Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

The hon. Gentleman should address his remarks to the workers of the Rosyth area and see how they feel about whether we should retain a nuclear deterrent in this country. Decisions about this country’s nuclear deterrent are made in this Parliament, as they were in 2007, and they will continue to be made here.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

3. What consideration he has given to routinely storing DNA samples for all members of the armed forces.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking a close interest in this matter. As the Minister responsible for defence personnel, veterans and welfare, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), told him in November, it is MOD policy

“to offer all military, deployable MOD civilians and other entitled personnel the opportunity to provide reference samples suitable for DNA analysis.”—[Official Report, 26 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 18.]

That is on entirely a voluntary basis, complies with the Human Tissue Act 2004, and is to enable identification post mortem if required.

[David Mowat]

The Minister may recall the case of my constituent Emma Hickman, who had difficulty in demonstrating paternity because of a dispute over the ownership of DNA. That case was resolved, and I thank him for his help in that, but we need routinely to require all active soldiers to have DNA taken so that, as in the case of armies such as that of the United States, samples can easily be made available. By what time scale might we do that?

[Dr Murrison]

The policy is under review, and it will certainly include reviewing practice in other countries, notably the US, where, as my hon. Friend says, there is mandatory testing on enlistment. That clearly needs to be within UK legislation, particularly the 2004 Act, and I anticipate the result of the current review being available in late spring.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I have to say to the hon. Lady that I believe that she and some of her parliamentary colleagues are becoming over-excited about this. We have discussed it with the Department for Work and Pensions, and we believe that a very small number of service personnel will be affected, but we will continue to keep the matter under review.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T5. Since 1990, the Army has been reduced by about 40%, but officer numbers are down by less than 30%. Indeed, there are more colonels now than there were then. Is there more that we can do to ensure that the cuts are proportionate?

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

We are committed to reducing—and, indeed, are reducing— the star count in the Ministry of Defence by 25%, which means those with the rank of brigadier and above. It is true that the number of colonels is higher than in 1990, but it has fallen by 80 since 1 April 2010, and some of the jobs that those officers do are specific to NATO or to defence engagements. For instance, some are defence attachés. We need all those jobs, and that is why we employ those people. However, my hon. Friend has raised a very good point.