Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Lord Robathan

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments about our armed forces, which, notwithstanding any excitements last week, are still doing an extremely good job in Afghanistan. I pay tribute to them as well.

Our focus after the end of next year will most definitely be on the Afghan national army officer academy outside Kabul. I am afraid that I cannot yet give the right hon. Gentleman or the House details of equipment that we might be leaving behind or anything like that, but we expect to announce it by the end of the year.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

7. What progress his Department has made in the assessment phase for reform of Defence Equipment and Support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Lord Robathan

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

9. How much his Department spent on accommodation in London for military officers and staff of his Department in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

Over the last 12 months, the Ministry of Defence spent some £25 million on renting 3,000 service family accommodation properties and 1,000 substitute family and single accommodation properties in London for entitled service personnel. Substitute properties were rented only when no suitable MOD accommodation was available. We seek to get best value for money. Travel and subsistence payments for service and civilian personnel relating to short-term detached duty, permanent transfer, which involves move of home, or temporary transfer in London cannot be identified separately. However, for civilian personnel in London, the MOD imposes a monthly rental ceiling of £1,250. Personnel based in the London area are undertaking essential duties in a range of locations.

[Mr Cunningham]

Given the financial difficulties of the MOD and the worldwide economic situation that we inherited, the present Government have made the position worse. With all these defence cuts going on, particularly among specialist police in the MOD, how does the Minister justify spending £500,000 on a trip to America, which was cancelled last year?

[Mr Robathan]

I am not entirely sure how that question relates specifically to my previous answer, but I will of course answer it. As I understand it, the trip is part of the Defence Academy course, and 300 people went to America for a week or whatever. It seems to me that this is a reasonable use of defence expenditure to ensure that people are properly trained at the Defence Academy and that they gain a proper understanding of the United States, which is, after all, our most important ally, with which we are much engaged in Afghanistan at the moment.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Lord Robathan

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, because he is absolutely right. The National Security Council came up with various scenarios, including operations such as the one in which we are currently partaking in Libya.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister say how many people in the armed forces will be made compulsorily redundant?

[Mr Robathan]

All 11,000 redundancies are termed compulsory. We are hoping that we will receive volunteers for as many posts as possible, but we are not just going to accept volunteers because some of them will be people we wish to keep, so we will not want them to enter the redundancy programme.