Armed Forces

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Leo Docherty]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. I think we all agree that the internet has now been weaponised to an extremely alarming degree. That should be at the heart and centre of our defence strategy. I imagine the Minister will take the opportunity to address that.

We face today the simultaneous threats of state-on-state conflict and global terrorism. We are facing down those threats with our allies in NATO and elsewhere, such as our friends in the Gulf states. We will continue to need a very large and potent armed forces to do that; mass matters, and it will continue to matter. It will come as no surprise that, as a former soldier, I am and will always be an advocate for a bigger armed forces. In an ideal world, I would like to see not 2% of GDP spent on defence but somewhere nearer 3%. However, we have to live in the real world, and we have to play the pitch we inherited. We are still dealing with the legacy of Labour’s mismanagement of the economy, which left a large black hole at the heart of defence spending.

In my judgment, the 2015 strategic defence and security review did a good job of assessing and responding to the current global threats I described, and combined with the ongoing investment of £178 billion over the next 10 years, it will deliver a raft of impressive new hardware and, more importantly, an agile and highly deployable force. All of that is against the background of significant financial constraints. I am particularly pleased that elements of the new strike brigades formed as a result of that SDSR—including 4 Rifles, 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, 2nd Battalion Princess of Wales Royal Regiment and 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment—will be based in my constituency. We have two impressive carriers coming online, new submarines and new frigates, as well as a total and unreserved commitment to our continuous at-sea deterrence, Trident.

While we praise all that, we must, as parliamentarians and constituency MPs, always critically assess our own Government’s policies. We must ensure that our procurement is smart and that the carrier group we are investing in can fight. We must ensure that 2% of GDP spent on defence actually means a real 2%, and we must ensure that projects such as the F-35 are completed on time and on budget. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will reassure us on that note today.

We clearly need significant force, but just as important, especially when it comes to dealing with global terrorism, is our approach and attitude towards using that force. I think the primary lesson of the last 15 years of expeditionary counter-insurgency wars is that it is only when we are discreet in the use of force, and when we work to empower and partner with local allies, that we achieve great results in combating terrorism.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. However, I am puzzled by his line of argument. He seems to be saying that expeditionary counter-insurgency warfare is what we expect to do in the years ahead, while at the same time saying we must be flexible. What does he think about the notion that NATO has this entirely wrong, that we are focusing on the last war and that the next war may well be, for example, in the north Atlantic or high Arctic? That is something that the Select Committee on Defence is halfway through studying.

[Leo Docherty]

If my hon. Friend is unsure of the meaning of my remarks, I am saying that mass is important—we absolutely need a very large and potent armed forces—but the lesson of the past 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we may get counter-productive results if we engage without the politics being right, as he will see from the remainder of my remarks. It is only when we engage and work with allies that results that match our interest and theirs can be achieved.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, our good intentions were overtaken by the realities of local politics on the ground and an over-optimism about what the British state can achieve politically by the overt use of military force. We must guard against that in future. I learned that lesson as a soldier in southern Iraq more than 10 years ago. I remember one particular day when I visited a police station run by an Iraqi police unit that we were mentoring in al-Amarah in southern Iraq. Despite our working very closely with them, I was alarmed to find, on visiting the interior of the police station, a picture of Muqtada al-Sadr, who was the leader of the Mahdi army—the very insurgent group we were fighting, supposedly with the Iraqi police. That kind of duality and duplicity undermined our capability and the likelihood of us having a positive outcome in Iraq.

I have carried that insight with me over the years, but for many others, including my friend and fellow soldier, Captain Richard Holmes, that duplicity and the central dilemma of our presence in Iraq had lethal consequences. Richard was a classmate of mine at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and went on to be a fine Parachute Regiment officer. He deployed on his second tour of Iraq in the winter of 2005 to mentor the Iraqi police—something he put his heart and soul into. Progress was made thanks to his efforts, but despite his commitment and earnest professionalism, the forces of sectarianism, violence, Shi’ite rivalry and Iranian meddling prevailed. One day, after leaving the very same police station that I had visited the previous winter, his patrol was struck by an IED, and he and his driver, Private Lee Ellis, were instantly killed.

The point I am making is that no matter how good or how dedicated the servicemen or women are, politics—in the middle east, it is often the politics of violence—will always trump good intentions. The lesson at the heart of this is that we must be discreet, and we must work with allies whose interests match ours and who genuinely need our help. That lesson and that approach should shape the way we do business in the future and the way we train and deploy our forces. If we follow that approach, we can achieve great results.

In Iraq, we are now having a very positive impact. Today we have more than 1,200 personnel deployed on Op Shader across Iraq and Syria, co-ordinating Royal Air Force airstrikes, taking the fight to Daesh and, critically, working very closely with Kurdish peshmerga forces, whose interests match ours. That type of involvement —helping our allies to achieve their goals with the bespoke use of expertise and hard power—is a model for the future. We can and should replicate that approach around the globe.

The other primary lesson we have learned from the campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan is that the current generation of British forces men and women are equal to the example shown by their forebears across all three services. Young men and women join the armed forces today in order to deploy. We are in their debt, and it is our duty to arm them, equip them and protect them as best we can. Our servicemen and women are this country’s most precious asset, and we must put them at the heart of our defence policy. I welcome the Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill, which will have a very positive impact on the working lives of our armed forces men and women. We should celebrate the fact that they are prepared to take risks. They are not victims, but heirs to a remarkable and magnificent tradition. The recent remarks made by the Chief of the General Staff about service personnel needing empathy rather than sympathy were very welcome and apt.

We must maintain our resolve to deploy whenever and wherever necessary. We must not lose our nerve. On that note, I will conclude my remarks by quoting from a letter sent to me recently by a veteran who, as a young commander, led a team in Afghanistan at the height of the conflict. At one point he survived an IED strike so powerful that it destroyed the armoured fighting vehicle he was commanding. His letter reads:

“In Afghanistan I was scared of many things. I was frightened of the Taleban, I doubted myself, I worried about the availability of helicopter medical support. The one thing I never doubted or questioned was the willingness of the soldiers under my command to fight tooth and nail. No matter how badly they were bleeding, no matter how cold, how hot, how tired or how dehydrated they were, time and again their willingness to take a step forward, put their hand up and say ‘ok then, let’s go’ was extraordinary. 18 year olds who had volunteered to go 5000 miles to protect the Afghan people. These much-maligned members of the ‘PlayStation generation’ were in fact the heirs to boys who stood at Waterloo, sailed at Jutland and flew in the Battle of Britain.”

I quote from that letter because those words so eloquently convey why we are proud to have the finest armed forces in the world, why our servicemen and women will always be our greatest asset and, importantly, why, despite all the financial and fiscal constraints of the current time, we should be confident and assured of our future as a formidable military power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), who spoke with passion based on his own distinguished service. Even though I am on the Opposition Benches, I also pay tribute to all those Government Members—who I am looking at now—who also served in our forces and served Queen and country with distinction. Thank you very much.

On Saturday 24 June, I joined my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who will respond to the debate for the Opposition, to witness our armed forces marching through Caerphilly town centre as part of Armed Forces Day. Anyone watching on that day would know the esteem in which the public hold our armed forces. If we asked anyone marching, they would tell us that they are able to serve only because they have the support of their family. However, many feel that they are being badly let down by the Government. No one will be able to give their best in theatre if they are worried about their loved ones back home, yet that is the reality that those living in service accommodation have to face each and every day.

All regular service personnel are entitled to subsidised accommodation, and those who are married or have children are entitled to service family accommodation. The accommodation is provided by the Ministry of Defence and managed by the private contractor CarillionAmey. The armed forces covenant dictates that service accommodation must be of good quality, in an appropriate location and reasonably priced. However, under the current contract, very few properties seem to meet those criteria.

A National Audit Office report earlier in the year about service accommodation was absolutely damning. One family were left without hot water and heating for weeks, despite informing the contractor, CarillionAmey, that they had a seven-week-old baby and a four-year-old. In fact, in 2016, an NAO report found that satisfaction levels with the contractor’s maintenance request responses and the quality of maintenance works undertaken had reached lows of 32% and 29% respectively. At the Public Accounts Committee hearing, we were even told that such was the worry on the part of the Department that the contractor had to face the then Secretary of State for Defence to discuss the way forward.

Since taking up the contract in November 2014, CarillionAmey has consistently failed to meet the key performance indicators that it was contracted to attain. One case in particular highlights the poor treatment of service personnel and their families by the company. The wife of a serviceman reported that their family had been provided with a damp and mouldy property and, despite there being alternative accommodation available, the contractor refused to move them. The family reported that the property’s carpets were stained and the oven was dirty, but rather than cleaning the property and getting rid of the mould on the walls, CarillionAmey painted over it. On top of that, the family spent up to hours on the phone to the contractor every day for eight weeks trying to get somebody to help them to deal with the property’s many issues.

[James Gray]

The hon. Gentleman is of course right to criticise CarillionAmey—in many respects it is not great at all—and his party of course does not like anything being contracted out, but if we took the contract away from CarillionAmey, what would an incoming Labour Government do?

[Chris Evans]

I am criticising CarillionAmey quite rightly, but what I am saying is that we need a different contract or a different way of tendering for these contracts. This is not good enough; it is not good enough for forces’ families or for our men and women in the field. I hope that the Minister will take these comments away and look with urgency at the way the contract with CarillionAmey is being managed. This is not good enough, and I think all of us in the House would agree with that.

On 24 occasions, the family to whom I was referring were told that they would receive a call back regarding the issues, yet they did not, and technicians refused to progress the issues and deal with them. It would be an absolute disgrace if any family had to suffer in that way, but these are the families of our bravest men and women. Joining the armed forces is not like joining Barclays or Tesco; we are asking people to risk their lives each and every day for our safety at home and abroad. No one should underestimate just how huge an impact the standard of service accommodation can have on those in the armed forces. Impact on family life is the most cited reason why people leave the armed forces, and accommodation is a critical factor in that.

I urge the Minister to look at the contract again, to look at the way CarillionAmey is treating our forces’ families and to do something about it. I think all of us in the House can agree with those sentiments.