Oral Answers to Questions

James Heappey Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

6. What steps his Department plans to take to counter threats originating in China in the context of the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept and joint address from the heads of MI5 and the FBI.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (James Heappey)]

I hope you will indulge me, Mr Speaker, as I recognise my counterpart Volodymyr Havrylov, the Ukrainian deputy Defence Minister, who joined us in the UK this week as we went to see the Ukrainian troops and sailors in training.

The Ministry of Defence and the whole of Government are taking active steps to counter state threats from China. In line with the NATO strategic concept, we are working with allies to increase our shared understanding and to protect against China’s coercive tactics. Together with other Departments, we have strengthened investment screening, the academic technology approval scheme and our export control regimes.

[Martyn Day]

The director general of MI5 has said:

“The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party.”

At the last count, the UK Foreign Office had some 63 Mandarin speakers. Can the Minister tell us how many the Ministry of Defence has?

[James Heappey]

No. I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the emerging threats from China show NATO was right to make cyber and space among the key frontiers, along with the traditional three, and that, when looking at defence procurement and how money is spent, we are world leading in these vital areas of defence?

[James Heappey]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, but we should not think that our competition with China is exclusively concentrated on the high-end warfighting capabilities that may or may not be required in the first and second island chains. Every single week, we compete with China for influence around the world. Maintaining the defence effort across the global south to protect our interests around the Commonwealth is every bit as important as preparing to stand alongside the US in anything that might happen in the Pacific.

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[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of maintaining current targets for the size of the armed forces in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (James Heappey)]

We continue to assess the threat posed by Russia and other competitors around the world. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has just said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), we are, of course, excited to see defence spending play such a prominent role in the leadership debate. We look forward to working with the new Prime Minister to assess the threat and look at what changes to defence capability might be needed thereafter.

[Alan Brown]

As has been said, cutting 10,000 troops came from the integrated review, which predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The outgoing Chief of the General Staff has said that he is

“not comfortable with an Army of just 73,000”,

and Lord Dannatt has stated that the capability of the fighting force is

“well below what it should be”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2022; Vol. 823, c. 438.]

Given the answers we have heard from the Dispatch Box about increased spending, does that mean that Government Front Benchers agree that the cut of 10,000 should be reversed and that a much larger Army is required?

[James Heappey]

Nobody in the Ministry of Defence will ever argue against more money being spent on defence, but let us be clear: if more money were made available, there are other things that we would do more immediately than regrow the size of the Army. There are things that we would want to do about the lethality and deployability of the current force, to get more from what we have at the moment. If thereafter there is a discussion about regrowing, great, but there are other things that we would do first.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Autonomous weapons systems are likely to be force multipliers in the future. To what extent does that impact on the Minister’s assessment of manpower? What doctrine does he believe will be needed to govern their use, and how is he recruiting soldiers with the skillsets necessary to handle them effectively?

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. Autonomy is increasingly the key to the successful generation of overwhelming force in the battle space. That is a key part of the integrated review and within the defence industrial strategy. It may well be that a more lethal force—even a bigger force—does not necessarily acquire more workforce in the future if that is the way in which the trend continues to go.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

9. What recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of the rise in the cost of living on armed forces personnel.

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[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

14. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the effectiveness of the Afghan relocations and assistance policy.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (James Heappey)]

The Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme has had more than 100,000 applications. Although I appreciation the desperation of many who apply, the reality is that staff numbers and even names of those who worked with us in Helmand are being shared, so it is hard to identify individual applicants. To that end—the entitlement is bound; we know who worked for us— last week, I engaged a number of non-governmental organisations and charities to help us find the people on the list of those who actually worked with us, so that we can bring them to the front of the queue and get them out as quickly as possible.

[Jeff Smith]

Ministers confirmed last month that around 8,000 Afghans and their families could still be eligible for relocation to the UK under the ARAP scheme. The Minister says that it is hard to identify those people, so what specifically are Ministers doing to identify them, to establish pathways to get them here, and to process their applications as quickly as possible?

[James Heappey]

I think the hon. Gentleman might realise that I have answered that question in my original answer. We think that there are about 2,000 principals—people who actually worked with us—yet to bring out. Rather than going through tens of thousands of applications, we are asking those with networks in-country to help us find those 2,000 people on the list. We have the capacity and the routes to bring them out. The challenge is finding them when a huge number of applications are gaming the system, with dozens of applications coming in on the same staff number, which should be the individual identifier.

[Elliot Colburn]

I thank the MOD’s Afghan relocation team who are working tirelessly to identify and process the huge number of applications including friends and relatives of Carshalton and Wallington residents. How many individuals have made it to the UK under the ARAP scheme since Operation Pitting concluded?

[James Heappey]

A total of 9,962 people have come out under ARAP, 2,984 of whom have come out since Op Pitting.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Luke Pollard.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

We are now only a few weeks away from the one-year anniversary of the start of Operation Pitting, the evacuation from Kabul. A year on, thousands of Afghan citizens are still waiting for their applications to be properly processed, too many are still in temporary accommodation, and the promises made to many of them about relocation and family reunions have been left unhonoured. With the one-year anniversary a few weeks away, what will the Minister be doing to speed up this incredibly slow process, so the promises that this country made to those Afghans who worked with our armed forces can truly be honoured?

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman probably just heard me answer the previous two questions. There are hundreds of thousands of applications, many of which are duplicates, and many of which are from people who have no eligibility under ARAP whatsoever. ARAP is a very tightly bound scheme. It is not the same as the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme or other mechanisms where each case might be judged on its merits. There is a list of people who worked with the British armed forces in Afghanistan, so our focus must be on finding the people on that list and bringing them out. We are doing so quickly.

The hon. Gentleman says that it has been nearly a year. That is correct, Mr Speaker, but it is not as if we can just wander around in Afghanistan and find these people. It is not straightforward. A lot of them are undocumented. He may want to speak to some of the charities that are working on this, as I know that some of his colleagues on the Back Benches do. When I spoke to them last week, they realised that the situation was exactly as I have said: it is not easy; people do not have documents; and we are working fast to get people out. We think we have found of way of doing so quicker, and we will be getting on with it now.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

11. What plans he has to restructure Defence Business Services.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

T4. I have heard from a number of Ukrainians now resident in my constituency how much they value the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to support their armed forces. What lessons are we going to learn from our work to supply ordnance and equipment to the armed forces in Ukraine that will inform our future plans for maintaining appropriate stocks of weapons and equipment?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (James Heappey)]

We learn an awful lot from watching the way that modern conflict is being prosecuted in Ukraine, and that is indeed shaping our analysis of the stockpiles we need to hold, particularly given the intensity of the modern artillery battle.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

T3. This October will see the 70th anniversary of the British nuclear tests. What are Ministers doing to formally recognise our nuclear veterans ahead of that date?

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[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

T5. What steps are being taken to address the urgent shortage of translators for UK and Ukraine training exercises while ensuring that adequate proficiency in the language is a key requirement? Some concerns have been raised that the fluency level currently being accepted is not high enough.

[James Heappey]

Those are not concerns that I have heard reflected. I have visited the artillery training that was taking place at Rollestone camp, the Secretary of State has been to visit Warcop twice, and tomorrow I am going to Knook camp in Wiltshire with my Ukrainian counterpart. I can assure the hon. Lady that while my experience of the interpreters has been amazingly positive, if there are any shortcomings we will make sure they are rectified.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Bracknell constituency is very proud to have a new veterans’ hub at Crowthorne fire station, and my thanks go to the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service. What additional provision might be available for communities wanting to provide local support for veterans?

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[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

“Meritorious” was the word that the Prime Minister used in this House to describe the application made under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme by a former Supreme Court of Afghanistan judge who put hundreds of terrorists behind bars, undoubtedly saving British lives. I was promised a meeting with Ministers on the subject; that never materialised, and suddenly, out of the blue, his ARAP application was turned down last week because he was deemed to have not worked closely enough with the UK Government. I plead with Ministers to meet me to review this hero’s case, because I have no doubt that he will be hunted down and slaughtered by the Taliban if we do not bring him to safety.

[James Heappey]

The hon. Lady and I walked through the Lobby together the other week—it was one of the rare occasions on which we were in the same Lobby—and were able to discuss this case. I asked the team to look at it. ARAP is a very tightly bound scheme for those who worked with the British armed forces, and the person for whom she is advocating did not. There are other routes by which that person can come to this country, including through the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and I will make sure that she is connected with the appropriate Minister on that.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

Will we be left without a low-level parachute capability when Hercules goes out of service? If so, can Ministers say how long our airborne forces will be grounded while Atlas is upgraded?