Defence and Security Review (NATO)

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Perhaps I should start by looking at the Order Paper. We are being asked tonight to approve for the current year a reduction of defence expenditure—or, I should say, a further reduction of defence expenditure—of £618 million. I hope that, in his response, the Minister will say on which capabilities the Ministry of Defence was planning to spend at the start of the year have now been dropped. Looking at the second and third paragraphs of the motion, I hope he will also say what additional expenditure there has been this year for capital purposes, for which there is a considerable increase, and operations. How will those additional resources be spent?

The Defence Committee produced a good report before the NATO summit and any sane person would agree with many of the points that the Government made in their response. However, there was a lack of clear commitment and candour in the response on defence spending, which the Chairman of the Select Committee has just talked about.

It has become clear over the past year, if not longer, that we face new and challenging security threats from Russia, which the Chairman of the Select Committee also spoke about. There is not just the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in eastern Ukraine, but a new Russian foreign policy doctrine that reserves to Russia the right to intervene in other states where there are Russian-speaking minorities when the Kremlin believes it is in their interests to do so. There has been a continuity of policy going back to Georgia and, indeed, Transnistria. There are still Russian troops in northern Moldova. We have also, in the past year or so, seen new and complex threats in the middle east from ISIS or Daesh.

In the face of new and growing security threats, we clearly need new capabilities and strategies to deter our enemies and defend ourselves. We need as soon as possible a new NATO very high readiness joint taskforce and we need to be able to deploy it quickly. That will mean that this House must consider how political authority will be given for use of the first very high readiness brigade and the reinforcement brigades.

We need to discuss with our allies how other Parliaments, especially those that have a constitutional requirement for a vote in Parliament before forces are deployed, will ensure that a very high readiness force, to be deployed within 48 hours, can be deployed within that timescale if needed even though their Parliaments cannot meet within that timescale. We will need either some pre-authorisations, as we had in the old days of the cold war, under which SACEUR—Supreme Allied Commander Europe—could mobilise his assets, or acceptance that parts of NATO will move within 48 hours, even if some allies will take longer to make decisions.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Given my hon. Friend’s extremely important work in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, does he think that the House probably has not of late taken sufficient note of the debates at the Parliamentary Assembly?

[Sir Hugh Bayley]

I would always like greater attention to be given to the Parliamentary Assembly’s work, but there is a good crossover of membership between our UK delegation to the Assembly and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Select Committee on Defence and the Select Committee on International Development. As a result, there is a cross-fertilisation of ideas and I know that colleagues on the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees who are alerted to particular information through the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meetings have been able to take that information to their Select Committees. There is, of course, movement of information in the other direction, which is a thoroughly good thing.

We need to consider not just how we deliver a very high readiness joint taskforce but how to improve our strategy for dealing with cyber-threats, our response to the propaganda war when it is waged against us and our response to the use of irregular personnel, whether that means little green men or jihadists in the middle east. We must be clear that if we and our allies are going to develop new capabilities and strategies, that will cost money. If we want to improve our defence, we must will the means to do so.

Before the NATO summit last September, the Prime Minister quite rightly called on the majority of our NATO allies who do not spend 2% of their GDP on defence to do so. At the summit, as one can read on page 10 of the Government’s response to the report:

“All Allies agreed to halt any decline in Defence spending, aim to increase it in real terms as GDP grows and to move towards 2% within a decade.”

Some of our allies have responded to that declaration since the summit. Poland agreed on 18 February to increase its defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2016. Romania, through a pact signed between the political parties on 13 January, pledged to reach 2% by 2017. The Czech Republic, while not making a pledge to reach 2%, has pledged to increase its spending from 1% to 1.4% by 2020. Lithuania has pledged to meet 2% by 2017 and Latvia by 2020. Estonia, which is already at 2%, has increased its defence spending slightly to 2.05% this year. Overall, however, western European allies are still cutting their defence expenditure, on average by 2% a year since 2009 according to Jane’s defence budgets global defence assessment. Last year, in 2014, Germany cut its defence spending by 3.9% and we in the UK cut ours by 2.3%. France cut its by 0.8%. Meanwhile, Russia has been increasing its defence spending by some 10% a year for the past five years, a 50% increase. We ought to question why we did not pick that up sooner. No one increases their defence spending by 50% unless they have some plan to use those assets.

We should also look closely at UK defence spending. According to the public expenditure statistical analysis produced by the Government in 2014, at table 4.2, in the year I entered the House, 1992-93, defence spending was £23.8 billion or 3.5% of our GDP. By 1997-98, when there was a change of Government, of course, defence spending had fallen in cash terms to £21.7 billion, and by more in real terms. At that point, it was down to 2.5% of GDP. Throughout the period of the previous Labour Government, defence spending remained at 2.5%. The Ministry of Defence’s statistical analysis shows an increase, but if we remove the increased spending on operations it remained at 2.5%.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In his last few words, the hon. Gentleman said something that contradicted my memory of events. The point I wanted to make to him was it was often said, particularly by Tony Blair on leaving, that under the previous Labour Government spending had remained roughly constant at 2.5%, if the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq were included. In opposition, we used to criticise that, as we said that it was sleight of hand, so the hon. Gentleman can imagine my embarrassment now that we are in government to find that there is no sign of our sticking to the pledge when we criticised the Labour party in government for massaging the figures.

[Sir Hugh Bayley]

I have had an interesting conversation with the statisticians in the House of Commons Library this afternoon. They provided figures for me in April of last year that showed spending as a proportion of GDP increasing from 2.48% in 1997-98 to 2.81% in 2009-10. Those are the Defence Analytical Services and Advice, or DASA, figures produced by the Minister of Defence. More recently—[Interruption.] I shall come to the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) in a moment. More recently, the Library has given me the PESA, or public expenditure statistical analysis, figures, which show defence spending at 2.5% at the start of the Labour Government and 2.5% at the end of the Labour Government. I think the difference in the figures is covered by precisely the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. If we include the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq, there is an increase in real terms. If we discount them, there is no change in real terms.

In 2013-14, according to the Government’s figures, spending was at 2.1%. That is counterintuitive. I do not think that many members of the public would recognise that the Major Conservative Government substantially reduced defence expenditure in real terms, that the Labour Government maintained it and that this Government have substantially reduced it, but that is what the Government’s own PESA figures show us.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s powerful endorsement of the Prime Minister’s commitment to 2% at the NATO summit last September. Has he spoken to his own Front Benchers about whether an incoming Labour Government, if there were to be such a thing, would or would not maintain defence spending at 2%?

[Sir Hugh Bayley]

Yes, of course I have had that conversation—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am going to have to put a time limit on speeches, because we are drifting, and it was suggested earlier that Members should speak for up to 10 minutes. Sir Hugh, I assume that you will soon be coming to the end of your speech.

[Sir Hugh Bayley]

I will crack on quickly, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I have put my name to the early-day motion drafted by the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff), which calls for the 2% commitment to be maintained. However, like the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), I do not believe that that is enough. I believe that we should be increasing our defence spending as a proportion of GNP. I have of course raised that with Opposition Front Benchers. I seek a commitment tonight from the Minister and the shadow Minister that the strategic defence and security reviews that they would respectively commission, depending on who wins the general election, will be led by concerns about security and will not be cost-driven, which was a criticism that many people made of the 2010 SDSR.

It is five years since NATO adopted its new strategic concept. It was intended to last for 10 years, but the security threats we face are clearly changing, so it needs to be reviewed. Therefore, another question that I wish to put to both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) is: would their respective strategic defence and security reviews consider whether NATO’s strategic concept needs to be reviewed?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

I am doubly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking a question that I cannot possibly answer, having been in opposition at the time, because it gives me extra time and allows me to direct him to the shadow Minister, who I am sure will be able to answer it when he sums up.

The next question is who should do the strategic defence and security review? I must say that I disagree with my hon. and very learned Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson)—“learned” in the academic sense of that word—when he paints a picture of how wonderful the process of the National Security Council and the national security strategy is. Frankly, I am not impressed with it. I thought that the strategy document itself was apple pie and motherhood. I did not see much in it other than a ranking of tiered threats, most of which were fairly obvious, and those that were not may well turn out, in relation to state-against-state conflict being ranked in the third tier, to be absolutely wrong.

I am concerned about the decision-making process in defence. I will not go into that too much now because, as the Chairman of the Defence Committee, which I have recently had the privilege of joining, is well aware, we are about to produce a report on that very subject. Yet I would like to flag up something that I hope will appear in his draft in due course, and it is this: when we are trying to work out a sensible, comprehensive, coherent and well-informed strategy, it is useful to have substantive contributions from Ministers and civil servants, but we also need contributions from the military.

We appear to have dismantled the collective giving of military advice on strategy to politicians by the chiefs of staff, along with the healthy tension between them and the politicians that contributed so much to the outcome of successful campaigns in decades gone by. I am not impressed when we find that the whole burden of giving military advice on strategy to the Government falls on the shoulders of the Chief of the Defence Staff and the immediate chain of people below him, when in fact that used to be the collective responsibility of the heads of the armed services. I am not impressed when we find that the civil service has done away with what has been termed “domain competence” at the highest levels. We can find ourselves, as I do on the Defence Committee, facing a permanent Under-Secretary of State, the head of the Ministry of Defence, with next to no background in defence himself, and hearing him tell us with great pride that the new head of the Army is pleased to look on himself as a chief executive officer for his service. We are not going to get sufficient military input from that sort of configuration. We are getting non-specialist civil servants, we are getting the military insufficiently included in the process, and we are getting politicians flying by the seat of their pants. It is not good enough.

In his own excellent speech, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Mid Sussex did not have time, I am delighted to say, to refer to an article by Max Hastings which appeared in The Guardian on 8 November 2005. It is headed “Our armed forces must have a voice in how to defend us” and it states:

“strategy in its proper sense—a doctrine for the prevention and prosecution of war—has been allowed to atrophy. Very few people in uniform or out of it, within the Ministry of Defence or beyond it, devote intellect and energy to anything much beyond saving money and getting through today. And those who do so are firmly discouraged from allowing any hint of their ruminations to escape into the public domain, to fuel an intelligent debate.”

Given that the entire strategic role is now devolved on to the shoulders of just the Chief of Defence Staff, it was disturbing to me to read—I do not know whether it is true—that the CDS was instructed by his political masters not to deliver a lecture. If that is true, it is appalling. [Interruption.] I am delighted, again, to have that sedentary endorsement from my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Mid Sussex.

On resources, I am thrilled that there has been such unanimity about recommending us to put forward the NATO minimum contribution of 2% of GDP for defence. Can hon. Members imagine anything worse than signalling to a powerful adversary that we are going to send 75 military personnel as advisers into a non-NATO country which we are not able and not obliged to defend, much as we sympathise with it, but for the first time since the 2% formula was set, we are in danger of not meeting it ourselves?

[Sir Hugh Bayley]

I am getting slightly tired of Government Members talking up 2% as if it were a great achievement. Five years ago it was 2.5%, so the defence budget has been cut over the past five years by 20%. When Labour came to power it was £22 billion. When we left power, the defence budget in cash terms was £39 billion; now it is £34 billion—a real-terms cut. When are these cuts going to stop?

[Dr Lewis]

I entirely agree with the thrust of that intervention, although as I stated in an intervention on the hon. Gentleman, I well remember Tony Blair saying in, I think, 2007 that over the 10-year period that he had been in office, the defence budget had remained fairly constant at 2.5% of GDP, if the cost of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan was included. The situation is therefore even worse than the hon. Gentleman thinks, because in effect core defence expenditure also declined under his Government. Nevertheless, the thrust of what he says is on the right lines.

I shall quote very briefly from the Government’s response to the report that the Defence Committee produced before I joined it. The Government replied on 27 October 2014:

“NATO Allies have also collectively agreed to reverse the trend of declining defence budgets and aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows and direct defence budgets to be as efficient and effective as possible. Allies currently meeting the NATO guidelines to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence will aim to continue to do so. . . Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will halt any decline in defence expenditure; aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; and aim to move towards the 2% guidelines within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO’s capability shortfalls.”

When the Prime Minister came back from that NATO conference in Wales, he made a statement from the Dispatch Box, speaking very much along those lines. So I thought, “I have not always been as immensely helpful to the Prime Minister as I might have been, because he has done some things I really couldn’t stand, such as putting off the decision to sign the Trident main-gate contracts till 2016, when they should have been decided in this Parliament. So I’ll ask him a helpful question.” I asked, “Will the Prime Minister then give an undertaking that, as long as he remains Prime Minister, that 2% target will be met?” To my dismay, I found that that was not a helpful question at all. It was an unhelpful question, so I have been asking it time and again ever since.

I will now be unable to get on to the content of the next strategic defence and security review, which will have to wait for other debates. I will not even be able to rebut in more detail what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Reigate said about Trident, but I am glad that the House did not agree with him. I simply point out that this 2% issue is not going away. We will have another debate on 12 March, and I hope that everyone who has spoken today will come back then to continue the argument.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I absolutely will not lose focus. It is worth saying that we listened to all the representations that were made. We also know and understand that we have a duty to live within our means as a nation and to keep within the Defence budget. That is why we always look at such matters with great care. We looked at the matter, we listened and, in this instance, we did not act. The policy will therefore continue and I am confident that it will do so with success.

[Sir Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

2. How many UK military personnel are currently serving in Afghanistan.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark Francois)]

Let me start by passing on our congratulations to the hon. Gentleman on his well-deserved knighthood. Our commitment to the current NATO Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, the UK element of which is known as Operation Toral, amounts to about 470 UK military personnel. They work in support of the democratically elected Afghan Government, who have just announced their new Cabinet.

[Sir Hugh Bayley]

I thank the Minister for his kind remarks. The benefits that our service personnel, as well as our diplomats and development workers, have brought to Afghanistan at such cost over the past 13 years could be swept away in part or all of that country, as has happened in Iraq, if the new Resolute Support mission to support the Afghan national security forces does not provide the support that is necessary. Can he reassure the House that Resolute Support will be maintained for as long as is necessary to guarantee the gains that have been made over the past decade?

[Mr Francois]

Along with our NATO allies in Resolute Support, we are committed to the long-term security of Afghanistan. On the UK contribution, we continue to lead mentoring at the Afghan national army officer academy and to provide mentors in the Afghan security institutions. We are also taking the lead on the Kabul security force, which is a key enabler for managing and assuring the protection of UK and NATO personnel in Kabul. The hon. Gentleman mentioned sacrifice. We lost 453 personnel who died in the line of duty in Afghanistan. They made a great sacrifice to give the people of Afghanistan a future and we will never forget them.

Al-Sweady Inquiry Report

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We all regret the amount of time and the cost of this inquiry, but I am still proud to live in a country where these things can be fully investigated. It has taken far too long and cost far too much money, but I would rather the truth came out, however painful it has been. On the recovery of costs, as I said, we are looking at whether some of the costs involved in the earlier judicial review claim can now be recouped.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

One question that has not yet been raised relates to the asymmetric nature of so much modern warfare. When our troops go into battle, more often than not it is not against another nation state that observes international law and the Geneva convention, but against irregulars who do not observe the rule of law. This must put our soldiers in the heat of battle under immense psychological pressure. Will the Secretary of State reassure me that the lessons from this report will be fed into the way our soldiers are trained, which has enabled them to maintain very high standards when fighting against people who do not maintain the same standards against them?

[Michael Fallon]

That is already part of the training that our servicemen and women now undergo, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The House should wonder whether the Taliban or ISIL would rush to provide bottled water before they were asked to do so if they had British detainees in their custody, or indeed if those detainees had survived to be in their custody.

Veterans (Support and Rehabilitation)

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. I understand from the body language of the hon. Gentleman and the Minister that neither objects to other brief speeches being made.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I reiterate my earlier comments about the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti).

It is true that organisations such as SSAFA and the Royal British Legion do great work, and that the military covenant has been a big help through its recognition of the debt we all owe to our veterans; the role of local authorities has also been critical for development work on the ground. I want to talk about some of the work being done by smaller groups, in particular a group I am involved with in the north-east called Forward Assist. That was set up by a former marine, and a colleague of mine before I came to this place. All he had ever wanted to do with his life was to join the Royal Marines. After 18 months of training, he ripped his shoulder and despite two years of medical treatment was unable to carry on in his service. He left what had been his dream job, and fell into a downward spiral of drink and drugs. Thankfully, he was rescued by a counsellor who got him back on the straight and narrow and he was able to go back to university and learn a new trade. Now, in his later life and after working for a long time in child care and in the probation service, he has decided to set up a charity to take care of veterans. He was seeing young men coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and going through what he had gone through 30 years before, and he felt that something had to be done.

Some of these guys had been kicked out of the service for various reasons. They had gone into low-level crime or got involved with drink and drugs. They had terribly low self-esteem and were guilt-ridden because they felt they had let their families, themselves and the nation down. Many of their problems are mental health related, which is natural when someone has been in the services. They will not admit that they have mental health problems because it is a big issue for anyone, but for those coming out of the services it is a huge issue.

The role that Forward Assist plays in dealing with these people across Tyneside is about telling them, “You are not a failure. We want to help you get back into the normal way of living and get used to living in a world that is completely different from what you have experienced.” A lot of these people have been in the services for 20 years and the world today is very different from what it was in the 1990s and 1980s. Through a variety of interests, Forward Assist is working with people in the north-east. For example, in the north-east the National Trust have been very supportive, as have local councils, and big and small businesses have been tremendous. They have got involved in a huge raft of work, which has enabled these people to feel now that they can contribute to society again.

I want to mention three small things that are very important to these gentlemen. Veterans have been enrolled on cookery courses and some have obtained qualifications to enable them to cook for the public. They go round community centres and cook for elderly people and community groups, so they feel that they are giving something back. Similarly, some get angling qualifications. A community centre in the town I live in took 16 people with learning difficulties to a local fishing lake and is teaching them the skills of fishing. It is absolutely brilliant stuff. When fishing, those people can release and speak openly about what they are going through and it is very therapeutic for them to work with the people who are taking care of them. People have also taken sports qualifications. Some are working with Sunderland and Everton football clubs to develop community sports on the ground. That is happening only because of the work that people have done and the huge support they have given to veterans.

One reason why I wanted to speak is that a gentleman called Tony Wright, who won a Winston Churchill travelling scholarship three years ago, spent his time in the United States looking at how they look after their veterans, and as a result we set up a twinning link between Arkansas, Texas and Tyneside. There was already a sister city relationship between Little Rock in Arkansas and Tyneside, and out of that we have developed other work. I had the privilege of going there in December two years ago and I have been there during the recess in the last few years. Some of the things we learned from them are really important.

In no way would I ever denigrate the national health service. What happens in this country is that if someone has a problem, we point them to the national health service. Everyone has problems, but veterans have greater problems. One thing the American Veterans Health Administration has learned is that the issues involve more than health problems. It has learned through the terrible experience of men who came back from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, which was horrendous. They were treated like pariahs in America and were seen as failures, with people spitting on them and calling them all sorts of names such as “traitor”. People who had been in the forces were treated like dirt; people who were opposed to the war were treating them like dirt. It was not the fault of those guys that things went the way they did; it was the fault of our counterparts in various US Administrations over the years.

Thankfully, the light came on in the States, and as a result of that and some huge commitments by their Government, they now have the Veterans Health Administration, which works much better, possibly than anywhere else in the world. It is well resourced and provides a wrap-around service. When someone leaves the services they are provided with a mobile phone and are regularly contacted during the first year to see how they are doing. That might seem a simple thing, but it is vital for some of these people. Their education, housing, work and health needs are looked after.

We had the privilege of sitting in with a psychiatrist who was linked by CCTV to a gentleman who was 200 miles north in Arkansas. Because of benefit cuts, he could not afford to drive to meet the psychiatrist, but the Veterans Health Association had paid for the link. The gentleman knew we were there and to me it was one of the best things I have seen in my life. The guy was 65 years old and it was 40 years since he had left the services. He had worked in a mortuary in Vietnam. He had survived the trauma of that with a lot of black humour—people doing inappropriate things with body parts.

The veteran told the psychiatrist that 40 years later he was lying in bed trying to sleep, but could not. After 25 years of drug addiction he had managed to kick the habit because a judge had said, “If you come back here again, you are going to jail for life.” He had been clean for seven years and had got his dream job working in a golf club, but he said, “I am terribly fatigued because I go to bed at night and I can’t sleep, so I am going to work in the morning and I can’t concentrate, and I am terrified I am going to lose my job.” The psychiatrist said, “Look, we are going to bring you down to the hospital, monitor your sleeping patterns and monitor your medication, and make sure you can do what you want to do.” The veteran, who was a simple, old-fashioned working bloke, was delighted. That is the sort of thing we could learn from the people over there.

Another lesson from America involved the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke—my hon. Friend—referred to people who have been in prison. One thing they are doing in the States that is really innovative, is to stop them going to prison in the first place. People who have been involved in low-level crime must, first and foremost, admit their guilt. A system was set up that was developed from drugs courts. Someone goes in front of a judge in a veterans treatment court, where every one of the staff and the officials has been in the services. Their motto is that no one will fail.

The experience of the court in Buffalo, which was the first veterans treatment court, was that of 300 people who went through the system there, not one went back to crime. It worked for the benefit of the individual and society. It was economic and there was low crime. I am not saying it is foolproof because nothing is foolproof, but we should look at that seriously in this House. My party is committed to that, on the back of the experience that we brought back from over there. There will be serious discussions. I know, from discussions that we have had in the main Chamber of the House of Commons, that as part of the review that was mentioned earlier, the Government are looking at that example as a way of developing support for veterans.

When we raised the matter in our local area, I went on the radio and was assailed by someone who said, “Hang on. If someone has committed a crime we should bang them up. Why should we treat them differently from a window cleaner, a bricklayer or whatever? Why should veterans be a special case?” Well, we are a special case because of what we do.

We ask these people to go round the world and be prepared to kill for us and be prepared to die for us. We ask them to do abnormal things. If someone starts shooting at us, we do not run towards them, we run away from them, but those in the services are not allowed to run away from them. We ask them to kill people and if they do not kill people they end up in jail, whereas if anyone else kills someone they end up in jail. So veterans are a special case and we owe them the best possible support we can give them. I hope that in future discussions —I hope they will be cross-party because we should all be able to agree on this—we can learn the lessons not just of what people have experienced over the last few years, and work closely with the Americans.

During our discussions with the Veterans Health Administration in America, someone said that they are seeing a tsunami of health-related issues coming at them as a result of what people have gone through, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. People were exposed to the pressures over there for 24 hours a day, which we have not seen in the past—those who served in Northern Ireland and so on. During the second world war and so on, the pressures were not there every waking moment of their lives, but for the men and women I am talking about they have been and we must give them the best support we can.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I call Jim Shannon and gently remind him to leave sufficient time for the Minister to reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful. I would very much enjoy having a conversation with the hon. Gentleman to discuss the matter further. I pay tribute to the work that he does and the knowledge that he has brought to this debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke asked specifically about veterans’ accommodation. There is £40 million of LIBOR funding for that. Nine out of the 16 projects that have been successful have been announced; a further seven will be announced next month by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There are schemes to support veterans involved in the criminal justice system. I was really interested in the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Blaydon. I have always been resistant to the idea of veterans courts, but he has begun to convince me. Certainly I am going to keep an open mind on it; he has persuaded me to keep my mind open to it. The danger, I am told, is that many of those who have served say, “Why should we be seen as something different or special? We do not need our own court.” My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke addressed that argument. My experience in the Crown court was that when a judge knew that someone was serving or had served, they took that heavily into consideration before deciding whether to pass a custodial sentence, because they recognised the sacrifice and the duty that the individual had performed by serving in one of our armed services.

In the time that remains, I want to deal with the some of the points that have been raised. In particular, I want to talk about mental health, which always comes up, and I know that it concerns so many people in this place and outside it. I give full credit to the charity Forward Assist, which the hon. Member for Blaydon has mentioned and of which, I believe, he is a patron. He brings to the debate insight and understanding. I think that the charity is a good example of how we should deliver on the covenant, namely through local delivery by a good local charity that knows the people who need help and knows how to go and find them. Knowing how to find such people is one of the big problems.

I have confidence, and I hope I am not overstating it, in where we are now. We have heard from the hon. Member for Strangford about Cyprus. We know that in respect of people who were involved in Afghanistan in the theatre of war, our armed forces have really woken up to mental health. As a society, we have woken up to mental health, and much of the stigma has been removed from it. In our armed forces, the rather macho attitude of “We do not talk about these things. Be a man and get on with it,” has given way to a much healthier attitude to mental health. It is seen much more as part of general health. People look after their weight, and they look after their head at the same time. Looking after their mental health is part of being fit for service. We are building resilience and we are encouraging people to talk about mental health. As the hon. Gentleman has identified, people go to Cyprus from Afghanistan, where they go through a period of decompression. They are encouraged to be open and to talk.

It is hugely significant that our former Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall, chose to become president of Combat Stress when he retired, even though he had many charities to choose from. That shows that people are no longer afraid, and no longer feel that it is some sort of slight, to talk about mental health. People recognise how important it is that we get it right, and a lot of good work has been done. I am concerned about people—they are mainly men—who served in previous combats, such as Iraq, the Falklands and Northern Ireland, who did not have many of those facilities and do not come from that generation of service. I fear that they have slipped through the net. They may end up in trouble or in a bad place, and they may feel that there is nobody to support or help them.

That is where the fabulous local charities come into play, because they have the ability to scoop up such people at a local level and get them into the right place. In my constituency, there is a fabulous local charity called Forces in the Community, which is looking at schemes with the local police. If the police pick up someone who is drunk, misbehaving, or engaged in low-level crime and they discover that that person is a veteran, they do not go through the normal process of giving the individual a caution. Instead, they look sensibly and intelligently at doing things differently by, for example, placing the individual with an organisation such as Forces in the Community. If, for example, someone has a problem with drugs or drink, if they are homeless or if their marriage is falling to pieces, they are put together with local organisations that can help them. In such a way, we can deliver what we should be delivering for all our veterans.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned vaccinations in Iraq, and I will take that issue away and deal with it. Mr Bayley, I think I have enough time to talk quickly about the career transition partnership—

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Two minutes.

[Anna Soubry]

Two minutes. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke asked about the partnership, which offers transition and employment support for up to two years pre-discharge and two years post-discharge. From 1 October next year, the career transition partnership contract will include all service leavers. I hope that that is good news.

I fear that there are all sorts of other questions that I should have answered and matters that I should have dealt with, but I am running out of time. I thank all who have contributed to this debate. As I have said, it could easily have taken up 90 minutes, and probably more, and we should have such a debate. I have certainly learned a lot, and if I have missed anything, I will write to my hon. Friends and cover those points in better detail than I have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I, too, have learned a lot. It has been a privilege to listen to the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Defence Spending

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

The first responsibility of any Government, as every Member of this House will agree, is the security of their citizens. In order to provide security for our citizens, we need to work in partnership with our allies. The reason for that is that none of us in NATO, with the possible exception of the United States, has armed forces that are strong enough on their own to deter all the external risks we face and, if necessary, defend our countries against them. Even the United States would not want to go it alone, because it is in a stronger position when deploying military assets jointly with allies than when doing so alone.

To illustrate that point, we need only look at our defence assets and capabilities and compare them with those of the alliance as a whole. We have 19 surface warships, as we heard from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron)—my notes said 18, but I bow to his expertise—but the alliance as a whole has 283. We have 330 combat aircraft, but the alliance has 6,531. We have 227 main battle tanks, but the alliance has 13,730. We spend around $60 billion overall on defence, or £33 billion, compared with expenditure across the alliance of $924 billion. Now, £33 billion might sound like an awful lot of money, but it is very much less than we spend on social security, health or education. It makes perhaps one twentieth of all Government expenditure. It is also much less than this country spent in the not-too-distant past.

I was interested to hear what the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said about the Prime Minister’s commitment on 2%. I asked him a similar question after his G7 statement last week, to which he replied:

“We are, of course, still meeting the 2% that NATO countries are meant to meet”.—[Official Report, 11 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 556.]

We need him to go further and make it clear to the House that he will not go below 2%. I agree with the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay that we need to spend rather more on defence than we do at the moment.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is dangerous to pursue targets—2% is the minimum target, I know—because surely our duty as a country is to have the armed forces we need to protect our people and dependants and to meet our responsibilities in the event that we have to go it alone? The Falklands war is a classic case. We could not retake the Falklands now, for example.

[Hugh Bayley]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, with which I agree, in relation to the Falklands. I certainly agree that one should not pluck a figure out of the air and say, “This is the target.” We need to look at the security risks we face and then at how we, perhaps on our own in certain circumstances but more usually in combination with allies, would deploy military force to counter those risks.

Are we spending enough? In the early 1990s, when I was first elected to this House, we spent considerably more on defence—4.2% on average between 1990 and 1994. It is perfectly possible for a Government, with all the pressures for public expenditure in a wide range of important and necessary fields, to spend more than we currently do if they believe that the security risks demand it. Of course, security risks constantly change. The question is whether we and our allies are spending enough, given the security environment that we now face. It is important to talk also about our NATO allies because, through article 5 of the Washington treaty, we have made a fundamental commitment: if we are attacked, they come to our defence, and if any of them are attacked, we come to their defence.

I am certain that defence spending should be on the agenda at the NATO summit in September. In the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I discussed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its destabilisation of eastern Ukraine and President Putin’s threat to other countries in the neighbourhood with Russian-speaking minorities—the Baltic states and Poland—that he reserves the right to intervene if he in the Kremlin believes that the interests of those Russian speakers are under threat. The action in Ukraine follows the war between Russia and Georgia and, to my mind, tells us that a pattern of action is being established. A Russian foreign policy is being laid down that reserves to Russia the right to intervene and take territory from neighbouring sovereign states if Russia believes that it is in its interests so to do.

I believe that President Putin is testing us. He is biting off a bit of territory and seeing how we respond—whether he can go further or whether he needs to back-pedal a bit. As an alliance, we have to strengthen our position so that we deter further adventurous actions by Russia or anybody else.

It is 25 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. During that period, the west has put out the hand of friendship to Russia, helping it to modernise its economy, build stock exchanges and join the World Trade Organisation. As far as we have been able to, we have provided reassurance to Russia that we do not see it any longer as posing a military threat to us elsewhere in Europe. We have to reassess that now. We have to ask why President Putin feels that he can with impunity occupy the territory of neighbouring states. It is partly because his financial means are growing as a result of a petro-fuelled economy and partly because some European countries are not responding as robustly as they otherwise would, as they are too dependent on Russia for oil and gas. Europe as a whole, through the European Union, needs to address that by improving the diversity of our sources of energy.

President Putin may also feel that way because the United States has signalled that it is rebalancing its defence posture to pay more attention to the Pacific—it needs to, as there are real risks there, but the implication is less attention to Europe. There are also the defence cuts that so many alliance countries, including ours, have made since the banking crisis in the late noughties. Putin has also probably recognised a decline in public appetite or support for military action in many alliance countries.

Since 2008, Russia’s defence spending has increased by more than 10% each year—more than 50% over the five-year period. As we heard from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay, China is significantly increasing its real-terms defence spending too. Over the same period, defence spending by NATO’s European allies has been cut by almost 10%. According to the UK MOD defence budget plans, the departmental expenditure limit has fallen from £34.2 billion in 2010-11 to £30.7 billion in 2015-16—a fall of 8.2%. I asked the Library to deliver figures about defence expenditure rather than budgets, and those figures show a rather greater reduction. According to the public expenditure statistical analysis, our defence spending has fallen in real terms, at 2012-13 prices, from £39.1 billion in 2009-10 to a projected £30.7 billion in 2015-16—a fall of just over 18%.

It is absolutely essential that defence spending is on the agenda for the NATO summit. It is also essential that the Government give a commitment before the summit not only that our spending is at 2% but that it will remain at 2%. As some Members have pointed out, far too many of our allies spend considerably less than 2%. We need to persuade them to spend more, but we are in a weak position to do so if we are cutting our own expenditure. We would be in a much stronger position if we said: “We have reassessed the risks we face. We in the UK will spend more, particularly as a growth dividend enables the Government to spend more, and we expect others in Europe to do the same.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I understand my hon. Friend’s question, and I am mindful of his previous military service. The whole House will understand that Burma has a complicated history and that this is a difficult situation, but given that, and given the fact that the Burmese military have an important role in the Burmese political system, if we are to encourage reform, which we would all like to see, it is right that we engage with the military, although we maintain a strong commitment to human rights in everything we do in that context.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I visited Burma last year as a member of the International Development Committee, and some of us met General Aung Min, who is leading the peace process. I believe it is extremely important that our military develop relationships with their military and pass on some of the lessons we learnt from the Northern Ireland peace process. I strongly encourage the Government to ensure that that happens.

[Mr Francois]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and I am mindful that he represents a constituency with a significant military component. The previous Chief of the Defence Staff has visited Burma and engaged with the Burmese military at senior level, and as I said, we are undertaking our course of action partly on the advice of Aung San Suu Kyi herself.

IT Systems (Army Recruitment)

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

There are several questions there. First, the IT platform—the management of the process—is intended to provide a tri-service platform, and once it is fully operational, it will provide savings to the Navy and Air Force as well. Cadets provide an opportunity to showcase careers in the armed services, and we know that significant numbers of recruits have cadet experience. I want to be clear that we should support young people who join the cadets, and when they are interested in a career in the armed services, we should support them to explore the possibilities of such a career. As my hon. Friend will know, we are also committed to rolling out an increased number of combined cadet forces in state schools, to mirror the great success that those established combined cadet forces in independent schools have already demonstrated.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

The Defence Committee report published today expresses concern that the rate of voluntary outflow from the armed forces is way above the long-term average. It also mentions the problems in pinch-point trades. What is the Secretary of State doing to address those problems? Would it make sense to modify the redundancy scheme, at least in the short term, until the recruitment problems are overcome?

[Mr Hammond]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that nobody who is in an area where we have a shortage is eligible for redundancy. The redundancy programme essentially addresses the changed structure of the Army. At the same time, we have an over-supply in certain areas and a chronic shortage in others. In the short term, we are paying retention bonuses in pinch-point trades, particularly in the Royal Navy—sea-going engineering skills and nuclear engineering skills are in desperately short supply. We are actively managing the work force with retention initiatives. In the longer-term, we must grow the skills we need. We are working with the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to ensure that we generate the nuclear engineering skills the armed forces need as the UK civil nuclear industry regenerates.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the community covenant, which gives me an opportunity to repeat the fact that more than 80% of local authorities have signed it, including, I am pleased to say, all those in his and my county, Essex. He talked about co-operation between Government Departments. As he will know, a specific Cabinet sub-committee chaired by the Minister for Government Policy meets regularly to make sure that we are properly co-ordinated between Departments in evaluating the covenant. The hon. Gentleman may be pleased to know that that committee is due to meet again in the near future.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

13. What smart defence or pooling and sharing initiatives the UK has joined; and what estimate he has made of savings to the public purse arising from such schemes.

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

I am delighted to be able to say that the ultimate answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is 42, as the UK currently participates in 40 NATO smart defence initiatives and two of the European Defence Agency’s pooling and sharing projects. I am happy to write to him with a list, if he would like it. Capability development is a long-term process. Many of these projects are still in their infancy and as such we are unable to quantify meaningfully direct savings to the UK, but savings there certainly will be. There are clear benefits for the UK in seeking collaborative opportunities and encouraging other partners to do the same, particularly working in small groups where it is expedient to do so. UK-Dutch amphibiosity, 40 years old this year, is a very good example.

[Hugh Bayley]

Indeed, I would like the Minister to write to me. I support what the Government are doing to try to buy at lower cost collaboratively with allies, but the Government’s defence expenditure, according to public expenditure statistical analyses last year, was in real terms £4.9 billion less than when Labour was in power in our last year of office. What proportion of that £4.9 billion has been saved through smart defence?

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I am sure that my hon. Friend, with his military background of which the House is well aware, is as proud as any Member of the House of the service record of the Gurkhas for this country. As he is aware, we have a particular arrangement with the Sultan of Brunei regarding one of the two Gurkha battalions, which helps to defray part of the cost of their service to the country. That arrangement is likely to continue and our decisions are partly based on that. I reiterate our great pride at having Gurkhas in the British Army. That is something that we wish to continue.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

7. What the outcome was of the recent NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting; and if he will make a statement.

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

The key outcomes of the recent NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting included allied endorsement of the concept of operations for NATO’s post-2014 “Train, Advise, Assist” mission in Afghanistan; agreement to national capability targets apportioned to allies as part of the NATO defence planning process; and a commitment to conduct follow-on work on how NATO might prevent, respond to and recover from a cyber-attack against systems of critical importance to the alliance.

[Hugh Bayley]

The UK is one of a small number of alliance members that spend 2% or more of their national income on defence. Was the need to raise defence expenditures by those countries that do not meet the 2% threshold raised at the meeting, and what is the Secretary of State doing to try to ensure that other countries in the alliance share the burden with us?

[Mr Hammond]

The adequate resourcing of European NATO members’ defence budgets was raised, but—as I have already said in the House—we must also be realistic about the situation that most European countries are facing in their public finances. The more fruitful vein for the next few years will be to ensure that we get true deliverable military capability with the budgets that countries already spend.

Better Defence Acquisition

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the plan to transfer the Royal Navy dockyards out of DE&S, along with the plan to transfer the logistics and commodities supply service out of DE&S to an outsource contractor, will continue on track. That is why there is a gap between the projected 2015 total numbers of DE&S on a steady state basis, and the 8,000 that we are expecting to transfer under a TUPE transfer if we go down this route.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

How much does the Secretary of State think that the new arrangement will save each year? Will those savings be used to buy additional equipment for our armed forces, or simply returned to the Treasury, leaving our servicemen with less?

[Mr Hammond]

The latter part of the hon. Gentleman’s question is clearly one that I cannot answer on a unilateral basis, but I suspect that, in the way that generally happens, there is a potential win-win situation here—a win for the taxpayer in terms of lower public expenditure and a win for the armed forces in terms of greater capabilities being able to be purchased. I think I included these figures in my statement, but the independent estimates are that somewhere between £1.3 billion and £2.2 billion of frictional costs generated by inefficiencies in the procurement system are incurred every year. It would be a very rash man who suggested that we can squeeze out every last pound of those, but I would expect us to be able to achieve net gains after taking account of the cost of the arrangements—the GoCo fee and the cost of the governance function on the MOD side—in the hundreds of millions of pounds.