Oral Answers to Questions

George Kerevan Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I reviewed the campaign in Syria with the United States Defence Secretary at our meeting in Brussels a couple of weeks ago. We are not deploying combat troops to this particular campaign in Syria, but the United States is committing more support forces and working as part of the international coalition to ensure that the Syrian Democratic Forces have all the assistance and advice they need.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the deep maintenance and repair of the engines of all British F-35 fighters will be done in Turkey, and what, if any, security issues arise from this rather strange decision?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I will follow this up with the hon. Gentleman, but I can confirm—I am sure he shares my delight—that north Wales has been selected for the global hub outside the US for all the maintenance and repair of the avionics.

Armed Forces Recruitment: Under-18s

George Kerevan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered recruitment of under-18s into the armed forces.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. This is an emotive and controversial issue, and I recognise the strength of feeling on both sides of the debate. For that reason, I will preface our discussion by saying that I want this to be the beginning of a dialogue on which we can build consensus and uncover the rational facts that should underpin any good policy.

Fundamentally, I sought the debate because I am concerned about the welfare of young people who join the armed forces—in particular, the Army. I have a professional background of more than 20 years of working in the education of young people aged between 14 and 19. The last group I taught were taking level 2 public services at Coleg Menai, many of whom had their sights set on joining the Army. I wish them all the best in their chosen career.

Some of my colleagues appear to believe that any questioning of the armed forces or Ministry of Defence policy is somehow an attack on the institution as a whole, so I would like to emphasise that nothing could be further from the truth. It is not attacking the Army to express the desire that soldiers be treated well and fairly, and that their short and long-term welfare be considered priorities in the recruitment and training process. I do not believe it is a threat to national security to seek the highest standards of welfare and educational attainment for all young people in this country. As we can see all too clearly in the world today, it is essential for the healthy functioning of a true democracy that Government institutions and the policies they make are continually exposed to scrutiny and challenge.

The purpose of the debate is to seek answers from the MOD regarding numerous concerns about the recruitment of young people under the age of 18 to the armed forces and to press for a thorough and independent review. Dozens of religious, military, legal and policy organisations, alongside unions and trusted military professionals, have expressed concerns about this policy. They include the Select Committee on Defence, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Children’s Commissioners for all four nations of the UK, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, UNICEF and many more. They seek to ensure the same fundamental standards of welfare and protection that are taken for granted for that age group in any other sphere of life, but the MOD has not yet provided a detailed response to assuage those concerns.

We have heard from the MOD many general assertions about the wider benefits to the individual and society as a whole of early enlistment, anecdotes about individual recruits who have achieved remarkable things, and apocryphal stories about the lad who would have been dead or in prison if he had not joined the Army at 16. We have also heard from many senior Members of the House about their own happy experience of military service—sometimes decades ago, sometimes more recently. Although I respect the insights drawn from the personal experience of many Members, possibly including some in this Chamber, the plural of anecdote is not facts. I and many others want to hear from the MOD hard, objective, empirical evidence and analysis that demonstrates a carefully thought through policy, taking into account both the recruitment requirement of the armed forces and the welfare of those who enlist.

The UK is unique in the developed world in enlisting 16-year-olds into its armed forces. That is not standard practice, it is not a necessity, and it is not a policy shared by our military allies and peers. It does not make me proud to say that our colleagues in this matter are North Korea and Iran.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Am I correct in saying that the UK is the only NATO member that recruits at the age of 16?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It is my understanding that we are indeed the only NATO member and the only standing member of the UN Security Council to do so.

This is a well-rehearsed argument—forgive me—but it is worth reminding the House that 16-year-olds cannot buy a kitchen knife in a shop, although they can be taught to kill with a bayonet. They can enlist and train in the Army, but the law states that they cannot play “Call of Duty” on an Xbox or watch the Channel 5 documentary series “Raw Recruits: Squaddies at 16”. To watch it online, they would have to tick a box to confirm they were over 18. If it were not so serious, it would be laughable.

Our respect for the armed forces as an institution and for the individuals who represent it makes it easy to treat the institution as beyond question, but I propose strongly that that is dangerous and wrong. There has been no thorough review of the enlistment of minors since at least the time of Deepcut, and I hope today that we can restart that conversation to ensure the welfare of our soldiers and young people across the country.

On the matter of education, I am sure we agree that the educational opportunities that we afford our young people must aim to achieve a common baseline, no matter what their background. The armed forces are, however, exempt from the Department for Education’s standard minimum target for all 16 to 18-year-olds of GCSEs in English and maths at grade C or above. I hope the Minister will be able to explain why our young recruits are not provided with those qualifications, which are deemed essential by all educational employment experts.

The MOD claims that the qualifications it offers—functional skills for numeracy and literacy—are equivalent to GCSEs, but they have been labelled as suffering from major and fundamental flaws by the Department for Education’s own expert review of vocational education, the Professor Wolf report. That finding holds true for all young people, including those who are not academically inclined in any traditional sense and are pursuing vocational, rather than academic, education. I am sure my colleagues agree that young soldiers deserve, as a very minimum, the same educational opportunities as their civilian friends, and certainly nothing less.

The MOD frequently refers to the apprenticeships that young recruits undertake, but closer examination of the curriculum and the content of those courses reveals that, although those apprenticeships may be excellent training for a military career, they are of little value for future civilian employment. Let us bear it in mind that soldiers may be with the infantry until their early 30s, but those young people will need to find work until they are 67, so they need those skills for their long-term welfare.

Those courses consist of modules such as “Tactical advance across battlefield” and “Use of light weaponry”. Young veterans have repeatedly stated that those qualifications were effectively useless in finding employment after they were discharged. That has been borne out repeatedly by Royal British Legion studies on unemployment among ex-service personnel, which show that young veterans are significantly more likely to be unemployed than their civilian peers, and that the lack of qualifications and skills that are transferrable to civilian life is a major factor in that. I hope the Minister will explain how young veterans, the majority of whom are trained for combat roles, not technical ones, can use those highly specialised military skills in future civilian employment.

The MOD has frequently asserted that the Army provides a constructive alternative to young people who otherwise would not be in employment, education or training, or worse. That is an appealing argument, and it would be quite persuasive if there were robust data to support it, but researchers working on my behalf have found none. I regret to say that MOD data indicate quite the opposite.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Kerevan Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

My hon. Friend will have noted the leader of the Labour party’s call for a demilitarised zone between NATO and Russia. It will be interesting to hear at some point whether the rest of the Labour party agrees with that, because President Putin certainly would.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

The unit cost of the five P-8 Poseidon aircraft that Norway is buying is $300 million, including the data uplink. After the Brexit devaluation, the unit cost of the nine P-8s that the UK is buying is nearer to $400 million dollars. Does the Minister call that value for money?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am not quite sure of the hon. Gentleman’s exact point, because if it were up to him and his party, we would not be buying P-8s or basing them in Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Kerevan Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

It is probably the wrong day to comment on the position of the United States. Yes, NATO is a collective defence organisation, and we all, in that respect, rely on each other. I note, for example, that when Britain leaves the European Union, three of the four battalions on the eastern border of NATO will be led by non-EU countries.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Speaking as a ray of sunshine, may I ask whether the Ministry of Defence has made any assessment of how the Army’s new Ajax fighting vehicle would fare against Russia’s equally new T-14 main battle tank?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I do not think it is right to compare one particular armoured vehicle with a completely different type of armoured vehicle. What is important is to look at our armoured vehicles and our combat systems as a whole across the range that we have deployed and are going to deploy, including the new Ajax armoured vehicle.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

George Kerevan Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lewis]

Yes, but the problem that the inspectors and we would always have faced was summed up by something that was said at the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. I was going to quote this later, but I shall do so now. On 21 August 2003, I attended the Hutton inquiry. In the course of giving evidence, Nicolas Rufford, a journalist, made a statement about a telephone conversation that he had had with Dr David Kelly in June 2003. Dr Kelly was, of course, a weapons expert, and knew all about the difficulties of detecting weapons stockpiles if they were hidden. In the course of that telephone conversation, Dr Kelly said to Mr Rufford that

“it was very easy to hide weapons of mass destruction because you simply had to dig a hole in the desert, put them inside, cover them with a tarpaulin, cover them with sand and then they would be almost impossible to discover”.

So the question that we come back to once again is: if Tony Blair had come to this House and more honestly highlighted the question marks against the reliability of the intelligence, would he be as excoriated today as he has been? Let me be counterfactual for a moment. Let us suppose that some stocks of anthrax had been discovered and there had been a secret cache. Would we still be saying that the people who took the decision in 2003, on the basis of what clearly was an honest belief that Saddam Hussein might have deadly stocks of anthrax, were wrong? I have no hesitation in saying that although the Government may have exaggerated—and probably did exaggerate—the strength of the evidence they had, I believe that they genuinely expected to find stocks of these weapons.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Lewis]

Yes, but I am taking a lot of interventions, and I am keen not to abuse the fact that I do not have a time limit.

[George Kerevan]

Given the right hon. Gentleman’s wisdom and expertise, he is a focal point in this discussion. Does he accept that there are some on these Benches who think—and who feel that this is justified by the Chilcot findings—that the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction was an artificial casus belli that was used to effect regime change? If weapons of mass destruction were an issue, why wait 13 years to invade? Why not go in at the time of the first Iraq war?

[Dr Lewis]

The answer to the second question is easy. What happened during those 13 years was the appearance on the international stage, in September 2001, of a group that had been around for a long time but had not previously succeeded in killing 3,000 people in the heart of New York and Washington DC. [Interruption.] Therefore, the issue at question, as we often hear quite rightly said in debates about international terrorism, was that the traditional policy—the technique of containment, which is usually the best technique to deal with rogue regimes that have weapons stocks—could no longer apply under the circumstances. It was feared that if an international terrorist organisation was, for any reason, supplied with a substance such as anthrax, rational deterrence would be ineffective in preventing the organisation from using it, no matter how suicidally.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

I sat through the whole debate yesterday and today, and it has been a fascinating education. I have appreciated listening to many of the Members who were here 13 years ago. I have been disappointed by the lack of numbers on the Benches. I am new to the Chamber. Given the gravity of the issue over the years, and given the long wait for the Chilcot report, I am surprised that there were not more Members present. I will put that down to the fact that so much else is going on in the political firmament, and that there is so much to read. The onus is on those on the Government Benches to think about that, and to realise that this is not the end of the Chilcot investigation. A lot more discussion and thought has to go into that report. I appeal to the Government to take that away and think about how we can come back to, and look into, all the ramifications that the report has brought to this Chamber.

No one has quite given due recognition to the fact that it was the previous Labour Government, under Gordon Brown, who commissioned this report, and that should be recognised, because it was a brave thing to do. I would gently chide those on the Conservative Benches, because after the Suez crisis—the other post-war global diplomatic disaster that Britain blundered into—there were repeated attempts in the remaining eight years of Conservative Government after 1956 to get a public inquiry, but they were systematically rejected, and that was a dangerous precedent. Having got the Chilcot report, we have learned that, when we make mistakes, we have to own up to them and examine the details.

I have particularly—“enjoyed” is perhaps the wrong word—appreciated listening to those on both sides of the House who took part in the debate in 2003. However, I have been surprised by the attempts of some Members—particularly on the Labour side—to justify what was clearly the biggest diplomatic blunder of the last 30 years. I was particularly surprised by the right hon. Members for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), both of whom tried to draw some comfort from the fact that the Chilcot report has not found the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, guilty of misleading the House. I do not know whether that is what Chilcot set out to do, but it certainly comes down to what we mean by “mislead”. There is abundant evidence in the Chilcot findings—even from a cursory read of the report, and even in the summary report—that the facts were pummelled, twisted, jumped on and stretched to the point where no one knew what was going on. That was a deliberate move by the Executive to try to impose their view of the world on this Chamber.

That is abundantly clear, and we have to grasp the fact that, as well as the politics, the diplomacy and the military issues Chilcot deals with, there is a constitutional issue at the heart of the report, which this Chamber and you, Mr Speaker, have to take into account: the Executive, in the shape of Tony Blair and his immediate allies, got out of hand. This Chamber and the Cabinet lost control of the Executive in the run-up to the intervention in Iraq. That is the fundamental finding of the Chilcot report. Yes, the nature of the intervention, and all the disasters that came from it, are important, but if we abstract from that, we see that the Executive were not under control. It has been rare in the history of this House, and particularly in latter decades, for the Executive to get completely out of control, and that can never happen again.

If we are to have a debate about bringing some of these individuals, including the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, to this House to answer for their actions, the issue should not be retribution, or holding them to account because they were wrong on Iraq and got us into a terrible disaster. That is an issue, but the fundamental issue for the House in deciding whether the former Prime Minister should be held to account in this Chamber is that the Executive got out of control. We have to learn the lessons of that, and we cannot let it happen again. If that is what happened—I believe that it was, and that that is what the Chilcot report shows—we cannot let those who flouted this House and Cabinet Government get away with it. If we do that, it could happen again.

I was rather surprised by the vehemence with which the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and other Labour Members tried to argue that, whatever mistakes were made in the intervention in 2003, the ramifications—the breakdown of law and order and of society in Iraq, and the subsequent calamities that have beset the middle east—were the fault not of that intervention alone, but of the great fragmentation and deep divisions in the middle east, and that, as bad and as mistaken as the intervention was, it cannot be held to be fundamental to the divisions and other developments in the last 30 years. I am sorry, but Chilcot and history show otherwise. For example, Daesh is a horrible amalgam of the former military leadership of Saddam’s Ba’ath party and people who were radicalised inside American jails after the intervention in Iraq. There is abundant evidence, and it is a reasonable conclusion, that Daesh, as a movement, would not have existed had we not invaded Iraq and caused the meltdown of what there was of Iraqi society. We have been living with that consequence ever since.

Labour Members are rather misguided in not understanding the role of western intervention, and western support for Saddam in his war against Iran in the decade before America’s and Great Britain’s intervention in Iraq. The long and horrible war between Iraq and Iran was fundamentally supported by the west as a means of containing Iran after 1979. That war multiplied a millionfold the divisions between the Sunni and the Shi’ite populations of the middle east and north Africa. We are living with those consequences, too. The west cannot claim that it is not culpable for stoking up the divisions in the middle east prior to 2003.

We are not finished with Chilcot, and we are not finished with the ramifications of the failure of this House and of Cabinet government to control and hold to account the Executive. I ask you, Mr Speaker, to bear that in mind when any such issues are raised in this House in future.

Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update

George Kerevan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I hope that we can do so. We are working very closely with our partners—over 40 countries are now reporting, through Interpol and other international organisations, on foreign fighters—so that we can share information about these fighters as they travel towards Iraq or Syria. Of course, we must play our part by ensuring that more people are not radicalised in this country and by keeping tabs on those who are likely to go out there.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Will the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that the RAF will not take part in air strikes against Daesh in Libya without a further vote in this House?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes. We have made it clear that we are not planning any kind of combat role either for our troops or for the RAF in Libya. That is not part of our planning. If we were considering further military action against Daesh wherever they are—whether in Libya or anywhere else—we would of course come to this House to discuss it first.

Nuclear Warheads (Transportation)

George Kerevan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Penny Mordaunt]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s intervention, because although the bulk of my remarks will focus on the safety and transportation concerns she has expressed—I take her concerns at face value—at the heart of the debate is her and her party’s position on nuclear weapons. Of course we never want to use such weapons. However, as a Defence Minister who passionately believes that there would be dread consequences for the hon. Lady’s constituents and the whole UK if we did not have a deterrent, I believe it is absolutely fundamental that we retain that deterrent and say to those who would do us harm that there would be consequences if they used such dread weapons against us. I am happy to debate that point with the hon. Lady and her colleagues at any time; it is incredibly important and at the heart of what the debate is about. I will take at face value her concerns about the transportation of warheads, so I will address the bulk of my remarks to those points.

The specialist defence sites involved in delivering our nuclear weapons programme are based at Clyde, at Coulport and at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire. As such, it is necessary to transport nuclear defence material, including warheads, between those sites, although the movement of such material is kept to the minimum necessary to meet operational requirements in support of the UK’s strategic deterrent programme. It is an important principle of nuclear warhead safety that warheads should not be moved unless it is necessary.

I make it absolutely clear that the safety of the general public and the security of nuclear weapons convoys are our first priority at all times. Safety is paramount during the transportation of defence material, and all appropriate measures are taken to ensure that such weapon convoys can operate safely. Our safety record is excellent. In more than 50 years of transporting such material by road in the UK, there has never been an incident that has presented any risk to the public or the environment. A stringent safety reporting system is in place so that all incidents, however minor, are recorded and assessed for possible improvements to future operations.

The hon. Lady and her colleague referred to the log and expressed concerns, particularly about transportation during severe weather. As Members would expect, I have been through the log. On the Erskine bridge incident, the authorities were consulted. In any scenario where there are adverse weather conditions, Traffic Scotland and the police in Scotland are consulted. The convoy was not crossing the bridge until the weather had moved on. That is recorded.

Concerns have previously been expressed about convoys travelling through residential and urban areas. While the House would not expect me to discuss the specific details of routes for obvious security reasons, I assure Members that the routes are carefully selected as part of a rigorous risk assessment process and are regularly reassessed for their continued suitability. The transportation of nuclear and other hazardous materials is governed by international and national regulations, including the Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2009, as amended in 2013. Although there are exemptions for certain defence-related activities, Government policy is to comply with the principles of those exemptions.

The safety of nuclear convoy operations is carefully considered at all stages of the transportation process. Operational planning always takes into account such factors as road and weather conditions, and we consult with all relevant local agencies before undertaking a convoy move. Contingencies are planned for. The convoy is operated by a highly trained crew, consisting of a first-aid team, firefighters, mechanics and others to enable roadside repairs and personnel equipped to monitor for radiological hazards.

Members will be aware that the weapon is by its very nature an extremely robust device, designed to withstand launch and re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. It is transported in a benign configuration and secured in a custom-designed container that is tested in accordance with International Atomic Energy Agency standards to protect against a range of scenarios, including impact on a motorway at speed, a drop from height and a fuel fire, among others.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will make a little progress. The vehicle that carries the container is custom-designed to provide robust crash protection, even in the event of a severe road accident. We have invested in our vehicle fleet and completed a significant upgrade programme in 2014.

Another issue that the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West mentioned was the threat of terrorism with the transportation of nuclear materials. The risks associated with terrorist attack are mitigated by a range of counter-measures, including the vehicle itself, specific warhead protection measures, intelligence, monitoring and armed escort, which includes the Ministry of Defence police. Although the operational details of those counter-measures are understandably classified, Members can be reassured that we have the capabilities to deal with any such threats. Our security arrangements are kept under review, frequently tested and subject to formal inspections to ensure that they meet the required standards.

The limited movement of nuclear defence material together with inherent safety and security features and procedures mean that the probability of an accident leading to a release of radiation is extremely low. Nevertheless, as part of our rigorous approach to safety we maintain wider arrangements to respond to any incident, no matter how unlikely; that includes the Nuclear Emergency Organisation and the necessary contingency plans to deal with any accident. Under the auspices of the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator and with the participation of the emergency services and local authorities, we also carry out regular exercises to rigorously test the continued effectiveness of our response.