Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brazier]

There are no plans, and no such planning is going on, to scrap the target. The number I gave earlier, of 1,490 people joining the reserves in just one quarter, indicates that things are now moving sharply in the right direction. That figure relates to the Army Reserve, but the Royal Naval Reserve has been ahead of target all the way through and the Royal Air Force Reserve is also doing well, with 150 joining in a quarter.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to increase home ownership among members of the armed forces.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to increase home ownership among members of the armed forces.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)]

I am delighted that the forces Help to Buy scheme, launched just 10 months ago, has already helped 2,600 military personnel on to the property ladder, and a further 1,400 approved applications are awaiting the completion of the property purchase. Those 4,000 fully approved applications are broadly equivalent to the entire military presence at Colchester, and the vast majority of them—more than 80%—are for those from non-officer ranks.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does this scheme not just prove the good work that this Government have been doing in ensuring the improvements to armed forces accommodation, in terms not only of service accommodation but enabling people in the armed forces to buy their own properties?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes, this scheme enables military personnel to have the opportunity to buy their own home and benefit from the increased domestic stability that home ownership brings, bringing a more realistic life choice for those who have chosen to serve their country. We also recognise the importance of continuing to offer subsidised accommodation of a good standard to service personnel who are not yet ready to own their own home, which is why we have committed that from next April no service family will be allocated a house that does not meet the Government’s decent homes standard.

UK Armed Forces (Iraq)

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend further update us on the support for military training and aid that our allies in the Gulf states are providing to the Iraqi Government?

[Michael Fallon]

A number of allies in the Gulf have already contributed equipment and have been involved in air strikes, flying in support of the coalition efforts in Syria, in particular. They are looking to see what other logistical help they can provide. A number of them provide bases and other support for the international effort.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

As my hon. Friend knows, we are currently engaged in introducing private sector management skills into the logistics and defence support group activities carried out at Donnington. Both are at advanced stages of negotiation, so I am unable to give him any more information at this point about the competition. However, as soon as a decision is reached, he will be one of the first to know.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the recommendations of the concluding report of the Trident commission set up by the British American Security Information Council.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I welcome the commission’s conclusion that while there remains the possibility of a direct nuclear threat to the UK, we should retain our nuclear deterrent. We are clear that for this to be effective we need to retain a continuous at-sea deterrent posture, as we have for the past 46 years.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer, with which I wholeheartedly agree. Will he confirm that the British American Security Information Council Trident commission report did not consider a two-boat solution?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There have been suggestions that, to save a relatively small sum of money, Britain should abandon continuous at-sea deterrence and opt for a part-time deterrent, with boats tied up alongside or even sent to sea without nuclear weapons on board. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government firmly reject such advice and I can further assure him that a Conservative Government will never take risks with Britain’s strategic security.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I applaud my hon. Friend for the pioneering work he did in helping us take this reform of DE&S through. We are convinced that the work that we are doing in the new bespoke trading entity will bring significant benefits to defence procurement for the long term, but as he knows, we have retained in the Defence Reform Bill, which should shortly receive Royal Assent, the power for a future Government to introduce a GoCo, with suitable parliamentary scrutiny, should this be necessary to transform DE&S further in the years to come.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

14. What assistance his Department plans to provide to ensure that veterans are able to take part in the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of D-day.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Anna Soubry)]

The Ministry of Defence has been working very closely for a number of months with several organisations, including the Normandy Veterans Association, the Royal British Legion, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the French Government to ensure that our veterans are at the very heart of the D-day commemorations in June. So far we know that 500 of our veterans will be attending, with some 4,000 of their friends, carers and supporters.

[Henry Smith]

As my hon. Friend will know, many of my constituents and others around the country—elderly veterans who hope to go to northern France for the D-day commemorations—will have difficulty paying for things such as travel insurance and accommodation. Can she update the House on how the lottery can help with some of that financing?

[Anna Soubry]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. The Big Lottery Fund effectively provides the funding and has worked with the Royal British Legion to make sure that the money available will include, most notably, the high cost of insurance. If there is any difficulty, I am sure that my hon. Friend will come to see me about that, because it is imperative that there are no bars to our great veterans being able to attend these D-day commemorations.

Reserve Forces

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Last Saturday, Crawley borough council rightly signed its military covenant. That was, in part, a sign of the great respect in my constituency for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Territorial Army centre. Will my right hon. Friend say a little more about how he sees the REME reserves developing?

[Mr Hammond]

The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers are one of the resources on which we will be relying more in future for reserve capabilities than we have in the past. My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to use this as another specific example. We will be looking to ensure a basing laydown for REME units that reflects the nature of the work force in different areas. We clearly need to recruit to REME reserve units in areas where there are significant numbers of electrical and mechanical engineers in the work force. That is the right way to build the integrated whole force of the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I say to the hon. Lady that we have had to make some very difficult decisions in relation to the structure of the Army as we draw down its size to match our ambitions to our budgets. In doing that we have had to make sure we maximise the military capability. That means structuring the Army to deliver most efficiently the military capability that we need. I know that has meant painful decisions in a number of cases, but I am afraid we have to put the priority on delivering military effect.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T10. I greatly welcome the recent contract signed by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) on behalf of the MOD for the sensor support optimisation project with my constituency company of Thales UK. Can he say a little more about how this sonar technology will help the resilience of our fleet?

[Mr Dunne]

I greatly enjoyed visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency at the end of last month to sign that contract. It is a £600 million contract, which will ensure that the very sophisticated sonar and avionics systems—I mean periscopes—in our fleets are supported for the next 10 years, and it should save the Exchequer some £140 million over that period.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

No. We are very much aware of all those needs and I endorse the comments that my right hon. Friend made. He was probably making an oblique reference to press speculation about special forces. I can confirm that front-line special forces numbers will remain at current levels and will not be cut below the 2010 level.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T6. I very much welcome the increase in UK defence exports, which employ hundreds of thousands of people around the country, many of whom are in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend update the House on progress on exports of the Typhoon fighter?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

The Government have been at the forefront of export campaigns for Eurofighter Typhoon. Following success in securing export orders in Oman last December, we have been actively working with industry, the UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organisation and the Eurofighter partner nations to support potential Typhoon sales to a number of countries in the middle east, Europe and Asia—including Malaysia, where I led a delegation of 25 companies in the week before Easter. Typhoon exports help to sustain highly skilled jobs and engineering capability in the air sector, including that of the facility in my hon. Friend’s constituency which produces vital, full-mission simulators for Typhoon pilot training.

Nuclear Deterrent

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I greatly regret that, owing to a prime ministerial meeting with GPs from my constituency, I shall be unable to take part substantively in the debate.

Does my hon. Friend agree that our independent nuclear deterrent has helped to keep the peace in Europe for the past six decades, and that, because we effectively bankrupted the Soviet Union, it has led to the freeing of millions of people in eastern Europe?

[Dr Lewis]

I am sure that will be a central topic in our debate, and I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope some of the later points in my list of nine arguments will serve to endorse what he has said.

My second argument is that it is not the weapons themselves that we have to fear, but the nature of the regimes that possess them. Whereas democracies are generally reluctant to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear dictatorships—although they did so against Japan in 1945—the reverse is not true. Let us consider what might have happened if in 1982 a non-nuclear Britain had been facing an Argentina in possession of even just a few tactical nuclear bombs and the means of delivering them. Would we then have dared to use our conventional forces against its inferior conventional forces?

The third military argument is that the United Kingdom has traditionally played a more important and decisive role in preserving freedom than other medium-sized democracies have been able, or willing, to do. Democratic countries without nuclear weapons have little choice but either to declare themselves neutral and hope for the best or to rely on the nuclear umbrella of their powerful allies. The UK is a nuclear power already and is also much harder to defeat by conventional means than many other democracies because of our physical separation from the continent.

Future Reserves 2020

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, indeed. When my hon. Friend reads the Green Paper, he will see that it has a strong focus on that aspect.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My constituents are very proud of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Territorial Army units, which will be on parade as part of the Crawley remembrance services taking place this Sunday. Will the Secretary of State tell us what plans he has for the REME units as part of this welcome statement on growing and supporting our reserves?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend rightly points out that many of our reserve units will be on parade this Sunday, taking a full and active part in the commemorations. As he will know from comments I have already made, I cannot give unit-specific assurances, but I can say this to him: in the restructuring of the Regular Army, a deliberate decision has been taken to reduce manpower disproportionately in logistics, engineers and REME, which will require a disproportionate growth in the reserve strength in those three areas. I think he can probably work out the rest for himself.

Nuclear-powered Submarines

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two ways of sustaining these skills. We either provide orders to the companies that employ them so that they do something useful and make things, or we simply pay them to stand idle and allow their skills to decline. We have chosen the former, which is the right way to go.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s announcement. Our independent nuclear defence has not only protected democracy in this country and around the world but expanded it. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential in an even less certain world that we continue our independent nuclear deterrent?

[Mr Hammond]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the context of this debate: a world getting not safer but more dangerous; a world that, in spite of our ardent wish that the non-proliferation treaty succeed, is threatened by significant proliferation and the ever-present risk of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.