Data Breach: ARAP Applicants in Afghanistan

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the data breach exposing ARAP applicants in Afghanistan.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I understand the strength of feeling on this subject, and this question gives me the opportunity to set out where we are with the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and yesterday’s data breach. I would like to place it on record that I had offered a statement for when we return from conference recess, as the investigation I have ordered will be able to report fully by then, and I still expect to make those details available.

As you know, Mr Speaker, I have taken the obligation we have to the Afghan personnel who have supported us throughout extremely seriously. Despite this disappointing event, we should pay tribute to the armed forces for Operation Pitting and the that we have managed to evacuate 8,800 people and families eligible under the ARAP scheme since April, in addition to the 1,400 who had already been relocated prior to that date. However, worryingly for me, over the last few weeks lapses from the highest standards in the management of those people remaining in Afghanistan have been brought to my attention by both hon. Members of this House and others. For that reason Ministers raised concerns both last week and yesterday, and sought assurances that these problems would be rectified. Those assurances were given. However, it was brought to my attention at 2000 hours last night that there had been a significant data breach. To say I was angered by this is an understatement and I immediately directed an investigation to take place.

Initial findings show that an email was sent at 17.44 hours as part of the “weekly contact” we maintain with ARAP currently remaining in Afghanistan. This had been copied to all the 245 applicants, rather than blind copying them. The email was immediately recalled on identification of the breach and then a subsequent email was sent advising people to delete the email and change their addresses, which many of them have done.

So far, one individual has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation and processes for data handling and correspondence processing have already been changed. I have directed that extensive steps are to be taken to quantify the potential increased risk to individuals in order to take further steps to protect them. The Information Commissioner has been notified and we will co-operate fully with any of its own enquiries.

I apologise to those Afghans affected by this data breach, and we are now working with them to provide security advice. As I speak, the Minister for the Armed Forces is in the region speaking to neighbouring countries to see what more we can do with both third country and in-country applicants. This is an unacceptable level of service that has let down the thousands of members of the armed forces and veterans, and on behalf of the Ministry of Defence I apologise.

I offer the reassurance that the scheme will continue to operate and bring people back to the United Kingdom for however many are eligible and however long it takes.

[John Healey]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

There is rightly cross-party concern about this very grave security breach, with names, email addresses and in some cases photographs of 250 Afghan ARAP applicants, all still in Afghanistan and in danger, shared in a mass mailing. This needlessly puts their lives at risk.

I welcome the Defence Secretary’s presence here this morning and welcome his apology, inquiry and commitment to a statement when the House returns after its short recess, but it is not the apology but the action which matters most now. These Afghan interpreters worked alongside our British forces and the Government rightly pledged to protect them. Ministers must make good on those promises now, so can the Defence Secretary answer the following questions: when will he complete that assessment of the increased risk these individuals now face as a result of the data breach; what action is he taking urgently to evacuate them and their families; and why on earth is the MOD mass emailing people who face life-or-death situations?

I know from ARAP evacuees in my constituency who have separated family members still in hiding in Afghanistan that their social media has been blocked. Is there any evidence of email surveillance or interference from the Taliban? How will the MOD remain in contact with these people if they follow the advice to change their email addresses?

Yesterday, Ministers confirmed that 7,900 applications have been made to the ARAP scheme, with 900 so far approved since the end of August. Have there been any data breaches linked to other ARAP applicants?

This is the third known serious defence data breach in as many months. Each time, we have the same response: public apology, internal inquiry, then silence—no report on the inquiry results, no confirmation of action taken to tighten up the system. The Secretary of State rightly started by paying tribute to all involved in Operation Pitting. Our forces were totally professional in that extraordinary evacuation from Kabul, but they must be asking now: how can we trust our back-up at the MOD?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Member makes some points that I would say are deservedly landed, and I hear what he says. First, yes, we mass email individuals, but we also email individually. This was a weekly catch-up email that was sent to over 250 people to make sure that they were kept in touch, because, quite rightly, as many Members have pointed out on a number of occasions, they need to be engaged and know that there is someone out there keeping it going and trying to get them through the country.

This was a mass email. It did not contain individuals’ home addresses or anything. The photo profiles that the right hon. Member mentioned were ones that were in profiles of the email addresses as opposed to the individuals’ names. Indeed, having looked at all the email addresses, I can say that the vast majority were not specific names, necessarily; they were email addresses rather than particular names. However, that does not change the fundamental impact that the email could have had and could still have.

I have asked Defence Intelligence to go through all the cases and assess the risk to the individuals. That will be ongoing. I can of course get an update, and I will be happy to share with the right hon. Member where we are with those updates on intelligence. I can certainly also give a Privy Council briefing to both him and, indeed, the Scottish National party if it wishes, on the greater security situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

This group was not the wider cohort that the right hon. Member referred to—the people who have applied since ARAP. To put it in perspective, some 68,000 have applied for ARAP. Obviously, when that number is scrubbed and worked through, it reduces significantly, but that is the number of emails that have been sitting in email boxes and have been worked through—and are being worked through—to try to make sure that we find the right people with the right criteria and then, obviously, communicate with them.

This matter relates only to the number of people who had been called forward under Op Pitting, had been security checked and were ready to go but either never made it to the Baron hotel or never made it on to a flight. That number started at 311, as hon. Members will remember. Of the 311, there are 260 principals left in Afghanistan—that is 1,232 people if we include their families—43 principals, or 163 pax in total, in third countries, and eight with whom we have still not been able to establish communications despite trying numerous times. That is the cohort that this relates to. We will do everything we can.

As far as getting those people out of the country, as I said, the Minister for the Armed Forces is now in one of the neighbouring countries and will continue to do that. I have spoken to my defence sections and offered to increase resource and to give reassurances to those third countries. The MOD funds the flying of those people back to the United Kingdom. We have already done so, and I will be happy to update the House as we go about how many people come out of the country.

Some of the other challenges, obviously, relate to security, and we have to have that balance in bringing people back who sometimes turn out, eventually, to have the wrong record; we want to protect the British public from that. But fundamentally, that is the cohort of people that these emails relate to.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I am also delighted that my whole team has remained together on the Front Bench. I cannot remember that happening in any other Department in my time in politics, but it is a good thing to have continuity. It does, however, limit our excuse to say, “We are just getting on top of our brief.”

This is why Afghanistan matters. It is often the keystone or lynchpin in that part of the world. What happens in Afghanistan can ripple throughout the region and further along, as we saw with al-Qaeda in 2001—it is really important. The Minister for the Armed Forces and I will be setting off to the region this week to discuss that with a number of neighbouring countries. Pakistan and China are significant countries in the international community that we have to engage with to make sure that Afghanistan does not go from bad to worse, and that we reverse radicalisation where it appears.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right: the biggest threat from Afghanistan is the country becoming once again the base for extremist terrorist groups. The biggest risk is that the British Government give that the same lack of attention and preparation they gave to Afghanistan in the 18 months ahead of the NATO withdrawal, so why on earth is the Prime Minister now cutting back, by more than half, on his National Security Council meetings?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Member will be referring to a report by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that he has commented on previously. The report makes a number of those points, some of which I disagree with because, as I have said at the Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister often chooses that, on national security, Departments can generate their concerns and come together with national security Ministers to discuss the issues. It does not always have to be done in a formal NSC meeting; it can be done in a sub-committee, where we sometimes get across even much smaller issues.

The report also makes the point that Afghanistan is not mentioned much in the integrated review, but the right hon. Member will notice that in the defence Command Paper it is mentioned nine times—it is incredibly important. We did not neglect it in the lead-up to the fall of Afghanistan; in fact, we were investing more troops and more people in the last few weeks until we got to the point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State, John Healey.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I want to ask the Defence Secretary about the Ajax armoured vehicle, the biggest defence procurement failure since the Nimrod. What did the Defence Secretary know about the Ajax flaws when he published the integrated review in his Defence White Paper in March, scrapping Warrior, scaling back Challenger and fully backing Ajax?

[Mr Wallace]

I know that this was a troubled programme; I have never resiled from that at all in this House. In fact, as the right hon. Member will know, since I took over this job we have been determined to open up the programme and get to the bottom of its failings. We will shortly come to the House with more detail on that. Going right back to March 2010, this has been a troubled programme that needs to be fixed. Can it be fixed? That is what we are working to do. It is nothing to do with linking Warrior and the others, which the right hon. Member is trying to make the case for.

[John Healey]

This is not just another troubled programme or another piece of Army kit. The Secretary of State’s defence White Paper confirms that Ajax is fundamental to the future of British ground forces. Our NATO allies in Europe already see a Prime Minister with the hots for his Indo-Pacific tilt. Now Ajax, alongside the AUKUS nuclear propulsion pact, raises serious concerns over Britain’s sustained contribution and commitment to NATO. What is the Secretary of State doing to settle those concerns?

[Mr Wallace]

First of all, what the right hon. Member has missed is that I committed to and brought forward the buying of Boxer, which is a German-British-Dutch project that will be made in Telford, providing jobs. I also brought forward the Challenger 3 upgrade, with Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land—a German company partnering with a British company to provide jobs. That is a strong, solid, metallic commitment to Europe. At the same time, we press forward with the future combat air system with Italy and Sweden.

Ajax Armoured Vehicle Procurement

John Healey Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for making the statement and for advanced sight of it. May I, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, thank Mr Speaker for ensuring that the Defence Secretary understood his determination to see that Ministers account properly to this House, after Monday’s written ministerial statement was slipped out late in the afternoon in the middle of the Prime Minister’s statement on Afghanistan in the Commons?

This was the Minister’s shocking admission in that statement on Monday, underlined again today, though in more guarded terms:

“it is not possible to determine a realistic timescale for the introduction of Ajax vehicles into operational service with the Army.”

It is three months to the day since this House last questioned the Minister on Ajax and since then things have gone from bad to worse: the Public Accounts Committee pursuing a critical inquiry; the National Audit Office agreeing to my request and that of the Defence Committee for an urgent investigation; the Government’s own Major Projects Authority again flagging Ajax red and saying that successful delivery “appears to be unachievable”. This is a programme that has cost £3.5 billion to date, delivered just 14 vehicles and is set to be completed a decade late. The Minister’s statement now puts Ajax on an end-of-life watch. He confirms that the vibration problems were well know before the Ajax trial started in 2019. Indeed, he said today there was an Army safety notice in place on that vehicle in 2018. How much did the Defence Secretary know about the flaws in Ajax when he published the Defence Command Paper in March backing Ajax, scrapping Warrior and scaling back Challenger?

The Minister now says that he has realised that what is required for Ajax is what he calls a full-time dedicated senior responsible owner. So for over a decade this Ajax programme, the most costly defence procurement, second only to the deterrent, has had nobody senior responsible who has taken full-time charge. No wonder Ajax is the biggest procurement failure since the Nimrod, and this has happened entirely on this Government’s watch. Ministers are failing British forces and failing British taxpayers.

Specifically, can the Minister tell the House how many of the 248 Army personnel tested so far need medical treatment, and for what? What is the expected MOD cost for the additional trials and modifications? What impact will the indefinite delay have on the Army’s ability to deploy the essential planned strike brigade? Has the Minister approached the Welsh Government with a plan to support jobs at General Dynamics and the Welsh economy if Ajax is cancelled? What contingency plans are in place for the Army to have full reconnaissance and force protection capabilities while Ajax is delayed or indeed deleted?

There are alternatives to Ajax. So alongside the report that the Minister says he will commission from the new senior responsible officer on whether to complete or to cancel Ajax, will Ministers also commission full viability reports on modifying Boxer with its fourth generation ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance—capability, on the Combat Vehicle 90s used by our European NATO allies, and on the Warrior upgrade cancelled in the defence Command Paper? How much longer will it be before Ministers make a firm decision on the future of Ajax and provide certainty for all involved?

Finally, the defence Command Paper made it clear that the Government’s rapid further cut in Army numbers is linked directly to more advanced technology based on the Ajax, so will Ministers also now halt their further cut in Army numbers at least until they have sorted out and fixed this fundamentally failing procurement?

[Jeremy Quin]

I am pleased to respond to the comments by the right hon. Gentleman. I think he was being just a little ungenerous in talking about statements being slipped out. I have always thought that it is best to inform this House as swiftly and transparently as possible. I was very pleased to make, on the first day this House returned, a statement that gave a full update as to where we were on Ajax. I was proud to make that statement in written ministerial form on Monday.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to my being guarded in this oral statement on full operating capacity. I am not being guarded. I state what is obviously and transparently the case. I cannot give a date on reaching FOC when I have said what I have said on initial operating capacity, which I mean and I will stick by—that is, that we will not accept an IOC until we have a clear resolution to the issues on noise and vibration. We are working through how that will impact and how the timetable will move on in getting from IOC to FOC, but quite transparently we need a vehicle that works and is fit for purpose, and that is what we are determined to deliver.

When this programme was initially set up in March 2010, under a different Administration, I do not believe there were, at that stage, SROs. I may be wrong, but I believe that SROs have been introduced subsequently. [Interruption.] You had them?

[John Healey]

We introduced them.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am better informed. So there were SROs in the MOD at that time, and I suspect that they would do what SROs have continued to do since, which is to have a proportion of their time allocated to particular projects. In saying that we want to have an SRO 100% committed to this project—and, I hope, the same SRO who will be able to carry it right the way through to completion—we are recognising the fact that this is a troubled programme that needs the extra resource and the commitment of a full-time SRO, and that is what we will deliver.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues. On health and safety and on medical concerns, I am determined, as I made clear in my written and my oral statement, that the full health and safety report will be published so that hon. Members can see it for themselves, and I will update the House on information regarding the medical testing at that stage.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about additional costs. There are no additional costs to be incurred by the MOD with regard to additional testing being done by General Dynamics. That is part of the overall contract. There will be additional costs incurred by the Ministry of Defence in conducting independent trials at Millbrook. I think that is right and appropriate. This is an independent process. I want to see the analysis coming to us, so we will be paying money for the Millbrook trials, but I think that is appropriate.

On the strike brigade and contingency plans, we cannot have Ajax introduced to the strike brigade until we have Ajax—that is axiomatic—but we do have clear views as to contingencies. The Army is always evolving its full process on contingencies. I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the very helpful session chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Chair of the Defence Committee, which was attended and spoken at by the Commander Field Army. There is a range of capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as existing platforms, to fill any gap that is required to be filled.

I would counsel the right hon. Gentleman against what may be wholly unnecessary, inappropriate and inaccurate scaremongering about jobs. This is an incredibly important programme not only for the British Army but for thousands of people who are employed on it across the country—from memory, over 200 firms, including, as he says, General Dynamics in south Wales. We are committed to working with General Dynamics to achieve a resolution of these issues. As I have said before, I cannot 100% promise to this House that we will find a resolution to these issues, but we are determined to work it through with GD. As I have been very open and transparent in saying, an important step in that is the independent testing at Millbrook to enable us to know where the vibrations in the vehicle are originating from and whether the design modifications that are already being examined and thought through will work and achieve effect. I beg the right hon. Gentleman, and other Members, to be mindful of those people who will be concerned about their jobs and livelihoods, particularly if we can, as I sincerely hope and trust, find a long-term resolution to these issues, as we are determined, working with General Dynamics, to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I would be delighted to come over to Redcar to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency. He highlights the real importance of the supply chain in any defence product. It is not always the big primes, although they often get the attention; it is all the little and medium-sized companies that string along behind that often supply the real detail behind the bids.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Defence Secretary for his welcome to my hon. Friend the new Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). I will ensure that his kind remarks are known to her.

The Prime Minister has promised an extra 10,000 jobs in defence each year for the next four years. Buying British is the best way to deliver that promise so that we design and build for ourselves in Britain: it strengthens our economy and it strengthens our sovereignty. The defence equipment budget is now £19 billion. What proportion goes not to Britain, but to US suppliers?

[Mr Wallace]

Many suppliers in this country may not be entirely UK in their country of ownership, but the Ajax, for example, is made in St Athan by General Dynamics, and Boxer is made in Shropshire by a combination of BAE and the German Rheinmetall. We often insist that a significant proportion of those projects are made in the UK: for example, over 65% of the Boxer vehicle’s components are UK-made, including the metal frame made in Stockport. That provides British jobs, even if sometimes the countries of ownership are international. It is important to have international components because, as hon. Members have mentioned in previous questions, we also want to sell abroad. If we shut everyone else out, we should not be surprised if they do not buy from us.

[John Healey]

The Defence Secretary ducks and dives to avoid the answer, but the highly authoritative Defence Analysis has the figures: 31% of Britain’s defence budget now goes to US suppliers, up from 10% only five years ago. Britain can make the best, but it requires the Government to give it backing. In the past month alone, the Defence Secretary has rejected the world-leading UK-built Brimstone missile and bought US instead. Is it not the truth that Ministers are making big promises to UK industry while the big money still goes abroad?

[Mr Wallace]

The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman does not seem to understand defence procurement or how things are manufactured. For example, 15% to 20% of the global components for all 3,000 of the F-35 aircraft—the rear part of the aeroplane—are made in Lancashire. Many of the highly complex, highly expensive defence projects are a collaboration. Typhoon is often championed on both sides of the House: that is an international collaboration between Spain, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. When the right hon. Gentleman mentions the word “supplier”, he is of course deliberately confusing that with the actual number of jobs and the ownership of their business. Let us ask the question: how many people are working on American companies’ business but based in the UK? He will find that most of them are here in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)]

As part of the carrier strike group deployment on 23 June, HMS Defender, during innocent passage through Ukrainian territory waters, was overflown by Russian combat aircraft and shadowed by Russian ships. No warning shots were fired and no bombs were dropped in her path; these assertions were Kremlin disinformation. The Royal Navy will always uphold international law. In the Mediterranean, the group’s ships and aircraft have bolstered NATO, conducted highly successful exercises, flown armed sorties against Daesh and been welcomed into port by many friends and allies, boosting Britain’s trade and diplomatic links. In the coming weeks, we will continue to build relations with our partners as we reach the middle east and the Indo-Pacific.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

We pay tribute to the total professionalism of the HMS Defender crew.

This is a profound moment for the more than 150,000 UK men and women who served in Afghanistan. I pay tribute to their service and their sacrifice, especially those of the 457 who have lost their lives. Where does this withdrawal leave the UK strategy of forward deployment in a region that sits between Russia, China and Iran—three of the main state-based threats identified in the integrated review—and how will the Government ensure that Afghanistan does not again become an operating base for terrorism directed against the west?

[Mr Wallace]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in his tribute to the men and women who fought, some of whom never came back, and contributed during the many years in Afghanistan. I have previously placed on the record the fact that in my view the United States leaving made it very difficult for us to continue that mission. It left many of us unable to continue that without a significant international uplift. That has not been forthcoming, and therefore we are in a position where we, too, are on the path of withdrawal, with all the risks that may leave in the future—in the next 10, 20 years—so we have to do our very best with what we have now. That means we will continue to work with the Afghan Government. We will continue to focus on the threats that emanate from Afghanistan and may grow towards the United Kingdom and our allies. We will do whatever we can. However, it is important, in forward presence, that we are always in such countries with the consent of those countries. There was a Doha peace agreement, and that means we have to consider what we are going to do next.

Loss of Secret Documents

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to update the House on the leak of classified and sensitive documents from the Ministry of Defence.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

As the House will be aware, a number of Ministry of Defence classified documents were lost by a senior official early last week. Upon realising the loss of documents, the individual self-reported on Tuesday 22 June. The documents lost included a paper that was marked “Secret UK Eyes Only”. The documents were found by a member of the public at a bus stop in Kent. The member of the public then handed the papers to the BBC. The Ministry of Defence has launched a full investigation. The papers have now been recovered from the BBC and are being assessed as I speak to check that all documents missing have been recovered and what mitigation actions might be necessary. The investigation will look at the actions of individuals, including the printing of the papers through to the management of the reported incident, and at the underlying processes for printing and carriage of papers in Defence. The investigation is expected to complete shortly. While the investigation is being conducted, the individual’s access to sensitive material has been suspended. It would be inappropriate to comment on the findings of the investigation while it is still under way.

[John Healey]

That sensitive MOD documents were found strewn behind a bus stop in Kent last Tuesday morning is certainly embarrassing for Ministers, but it is deeply worrying for those concerned with our national security, so I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. This is not the first time that there have been known leaks based on classified documents from the MOD that have found their way beyond the MOD. In January, it was the assessment of how far short of our fighting strength our infantry battalions are. Early this month, it was personal details of more than 1,000 forces personnel, including special forces, which the Armed Forces Minister has now confirmed to me is also subject to a military police investigation. Are the military police involved in this investigation?

I am glad that the Minister has confirmed that the investigation will look at how and why these highly classified documents were copied and then carried out of the Department. When will it report, and will he publish the findings? He needs to do more to reassure us about the risks involved in the leak. Will he confirm the level of “UK Eyes Only” classification that the document had? Has the inquiry yet ruled out espionage? Were our allies informed immediately, and at what appropriate level?

The Minister mentions ongoing operations. Our frontline forces on HMS Defender were totally professional in dealing with aggressive Russian actions in the Black sea last week, but they must be asking, “What about our back-up at the MOD?” when top secret documents about their mission, ahead of their mission, found their way to the back of this bus stop in Kent. Finally, Ministers need to do more to reassure the public and our forces personnel that they have a grip of their Department, and have taken actions to stop the series of security breaches at the Department.

UK Military Personnel Serving Overseas: Vaccination

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

Whether that was right or wrong can be a matter of debate, but the MOD position has been very clear throughout. I happen to believe that it is the right decision, because there was no decision to prioritise other professions beyond those within the NHS—military medics, it is important to say, were all vaccinated as a matter of priority alongside their NHS colleagues while they were working in high-risk covid environments.

The other thing that I would just pick up on in my right hon. Friend’s response to my initial answer is his assertion that 80 people on our deployment to Mali had covid. That is simply not the case. The correct figure, as was answered in a parliamentary question last week, is that cumulatively, since the deployment began, 24 people have tested positive for covid. If you will indulge the detail of that, Madam Deputy Speaker, there were six positive tests in March, two in April and one in May for the Chinook detachment, and two in December, six in January, one in February and six in March for the long range reconnaissance group.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

This is frankly shocking. Defence Ministers have failed in their first duty to our armed forces, which is to ensure that they are properly trained, equipped and protected when they are deployed overseas, especially in conflict zones such as Mali. Six months ago, when Labour called in this House for Ministers to ramp up testing and to set out a clear plan to vaccinate our troops, the Defence Secretary said:

“We are working on a list right now of who we can prioritise”.—[Official Report, 12 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 189.]

Why was it not done? Why was top priority not given to troops sent overseas?

The Minister has just said it is only being done in line with the national programme. The MOD has been clearer, saying recently:

“UK personnel have been vaccinated in line with national priority guidelines…which saw vaccines rolled out to priority groups in order of age and risk.”

These are guidelines for civilians in Britain, not for troops fighting terrorists, 3,000 miles from home, in countries with jab rates among the lowest in the world— it is still at only 0.2% in Mali. I say to the Minister that that is wrong. How on earth did the Defence Secretary not stand up for the forces he deployed to Mali, Kenya, Oman, Afghanistan and elsewhere? These troops train together and fight together; they should be jabbed together.

How many and what proportion of UK military personnel deployed abroad, country by country, have contracted covid? How many have now been double jabbed, and when will all of them be done? Have all those deployed on core defence tasks, such as the continuous at-sea deterrent, now been double jabbed?

Will the Minister comment on the circumstances of HMS Defender in the Black sea today?

Finally, will the Minister now make full vaccination mandatory before overseas deployment? The Australians made that commitment in February, and it is high time British Ministers now did the same.

[James Heappey]

The detail of vaccines and positive tests by country is held, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am not sure you would indulge me if I were to go through the spreadsheet. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would accept it if I were to write to him and place a copy in the Library, so it can be a matter of record.

The headline stat, as I said in my answer to a parliamentary question last week, is that 98.6% of people deployed overseas have had their first dose, and 56% have had their second dose. I accept that there could be a debate on all professions, whether they be clinicians in the NHS, teachers or members of the armed forces. We made a judgment that, where the medical facilities are sufficient to safely administer the vaccine in a deployed environment, those people would receive their vaccine in line with their age cohort in the general UK population. Where it is not possible to do that, such as with the continuous at-sea deterrent, they were fully vaccinated before deployment.

I am also grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the activities around HMS Defender in the Black sea earlier today. No warning shots have been fired at HMS Defender. The Royal Navy ship is conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters, in accordance with international law. We believe the Russians were undertaking a gunnery exercise in the Black sea and provided the maritime community with prior warning of their activity. No shots were directed at HMS Defender, and we do not recognise the claim that bombs were dropped in her path.

Ajax Programme

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on what progress has been made with the Ajax armoured vehicles programme.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

The Ajax family of vehicles will transform the British Army’s reconnaissance capability. As our first fully digitalised armoured fighting vehicle, Ajax will provide crews with access to vastly improved sensors, and better lethality and protection. Maingate 1 approval was granted in March 2010. Negotiations with the prime contractor to recast the contract were held between December 2018 and May 2019. The forecast initial operating capability, or IOC, was delayed by a year to 30 June 2021—later this month—at 50% confidence, with 90% confidence for September 2021.

Despite the ongoing impact of covid, we have stuck by that IOC date, but of course, it remains subject to review. By the end of next week, we will have received the requisite number of vehicles to meet IOC. The necessary simulators have been delivered and training courses commenced. These delivered vehicles are all at capability drop 1 standard, designed for the experimentation, training and familiarisation of those crews that are first in line for the vehicles. Capability drop 3, applying the lessons of the demonstration phrase, is designed for operations.

We remain in the demonstration phase, and as with all such phases, issues with the vehicle have emerged that we need to resolve. We were concerned by reports of noise issues in the vehicle. All personnel who may have been exposed to excessive noise have been tested, and training was paused. It now continues with mitigations in place as we pursue resolution. We have also commissioned independent vibration trials from world-class specialists at Millbrook Proving Ground, which should conclude next month.

I assure the House that we will not accept a vehicle that falls short of our requirements, and we are working with General Dynamics, the prime contractor, to achieve IOC. Similarly, we are currently working with General Dynamics to ensure that we have a mutually agreed schedule for reaching full operating capability. That is subject to an independent review, which we have commissioned. This is an important project for the British Army, delivering impressive capabilities and employing thousands of skills workers across the UK. We look forward to taking it into service.

[John Healey]

That was a statement of astonishing complacency. We have seen £3.5 billion paid out, four years late, and just 14 vehicles delivered, light tanks that cannot fire while moving, and vehicle crews made so sick that the testing has been paused. If this is defence procurement that the Minister is content is broadly on track, how badly has it got to go wrong before he will admit that the contract is flawed? This project has been flagged red by the Government’s own Major Projects Authority. The Defence Committee calls it

“another example of chronic mismanagement by the Ministry of Defence and its shaky procurement apparatus.”

Yet the Defence Secretary is failing to get to grips with the failures in this system and failing our frontline troops as a result. He is breaking a promise he made to them in this House when he said:

“When it comes to equipment, the first thing is to ensure that we give our men and women the best to keep them alive and safe on a battlefield.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2020; Vol. 685, c. 556.]

He has been in post for two years now. Since then, the black hole in the defence budget has ballooned by £4 billion up to £17 billion. Ministers are failing British forces and failing British taxpayers.

Have the Ajax problems of noise and vibration now all been fully fixed? How many personnel are under medical treatment following the Ajax testing, and what are the conditions they are being treated for? Can the Ajax now in fact fire while moving? Where will the gun turret be manufactured? What is the full updated cost of the Ajax programme? When will all these vehicles be delivered in full?

This is the largest single procurement contract outside nuclear, and it requires independent scrutiny, so will the Minister invite the National Audit Office to do an urgent special audit?

The Minister says that this is an important project for the British Army. He is right. The defence Command Paper makes it clear that the rapid further cut in Army numbers is directly linked to more advanced battlefield technology based on the Ajax. So will Ministers now halt the plans to cut Army numbers and focus instead on fixing this failing procurement system?

[Jeremy Quin]

I had imagined that whatever my response, the right hon. Gentleman would accuse me of being complacent. That is the expectation I had and I was not disappointed. We are not in any way complacent about our nation’s defence and security. That is why we are investing another £24 billion in our defence and in our security over the next four years. We are absolutely on top of and getting to grips with our equipment programme and what will stem from it.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues. I can assure him that I am absolutely focused on this project achieving its IOC. I will not hide from him, as I have not from the House, that we have two primary concerns: noise and vibration. On noise, we have mitigations currently in place to enable a certain element of training, albeit reduced training. We are looking at two headsets that hopefully, within the next few weeks, will be approved for use, further extending what we can do in terms of training. But that does not get us to the root cause of the noise. We need to get to the root cause of the noise issues within this vehicle, be they mechanical or indeed electronic; this is, after all, the first digitalised platform of its kind anywhere. We need to resolve those issues.

We are concerned about vibration. I have to say that over many thousands of miles of testing GD has not had the same experience of vibration, but I absolutely trust the reports that have come to me from our service personnel. We are determined to get to the bottom of this. That is why we are using Millbrook, a world-class proving ground, to check exactly what noise comes back on vibration. It may come back with a good answer, but we await that answer. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman —I understand his concerns—that we will not take anything into IOC until we are satisfied that we are getting the kit that we require.

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman on a host of other issues that he raised. I do not deny that we have serious issues that we need to resolve, but there are a number of points where there is a difference between what is certified and what the vehicle is capable of. I can reassure him that the vehicle is capable of going well ahead of 30 km per hour, but with newly trained crews, a certification has been placed restricting speed, and I would expect that to be lifted during the course of next month. There has been a restriction in terms of going up over a reverse step. This is a vehicle that is capable of reversing over a 75 cm object. A restriction has been placed, and I expect that to be lifted shortly too. This is a vehicle that is capable of firing on the move. That is not something that we have certified it to do as yet. We are working through the demonstration phase, but we will continue to advance that demonstration phase. There will be issues; there always are in demonstration phases.

We do have issues to resolve, but as I say, the key ones are noise and vibration, both of which we are very focused on. I hope that we will be able to get resolution on all these issues, but it is what we are working with, with General Dynamics. It is a firm price contract, so £5.5 billion is the maximum that is payable, including VAT. Currently, we are at just under £3.2 billion spent. There is a heavy incentivisation on our suppliers to ensure that they get this over the line. We are working very closely with them at the very top level of their organisation. The joint programme office was delayed by covid, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. There were significant covid issues in Merthyr, and they did brilliantly through them. We have a joint programme office on the ground, and a combination of top-down and bottom-up will, I hope, enable us to make ongoing progress.

In terms of the reporting, as the right hon. Gentleman may be aware, an Infrastructure and Projects Authority report has been requested by the senior responsible owner, which was helpful. These things are helpful. It is helpful that SROs and their teams can speak honestly to the IPA and get proper independent assessments. That was conducted back in March, and it has certainly helped. I look forward to making further progress and reporting back on that to interested parties as we resolve the issues that are outstanding.

I reiterate that this is a first-class vehicle. It is the first of its kind. It has an important job to do. It is currently employing around 4,100 people across the length and breadth of the UK. I visited Merthyr, and I am proud of what they are doing there. We will, and we must, get this right and get it delivered.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister said back in November that the current four-year funding for defence would create “10,000 jobs every year”. Six months on, how many new defence jobs have been created?

[Mr Wallace]

I went recently to Telford to launch the Challenger 3 contract, which will grow to a significant number of jobs—nearly 200 to 300 from that alone. The Boxer coming on stream, which my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) mentioned, will produce up to another 400 to 600 jobs. The Type 31 contract up in Rosyth is now moving apace, with the buildings now in place and the steel-cutting due; that will also unlock, and is delivering, hundreds of new jobs. Across the board, as we have said, there will be thousands of new jobs because of the increase in funding that we have received.

The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) often comes to the House to say that we are cutting defence and tries to focus on the resource departmental expenditure limit, even though that itself is not a cut. With the capital departmental expenditure limit, the significant increase for capital spending will go on our equipment programme: vast amounts will be made in the United Kingdom, which means more jobs in their thousands.

[John Healey]

The Secretary of State will need a better answer than that, because it is down to him to deliver the Prime Minister’s “10,000 jobs every year”, yet since he has been Defence Secretary, the black hole in the budget has grown to £17 billion, only three of the MOD’s 30 major military projects are on time and on budget, and he has agreed to a real funding cut in revenue spending over the next four years. What is he doing to fix what has been the long-running Achilles heel of the MOD: delivery, delivery, delivery?

[Mr Wallace]

The £17 billion that the right hon. Member refers to is the sum that was identified by the National Audit Office before the defence settlement. So what have I done? I have got a £24 billion defence settlement over the next four years. I am sure the right hon. Member, having previously worked in the Treasury, can do the maths. He will see that that is the first thing I have done, and it is something I do not think anyone else has achieved since the cold war. It is the highest settlement since the cold war. But he is right to highlight the concerns on major projects. Major projects are always the Achilles heel for the Ministry of Defence, and it is important that we keep an eye on this in full and drive through, ensuring that we deliver efficiencies, but also ensuring that we cross every t and dot every i. The reason that he knows they are the Achilles heel is that in 2010 the NAO report identified that his Government at the time also had a major black hole in the equipment programme, which grew at one stage to £3 billion in a single year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

Mr Speaker, I will get the hang of Topical Question 1 one day. I hope the answer will be better the second time around.

The Government are committed to bringing forward measures. Those measures were mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, and we will obviously publish them as soon as possible. As a former Northern Ireland veteran myself, I know it is incredibly important that we recognise that many of those veterans served with distinction and bravery, and upheld the law to their highest ability. It is deeply regrettable that we see many of them brought to trial—or under investigation, rather than trial—for vexatious reasons, and we are committed to make sure that that does not happen.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

May I, from the Opposition Benches, strongly endorse the concern and condemnation the Defence Secretary has expressed over the actions of the Belarus authorities? May I also say that we strongly support the work of Operation Tangham, but in the light of recent press stories, can I ask the Defence Secretary for his assurance that if he takes any decision to commit combat troops to Somalia, he will report such a decision to this House first?

May I ask about the Army’s fighting vehicles? The Defence Secretary wrote off over £1 billion of taxpayers’ money in March when he scrapped the Warrior. Weekend reports say that the MOD has also paid out £3.2 billion for the Ajax, and so far received only a dozen delivered, and those without turrets. A figure of £4 billion is the total size of the Government’s levelling-up fund over the next four years. Given that the Secretary of State has conceded this afternoon that delivery is the MOD’s Achilles heel, will he accept that Parliament now needs a system of special measures for the MOD so that British forces and the British taxpayer get much better value from his Department?

[Mr Wallace]

I think the right hon. Member is looking at the special measure. The reason I am here as the Secretary of State for Defence is to get the record level of investment that will put right not only five years or 10 years, but 20 years of mismanagement of these programmes. Sometimes that means taking tough decisions, and the Warrior will be retired when it runs out in 2025; it is not just going to be cancelled as such. It was also important to make sure that we invested in parts of the land capability that I thought, and indeed that officers thought, were the right thing for the future of the Army—the Boxer armoured vehicle. For that investment, not only do we get a factory in Telford and hundreds of jobs, but we get one of the very best wheeled armed vehicles in the world. For his £3.3 billion on Ajax, he will get over 500 vehicles when they are delivered, and much of that money has already been committed. He will also get a factory in Wales, which I am sure he is pleased about. In both projects, we will get the intellectual property, so that when we export those vehicles around the world, not only will British defence profit, but so too will the people of the United Kingdom through their jobs.

Carrier Strike Group Deployment

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for the advance copy, and I add Labour’s condolences to the friends, family and comrades of the Indonesian submariners who tragically lost their lives in the service of their country this week.

We welcome this first major deployment of the Queen Elizabeth, and pay tribute to all those involved who have made this possible. The Secretary of State rightly says that the UK has a proud history as a carrier nation, but Britain has not had a carrier strike force since 2010, when the Conservative defence review scrapped all three of our aircraft carriers, along with 74 newly upgraded Harriers that flew from them. This deployment fills a big gap in Britain’s military capability over the past decade. It is a major achievement that, in the words of Sir Nick Houghton, vice-chief of the defence staff in 2011, is as complex as “staging the Olympics.”

The successful design and build of our two new aircraft carriers is a tribute to the UK’s shipbuilding industry and our UK steelmakers. Will the Secretary of State confirm how much UK-produced steel will be used in the new Type 26s, Type 31s, Astute, Dreadnought and Fleet Solid Support ships? This is a big opportunity to back British industry and jobs. If done well, it will strengthen the UK economy, and our sovereignty and self-reliance. The carrier strike group will sail east with the support of US and Dutch naval warships, and with US F-35 fighters on board.

It is good that the Queen Elizabeth sails with allies, but it is not good if she can sail only with allies. Despite state-based threats to the UK growing and diversifying, the Secretary of State will cut the number of Royal Navy frigates over the next two years. When, if ever, does he plan to have enough British warships to sail with our own British carriers? Will he confirm clearly that the majority of planes on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth will be US not British fighters? Despite the increasing military threats to the UK, he confirmed last month that Britain has ordered only 48 of the planned 138 F-35 fighters. When, if ever, does he plan to have enough British F-35s for our own British carriers?

There are serious concerns about the carrier’s long-delayed Crowsnest radar. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Crowsnest is now fully operational, and that the carrier strike group is fully combat ready? With the Royal Navy currently almost 1,600 under strength, and with the real cuts to the MOD’s resource budget through to 2024, will he confirm the full cost of this year’s deployment?

The Secretary of State has spoken of hard power and soft power, and across the House we hope that Britain will see significant diplomatic and trade benefits from that deployment. With covid security, however, how far will the diplomatic impact be reduced when a carrier cannot host guests or send people ashore? This deployment is important proof of our new British carrier strike capability, but let us not fall for the illusion that Britain is somehow able to project force everywhere in the world at once. Global Britain is a beguiling phrase, but this time-limited deployment will not significantly alter the balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific region. Surely we should focus our defence efforts on where the threats are, not on where the business opportunities might be. Can the Secretary of State confirm that, after the Queen Elizabeth’s gap-year tour of 40 countries, she will return to the military business of helping to protect Britain and patrol the north Atlantic, the High North and the Mediterranean—our NATO area, where Russia poses the greatest threats to our vital national interests?

As the Secretary of State rightly says, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales are the most powerful surface ships ever constructed in Britain. They will strengthen our maritime forces for decades to come. This maiden mission for the Queen Elizabeth is a great achievement for the Royal Navy and a proud moment for our country. We wish her well.

[Mr Wallace]

I echo what the right hon. Gentleman said about this being a proud moment for this nation: a British made carrier deploying overseas, protecting Britain’s interests and supporting our allies.

The right hon. Gentleman put a series of questions to me. On the steel, I am happy to write to him with details of each individual class of ship. As he knows, we are committed to building the Type 26 in the United Kingdom; it is under construction on the Clyde. In Rosyth, work is ongoing to build the facility needed to build the Type 31s and the subsequent Type 32s. He also knows that I recently recategorised the future Fleet Solid Support ship as a warship. I intend to make sure that, if not entirely, there is a considerable degree of UK build in that process, subject to tender. I have to be cautious about the contract, because the competition is to begin soon—very soon.[Official Report, 29 April 2021, Vol. 693, c. 4MC.]

It is important to recognise that throughout all our ships, we try to do our best by our sailors by providing the best equipment we can, and that is often a balance between what is on the shelf in the here and now and what we need to invest in for the future. That is why we have a record research and development budget in the recent defence settlement. It will allow us to invest for the future, so that when we place the orders for subsequent ships and the next generation of submarines, we have British skills and British technology ready to go. It is incredibly important that we give them the best.

I turn to the right hon. Gentleman’s questions about sovereign capability. It is perfectly possible; we have 18 F-35s and we could put all 18 now on the aircraft carrier—we could have just had a UK sort of 2 squadron—and deploy without other ships alongside if we wished to, but as I said at the beginning of this exercise, this is about the fact that our strength, compared with that of our adversaries, is that we have friends and alliances. To attack us is to attack NATO. To attack us is to attack our allies. That is our real strength globally—it is what the Australians would say, what the United States would say, and what all our European friends would say. When countries were ringing up saying, “We’d like to join you,” it would have been wrong to miss the opportunity. More countries offered than we took that wanted to sail with us and stand up for our common values.

I am pleased to say that Crowsnest is now being rolled out onboard Queen Elizabeth, and I look forward to reports of its use and deployment. It is important that we recognise that this has to be delivered. I have been clear with the manufacturers that it needs to be delivered to spec and operate well, because it is obviously important to the protection of our carrier group.

There are plenty of covid safeguards in place. We are all very mindful of the need to protect our sailors. All our sailors will be vaccinated and protected on the deployment. By the time they go into the Mediterranean, they will all be properly doubly vaccinated to make sure that we can give our friends and allies the assurance that the crew are protected. The Navy is almost one of the best organisations in terms of covid safeguards, because living with quarantine for onboard diseases is something naval personnel have had to do for hundreds of years.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the number of ships and the increase and decrease in the numbers. As I said at the time of the Command Paper, numbers are important, but availability is even more important. I have taken the decision that we will invest in some new classes of ship, so we have more ships. Yes, there will be a drop in hulls for a short period, but at the same time, because of the investment we are doing on availability, we will have more time at sea. That is equally important.

I went to Portsmouth today and stood on a brand-new carrier deck, looking at a number of Type 45s ready to accompany the group, but some of those other ships tied alongside were a sorry sight. People have lots of money to buy ships, but not a lot to maintain them. They were hollowed out year on year. The right hon. Gentleman will make his points about previous Conservative Governments, but the fact is that such hollowing out was common practice across the board under both the Labour and Conservative Governments I served under as a soldier. That is something that I hope this defence settlement will put to rest.

Finally, on NATO, absolutely it is our cornerstone. Our home beat, as I often call it, is the Atlantic. That is where our most aggressive adversary is active. Only recently, we saw it active at Christmas, December time, when nine or maybe more Russian ships in effect surrounded Britain. The Russians have been quite assertive, and that is why it is important that we are active and hold the flank of NATO, also using that convening ability to bring in the French, Germans and others who wish to patrol the seas alongside us.

This is an incredibly exciting opportunity. Where I can, I am happy to facilitate Members of this House visiting the carriers, whether the Queen Elizabeth or the Prince of Wales. They are something to behold. I was incredibly proud to stand on the deck of a ship that is made in Britain and is NATO’s first and only fifth generation aircraft carrier capability. To those people who say, “No one wants aircraft carriers anymore”, we should ask the question why the Chinese plan to build five.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Historical Inequalities Report

John Healey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for the advance copy of it. I thank the commission for its advance briefing, which a number of hon. Members received before today.

Above all, I thank the Secretary of State for his apology on behalf of both the Government of the time and the commission. This is an important moment for the commission and the country in coming to terms with past injustices and dedicating ourselves to future action.

None of this would have happened without my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). His documentary “Unremembered” laid bare the early history of the Imperial War Graves Commission and exposed its failure to live up to its founding aim of equality of treatment for all war dead. I pay tribute to Channel 4 and David Olusoga for producing the documentary and to Professor Michèle Barrett, whose research underpinned that work.

Perhaps in another era, we would have been tempted to leave it there, but rightly the commission did not. Indeed, my right hon. Friend would not have let the commission leave it there. The report is a credit to the commission of today, but its content is a great discredit to the commission and the Britain of a century ago. An estimated 45,000 to 54,000 casualties—predominantly Indian, east African, west African, Egyptian and Somali personnel—were commemorated unequally. A further 116,000 casualties, and potentially as many as 350,000, were not commemorated by name or not commemorated at all. In the words of the special committee that produced the report, the commission failed to do what it was set up to do:

“the IWGC was responsible for or complicit in decisions outside of Europe that compromised its principles and treated war dead differently and often unequally…This history needs to be corrected and shared, and the unfinished work of the 1920s needs to be put right where possible.”

This issue has been part of Britain’s blind spot to our colonial past, and we have been too slow as a country to recognise and honour fully the regiments and troops drawn from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Today is a reminder of the great contribution and sacrifice that so many from these countries have made to forging modern, multicultural Britain.

What matters now is what happens next. The follow-up to the report’s recommendations cannot be part of business-as-before for the commission. What role will the Secretary of State play as chair of the commission? Is he satisfied that the commission has sufficient resources to do this additional work and, if not, will he make more available? What role will Britain’s embassy staff, including our defence attachés, play in communicating this public apology, researching new names and telling the wider story of the sacrifice that communities in these countries made during world war one? When can we expect the completion of the investigation into the way the commission commemorated the dead from these countries during the second world war, and what commitment will he make today to report to Parliament on the commission’s progress on those goals?

Additionally, we welcome the Secretary of State’s pre-announcement of the consultation on a scheme to end the injustice of Commonwealth and Nepalese soldiers paying twice for their British citizenship. It is something we and the British Legion have campaigned for, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who is not on the call list today, has led and championed that cause. Can the Secretary of State say exactly when the consultation will be launched?

In conclusion, no apology can atone for the injustice, the indignity and the suffering set out in this report. The Secretary of State spoke today as a soldier. It was a soldier, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough West, who, speaking about the commission in this Chamber more than 100 years ago, said:

“We served in a common cause, we suffered equal hardships, we took equal risks, and we desired that if we fell we should be buried together under one general system and in one comradeship of death.”—[Official Report, 17 December 1919; Vol. 123, c. 500.]

Today, belatedly, we aim to commemorate in full the sacrifice of many thousands who died for our country in the first world war and who have not yet been fully honoured. We will remember them.

[Mr Wallace]

I thank the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) for both his tone and his support for the whole House’s efforts. Obviously, it was the almost single-handed drive of the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) that got this higher up the agenda, even though, as I think he rightly credits himself, some of the academics and the programme makers made a step change in that. I want to repeat my regret that it has taken so long. None of us were here in the 1920s, but many of us have been here for the last 30, 40 or 50 years.

It is a deep point of regret for me that, in my own education, what I was taught of the first world war predominately boiled down to the Somme and poets, with very little about the contribution from the Commonwealth countries and the wider—at the time—British empire. As I go around the world as Defence Secretary, it is remarkable to be reminded of those contributions. In some parts of the world, there are graves and places to commemorate them. I went to my own father’s base, where he fought during the Malayan emergency—now Malaysia—to see the Gurkha cemetery. Men died both to defeat communism and protect Malaysia, but also on behalf of Britain, right up until the early 1970s. I think it is important to remember that we have excluded a lot of that from our children’s education, and we absolutely must rectify that.

To address the points of the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, I am absolutely happy to provide regular updates either in written form in the Library or indeed, on occasion, to come to the House to make a statement of update on progress. As the report itself says, some of these recommendations can be quickly delivered, and some will take time. For example, the investigation into the second world war commemoration and everything else is ongoing. I will make sure that the commission knows not only that it has my support, but that we will hold it to account in delivering that. I will seek regular quarterly updates from the commission on the progress it makes, and in turn update the House.

On how we will communicate with and make sure we work with Commonwealth countries, this is not just about an audience here, but about all the people in those countries. Only recently, I was talking to my Kenyan counterpart—I visited Kenya again and, indeed, visited Somalia—and it is important both that the people there understand the sacrifice of their fellow citizens and that we honour them as well.

As we speak, our defence attaché network, ambassadors and other officials around the world are communicating the report to host countries. With some of them we engaged earlier—with countries such as Kenya, for example—and we have already been working on memorials and things we can do together. We have been making sure that they understand the contents of this report, and we will continue to use that network.

As for funding and future steps, I am absolutely open to all suggestions about what more we can do for education and for commemoration. At the moment, the commission says that it is satisfied that it has the budget, but I do not rule out looking at more funding for it if that is required. Its current income is £52 million, with a range of Commonwealth countries contributing to the funding, but I am not ruling that out, and I would be open to sensible suggestions that make the difference.

As I said, I will continue to update the House and make sure that we can hold the commission to account and that the House can hold me to account in my position as chair of that commission. We should take this as the start point, not the end.