will know, first, that training days may not necessarily align with the covid task and, secondly, that we have a budget to which we are obliged. There are significant pressures on the budget, and the record settlement that we have does not begin until next year. What we did not do was cut reserves—we cut down on some reserves days in this financial year. That does not take away from the future; it just means that we had to meet some of the financial pressures across the board. It is not the only measure that we took. It is a significant pressure, and that is why the record settlement that kicks in next year will help us to make sure that we have a much more holistic approach and a more sustainable deployment of our armed forces.