Defence Responsibilities

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I was aware of that issue. The right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) talked about his declared interest today, but I think that it would have been better to have been frank and upfront and to have said that the particular company concerned is the central company in many of the allegations about the meeting in Dubai on which the shadow Secretary of State has so focused. I am not saying that that would in any way diminish his case, but I think it would have been better for transparency all round.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I apologise for my voice, Mr Speaker—I was shouting at the television over the weekend. Several years ago, on my first day as a Minister in the Wales Office, the ministerial code was put in front of me and I was asked clearly and precisely whether there were any associations with individuals or organisations that I should declare. I declared them, including my long historical link with the Scout Association. I was advised at that point—and I listened to my private secretary—to break that link on a temporary basis and as far as I know that organisation was not involved in arms lobbying or trading, and neither is it now. Did the Secretary of State make clear his association to this individual and to this lobbying company at all points or did he hide it from his private secretary and the permanent secretary? If he did make it clear, was he ever given advice that this should not be done?

[Dr Fox]

Like all Ministers, on taking office I believed that I was fully within the ministerial code. As I have said to the House several times today, I accept that I have allowed the blurring of the distinctions on occasion and I fully accept my personal responsibility for that. I do not believe that there was a specific allegation for me to deal with at the time, nor a specific interest to deal with.

Military Covenant

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I will try to be brief by asking the Minister to answer the questions of others, not points raised by me.

The director general of the Royal British Legion, Chris Simpkins, said:

“We’re seeing various allowances paid to the armed forces being reduced…If we then see that the Government isn’t prepared to give a legal commitment to an armed forces covenant I feel that may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and will have a very harmful impact on morale.”

In case there is any doubt, he talked previously about

“the need to define and enshrine in law a set of principles in a military covenant.”

Let me put some points made by serving armed forces families. J. Winfield of Nottingham says:

“Once again a new Government have got into power on the back of broken promises. For those of us in the military, we have seen a cut in take-home pay (not a pay freeze), an attack on our pension scheme (against the charter) and basically a complete betrayal by this Government. When the economic climate improves they need not worry about compulsory redundancies as experienced personnel will be leaving in droves. But let us remember ‘we are all in this together’.”

Hilary Adams of London says:

“I’m constantly amazed that anyone in the Army is surprised when they get dumped on by Government. Haven’t you people realised you’re nothing more than cannon fodder? They made a big PR issue of upping other perks to soldiers when they came into power. It should surely have been obvious that they would pay for that by taking it away from you elsewhere!”

Let me conclude by quoting some comments I have taken off one of the armed forces sites. As the Government Front-Bench team will know, these sites can use fruity language, so I have edited the comments.

“How many of you are actually aware that as we speak, the Government are to steal from each and every one of you who have served your country and earned your pension tens of thousands of pounds because they are to change the way the annual increase is worked out?...I just like thousands of other soldiers, sailors and airmen have done my time plus some more and now they have decided to change the goal posts. I stayed in and I am still in because of the pension, not because I like being institutionalised…For me integrity is important; if you promise something to a person, you keep that promise and give it to them. The next person to come along does not necessarily have to get the same deal, this is the way life is. I was promised something, and I want it in the same form I had become used to expecting I would receive it. I honoured my side of the agreement, will they”—

he is referring to the Government Front-Bench team—

“honour theirs? I doubt it.”

He said:

“I shall be next year, aged 43, forced into possible unemployment because the option to remain serving isn’t there for me like many others. Perhaps if enough of us actually give a hoot, and took action he”—

the Prime Minister—

“may have second thoughts. Wake up, people, if you are entitled to an Armed Forces pension you are going to lose tens of thousands of pounds over your lifetime. What really annoys me is that it seems many of you either don’t know this is going to happen”—

speaking to his other colleagues—

“or don’t give a damn. Please start to take action now before it’s too late. We are getting royally bent over and”—

I leave the rest to the imagination of the House.

If the Government do not honour that covenant given on the Ark Royal, what will they do? Servicemen and their families are asking the House to honour the covenant. That is what the debate is about.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Far from blogs, I also quoted Chris Simpkins of the Royal British Legion, who said:

“The British public has shown it sees”

the role of coroner

“as vital in ensuring bereaved Service families can have confidence in the investigations of their loved ones’ deaths. We believe it is fundamental to the inquest process and to the fulfilment of the Military Covenant”.

The Minister should not respond to the blogs but to the Royal British Legion.

[Mr Robathan]

I will come to that if I have time at the end.

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) might qualify as almost gallant in her role in the Royal Naval Reserve. I am grateful to her for what she said. She is absolutely right that this Government believe in action, not words—not spin, but results.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) made three swift points that seemed pretty reasonable. I would love to respond and wonder if she could write to me about them.

I now turn to the Front-Bench contribution by the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy). I expect that he now regrets having called this debate, because he has not come out of it with any credit. Like the hon. Member for Ogmore, he quoted at length the Royal British Legion. I have here the Royal British Legion’s initial comments on the proposed armed forces covenant, dated 21 January—not four weeks ago—in which it says that it broadly welcomes the proposals. I am afraid that one can quote selectively at any stage, and Labour Members are doing so.

I am afraid that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) regurgitated the arguments that we have heard in the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, and they had no more resonance. The Committee has made three visits—to the Nottingham reserves centre, to Colchester and to Headley Court—and I am disappointed that of the six Labour Members on the Committee, who make so much fuss about these things, three did not come on any of those visits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

There was a story in the News of the World which was not entirely correct. [Interruption.] It was not entirely correct. A great deal of money was raised from the sale of Chelsea barracks but that was some four years ago when I do not recall our being in power. Having checked on this we have discovered that although the money is not ring-fenced, because we do not believe it should be, we have spent the vast majority of it and we will spend well in excess of that amount. As a matter of interest, on Thursday I was fortuitously at Bulford, where I started the work on a new married quarters estate that will provide 260 state-of-the-art houses for our deserving personnel.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

19. What effects the redundancies in the armed forces announced in the strategic defence and security review will have on standing commitments.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

The strategic defence and security review sets out the requirements for the armed forces’ contribution to standing commitments and identifies the restructured forces we will need over the next 10 years to meet them. Changes to the armed forces will not affect our non-discretionary standing commitments.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

In respect of the cancellation of the Nimrod mark IV maritime patrol aircraft, does the Minister agree with the First Sea Lord, who said earlier this month that he was “very uncomfortable” about it and that

“I don’t welcome the loss of the Nimrod”?

Are there any plans to replace the Nimrod and is it acceptable to make such cuts to our capability when military personnel are so concerned?

[Nick Harvey]

I entirely agree, as do all Ministers, with the discomfort that the First Sea Lord feels about this; the decision not to bring the Nimrod MRA4 into service was very difficult. We will have to bear some risk—it would be wrong to claim otherwise—but we will mitigate that risk by using other assets in the meantime, just as the previous Government had embarked on doing.

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[Dr Fox]

Our armed forces responded in a number of parts of the country to the snow emergency that we saw last week. In response to the request from Edinburgh city council, we immediately made armed forces assets available. I am sure that it is to the delight of the whole House, and especially to the Scottish Government and the Scottish nationalists, that it was Her Majesty’s United Kingdom forces whom we were able to deploy for that purpose.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I think we can all agree on the overriding importance that this House places on the defence training needs of the whole of the UK armed forces tri-services. In a debate last week, we tried to get an answer to the question of what is the future of the defence training academy at St Athan after the news of its cancellation, but answer came there none. Can the Minister now give us an update with some clarity on what is the future for St Athan?

[Nick Harvey]

The defence training requirement across the three services is being reviewed in the light of the collapse of the project at St Athan. We are identifying possible sites either for tri-service training or taking the three services separately, and we will make an announcement when we have concluded that work in the spring.

Defence Spending (Wales)

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs James]

I agree, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on that; it is important that places such as RAF Valley continue to thrive and prosper. They add to the defence footprint in Wales and need to be enhanced.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my regret that over the past few months we seem to have lost cross-party consensus on protecting the interests of Wales, particularly in terms of defence? I pay tribute to the work of those hon. Members who, under the previous Government, fought to persuade military chiefs and the MOD that south Wales was worth investing in. That support has been lost, and it bodes badly for the future that there will be only one or two parties in Wales to speak up for the interests of Wales.

[Mrs James]

My hon. Friend is correct. I was part of that lobbying group, and we worked hard to demonstrate how we could provide a service that would have been world-beating, and that would help ensure the safety and future of our brave young men and women.

When I talk about those brave young men and women, I am thinking about people in my community. When we talk to families about how well their sons and daughters are doing, they tell me about the problems and challenges that they face as individuals and as part of the wider community. They are troubled about their future, and given that more than 60,000 people face losing their jobs, the decision on St Athan means that many people have little hope for the future. Those families deserve to be rewarded for the great contribution they have made.

The defence training academy is not only an economically sound investment, a socially beneficial plan and a strategically intelligent initiative, but fair. It is fair that a highly skilled work force should get the investment they deserve, and it is fair for our armed forces to be equipped with the best training and facilities possible.

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[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, Mr Gray, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. As a member of the Defence Committee, although not a Welsh MP, I take a keen interest in these matters. As the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) will acknowledge, the Committee’s report pulled no punches when it came to reviewing the Government’s attitude to the strategic defence and security review, and in reporting its conclusions.

I agree with the concept of a defence training college. One of the critical challenges facing the armed forces is the need to avoid duplication and streamline training processes. When the Defence College of Electro-Mechanical Engineering—DCEME—was formed in April 2004, it brought together a number of separate service training organisations, all of which delivered different forms of engineering. The aim was to exploit synergies, improve training delivery and increase efficiency and effectiveness.

The notion of a defence training college is sound. There is a lot of training duplication across the three services, and anecdotally, there are many common factors to basic engineering training programmes, although that is not always acknowledged by the different services. It is clear that St Athan should play a key role in delivering a harmonised service.

In theory, a further rationalisation to one site could reduce costs and save money. That should bring areas of expertise and excellence together and lead to greater co-operation between the services. However, it is not clear whether the work has been done by the three services to align their training requirements. There are always good reasons to compromise, and different services have different needs. Such matters need to be ironed out, and we must be clear what we are aiming for in this investment.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I appreciate the fact that the hon. Gentleman is taking part in the debate. It is important to have members of the Defence Committee in the Chamber, because this discussion is not only about Wales but about what is best for the armed forces. I appreciate his train of logic, which steers us towards the rationale of having tri-service training on one site—we hope that it will be in Wales, but please let it be somewhere—for the good of the armed forces. However, the hon. Gentleman is approaching a compromise.

I do not want to digress from the subject of the debate, but when the decision was taken on Sheffield Forgemasters, there was an undertaking that discussions would continue. However, nothing has happened. We hear that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) is delighted that discussions are continuing on this matter, but yet we have heard nothing. Will the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), or perhaps the Minister, illuminate us on what exactly the future holds for the tri-services and St Athan?

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am confident that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with that point; obviously, I am not in a position to verify it. However, I will point out that the defence academy at Shrivenham is a good example of successfully bringing together different service needs in delivering training. That defence academy has proved a resounding success. The majority of training there is postgraduate, with accredited civilian qualifications the result for many people.

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[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have a great deal of respect for her and her knowledge of this subject, but it was her party that was in government for several years and had an opportunity to bring this matter to a conclusion before the election. I wonder why it did not do so.

For me, the challenge remains the need to rationalise defence training and spending across the three services to the broadest possible extent. Let us consider leadership and management training. There are a huge number of locations throughout the UK. There are separate leadership schools and centres of excellence. There are vast numbers of adventure training establishments and music schools. I am frustrated that there is not enough clarity about taking the process that I have described to the furthest extent and perhaps giving greater scope for initiatives such as those that I am discussing.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Glen]

Yes, but this will be the last time; I have nearly finished my speech.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I worry that what we have here is a softening up. The hon. Gentleman serves on the Defence Committee. Surely he has the ear of the Minister and speaks to him in the corridors, as we try to do as well. Our suspicion is that discussions will continue about St Athan till the cows come home on the pastures of St Athan and that we are being softened up for the tri-service academy not going ahead in any shape or form that we recognise. It will be dispersed somewhere else in the UK or to various other sites in the UK. That is what the hon. Gentleman is hinting at.

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[Simon Hart]

Absolutely, Mr Gray. I apologise for coming—unnecessarily, as it turns out—to the defence of my colleague.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hart]

No, I want to make a wee bit of progress. Fun though these exchanges are, they will come to an end in the very near future.

The facts are these. As I said earlier, one of the depressing features of the Welsh Grand Committee—I will be reprimanded again in a minute—is the extraordinary denial about the past 13 years; it is as if they never existed. The truth is that Metrix simply could not deliver what we hoped on time or on price. If there is a difference between the previous and the current Governments, it is that the current Government are not prepared to go down the road of signing off, willy-nilly, contracts that we can justify neither financially nor in the context of defence.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I genuinely thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarity and honesty, because we are seeing a complete volte-face from the Conservative party’s position before the election, when there was cross-party sign-up and support for the Metrix bid and the MOD’s analysis of it. The hon. Gentleman has now made it clear that the bid did not stack up—not in terms of the MOD’s priorities, but in terms of spending, and that is a tragedy. We now know that if we argued for the Metrix bid for St Athan, we would not have the Conservative party’s support.

[Simon Hart]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman—I think he is right honourable—for his contribution.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I would like to be, but I am not right honourable yet.

[Simon Hart]

It is only a matter of time. Despite that, I do not agree with a word that the hon. Gentleman said. The Government faced some extremely difficult choices—hon. Members have heard that expression before—in the context of not only defence spending, but every other form of inward investment in Wales. The evidence speaks for itself, and the Minister will no doubt put us right. We should also not allow ourselves to be tempted into believing that this is somehow the end of the road for St Athan, because it has been made perfectly clear that it is not. However, we will hear more about that, and I do not want to steal the Minister’s thunder.

I said that this would be a brief contribution, although it has been slightly longer than I had intended. However, as an ex-serviceman on the very fringes of the military, I think it is simply nonsense to believe that decisions can be taken on the basis purely of local need or local economic considerations, rather than the nation’s overall defence needs in the overall context of the UK economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

In operations in the environment of Afghanistan, our forces must of course work in co-operation with both Afghan authorities and local people to obtain information that is essential to the security of our personnel and others working in the international security assistance force. I am aware that any form of co-operation with ISAF may put people in danger of reprisals, but clearly we rely heavily on such information.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

During the second world war, many thousands of young women were conscripted into service in royal ordnance factories. There were 45 throughout the United Kingdom, and many in Scotland, the north-east of England and Wales. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet a small delegation of MPs to discuss appropriate recognition of those young women, many of whom lost their lives or suffered grievous injuries when filling explosives?

[Dr Fox]

I can certainly assure the hon. Gentleman that one of the ministerial team will undertake such a meeting. His point is important. In any conflict in which this country finds itself, it is not only those in the military who make sacrifices, but often those in the civilian population. In Afghanistan today, we are seeing probably the highest level of civilian support for the military that we have ever seen in any conflict. I pay tribute to all those civilians who add to the national security of this country, and to their sacrifices in its name.