Situation in the Red Sea

Debate between Grant Shapps and Kevan Jones
Monday 26th February 2024

(1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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There are always good reasons to introduce new capabilities. In fact, I was recently down on HMS Somerset at Devonport, where a system is being fitted and trialled. It is not the case, as it is sometimes characterised, that we are using Typhoons because we do not have another option; our first preference is to work in this way for a range of reasons that I cannot enter into at the Dispatch Box. It is worth noting that when the US carried out actions in Iraq and Syria, its planes flew all the way from the United States, and I am not aware of anybody saying that that was because it did not have facilities closer to hand. We are using the correct facilities for the particular operation, notwithstanding the fact that it is always nice to have new facilities.

Kevan Jones Portrait Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
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I agree with the Secretary of State that we must always think about our servicemen and women who carry out these tasks. As a former Defence Minister, it is news to me that it is up to the Defence Secretary to agree to any strikes, but perhaps this Defence Secretary has more power than his predecessors.

What is the policy and strategy behind this set of circumstances? I and a number of other Defence Committee members met the Defence Minister of Italy a few weeks ago in Rome. Italy is deploying to the region. How is it that this is now a US and UK-led operation? What are we doing to build alliances with Italy and other European nations that have an interest in doing so? As my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) asked, what ultimately is plan B and the long-term endgame?

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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I will avoid getting into the constitutional position of how that authority runs. It would be inconceivable to do that without the Prime Minister, but it is technically the case that the royal prerogative runs to the Defence Secretary, for what it is worth.

I am very familiar with my friend Minister Crosetto, whom the right hon. Gentleman met in Rome. The Italians have, as he knows, opted to join Aspides, the EU operation. We will work closely with our European friends and allies to ensure that that interacts properly with the wider Prosperity Guardian and the direct actions that we are taking. Of course, we welcome action from other friends and allies in that regard.

Global Combat Air Programme Treaty

Debate between Grant Shapps and Kevan Jones
Monday 18th December 2023

(3 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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I thank my right hon. Friend for his points. He is right that having a sixth-generation aircraft in our fleet will ensure that we keep ahead. He will know that Typhoons are at four and a half, and the F-35B is a very capable fifth-generation aircraft. Our current plan is to have 48 by 2025, and another 27 after that. For 2035, it is not possible right now to provide an exact number of a sixth-generation aircraft that is yet to be designed and built. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) pointed out, we do not know quite what the shape of air war will be at the time, particularly with drones, swarms and many other developments. We do know that air combat will continue to be vital in future, and that we will have the best form of air combat available through GCAP.

Kevan Jones Portrait Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
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I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, delivered in his usual “never knowingly undersold” style. I welcome the treaty, but does he agree that if GCAP is to be successful, he must ensure that we have a vibrant manufacturing base in the UK? I do not know if he is aware or whether his officials have briefed him, but following the completion of the Qatari order at BAE Systems at Warton, there is no more manufacturing taking place at that site. What will he do to fill the gap between delivering the development phase of GCAP and the final aircraft?

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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It is worth pointing out that the Tempest programme, the UK side of GCAP, already employs 3,000 people in this country—I mentioned that £2 billion has been spent so far—and the right hon. Gentleman will be interested to hear that 1,000 of those are apprentices. He asks about a factory run by what is essentially a private business, or rather not Government, in BAE—

Kevan Jones Portrait Mr Kevan Jones
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No, it’s not!

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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It is factually true to say that it is a private business. I was going to answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question by saying that he will perhaps be aware that there is further interest in Typhoon around the world. I cannot go into specifics, but I very much hope that it is successful in winning that. As a Government, we will certainly be fully behind that.

Post Office: GLO Compensation Scheme

Debate between Grant Shapps and Kevan Jones
Wednesday 7th December 2022

(1 year, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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I thank my hon. Friend, and yes, we will certainly keep the House fully informed. My hon. Friend the small business Minister will be providing updates as well. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) for his work on, I think, at least one case in his constituency, where he has helped to keep this subject high on the agenda.

Kevan Jones Portrait Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
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I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). It is nice to see a poacher turned gamekeeper in the Department. Can I also put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully)? In a long list of useless and indifferent Ministers over the years, he was the only one who actually got it and was determined to sort it out. I would also like to give my personal thanks to Alan Bates and the Justice for the Subpostmasters Alliance, because without them the truth would not have come out, and that happened in spite of the Post Office throwing a tsunami of cash—£100 million—at them to stop the truth coming out.

This is the only scandal I have seen where cover-up and lies ran to the top, not only of the Post Office but, I have to say, of the right hon. Gentleman’s Department. Today represents a move forward, and I welcome what is being done. Does the Secretary of State agree that what we need next, following the public inquiry, is for those individuals who were responsible for ruining people’s lives—in some cases people took their own lives; others who were innocent went to prison—to be held to account? It has to be a determination for the Department to ensure that those individuals—whether they are in the Post Office or in his Department—face the day of reckoning that should be coming to them in a court of law.

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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I again pay tribute, as I think the whole House does, to the right hon. Gentleman’s extraordinary work on this issue. He is right not only to highlight my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, who I have engaged with this morning over this, but to pay tribute to Alan Bates and all the work that he and his team have done. I was talking to him earlier. It was not until he got going in 2009 that this really started to unravel for the Post Office.

To the right hon. Gentleman’s main point, he is absolutely right to say that we cannot allow an injustice such as this to not meet justice. Of course, we have a free legal system in this country, and Alan and his colleagues were saying to me earlier that if it were not for democracy and the freedom of our courts, we would never have got this far. To really get to the nub of the right hon. Gentleman’s point: I agree with him, and we will not allow any process or shyness of what it might uncover to prevent the legal process from being able to run its full course.

International Travel

Debate between Grant Shapps and Kevan Jones
Tuesday 29th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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I am grateful for the direct message. Sadly, the pandemic and the virus do not give us much advance notice; we often find that a country is on the green list and we need to move it, as we saw with Portugal and Spain with the travel corridors last year. One thing that we have done to provide a little more forward guidance is use the green watch list, the purpose of which is to help my hon. Friend’s constituents to see when a country may be a bit closer to the amber border and when they would therefore want to be more aware. I hope that that provides a bit of additional guidance, but I will return to the House next month with more details of what double vaccination can mean for people and for the travel industry.

Kevan Jones Portrait Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
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The Prime Minister has acknowledged that this summer will not be typical with regard to international travel. Regional airports such as Newcastle International rely on the summer season to generate the bulk of their revenue and tide them over during the quiet periods in the winter. Will the Secretary of State look particularly at regional airports this winter? What support can they be given to ensure that not generating revenue over the summer does not lead them into difficulty later in the year, once international travel has opened up?

National Bus Strategy: England

Debate between Grant Shapps and Kevan Jones
Monday 15th March 2021

(3 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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First of all, I agree, and I just said, that London has been getting a very nice bite of the cherry with its buses, and we want the rest of the country to get the same. That is the point of launching this strategy. I am afraid that I do not recognise the second point that the hon. Member made. She may be getting confused by the fact that hard-working great MPs who lobby for their local areas may just end up being successful in bringing services to their area. I have no doubt that she will join her area to that list as well.

Kevan Jones Portrait Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
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Many rural communities rely on bus services provided by small, often family-run businesses such as Stanley Travel in my constituency, who have found it hard during covid because they do not have the resource to capital that some larger companies have. What specific help will be available to such companies to ensure that they not only survive but that those important local bus services continue?

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As ever with the coronavirus, those small companies have had a tough time. It is worth mentioning that we put £240 million, and then £27 million a week, into supporting buses, so we have been pumping in a lot of money without which those services would not have been able to survive at all. Of course, individual smaller companies will have had access to things like furlough. The strategy overall is the sunlight at the end of this, because for the first time there will be a proper strategy that he and his local authority will be able to oversee. I am sure that there will be great opportunities for some of the smaller bus companies as well.