Defence Estate

Heidi Allen Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Let me confirm again that the infantry training centre will not be disposed of. My hon. Friend makes the very important point that the barracks contains the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum. I have visited the museum, and seen the memorabilia associated with Private Hook and others in the battle of Rorke’s Drift. The position is that the museum is currently negotiating a long-term lease with the Ministry in order to secure lottery funding for an extension. The lease has not yet been finalised, but it is likely to contain a clause enabling the trustees to purchase the freehold if and when the site is disposed of. I hope that is helpful to my hon. Friend, but I am very happy to discuss all this further with him.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I have bobbed up and down so often this afternoon that I feel I have undertaken my own military fitness training.

I thank the Secretary of State very much for his statement. May I just clarify whether the barracks at Bassingbourn in my constituency, which has been closed for some time, will now receive personnel from Burgoyne barracks in 2019, RAF Henlow in 2019, Weathersfield in 2020 and Chilwell station in 2021? I understand that from an email that has just arrived on my phone. If that is the case, that is an enormous and very welcome uplift in the number of personnel at Bassingbourn. May I have a contact in the MOD, so that the local authority can start to plan education, schools, GP surgeries and so on?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Yes. This is good news for Bassingbourn. I can confirm the gist of what my hon. Friend said. Bassingbourn will be one of the key receiver sites for some of the units that are now on the move. She said that she would like a contact in the Ministry of Defence, and I suggest that she contacts the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster).

Royal Naval Deployment: Mediterranean

Heidi Allen Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

On the first point, I welcome the contribution Scotland is making. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to know that some of the Royal Marines on board Mounts Bay are from Arbroath on the east coast of Scotland. I am glad that he welcomes the mission.

On refugees, the hon. Gentleman will know that we have committed to take refugees from the camps in Syria and to take unaccompanied children that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees identifies further west in Europe. We have played a leading part in that, as we did in the reconstruction conference on the future of Syria.

So far as military operations in Syria are concerned, we regularly update the information on the Ministry of Defence website. I am very happy to answer any additional questions the hon. Gentleman has.[Official Report, 9 March 2016, Vol. 607, c. 4MC.]

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the role of the Navy. Many hands do, indeed, make light work. Forgive me for being over-simplistic, but I would like to understand whether our latest offering is purely about moving bodies back to coastlines, or whether it integrates somehow with the resettlement of refugees and the chaos that our European neighbours find themselves in.

[Michael Fallon]

The primary purpose of the mission is to provide monitoring, surveillance and reconnaissance of the migration route across the Aegean, which will better enable the Turkish and Greek coastguards to intercept the boats and disrupt the business model of the criminal traffickers. When they can intercept the boats in either Turkish or Greek waters, they are better able to rescue those on board before they get too far out to sea in the more dangerous areas.