Veterans Update

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us hear from the hon. and gallant Gentleman, Crispin Blunt.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I found a way of accommodating myself to the laws and to the rules of society of the time. I then overtly followed a successful journey through my life and career. This report—an outstanding piece of work—is causing me to re-evaluate the damage done to me, and the price paid by those closest to me, as a result of having to make that accommodation. I am profoundly grateful that I now live in a society, and under laws, that allow me to be myself. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that all 49 recommendations are delivered in a spirit that meets the author’s intention?

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend is a good friend of mine, and I remember him making that brave decision. Many of us on this side of the House who know him well—and many on the other side—pay tribute not only to his decision to come out at that moment, but to his ongoing campaigning for LGBT people and, indeed, for all those across society who have had to make such difficult decisions in their lives. I can give him an assurance that we will absolutely hold to the spirit and the intention behind the recommendations, that we will do everything we can to implement them, and that only when we encounter difficult technical challenges will we seek another way of fulfilling the intention. All that will be done in a transparent manner, not behind closed doors. We will ensure that when we have a problem, we discuss it; and when there are two sides to the argument—as with the veterans badge—we will consult the community as closely as possible. I also ask Members to recognise that in the case of some of the recommendations there will be no perfect answer: some people within that community will have a different view, and we must find a way of accommodating that as well.

Ukraine

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Russia can veto all it likes at the UN Security Council, but the International Criminal Court investigations will endure and continue. We will support it in collecting evidence. It is very important that we send the message that no one can escape justice for what is going on and that justice should be delivered blind of nation. It should be delivered on what crimes are alleged and people should face the full wrath of the law.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I share the widespread pride in Britain’s support for Ukraine over the last year, and the satisfaction that that support will go on over the course of 2023, in particular the 200,000 visas for Ukrainians to come here and the 20,000 soldiers we will train in the United Kingdom to assist the Ukrainians. Will my right hon. Friend have a word with the Home Secretary to ensure that Ukrainian combatants whose relatives are here in sanctuary get the visas they need to come and spend their short time on leave with their loved ones?

[Mr Wallace]

I am happy to write to the Home Secretary on their behalf. When you visit the troops being trained, you often find that the interpreters are the women of the men fighting, who have volunteered their services to help translate for the troops we are training. It is incredibly important that we help so that when they have their rest and relaxation, they try to meet up. I would be happy to write to my right hon. and learned Friend.

Ukraine

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

We certainly have the capability, and we do everything we can, both internationally and unilaterally, to ensure that messages get across not only to our audiences but, importantly, to the Ukrainian and indeed Russian audience. We could start closer to home: we could ask the leader of Alba, on his next Russia Today programme, to do an in-depth analysis of some of those false claims and broadcast it. I am sure he is open to the highest bidder, and so will be very happy to do that. It is important to recognise that in this era, information is as powerful as any tank. We have to ensure that the ordinary people of Russia and Ukraine are not denied a free and fair press, and can get across the message of what is going on in their country in their name.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Under these circumstances, what obligations under the Budapest memorandum do Her Majesty’s Government accept?

[Mr Wallace]

The Budapest memorandum, as my hon. Friend will know, was an agreement that Ukraine would disarm its nuclear weapons in exchange for Russia’s recognition of its sovereignty. I am not an international lawyer, but I would guess that if Russia breached that—one could argue that it already has, with its invasion—the memorandum would become pretty much null and void. We are one of the guarantors of that memorandum, which is why we are doing so much now to hold Russia to account. As I said in questions and in the statement, let us not forget that in 2010 at the Astana summit, Russia, including Prime Minister or President Medvedev—whichever role he was filling—signed up, alongside the international community, to recognising that every participating state is free to choose or change its security arrangements, including treaties and alliances. That is what Russia signed up to then. Never mind the conspiracy theory that somebody somewhere said that NATO would never expand. We have never seen any proof of that; we have never seen any such document. What we have seen is at least four statements and treaties signed by Russia over many years that say it respects the sovereignty of countries to choose. We hold it to that.

Middle East: Security

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

What is important is that the Kurds—and, indeed, some of the sectarian groups, or ethnic groups, in the area—understand about security. It is often insecurity that has driven many of these conflicts for dozens of years. Iran feels desperately insecure, often, in its region. The Kurds have often felt insecure because of the history of many nations, including Iran, that have set about them. So the first thing we should all do is seek to find security guarantees for many of these people, and in that way we can set the next process of resolving the problems between the different parts of the middle east.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the personal authority and experience he brings to this issue. Will he work with all our coalition allies to sustain our commitment to all the people of Iraq, most of whom would not welcome our abandoning them to the forces both heretical and now corrupt, not least in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps behind the Iranian revolution?

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend and I visited Iran as well, a long time ago, and he speaks a lot of sense. Britain’s focus has to be about how we can continue, over the long term, supporting Iraq and its people. It is a complex country with many different groups, and those differences have been exploited recently by Iranian-backed militia, which again, instead of helping those people, has actually led to misery. We must do what we can to capacity-build the Iraqi state so that they can make decisions for themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The private sector has had enormous success in delivering huge efficiency savings to the Ministry of Defence over decades now, but on this particular contract, there seems to be an element of risk aversion in the management of it, not least on the medical side from the people making health assessments. Is there a case for getting more military back engaged in the delivery of this contract to make the right risk assessments about recruiting?

[Mark Lancaster]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He will be aware of recent work being carried out by the Ministry of Defence through a medical symposium to try to tackle these very issues. Sometimes, some of the medical reasons for not joining are frankly quite archaic. To give a brief example, if someone has had childhood asthma, they cannot join even if they no longer have it, even though the chances are that it will not return until that person is probably in their 50s, when, of course, 99% of service personnel will have left.

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Single sentence questions are really what is required.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Earlier, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) referred to evidence that Lord Hague gave to the House of Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee about the European defence arrangements after Brexit. He said that the best proposal was a paper written by the former Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. Has my right hon. Friend seen that paper or would he like to?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I have not actually seen that paper yet, but I am very happy to procure a copy and read it. I made the position clear about common foreign and defence policy. We participate in those missions and operations at the moment, and we continue to press for a partnership with the European Union that encompasses economic and security co-operation.

Trident: Test Firing

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

On the first point, I am pondering the invitation that I have received to answer questions again tomorrow as fully as I have been answering them today. I will give that further thought. The Prime Minister, of course, did answer questions yesterday; she did not give the answer that the hon. Gentleman may have wanted, but she did answer that question. I want, again, to be clear with the House that the Prime Minister, who retains the ultimate responsibility—and an awesome one at that—for our deterrent, is kept informed as to how that deterrent is maintained, and was informed, of course, as her predecessor was, of the successful return of HMS Vengeance to the operational cycle.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

As these missiles get older, there are bound to be increasing maintenance programme costs, as well as costs from emerging and as yet unforeseen threats to the system. What is the United Kingdom’s exposure to these costs of maintaining and protecting the Trident missile system this side of 2060?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

My hon. Friend draws attention to the relative age of the Trident system, which he has had some doubts about in the past, and he probably continues to do so today. That, of course, is one reason why these tests are conducted every four or five years to make sure that our submarines are able to fire the Trident missile when they return from long periods of maintenance. Perhaps my hon. Friend would allow me to write to him on the very specific question of cost.

Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the tone of her response. She raised three or four specific points.

The hon. Lady is right to draw the attention of the House to suicide bombings. In Iraq, they may to some extent indicate a switch in tactics by Daesh. As it is increasingly pushed west along the Euphrates and north up the Tigris, we have seen suicide explosions in Baghdad and in Syria.

The hon. Lady is also right to draw attention to the operations likely to be needed to liberate both Raqqa and Mosul, which are the main centres currently occupied by Daesh. That will require quite sustained and formidable operations by the local forces on the ground, and nobody should underestimate the difficulty or the timescales involved. However, as I indicated, some progress is being made in north-east and northern Syria, with operations ongoing to try to seal the remaining unsealed pockets of the border and to begin slowly to tighten the noose around Raqqa. Operations have begun to begin to plan how the city of Mosul may be recovered and troops are being moved forward up the Tigris to be ready for that.

The hon. Lady asks about the estimate of 70,000. Our view is that that estimate has stood up. Numbers of that size are still involved in fighting the regime, and the Syrian democratic forces are part of that struggle.

Finally, the hon. Lady asks about civilian casualties. I made it clear to her and the House that we carry out a battle damage assessment after every RAF strike: we look back at the evidence of what the strike actually achieved to satisfy ourselves that that there have been no civilian casualties. We will of course look especially closely at any allegation made and any piece of evidence that comes to light that there may have been civilian casualties, but at the moment, after a year and a half of operations in Iraq and Syria, our view remains that we have seen no evidence yet of civilian casualties being caused by our strikes. That, I suggest, is a tribute to the professionalism of the RAF pilots and crews and to the choice of precision munitions.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Russian media are reporting a Russian statement that a force of 6,000 Jabhat al-Nusra fighters are preparing for an assault on Aleppo. Plainly there is scope for confusion and misinformation about identifying al-Nusra and other opposition forces. Has any work been done by the members of the ISSG to create a joint intelligence picture, so that the capacity for misinformation in that area can be reduced?

[Michael Fallon]

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is responsible for middle east affairs, is already involved in work to build up a better picture. The Chairman of the Select Committee is absolutely right: the picture in and around Aleppo is the most complex of all in terms of the different groups fighting there. He makes a good point about sharing intelligence more widely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brazier]

My hon. Friend is exactly right on that matter, as he of course knows, having previously done the international brief in the Ministry of Defence. The new approach of having brigades facing particular parts of the world means that expertise and institutional memory on particular regions will grow. Combining that with the greatly improved career prospects for DAs should in the medium term greatly enhance our representation.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

May I, through the Minister, thank the DA to Tunisia and Libya for the excellent, candid and rigorous briefing he gave the Foreign Affairs Committee on our visit about a month ago? What can the Minister tell the House about any envisaged deployment to the Libyan international assistance mission? What British contribution is being considered?

[Mr Brazier]

My hon. Friend has shown ingenuity in managing to work that question in as a supplementary. As he knows very well, this matter has not yet been decided, but I am delighted that he has received such typically excellent assistance from the DA who covers Tunisia.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

Certainly not. I made it very clear that we will respond to questions from any Member about the role of embedded UK personnel in other forces. I simply made the point that it has been standard practice in the past not to publicise specific operations because they were other countries’ operations. It is completely open to any hon. Member, including the hon. Member for West Bromwich East, who tabled questions on the matter previously, to ask questions. Those questions will be answered.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I share the Defence Secretary’s evident frustration about the prominence given to the issue of embeds, which is a sideshow compared with British involvement overall, which is itself a sideshow when set against the need for a wider international strategy to take and occupy ground in Syria. There is a sort of plan to do that in Iraq; it is faltering in its execution. Will my right hon. Friend urge the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office team to put their effort into making a reality of an international strategy—of getting Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran in the same place, so as to have a strategy involving local ground troops, which we can then assist, to take and hold the territory that ISIL currently holds in Syria?

[Michael Fallon]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We certainly need a political strategy alongside the military strategy, to help hasten the end of the Assad regime and to make it clear that the only future in Syria is a comprehensive democratic regime that is open to all the peaceful and moderate parties in Syria, similar to the way in which the Iraq Government is now constructed. In Iraq itself, we continue to urge the Abadi Government—I will press this point in Baghdad in a couple of weeks—to get on and complete the reforms and to show the Sunni areas in particular that they can have confidence in the Iraqi forces to hold ground that has been liberated.