Oral Answers to Questions

John Robertson Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. Jordan is a key ally in the region. Crown Prince Faisal will be at Farnborough tomorrow, and we look forward to discussing these issues with him. However, what my right hon. and learned Friend has said also emphasises the need for us to look at the impact of ISIS on a cross-regional basis. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan are all affected by its activities, and the threat that those activities represent will also be felt by many states in the Gulf and, indeed, in the west.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

4. What the Government's priorities are for the NATO summit in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

Let me begin by paying tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and other shipbuilders on the Clyde for their tremendous achievement in creating HMS Queen Elizabeth.

The Government have three clear priorities for the NATO summit in Wales. First, we will mark NATO’s achievements in Afghanistan, recognise the sacrifices that it has made, and draft the next chapter in our enduring support for the Afghan people. Secondly, we will send Russia the clear message that NATO has the necessary capabilities and intent to provide for the collective security of the alliance by means including the deterrence of further Russian aggression. Thirdly, those capabilities will also contribute to addressing the numerous challenges that emanate from an unstable world in NATO’s neighbourhood and further afield. In particular, we will underscore transatlantic unity through a commitment to defence spending and practical security sector support for NATO’s partners and friends.

[John Robertson]

I thank the Minister for that extensive answer, and on behalf of the 2,000 workers in my local shipyard and other yards throughout the United Kingdom I thank him for his kind words.

I am a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and, as such, I have meetings with NATO parliamentarians from the United States and Europe. They are of the opinion that Georgia should be given a membership action plan at the Wales summit. What is the United Kingdom’s view?

[Dr Murrison]

Let us be clear: this is not an enlargement summit. However, at a recent meeting, NATO Foreign Affairs Ministers determined that Georgia should be encouraged and given every support that it needs in its aspirations. They also considered other aspirants to NATO, and similar programmes have been mapped for them.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Robertson Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The Scottish Government claim they will spend £2.5 billion on defence, but their Finance Minister John Swinney’s leaked memo on Scotland’s budget says at paragraph 50:

“I have made clear to the Defence Workstream that a much lower budget must be assumed.”

I very much doubt, therefore, that the Scottish navy would have even the two complex modern warships to which the Scottish Government aspire. Moreover, their White Paper makes no provision for refuelling and reprovisioning at sea. It implies that they will leave that to the Royal Navy, underlining the point that we are indeed better together.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

23. The Minister may or may not be aware that on the Glasgow coat of arms it says, “Let Glasgow flourish.” Does he agree with me that voting no in the Scottish independence referendum will mean that shipbuilding on the Clyde will flourish, and that Glasgow will be all the better for it?

[Dr Murrison]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Some 12,600 jobs in Scotland are linked to the defence industry. It is impossible to imagine that the jobs to which he refers will be sustained in the event of independence, given the very small number of ships that the Scottish Government would purchase, and article 346 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, with which I know he is familiar.

Nuclear Submarines

John Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Obviously, the implications for Devonport are that a line of work, which was expected to end with the completion of the current refuelling of Vengeance, will now continue at least until 2019, with the refuelling of HMS Vanguard. At this stage, we have not quantified the precise impact on jobs and other activities at Devonport, but it is likely to be modest. Most of the people employed on the refuelling programme were expected to be absorbed elsewhere in the dockyard work force. We are confident that, with the announcements I have made today, there will be the capacity to carry out the Vanguard refuelling and to retain the ability to carry out the Victorious refuelling if necessary.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

The stupidity of both the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government knows no bounds. It is clear from the fact that the Scottish Government have known about this for nearly two years and the United Kingdom Government have known about it for more than two years that they hold the people of this country in contempt. I live very close to Faslane, and it worries me that something could happen that the people of my country and my city know nothing about. The Secretary of State must go and tell people about it, otherwise no one will believe anything he says in future about anything to do with nuclear power.

[Mr Hammond]

I am not sure about taking any lessons on stupidity. I am afraid that this is scaremongering of the worst kind. I have told the hon. Gentleman and the House that no safety issues are at stake, and all the scientific evidence supports the position that I have taken. Level zero events are not routinely made public; they are not routinely reported. That has been the practice of successive Governments, and it is the practice throughout the civil and military nuclear sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Robertson Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I join my hon. Friend in his praise for the work of Combat Stress in helping veterans with mental health problems, including those with PTSD. The value of its work is fully recognised by the Government. Funding of up to £18 million is being provided by the NHS to Combat Stress to provide specialist acute PTSD treatment services to veterans and the MOD funds Combat Stress to provide remedial treatment for eligible veterans in receipt of a war pension, at a cost of approximately £2 million in the last financial year. As the excellent chief executive of the charity, Andrew Cameron, knows, we have been in discussions with the NHS about how we can further provide services for veterans, including access to treatment once they are diagnosed with PTSD. Those discussions are ongoing and we hope to have more to say on the subject next year.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

Minister, diagnosis is one thing, but how much research is done on why those people suffer in the first place so that we can prevent them from having mental health problems? What kind of work is being done in that area?

[Mr Francois]

The King’s centre for military health research, among others, is expert in the field. Professor Sir Simon Wessely is not only nationally but internationally renowned as a great authority on the subject. When veterans present with PTSD, which can be some years after they have left the service, we find that sometimes, because of a trigger event, the symptoms begin to emerge quickly and the challenge is to reach those people rapidly and to begin to give them help when they need it. We are talking to the NHS about how we can do that even better than we do now and we hope to make some further announcements about the progress we are making.

Defence Procurement

John Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The military component in DE&S is vital. It is a relatively small number—about 1,500 military personnel. They will of course continue to rotate as part of a career development plan on normal military terms and conditions. For the kind of flexibility that I have talked about today, we will need to hire in specialist skills from the commercial sector and that will not alter or affect in any way the very important role that the military will continue to play.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State talked about mud-slinging from Opposition parties. I am sure that he slung some mud in years gone by when we were in government. I deal with real people and the great worry about procurement—as always, particularly on the Clyde and in shipbuilding—is that statements that have been made recently will now be shelved until we sort out the process. Can he assure me and the 2,000 people who work in the Scotstoun yard that after everything that has been said up to this point—barring the wrong result next year in the Scottish referendum—the Clyde is still secure?

[Mr Hammond]

The statement that I have made today has no impact on the announcement I made a few weeks ago about the rationalisation of the shipbuilding industry and BAE Systems’ decision to concentrate complex warship building on the Clyde.

Nuclear-powered Submarines

John Robertson Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I can go further than that. Without the measures that I have announced today, it would not be possible for the Government to make the decision to proceed in 2016, because the long-lead items would not have been ordered and purchased, and we would get to the end of life of the existing Vanguard submarines without a successor replacement being available.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

As a Member of Parliament for an area where shipbuilding is vital and having been a manager up in Faslane dealing with communication cables in a previous life, it is difficult to trust a Government who will build aircraft carriers without planes to understand where we are going on this matter. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that the jobs of my constituents and people further up the Clyde are safe, that these submarines will still go to Faslane, and that we will still build British ships in British yards, albeit unless we get independence, in which case all bets are off?

[Mr Hammond]

Given the tone of the questions today, the hon. Gentleman is right that the only threat to that capability seems to come from the Scottish National party. However, I must take issue with him on the carriers. The Government who ordered the carriers without the ability to pay for planes to go on them were his Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Robertson Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

This is one of the issues that I discussed at the weekend. The right hon. Gentleman is right that it is an urgent matter. We have provided a small team of UK military specialists to work alongside the Libyans and the United States in preventing surface-to-air missile proliferation. We have already disarmed a number of these missiles and identified a large number of sites where further activity will take place.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

My departmental responsibilities are to ensure that our country is properly defended now and in the future, that our service personnel have the right equipment and training to allow them to succeed in the military tasks and that we honour our armed forces covenant.

[John Robertson]

Does the Secretary of State agree with his junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth), that brave Gurkha veterans should be described as asylum seekers, or does he agree with the Gurkha justice campaign that these comments are shocking and unacceptable—or is the cat out of the bag on immigration and defence cuts?

[Dr Fox]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has done a grave disservice to my hon. Friend, who never used any such words and has the highest regard for all those sacrifices made in the past.