Oral Answers to Questions

John Lamont Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s interest. It is an incredibly important allegation that has been made, which none of us takes lightly. Mr Speaker, you waived at the time the sub judice rule; as the right hon. Gentleman will know, there is a matter before the courts that may determine that timetable and precludes my guessing when I can make certain decisions. What I can say in the meantime is that I think the right hon. Gentleman is due for a briefing on this matter. We have a date for him on that, and I am happy to oblige the SNP Front Bench as well if they wish to get it. We take everything seriously. This is incredibly important, but we can only act on the evidence before us. People need to remember that we cannot act based on noises off. We will always act on the evidence put before us, but this is a matter for the independent police and prosecutor.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

T2. I am a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, which recently welcomed the increase in military capacity in Scotland, especially in the light of the Russian aggression. What plans do the Government have to ensure that Scotland remains at the heart of the United Kingdom’s defence capacity?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Lamont Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to maintain the effectiveness of the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

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

Four new Dreadnought class submarines will enter service from the early 2030s, and we will replace the current nuclear warhead. We keep our nuclear posture under constant review in the light of the global security environment. About 30,000 jobs across the nuclear enterprise are dedicated to maintaining and delivering the deterrent, now and tomorrow.

[John Lamont]

The Government will be aware of a recent opinion poll that shows that Trident enjoys 58% support among Scots, yet the SNP and Green Ministers in the Scottish Government wish to see us remove Trident and even leave NATO altogether. Given the current international crisis, does the Defence Secretary think their position is wise?

[Mr Wallace]

It is certainly the case that the SNP cannot have it both ways. It wants to have an independent Scotland and join NATO, while also removing part of its nuclear defence. I notice that the First Minister alone said in 2021 that an independent Scotland would be a “keen signatory” to the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. That would make it the only NATO country to be a signatory to that treaty, and it is a clue to how the SNP says one thing and does another.

Remembrance, UK Armed Forces and Society

John Lamont Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the moving and powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore).

I live in the town of Coldstream on the banks of the River Tweed. It was there in 1650 that General Monck formed a regiment to march south and restore Charles II to the thrones of Scotland and England. When Monck died in 1670, his regiment took as its name the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards. Today it is the oldest continuously serving regiment in the British Army.

Members will be accustomed to seeing the Coldstream Guards in their red coats and bearskins at trooping the colour, but that image is misleading. They are a true fighting force. They captured New York city during the American war of independence, fought Napoleon in Egypt and Portugal and were in the Crimea. They fought on the western front in the first world war. In the second world war, they fought in France, the middle east and north Africa. They were sent to Malaya, Aden, Northern Ireland, the Gulf, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Their history is the history of British warfare.

People in the Scottish Borders are proud of our link to the Coldstream Guards. It is when we discover a link to past that the pages of history come alive. We all have war memorials in our constituencies. The cenotaph at Jedburgh Abbey, the statue of victory in Wilton Lodge Park in Hawick and the stone cross towering above Ettrick Terrace in Selkirk are just three of the scores to be found across the Scottish Borders. They are landmarks that we have known since childhood. But it is when we go up to them and read the names inscribed on them that the real significance hits us—when we see two or even three men with the same surname, and imagine what the impact of that loss must have been on that family.

The people who erected these memorials were not commemorating historical events; they were honouring their sons and grandsons, brothers and fathers, friends and neighbours. They were making the memory of their sacrifices permanent landmarks. In today’s debate, and in services and events held around the country, we are playing our part in keeping the memory of those sacrifices alive.

The pandemic has undoubtedly disrupted our acts of remembrance. It is harder to come together as we usually do, but in time we will be able to come together again and to enjoy our lives as before. We will be able to see our friends and families, and enjoy going to the pub, to a restaurant, on holiday or to the cinema. We have all taken these freedoms for granted all our lives. They are freedoms that were won for us in battles against tyranny by young men whose names are inscribed on war memorials, and they are freedoms and pleasures that those young men were never able to know again, after they left their homes and families behind to go to war. When we are once again able to go out, live our lives and enjoy our freedoms, it will be as appropriate a time as any to pause for a moment and to say with feeling, “We will remember them.”

Oral Answers to Questions

John Lamont Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

Well, it is veterans ID, not voter ID. The veterans ID card should have come out at the end of last year. It has been delayed. Everybody who leaves the military now gets a veterans ID card, but there are challenges in backdating it and dealing with things such as fraud. We accept that and we are working through it at the moment. I will have an update in due course.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

  Can I ask the Minister to update the House on the activities and investment that the Ministry of Defence plans for Scotland in the months ahead?

[Mr Wallace]

Defence continues to invest in Scotland and the critical capabilities based there. Both RAF Lossiemouth and Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde are expanding and will be home to the new maritime patrol aircraft and all Royal Navy submarines. MOD expenditure with industry in Scotland has increased for the fifth consecutive year, supporting 10,200 jobs—the equivalent of £320 per person in Scotland. Approximately 10,000usb regular armed forces personnel, 5,000 reservists and 4,000 civilians are based in Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Lamont Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

First, I can give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that this is not driven by financial pressures; it is driven first and foremost by threat. As a former Security Minister, which he rightly referenced, I believe threat should define what we do and how we meet it. That is why, as I said, we gathered the chiefs together last week. It was not a financial discussion and, contrary to what was reported, it was not a numbers discussion, either. It was a discussion about how we meet the threat and deliver our future armed forces to match that, taking into account cyber and many other areas. The Government are determined to continue to do that. We stand by our pledge to increase defence spending in real terms, and we will use that money, spending it wisely to ensure we meet those very threats.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

With Scotland being the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom, what steps are the UK Government taking to protect our armed forces personnel who might be left out of pocket by any further tax increases in Scotland?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Lamont Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance. I will go into more detail on the matter when I respond to the urgent question later, but that is the Government’s policy. The hon. Gentleman is wrong about our training with Saudi Arabia, just as the leader of the Labour party has been wrong on the Falklands, on Sierra Leone, on Syria, on Kosovo, on Russia and on Crimea, and wrong about Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and the IRA. That is why decisions about national security should remain with a Conservative Government.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

2. How many payments the Government have made to armed forces personnel based in Scotland to mitigate the Scottish rate of income tax.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Thanks to the surprising decision by the Scottish Government, our valiant armed forces are obliged to pay a higher rate of income tax than people in other parts of the country. As I hope the whole House would agree, the MOD sees armed forces personnel as a national asset, so we have introduced mitigation payments for eligible personnel to offset the unfair burden placed on our valiant soldiers, sailors and air personnel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister was very enthusiastic to make his point, at any rate.

[John Lamont]

I am grateful to the Minister for his response and, indeed, for the Government’s policy of ensuring that our brave armed forces men and women are not left out of pocket by the SNP Scottish Government’s bad decision to put up Scottish taxes—it has become known as the “nat tax” in Scotland—but I believe the damage has already been done. I have received anecdotal evidence from the spouses of armed forces men and women who are now not coming to Scotland because they fear paying higher taxes in Scotland if their spouses are serving there.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this issue affects not just those in uniform for whom we have responsibility, costing the MOD £4 million a year, but their spouses, partners and so forth. We are pleased to say that around three quarters of those partners, spouses and so forth are in employment—that is on a par with the civilian sector—but that means that they, too, face that tax burden if they move to Scotland.