Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

It certainly could be—it is a highly effective weapons system—but we are not seeking to be in any way prescriptive with the Ukrainians about how it is employed, as they will understand their plan better than we do. We give them these weapons systems confident that they will bring them to good use, and thus far that has proved correct.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Does the Minister share my concern that the agility and mobility hoped for in the Future Soldier programme will be thwarted if those soldiers are stuck in traffic on the M6 near Weeton barracks? Would it not be much better to keep Dale barracks in Chester open and have a wider operational footprint for our future soldiers?

[Jeremy Quin]

That is an ingenious construction. We always think about this, but I am afraid we do not have any plans to change that element of the defence estate optimisation portfolio at this point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure the resilience of the helicopter supply chain in the UK.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure the resilience of helicopter (a) manufacturing and (b) supply chains in the UK.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

We recognise the need to manage risk and ensure resilience in our manufacturing and supply chains, including rotary wing. Through past and current investment in rotary wing capabilities, including Wildcat and Apache, and upgrades to Merlin and Chinook, the UK industrial base remains well placed to support existing and future helicopter platforms, and continues to be a market of great interest to our industrial partners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

As we and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have said, the competition for the new medium helicopter contract, to which I believe the hon. Gentleman refers, will be launched very shortly. Given the skills and capabilities in this country and the nature of that competition, I am confident that a very substantial amount of benefit will flow to the UK as a result of that procurement.

[Christian Matheson]

I also declare an interest and I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris). We do not want to get into another situation like the one with the fleet solid support ships. Will the Government ensure that the value to the UK of placing the contracts with UK suppliers and UK manufacturers is included and priced into the deal and the contract?

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. It is absolutely critical that we ensure that the social value associated with the contract is fully and fairly reflected in the tendering process. He has my assurance that we will do that and, as I said, it will not be long before he will be able to see more on that subject.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I am pleased to say that I have some good news for my hon. Friend and his constituents. I am pleased to confirm that, mindful of the representations made by my right hon. and hon. Friends, of the fact that we are talking about packages of houses rather than single units and of the ongoing covid restrictions, we will be extending the notice period to 31 March 2022. That will mean that civilian tenants will have received more than 18 months’ notice in total. Furthermore, Annington has confirmed that it has no in-principle objection to selling the properties to local authorities or other social housing providers. I stress that any such deals would be a commercial proposition between the social housing providers and Annington, but I hope that the additional time provided may help to enable such transactions to be progressed. I shall write to my hon. Friend and other affected MPs on this subject today.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

What plans he has to review the defence estate optimisation programme.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

The defence estate optimisation portfolio is a 25-year multibillion-pound investment in modernising MOD basing. It provides resilience and ensures that our service personnel can train in centres of excellence alongside those beside whom they will fight. We routinely review and assess the programme in the light of evolving requirements, including the contents of the integrated review. However, the fundamental drivers of the programme are unlikely to change.

[Christian Matheson [V]]

The decision to site the entire Army presence in the north-west at Weeton barracks, putting all our eggs in one basket, will damage the operational and recruitment footprint of the Army in the north-west. Were the Government to retain the Dale barracks in Chester, that would provide easy access to the southern part of the north-west, the north part of the midlands and north Wales, so will the Government please look again at the decision to sell off the Dale barracks and let them retain their historic role in the City of Chester?

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman has in the past spoken with passion about the retention of Dale barracks, and he does so again. We continue to speak to local stakeholders about alternative uses for the site, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that no disposal will take place before 2027 at the earliest. I also assure him that the armed forces will continue to be able to provide support to the north-west and, indeed, the whole of the United Kingdom.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Christian Matheson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Let me say at the outset that although I did not agree with all his conclusions, I found the speech by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) to be stark, powerful and illuminating. I pay tribute to him for his service.

Chester is a proud garrison city. The hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who is in his place, served as leader of the Cheshire Regiment and is still highly thought of there. Many of the men who served with him are now veterans, and I have a large veteran community in Chester. I seek to represent them because they served us, and we owe them a debt for that service. We owe it to them to look after them, which is why I have in the past called for measures to protect veterans from vexatious claims. Consequently, I will not vote against Second Reading tonight.

None the less, it is the role and the right of the Opposition to point out errors and holes in legislation and to try to improve it. I was disappointed by the response from the Secretary of State, particularly his outburst when my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State pointed out some of the holes and criticisms. There are clear reasons to include torture in the scope of the Bill, but that was rejected.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) both talked about the fact that the legislation will not prevent investigations, and in that respect there is a particular group I want to talk about. When there is a knock on the door at 7 o’clock in the morning, it is not just the veteran who suffers; it is his or her family as well. We need to remember the families of veterans.

I was especially disappointed when, in response to my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, the Secretary of State tried to associate ambulance, tank or armoured personnel carrier-chasing lawyers with the Labour party. My right hon. Friend had taken a constructive approach and will continue to do so. I ask the Minister to consider carefully: these lawyers, who deserve obloquy, have no support from us. Those of us who represent areas where there are high numbers of honourable ex-servicemen want to find a way to protect them. The Bill may be the right way, but it needs to be considered carefully in Committee. I hope the Minister and his colleagues will take into account our genuine and heartfelt concerns about its failings, so that they can be amended during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Johnny Mercer]

I will not take interventions. Members have had hours and hours to whine away on these points.

The reality is that over a consistent period of time, the Labour party—

[Christian Matheson]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister is not giving way, but he is making allegations about these firms that are simply incorrect. Thompsons Solicitors works exclusively for trade unions. Leigh Day has taken class actions against trade unions. Frankly, the Minister does not know what he is talking about.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That is not a point of order for the Chair; it is a point for debate. Let us have no more points of order on that subject.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

11. When her Department plans to make an announcement on the award of the contract for the fleet solid support ships.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

19. When her Department plans to make an announcement on the award of the contract for the fleet solid support ships.

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

Subject to normal approvals, we anticipate that a design and build contract will be awarded in 2020.

[Christian Matheson]

This has been a shambolic process in which overseas bidders have dropped out and the Government have begged them to rejoin the bidding process. Have Ministers not read the report by the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) on the importance of defence spending to the UK economy? Is it not about time that the Government stopped this whole process and started offering the bids to UK-based shipyards, so that we can get the benefits of this major Government contract?

[Stuart Andrew]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we do have a team UK bid in there, and I am pleased to see that. As I have said on many occasions, we are trying to ensure that we get the very best price for all the capability we need. If we were to cancel this competition now, we would put at risk the services that we need for the carrier. That being said, we have been listening to all the debates and the many questions on this matter, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union stating that the option to support onshore defence funding for shipbuilding should be a red line in our future relationship with the EU. Of course, that will apply only to future programmes.

A Better Defence Estate

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I will be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend. I should stress that the future use of any land is not for the MOD to determine. That is first handed to the local authorities, but there is a desire and certainly support from the MOD to make sure that whatever use is made is in the interests of the local authorities themselves and also governmental intentions in building housing.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The Minister is absolutely right to talk about the importance of links between local communities and their service personnel. Nowhere is that more true than in Chester. I welcome the delay in the proposed closure of Dale barracks. Will the Minister use that time to bear in mind the facts about Dale barracks in Chester: retention rates are higher; accommodation is of a higher quality: social infrastructure—for example, schools—is well built up to support our service personnel; and the operational footprint in the north-west needs to be maintained to maintain operational efficiency? Will he bear those in mind and see whether we can perhaps push that date back even further?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman, quite rightly and eloquently, describes the pieces of the jigsaw that make a successful garrison or Army unit in any locality: links with the community, operational purpose, and recruitment and retention. If we have areas that are high in those across the country, we certainly need to leverage that.

Carrier Strike Strategy

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Robert Courts]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who must have read my speech in advance, because I will go on to make exactly that point. If he will forgive me, rather than respond directly to his intervention I will move on to the next part of my speech.

In the Falklands, as I have said, we had approximately 60 destroyers and frigates as escorts. Of those, eight destroyers and 15 frigates were part of the taskforce. In the course of that conflict, four of those were lost and many more were damaged, some very seriously. The initial concern is that a similar impact today would destroy about one third of the Royal Navy’s air defence fleet, which would be unsustainable. Of course, we need more than the minimum deployed in case such damage takes place. I appreciate, as my hon. Friend said, that history never repeats itself exactly, and I entirely accept that the Falklands was a one-off, probably unique event. We would need many more ships available if we were looking to support an invasion force, as we were then, particularly when operating at the other end of the world, a long way from supply chains. I entirely accept that, and the parallels are not precise.

I accept entirely that the Type 45s are vastly more capable than the Type 42s that they replaced. It is also true that they are the best in the world as air defence destroyers. Essentially, they combine the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke mission platform into one. They are better than each of them on a platform-to-platform basis, but it is not always the case that we can do the job with fewer. The Type 42s were the cutting-edge destroyers of their day, but as soon as the Falklands war started, we found their weaknesses ruthlessly exposed, particularly with regard to the survivability of damage. That was so horrifyingly exposed in the case of HMS Sheffield. I simply suggest that there comes a point where we need mass.

Although I want us to be able to act unilaterally—I do not disagree with my hon. Friend at all—we need to consider that in most cases we will not be doing that, so I simply ask the Government to consider a strategy for that. I am instinctively very reluctant to follow a line of argument that says that because a single platform is more capable than what it replaced, we can make do with less. I say that simply because all these high-tech platforms—this is true across the whole military capability—can turn out to be horribly vulnerable in ways we do not expect. I am thinking of the USS Cole incident with the speedboat packed with explosives. I am thinking of small drones, cheaply and easily available on the internet, that are packed full of explosives in a swarm capability, such that they overwhelm even the most potent defensive systems. I am thinking of the carrier killer missiles that we know are being developed by some potential adversaries. We can already see where the threats are. I simply say no more than this: while I accept that the parallels are not precise and the capability is streets ahead of what we saw when I was a child, there comes a point where we need mass, and we need to think about how we are going to provide that, given our finances.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an outstanding contribution that I cannot stop listening to. I pay tribute to him. As well as capability, there is another basis for mass and numbers, which is that we have commitments spread around the globe, including commitments to our allies. It does not matter how good the platform is; to maintain those commitments, we also need numbers.

[Robert Courts]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I could not agree more with him. If we look at the ratio of ships available in 1982 against the number deployed in the taskforce, we can see that the Navy was highly tasked as it was. There has been no downscaling in the amount of commitments that we have practically.

The Government are addressing that in many ways, and I entirely applaud the Type 31e concept, which would mean we can try to rebuild mass with a smaller, perhaps cheaper, modular type of ship that we can export. We can perhaps have some platforms so that a cutting-edge Type 45 is not needed to deal with anti-piracy operations, but instead a smaller corvette-type frigate could be used. I entirely agree with that. The hon. Gentleman’s essential point is right: there comes a point where mass is needed because no ship, however good it is, can be in more than one place at any one time. I could not agree more with him.

My point is that countermeasures are being developed for all the threats I have mentioned—drones, speedboats and so on—but as von Moltke said,

“no plan survives contact with the enemy”.

It is equally the case, as I have referred to in the case of the Type 42, that no platform’s wartime capability ever quite matches up to its paper peacetime capability, because no war ever takes place if the other guy does not think he also has a chance. As much as we think our platforms are great, others are looking at ways to undermine them. They only have to be right one time out of 100 and they will cause us damage. There is a time when mass is required.

I know the Government are thinking along those lines already, and I welcome the October announcement that the Royal Netherlands navy will send a warship to be part of the carrier battle group for the first operational tour. That is an important part of the strand of thinking that the warship will form part of a combined NATO battle group. However, I suggest that a broader strategy is required to involve other allies. It is easily foreseeable that allies may not wish to take part in all operations, such as when France—a very close ally—decided that it did not wish to be part of the action we undertook in 2003. That is perfectly understandable, but it should not mean that the UK’s carrier group is unable to put to sea because a certain ally does not wish to take part. The MOD has refused to be drawn thus far on exactly which vessels will deploy, but part of my ask for a strategy is for that thinking to be fleshed out to ensure we can go to sea in all circumstances in terms of numbers, capacity and national partners. We need to ensure we address all the different possibilities.

Those possibilities must also include potential operations. Because it is a fleet carrier and a return to the big carrier concept that we have lost in the past, I have tended to think in terms of fleet carrier and carrier strike operations, but I know the Government are thinking about the utilisation of the carrier in the littoral role. That will mean we have different troops and machines on board, and the support vessels required will be different, too. Coming back to the point made by hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), in 1982 we had sufficient mass that we could put together a taskforce over a weekend and go to sea. That is not likely to be possible anymore, because we simply do not have the mass or the numbers. We will have to think in advance about how we will do that for each potential likely scenario.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

Let us be absolutely clear. The future accommodation model is about choice. It is about recognising that not everybody necessarily wants to live on the patch, and about creating a more stable armed forces. For example, creating super-garrisons means that families are not being moved around the country the whole time. The aim is to create a good retention tool and, crucially, to give our service personnel choice in how they live their lives.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

15. What recent representations he has received on the modernising the defence estate programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the better defence estate programme is a 25-year programme to rationalise the defence estate, which is far too large for our present circumstances. We need to look at our training areas and our garrisons, and we need to provide places for civilian housing too. He will be aware that Chester is involved in that programme.

[Christian Matheson]

Does the Minister share my concern that reducing the number of barracks and concentrating them in one place—for example, in the north-west, at Weeton in Preston—reduces the operational footprint of the Army in the north-west or elsewhere in the country and therefore reduces operational effectiveness? Might it not be better to keep open some barracks, such as the Dale barracks in Chester, to maintain a better operational spread?

[Mr Ellwood]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman raises our footprint in the north-west of England, which is a very large recruitment area, because the Defence Secretary was talking about that this morning. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the decisions that have been made concerning the Dale barracks. The 2nd Battalion Mercian Regiment and the Royal Logistic Corps units will be moving. The Fox barracks will remain, and the Army Reserve will be there, but his point is well made, and we will try to act upon it.

RAF Centenary

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

I am grateful for that intervention from my hon. and gallant Friend. As he says, the record and the history of Bomber Command created a great deal of controversy, but it is good that we now have the memorial, and a more widespread recognition of its role and its contribution to our efforts in the second world war.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

If I happen to catch the eye of the Chair later, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will make this point more fully. During those difficult early years of the war, it was only Bomber Command that took the war to the fascist enemy that we eventually overcame. I join the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and others in paying tribute to the men of Bomber Command, for whom the recognition that they thoroughly deserved came so late.

[Leo Docherty]

It came late, but it was wholehearted and sincere. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that Fighter Command was our salvation, but Bomber Command alone was the means for our victory. That, I think, is a fitting testament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

Accommodation is very important. As I have mentioned, equipment and training are one thing, but we must ensure that we look after our people. The level of accommodation is one of the reasons why armed forces personnel choose to leave, which is why we are investing in more modern accommodation. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue. The Secretary of State and I take very seriously the matter of upgrading the accommodation that we offer our armed forces personnel.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Christian Matheson—[Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) has been very courteous in sitting there quietly, but I believe that he actually wanted to come in on this question; I do beg his pardon. Have a go, man.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman raises a number of matters. I agree with that there is a question mark over what happened in the past, but it did happen, and we now need to move forward to provide the necessary offering for our armed forces personnel. As I mentioned, we are working with the families federations to ensure that we get the deal necessary to make accommodation affordable for our troops.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

8. What discussions he has had with the UK aerospace sector on collaborations for future combat aircraft design.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Guto Bebb)]

The Ministry of Defence is working closely with other Government Departments, the UK aerospace sector, academia and international partners to explore the UK’s future approach to combat air capabilities. We intend to publish the initial findings this summer.

[Christian Matheson]

We have a world-leading aerospace sector, but we cannot deliver the combat air strategy on our own. Does the Minister expect most of our future collaboration to be with Europe or the United States?

[Guto Bebb]

I think it is fair to say that we are undertaking a combat air strategy because the UK is a global leader in the field. UK industry’s export capabilities in combat air are well known, with £6 billion of exports last year, so we are approaching partnerships across the globe. The Department has written to partners in the US, across Europe and further afield.