Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Peter Grant

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

That issue is being taken forward, as the right hon. Lady knows, by the Department of Health and Social Care. I know it has made substantial progress on exactly such a scheme, and I look forward to it making an announcement in due course.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The forthcoming by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be the first in Scotland under the new requirement for voter identification. We know that thousands of voters in England were disenfranchised at council elections because they did not have a passport or driving licence. What specific steps is the Cabinet Office taking to make sure that the voters of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, who want to turn out in their thousands to elect Katy Loudon as their MP, are not prevented from doing so because they are too poor to own a passport or driving licence?

Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Peter Grant

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I was not convinced that I should take part in this debate, because I am possibly the least expert on defence matters in this Chamber, but I do have some comments to make.

Let me begin by saying that I do not think that asking very, very hard questions about defence spending on behalf of any of our armed forces is in any way disloyal to those who put their lives on the line. In fact, I would suggest the opposite, because, sometimes, it is our responsibility to ask the questions and to shout about the concerns that serving members of the armed forces, for obvious reasons, are not allowed to express publicly.

I wanted to speak in this debate because we can argue—no doubt we will continue to argue—about how much the defence budget should be each year. We have already seen the beginnings of an argument on the Government Benches about how much of that should be spent on small equipment, how much should be spent on major equipment and how much should be spent on people. The reality is that there will seldom be enough to spend as much as we would like to on all three areas. What concerns me is that, for far too long, the huge amounts of public money that have been spent by the Ministry of Defence have not been well spent or well managed. That means that, for the amount of money that is put into the defence budget, we do not get the number of soldiers, sailors and air personnel that we could get. We do not get the equipment that we should get, and if we do get it, we do not get it on time.

I have been looking at recent reports from the National Audit Office and from the Public Accounts Committee, which I have had the privilege of sitting on for the past two years. In June 2021, the National Audit Office published a report entitled, “Improving the Performance of Major Equipment Contracts”, because it was picking up on a catalogue of failures, of late delivery, of equipment being delivered that was not fit for purpose, and of contracts going hundreds of millions—sometimes billions —of pounds over budget. It found that in eight of the 19 major programmes under way at the time, the senior responsible owner, the military person with direct responsibility for delivering on that project rated their delivery confidence as “amber/red” or “red”. In other words, the people charged with the responsibility for delivering those projects were not convinced they could deliver what was needed where it was needed and when it wasneeded.



The Public Accounts Committee picked up on that report and took further evidence from the MOD, and our report was published in November 2021. We identified, for example, that the contract for four Astute-class attack submarines was more than £1 billion above budget and the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers were £2.75 billion over budget. It is easy to look at those numbers in the context of the total MOD budget and say that none individually is a huge percentage, but when we think what £3 billion, £4 billion or £5 billion could do to improve the accommodation that service personnel are living in, for example, and what that would do for morale, that waste of public money is simply inexcusable.

The Committee made a comment that really should have rung alarm bells throughout Whitehall—bearing in mind that this is a Committee where, by its nature, the Government have a majority:

“We are deeply concerned about departmental witnesses’ inability or unwillingness to answer basic questions and give a frank assessment of the state of its major programmes.”

In other words, there was a cultural problem at the highest levels of the MOD and they were not convinced that the Public Accounts Committee, on behalf of this House, had the right to ask such questions.

The hon. and gallant Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) said that he regarded parts of the integrated review as dishonest; I must say that some of the financial planning documents that the MOD continue to publish could well be given the same descriptor, because they simply do not give an honest and frank view of the challenges it faces in being able to afford some of its plans over the next 10 years. I mentioned improving accommodation for service personnel, and that was not a random example.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments about some of the decisions made by the previous Labour Government, particularly in relation to the aircraft carriers, although I would not describe having those two aircraft carriers as a waste of Government money. They are an extremely valuable addition to our defence and have an extremely good job to do. I take issue with the idea of any document produced by the Department being, as he was implying, dishonest. We have an equipment plan now that has not been deemed unaffordable by the NAO. For the first time in many years, we are balancing our books and delivering on our programmes.

[Peter Grant]

I am glad the Minister mentioned the affordability of the equipment programme. I think that plan is dishonest if it describes itself as affordable, for reasons that I will come on to later.

Loss of Secret Documents

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Peter Grant

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

Absolutely. Again, that is not the subject of this UQ, but my hon. Friend can rest assured that we will continue to conduct ourselves appropriately and professionally, as the Royal Navy always does and as it did last week in its innocent passage across the Black sea. That is absolutely the case. I sincerely hope that this is not a case of our adversaries having sight of these documents, but that is something that has to be confirmed by the investigation.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

While there have been attempts today to scapegoat the civil servant involved and the BBC, the fact is that whether the civil servant’s actions were caused by carelessness, forgetfulness, malice or whatever, at least one other person had a responsibility to stop that civil servant getting those papers out the door of the MOD, so at least one other person, and possibly a whole chain of precautions, has failed. Will the Minister give an assurance, first of all, that the investigation will not be allowed to become a blame allocation or scapegoating exercise? Will he also assure us that not only will Parliament be advised of the result of the investigation, but that he or one of his colleagues will come back to give a statement and be questioned and held to account by Members of Parliament on the results of that investigation when it is ready?

[Jeremy Quin]

The investigation is partly to find out what happened and the circumstances behind the mislaying of these documents. I will not prejudge whether others were involved; it just needs to be discovered. I totally take the hon. Gentleman’s point that one should not jump to conclusions. We need to have a proper investigation. As I say, the police are involved. We need to find the conclusions of that. We also need to find out what we need to learn for the future, and I will make certain that the House is advised of the conclusions of the investigation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Peter Grant

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

The MOD itself estimates that its equipment plan is underfunded by about £8.3 billion in its first five years. We also know, for example, that the MOD will need to spend perhaps billions of pounds to bring its single-person living accommodation up to even a basic minimum tolerable standard. Will the Minister tell us how much of the additional money that the Prime Minister trumpeted at the spending review in November will be genuinely new money and how much of it will be swallowed up to fill these and other existing black holes in the defence budget?

[Jeremy Quin]

I am not going to prejudge in advance of the announcements that are going to be made. They will all be made in the next eight days or so. The hon. Gentleman will be able to see for himself, but I assure him that we have gone through the numbers very closely and there is a lot of new money coming into defence—a £24 billion increase in the amount of money being spent on defence. We can see an awful lot of benefit coming through to our armed forces and our personnel.

Armed Forces: Covid-19 Deployment

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Peter Grant

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I believe that there are 1,600 medics currently deployed and embedded in the NHS, and we will do all we can to support them throughout the winter period. I do appreciate her interest. We will continue to provide that support to the NHS in the months ahead.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

This week in particular, we all remember with gratitude the price that so many service personnel have paid in time of war. I also associate myself with the thanks expressed by other Members for the work that the armed forces have been doing just now to protect us in the face of such a huge peacetime threat. The armed forces draw their personnel from every community of the United Kingdom, and every citizen in every part of the United Kingdom contributes to the cost through their taxes. Will the Minister tell us what measures are in place to make sure that the deployment of the armed forces just now is based on an assessment of where they can be most effective and where their efforts are most needed?

[Jeremy Quin]

To reassure the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that we have ever needed to have that kind of discussion, because when we receive MACA requests, be they from Scotland or from elsewhere, we judge them on their merits, on where we can help and on where there is support that can be provided, and that is routinely honoured. It is not a case of having to ration support at the moment. I think that I said earlier that 7,500 were deployed actively, but I think that was the number available. There are only about 4,000 who are actively deployed on the ground, which means that we always have that extra resilience built in. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, if a request comes in from Scotland or elsewhere, it will always be very sympathetically looked at by the Ministry of Defence.

Tax Credits

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Peter Grant

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to the many factors that are mitigating the tax credit reforms, including the national living wage, the fuel escalator—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) referred to that—and the doubling of free childcare provision. As a colleague of mine on the Work and Pensions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) will be well aware that it is going to look at some of the detail of how the reforms may affect people. I look forward to engaging with him on that, as well as with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and others.

I recognise that there are concerns. However, I urge all hon. Members to remember that we are dealing not with a static environment, but with the most dynamic economy we have known for many years. The positive reforms that the Chancellor is making will have a pronounced ripple effect. Morrisons, Costa Coffee, Sainsbury’s and Ikea are among 200 firms that have already increased pay to meet the national living wage or move above it.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

rose—

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford]

rose—

[Jeremy Quin]

I apologise, but I have given way twice and other people want to speak.

Those pay increases are only part of the story. The ripple effect will continue as those who are on the national living wage see others coming on to it and the pay differentials kick in.

[Peter Grant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?