Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of likely UK military commitments in Afghanistan in 2015.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of likely UK military commitments in Afghanistan in 2015.

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

The UK and the international community are committed to Afghanistan for the long term. As part of our enduring legacy in Afghanistan, UK troops will support the continuing development of the Afghan national security forces by mentoring trainers at the Afghan national army officer academy. In addition, it is likely that some troops will remain in a non-combat role after the end of 2014 to complete the recovery of our equipment. Beyond that, no decisions have yet been made about any longer-term UK mission in Afghanistan, but detailed planning with NATO and other allies is ongoing. We are clear, however, that we will not be involved in a combat role after 31 December 2014.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

Speaking for the United Kingdom, it is not our intention to remain in a combat role after the end of 2014. That would include combat drone strikes.

[Jack Lopresti]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that international support for Afghanistan beyond 2014 must be sufficient to send a clear message to insurgents that they cannot wait us out?

[Mr Hammond]

There are two audiences in this matter: the Afghan national security forces, to whom we need to send a clear signal that they will have the continuing support of the international community as they take over responsibility for security in their own country, and the Taliban—the insurgents—who need to understand that they cannot simply adopt a policy of trying to wait us out, and that we will not abandon Afghanistan but will support it as it takes over responsibility for its own security and for containing the insurgency beyond the end of 2014.

Military Covenant

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I congratulate the Democratic Unionist party on having the foresight to secure this debate on the military covenant. It was perhaps sad that we were unable to discuss the matter immediately before Remembrance Sunday, as it would have been particularly pertinent at that time. The debate nevertheless gives me an opportunity to talk about some of the issues that affect the military in my constituency.

I also want to thank the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) for his announcement about HMS Caroline. That was brilliant news. I would like to ask the DUP and the Executive in Northern Ireland to ensure that representatives from Devonport are invited to see it in Belfast, because it started life in Devonport; that is where it was built. It was one of the last ships to be built there, in 1914.

I pay tribute to those Northern Irish and Irish soldiers, sailors and airmen who have served in our armed forces. I also want to pay tribute to those members of 3 Commando Brigade who died during the troubles in Northern Ireland. We need to recognise them. All too often that has not happened because people were more interested in what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I welcome this opportunity to talk about the military covenant. A number of things need to be done, and I welcome the fact that the Government will be publishing their first report before Christmas. The issues affect not only the regulars but the reservists. I want to say a little about the reservists, because it is their families who end up bearing an awful lot of the brunt when their husbands or partners—or even their wives—go abroad to serve on operations. I hope that we can have a debate about what we are trying to do for reservists’ families.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

The families do not lack support when the reservists are away; the support received from the regiment is second to none. It is when a reservist is demobilised and returns to civilian life that they feel the most isolated and in need of support. When a regiment comes back from theatre, the individual soldiers have the support mechanism of their comrades and the family of the regiment itself, but the reservists go back to being civilians. They lack having comrades around them who understand what they have been through and the readjustments that they are having to make.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. That is certainly the line from the Army, but those in the Royal Navy—or, for that matter, the Royal Marines or the Royal Air Force—do not necessarily live on base in the same way, and therefore both regulars and reservists can feel isolated during that process. Those serving in the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines do not normally live on base. They are encouraged to buy their own homes. The Government need to look at how we can encourage such people to get on to the property ladder.

The reservist families need a significant amount of support. When I was on Woodbury Common last year on the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I came across a Royal Marine—I do not know whether he was a reservist, but I suspect he was—who lived in Aylesbury. He said that when he went home, he experienced some real difficulties. He wanted to talk to his friends about what had happened during his time in Afghanistan, but he found that it was not easy to do so. When he went back to his wife and said, “I have had an interesting time”, she said, “Don’t talk to me about what kind of day you’ve had; I’ve ended up having to answer 300 e-mails.” Perhaps she was working for a Member of Parliament and replying to constituents. He had been under mortar fire for seven or eight hours during the day and found it difficult to talk to her about that, so he went off to find his mates, but they had not been through that experience either, and they also had difficulty understanding what he was talking about. He thus had to go and find his fellow Royal Marines to talk to, as they understood his experiences.

We need to ensure that we set up a chat room for those reservist families so that they are able to talk to each other while their husbands or family members are away. I very much welcome the comments made about TRiM—trauma risk management. We recently had a breakfast here with the Royal Marines, and they talked enormously about it. In Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, we have signed the community covenant, too, which is working incredibly well. Last Friday, we talked quite extensively about how to ensure that people are looked after in respect of housing, for example.

Future Reserves 2020

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes. Best practice involves a high level of such integration being delivered on operations. I must say that that has probably not been uniformly the case, but it is certainly the model for the future.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the welcome £1.8 billion in increased funding for the reserve forces will be used exclusively for the reserve forces, and will not somehow find its way into the budgets of the regular forces, which has happened in the past?

[Mr Hammond]

From all the discussions I have been involved in, I can assure my hon. Friend—who I know has deployed as a reservist in Afghanistan—that the traffic is the other way. If anything, the Army is planning to invest rather more in the reserves than the announced budget suggests.

Combat Troop Withdrawal (Afghanistan)

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Paul Flynn]

Indeed. I would say so with some passion.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Talking of fiction, I think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken, in that a deal was not offered to the Taliban back in 2001. My understanding is that they were given the option of handing over bin Laden and refused. The other issue is that if he cares about the Afghan people, as I know he does, is he not concerned that if we cut and run by withdrawing our troops too quickly, there is a risk that the country could fall into civil war and the progress made could be undone rapidly?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Shortly.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Given the Secretary of State’s past comments about the failure of the private sector to fulfil its obligations in regard to Olympic security, does he have similar doubts about the outsourcing of procurement at Defence Equipment and Support, which is based in my constituency?

[Mr Hammond]

I think that my hon. Friend is referring to comments about the security arrangements for the Olympic games. Let me say this: there are things that are best done in the sector, and there are things that are better done in the private sector. Our proposals for DE and S are an attempt to get the best of both worlds by bringing in private sector management expertise to work alongside highly skilled civilian and military professionals who have specialist knowledge of military procurement.

2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

Let us be absolutely clear about this. I do not believe that any battalion should be cut at all, and that is a fact, but if there have to be cuts, they must be based on military logic, not political calculation. The bottom line is that the figures provided in answers to written parliamentary questions about recruitment and retention and in the Secretary of State’s response to me clearly show that two Scottish battalions are undermanned—far more so than the equivalent in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. That is what we are discussing. Decisions should be based on military logic, not political calculation.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate. Does he agree that, given the amount of money we are spending on foreign aid and our contribution to the EU budget, it is lunacy for the Government to put themselves in the position of having to make these difficult decisions? Is it not about time the Government reassessed their priorities and put defence of the realm at the top of that list?

[Mr Baron]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who is spot on. I shall come on to that point later. I for one, to answer the question from the hon. Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern), am not pointing the finger at any other regiment. I am not asking for further cuts in the Ministry of Defence, but if the Government cannot make the right decision here and now about 2RRF, there is money outside the MOD budget, as my hon. Friend has highlighted, that could be used to reverse this bad decision.

If hon. Members will forgive me, I want to make a little progress before I take further inventions, as time is pushing on and I know that a number of Members want to speak.

The Government have been reluctant to justify their reasoning. In fact, getting information from the MOD has been like extracting teeth, and one can see why from the damning evidence that was eventually obtained. The House will remember that on 5 July the Secretary of State for Defence announced the Government’s Army 2020 proposals. As part of the proposals, five infantry battalions were earmarked for disbandment, one of which was 2RRF. The impression created in this Chamber—I and other Members were present—was that the decision was based in large part on military calculations of capability and sustainability, or, in other words, that military logic had prevailed.

Many of us know that 2RRF has not only a good recruitment record but sound demographics in its core recruiting areas. On 6 July, I tabled named day written parliamentary questions asking for the recruitment and manning figures for all battalions involved. Given that we had been told that the decision on which battalions were to be cut was in large part based on those figures, one would have thought that they would have been ready to hand. I did not get the answers until 3 August, a month later, when Parliament was in recess. While I was waiting, I pressed the Prime Minister and the MOD by way of e-mail and letter.

In my view, the initial response from the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), who was then Minister for the Armed Forces, skated over the logic and continued to suggest that the MOD had “used a methodical approach with objective criteria to select those battalions which had to be lost”, but did not tell us what those objective criteria were, despite the fact that I had specifically asked for that in my letter and questions.

I then finally received answers to my named day questions, comparing 10-year records of establishment and strength for each of the battalions being cut and the five battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The figures were revealing; they clearly showed that two battalions from the Royal Regiment of Scotland had worse recruiting records by far. On 14 August, I met the Secretary of State and the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall. On that very morning, after a number of phone calls from the MOD, I finally received a letter by e-mail from the Secretary of State. That letter finally admitted that on purely military grounds two Scottish battalions would have been axed. The letter clearly stated that 2RRF was the only one of the battalions being axed that was not initially earmarked for disbandment. In fact, the letter was quite specific. It made it very clear that the five least sustainable battalions are two battalions from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, one from the Yorkshire Regiment, one from the Mercian Regiment and one from the Royal Welsh Regiment.

The letter went on to explain that what did for 2RRF was the Government’s decision to limit regimental losses to one battalion each and to ensure that no cap badges were lost. The Government’s insistence that no cap badges are lost makes no sense when we think that, as Members will remember, only six years ago in 2006 four cap badges and six battalions were amalgamated to form the five battalions of The Rifles. That was held up as an example of best practice by many senior Army officers. The Government’s justification for capping regimental losses to one battalion also does not make sense or withstand scrutiny. Five-battalion regiments can more easily withstand the loss of two battalions, particularly if they are struggling to sustain them, than two-battalion regiments can withstand the loss of one. Single battalion regiments also find it harder to meet the operational flexibility required and to offer their officers and soldiers a varied and demanding career profile.

It is perhaps also worth nothing that contrary to Government assertions, no Scottish battalion is being cut. The letter made it clear that on military logic two should have gone, and we know that if the regimental losses had been limited to one battalion, one should have gone. However, the one that should have gone has not gone. All that has happened is that it has been reduced in size for ceremonial duties. No cap badges or colours will be lost north of the border.

Afghanistan (Troop Levels)

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. One striking statistic shows the percentage of the reintegrees—horrible word—who have joined the peace and reconciliation programme whose original gripe with the Afghan Government had nothing to do with ideology, but was a land dispute or some other local dispute that led them to feel disfranchised and disillusioned with Afghan society. Sometimes it was a reaction to the corruption that is still, I am afraid, only too endemic. She is right that there is a hard core of people who are ideologically motivated, but there is also a much softer group of insurgents who are alienated from Afghan society but not ideologically motivated against it. That represents fertile territory for the reconciliation programme.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State believe that our troops have the kit and equipment they need to continue to do the job effectively?

[Mr Hammond]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that when Brigadier Patrick Sanders, who commanded 20th Armoured Brigade during Herrick 15, was in the House on Tuesday evening, he said, as Members who were there will have heard, that the equipment that he had available during his tour was the best that he had known in his 26 years in the Army. The soldiers who are fighting for us have the best personal protection equipment they have ever had and their commanders have the enablers that they need. I have no doubt that, at long last, we have the kit that we need to fight this campaign.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The announcement made at the summit last week was to advance the assessment phase of the unmanned aerial vehicle project, which involves £44 million of expenditure split between British Aerospace and Dassault. I cannot give the hon. Lady an exact estimate of the number of jobs that that will create in BAE, but I am happy to write to her to give her the best estimate I can.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

T3. Can the Secretary of State update the House on progress made at the recent Anglo-French summit—if any?

[Mr Hammond]

The Anglo-French summit consisted of two separate parts. First, there was a defence meeting where we were able to have direct discussions with my counterpart in France and talk about all the joint procurement programmes and opportunities that we see for collaborating together in future—for example, in the combined joint expeditionary force—and for procuring together as both defence budgets come under financial pressure. The broader summit conducted between the President and the Prime Minister reasserted at the highest level the desire of the two countries to work together in areas such as nuclear collaboration and the unmanned aerial programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have a clear plan for the completion of the mission in Afghanistan, which involves transitioning lead security responsibility to the ever more competent Afghan national security forces. That will be done over the next three years, resulting in the withdrawal of the overwhelming majority of our forces by the end of 2014 and the ending of our combat role. That is the position that most people in this country would want to see: a measured and properly controlled winding down of our involvement that protects the legacy that we have won with so much blood and treasure.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that any reduction in UK force strength in Afghanistan will be based on the improving situation on the ground, not on any political expediency?

BAE Systems

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Peter Luff]

I am aware of the issue, but the evidence suggests that that concern, although I understand it, is probably not well founded. I believe I am right in saying that today—

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

rose—

[Peter Luff]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who might have more details than I do.

[Jack Lopresti]

I was concerned about the potential impact of the closure of Filton airfield on local jobs and industry, so the first thing I did was speak to local companies such as Airbus, Rolls-Royce and GKN, which all assured me that the existence of the airfield was not in any way consistent with their increased orders or viability in the long term—on the contrary.

[Peter Luff]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. My understanding is that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is in the Bristol area today announcing additional jobs for Airbus. Although I genuinely respect the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), I have heard other assurances similar to those given to my hon. Friend. However, I promise that I will keep my eye on the situation as best I can, as a Defence Minister, and I am sure that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will do exactly the same thing.

The defence sector and, in particular, BAE Systems have a significant role in rebalancing the economy by offering the taxpayer better value for money; and by offering the world the products, innovation and services required to compete on the global stage. However, BAE Systems must also be prepared to take responsibility for its decisions and to understand the debt that it owes to the country and the taxpayer.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

This is an important debate, not only for the workers affected in Brough, Warton and Samlesbury, and for their families and their wider community, but for the wider UK defence industry, UK manufacturing, and all the businesses and their employees in the supply chain.

The case for this debate has been set out in stark terms by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Their comments, though, have to be set against the bigger picture. We have an economy that is flatlining, with the lowest growth of any country in the G7 bar Japan—which, of course, suffered an earthquake and a nuclear disaster—and the lowest growth of any EU country bar Greece, Portugal and Cyprus, yet we have a Government Department that repeatedly states that the decisions on where redundancies fall are nothing to do with it. I have to ask the Minister whether that is also the view of his colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Work and Pensions, who have to pick up the pieces and the costs of these significant job losses.

We are talking about very skilled workers, whether in the north-west or Humberside, who have so much to offer to the company and to UK plc, and yet face a hugely uncertain future. It is far from clear whether the processes have been properly managed. It is also unclear whether the 90-day consultation process has been genuine or whether the company has been paying lip service to this requirement. I can well understand why right hon. and hon. Members and the trade unions that represent those affected speak inside and outside this place with such frustration and anger at how this is being handled by BAE as it downsizes and rationalises its footprint in the light of changing global demands. The leak in advance of its announcement is clearly unacceptable. We must understand just how much that affects the work force’s perception of the management and what had until now, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle said, been a very good working relationship. It is unclear what efforts have been made to relocate any of the work force and to consider alternative proposals from inside the company. My right hon. Friend, who has vast experience in these matters, posed a whole series of questions that the company needs to answer and in which the Government should take a close interest.

I know that the Minister cannot answer questions today, but I hope he will none the less give serious thought to this. I was reassured to hear him say on several occasions that he would take away issues that were raised across the Chamber. That is not least because we saw in the 1980s the loss of large defence and industrial employers and the devastating effects that that had on communities. Those effects outlast generations, as we saw in my own constituency of Plymouth—and, indeed, in Barrow, in Woolwich, and in other places.

This is a test of the Government’s willingness and ability to support British manufacturing, British defence industries and skilled British jobs, and not merely to talk of an export-led recovery. I do not mean to stray into territory that I am sure will be covered at length in the following debate, but the issues raised at Brough speak to the wider question of how the Government are failing to support British business and get the economy growing again.

[Jack Lopresti]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Seabeck]

Forgive me, but I will not, because a lot of Back-Bench Members want to speak. The Minister gave way a lot, and we need to move on.

A key part of the very significant contribution that the defence industries, and indeed BAE, make to our economy is the need for a strong defence industrial strategy —one that meets our overall defence needs and protects our sovereign capability. We need a coherent plan of investment—for example, in unmanned aerial vehicle technologies—that will help to sustain the whole-aircraft skills on which this industry has traditionally been based. Labour Members have already commissioned our own review of defence procurement, and it will be interesting to see whether, in the long promised White Paper, the Government pick up on any of the themes we have suggested, which deserve further consideration. Crucial too, and touched on in our document, is the economic case for a strong defence sector able to export goods and grow its markets rather than, as we are seeing now, having to scale back its work, shrink its work force and leave the taxpayer covering the cost of unemployment.

The relationship that BAE Systems has with the UK Government, and therefore within the defence industrial base, is significant because of its substantial reach. It is a company of global significance with some 38,000 employees in the UK, one of the largest cohorts of apprentices, 10%-plus of all defence industrial jobs, and over a third of its sales market in this country. In fairness to the company, it does understand the need to protect the skills base. BAE also has some 9,000 UK suppliers, with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of supply chain jobs therefore partly dependent on it.

We are working in a market environment in difficult financial times, and it is therefore important to understand from the Government what discussions they had with BAE prior to this announcement. The Minister touched on that. Was the prospect of offsetting potential job losses from the slowing of programmes at BAE against the mooted development by Siemens in Hull ever discussed? Siemens, of course, was in line to pick up the work that Bombardier failed to get. There is some uncertainty all around this. We should be a little clearer about which branches of Government are looking to ensure that there is sustained, ongoing skilled employment in the Humber area.

We have to have concerns when organisations such as ADS, the trade organisation advancing the UK aerospace, defence, security and space sectors, express the view that the current cuts to BAE are the tip of the iceberg. We need to be convinced that the Government are using all their tools—I realise that that is not solely the responsibility of the Minister who is present—to help those successful industries to be more productive. When the Government are the client, they must still ensure that the taxpayer gets value for money. The Government must decide whether they want to act to support sovereign capability with skilled jobs based in this country. If they do, they need to act now.

We have to look at the potential problems facing the Typhoon programme. Italy and Spain are having difficulty paying their way. I heard the Minister’s positive comments about the Typhoon programme, but we need reassurance that the Government are doing everything they can to keep it on track. We need to be sure that, along with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department is looking at the impact of the loss of intellectual property rights, such as those associated with the Harrier and the Hawk, which were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden. Those are transferable, and in theory that allows build programmes to happen outside the UK. Will Hawk production be shifted entirely to India? Is that an entirely desirable endgame for the British Government? I suggest that it is not.

I hope that the Minister will listen, as I shall, to right hon. and hon. Members in this important Back-Bench debate as they flag up what is wrong with the way BAE is responding to the current downturn, and highlight the ways in which the Government are not supporting British industry in this sector as Members feel they should. The Minister should not only take a direct interest in the current situation, as he has made clear that he does, but pay heed to the critical reports of the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office, including any future investigations that they might undertake as a direct result of today’s debate, particularly into the yellow book. In the forthcoming White Paper, the Government should indicate clearly a positive way forward, because BAE, irrespective of the issues raised in the House today, is a significant player in the Government’s defence strategy and wider industrial strategy, particularly for fixed-wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles, so it needs to be able to plan with some certainty within its own domestic market, as do all its competitors. In turn, it will be able to secure high-skilled jobs such as those at Brough into the future. We must avoid further job losses, any further loss of expertise and, of course, the poor use of taxpayers’ money.