Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I do not think there is any doubt in Kyiv—in fact, I know there is no doubt—about the UK’s continued support, and indeed its leadership on gifting within the international community. While I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman is keen to make a political point, I think that deep down he knows that too, because he speaks to the Ukrainians. I know, as he does, that they continue to regard the UK as the standard bearer globally for encouraging others to donate ever more and, crucially, to donate weapons systems with ever more complexity. I have no doubt—as I think, deep down, the right hon. Gentleman has no doubt—that the Ukrainian Government maintain their confidence in us as one of their key allies, if not their key ally, and that the UK’s leadership is certainly not flagging.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the announcement of weapons. The reality is that we are giving a very broad range of weapons. While he might think it is militarily sound to focus on always giving something new, just being resilient in our ability to keep giving what we are giving is every bit as important to the operational planning that the Ukrainian armed forces need to do. This is not a set of gimmicks—a set of announcements. This is about the resourcing of a military operational plan that UK military operational planners are key in developing with the Ukrainians. I am entirely comfortable that across a whole range of weapons systems, the pipeline that we now have in place to deliver every month, not only from our own stockpiles and manufacturing capacity but from those that we can access globally, is a reliable, dependable part of the Ukrainian plan.

As for the plan for next year, I completely accept that the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that a number could have been given in the autumn statement, but surely it is more important to give a number that reflects the discussions that the chairman of the joint chiefs, the Chief of the Defence Staff and General Zaluzhny have had, and those that senior US, UK and Ukrainian politicians have had, in order to understand the Ukrainian ambition for their operations next year, so that we can resource that properly. All the way through, what the UK has done better than anyone else in the world is understand what the Ukrainians want to do next and get there first in delivering that capability, in so doing emboldening others to follow. As soon as the plan for next year is confirmed, I am certain that the amount that it will cost will be announced to Parliament and the plan firmed up, so that the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

That is an intriguing rationale for the fact that we gave £2.3 billion for the first year of the war and £2.3 billion for the second year of the war. Can the Minister convey to his colleagues in Government that Members on both sides of the House would be dismayed if we gave less than £2.3 billion for the year ahead? In his discussions with the Chancellor, might the Defence Secretary remind him that, when he stood for the leadership of the Conservative party, he recommended not 2% but 4% of GDP to be spent on defence?

[James Heappey]

I certainly can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I profoundly disagree about this being the time to abandon the deterrent. I could not think of a worse time. The policy of the hon. Gentleman’s party is not just to abandon the deterrent but to withdraw from NATO. I could not think of a more reckless policy to undertake in the face of Russian aggression. We support the deterrent and we will continue to invest in it.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Minister share my relief that both main parties in the House of Commons support the retention and renewal of the nuclear deterrent? Did he also share my relief that, in July 2016 when the vote was held on whether to renew the nuclear deterrent, there was a massive majority of 355 in favour of doing that? That sends a message to the Scottish nationalists about how unrepresentative their views are.

[James Cartlidge]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for that remark. I was delighted that those on the Labour Front Bench showed their agreement by nodding when I gave my previous answer. I am delighted that there is consensus. I think we all agree that, particularly at this time, the country needs the security of a deterrent to deter what would be the most aggressive threats to our nation’s freedom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

There is a principle in international law that a country can defend itself. Ukraine was attacked for absolutely no reason whatsoever. While we call on Israel, both privately and publicly, to protect civilians in whatever way it can, Hamas are using civilians as human shields, and deliberately using the infrastructure on top of them to hide behind. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman could see the difference.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is vital that his counterparts in the US Administration realise that if Putin does not lose in Ukraine, the peace and security of the whole of Europe is called into question, so it is in their short and medium-term interests to make sure that Putin is seen to fail?

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is characteristically correct about this, but I would widen that point: we are talking about the security of not just Europe, but the Indo-Pacific, and indeed the entire world. Putin must not win.

War in Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

It is fantastic to hear the SNP’s epiphany on the strategic importance of North sea oil and gas. We take seriously the requirement to protect our subsea infrastructure, whether oil and gas, fibre-optic cables or energy interconnectors. The Royal Navy has ships permanently at high readiness to ensure that our national economic zone is secure.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point. Is a time of growing instability in the Euro-Atlantic and the near east one also to be committing more military resource to the far east and the Indo-Pacific? Every defence review—the original integrated review and its refresh—has been clear that the absolute foundation of all our military effort is around security in the Euro-Atlantic, but if our principal ally in the United States is ever-more concerned, as it is, about its competition with China and the challenge in the Indo-Pacific, it is surely necessary to show our willingness to contribute to Indo-Pacific security alongside the United States, so that the United States remains engaged in Euro-Atlantic security, too.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Before I ask my question, may I quote the former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace)? In an important article in The Daily Telegraph at the beginning of October, he said:

“Before I left office, I asked the PM to match or increase the £2.3 billion for Ukraine to add to the £4.6 billion we have spent already. The UK is no longer the biggest European donor to Ukraine—Germany is.”

Does the Minister agree that this is a helpful exchange of views, because it will enable him and his team to go to the Treasury and express how united the House is on the need to continue this important—indeed, decisive—level of contribution to Ukraine’s fight for freedom?

[James Heappey]

The previous Defence Secretary never needed any help from me in making his case to Prime Ministers. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the UK has won a position in leading the global donor community, because we have resourced that commitment and have been willing to go through capability thresholds before anybody else, but our position as a leader internationally depends on our continued willingness to be so. The previous Secretary of State, the current Secretary of State and indeed the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are all on the same page about the importance of maintaining that UK position.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I actually agree with the hon. Lady—her question stands in contrast with the previous one, because it was about the need to get people out of hotels, not suggesting that they should somehow be staying in them. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs has been leading on this task around Government. Few in this House have more emotional energy to drive that mission than he does. He sees it as of huge importance that people are moved out of hotels and allowed to get on with their lives as quickly as possible. I will ask his office to write to the hon. Lady with the exact detail of when he hopes to see the job done.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I commend to the Defence team and, indeed, the House the new book by Larisa Brown, “The Gardener of Lashkar Gah”, which outlines in great detail the sort of debt we owe to the people who tried to help our forces. My specific question is not about people serving with the Afghan forces; it is about whether we have a proper database of all those who served with the British forces and are eligible under the scheme, and whether the Minister can guarantee that the scheme will not be closed while some of those people—probably a large number of them—are still in hiding in Afghanistan and thus unable to apply for it.

[James Heappey]

It will not surprise my right hon. Friend to know that the people who worked for the British armed forces over our extended period in Afghanistan appeared on many different lists, and part of the job of work over the past 18 months or so has been to consolidate those into an authoritative list of those whom we know to have worked for us. However, we do have very good records, as one would expect the military to have kept. That allows us to focus our search on people whom we know to be eligible within the pile of applications, and of late, to make rapid progress in informing those who are ineligible. We will, of course, keep the scheme open for as long as it takes to find all of those whom we know worked for us.

Veterans Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his question and for his service. When I think of my own experience, I know that being friends with and getting to know men and women from the gay community—which I did not really do in my childhood or in my service because it was never talked about—is what has brought me to a position where I regret voting against gay marriage, for example. My relationships and friendships with people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the former Member for Arundel and South Downs, and meeting friends and colleagues from throughout the House, is part of the experience for all of us.

On the hon. Gentleman’s question of making sure that those veterans who want their service record to say what they want it to and being open about it, we absolutely should see a way of how we can accommodate that. It is not going to be easy, but that does not mean we cannot do it. There was clearly a policy running through the armed forces where the real reasons that people left were not put on their records. I think that applies to thousands, or even tens of thousands, of people. Of course that is going to be a challenge, but it is not insurmountable. We must find a way to do this, and I am clear that we should do so.

However, I also remember a debate about pardons when I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Ministry of Justice. At that stage, there was a longing for people’s records to be removed because people did not want a record of a criminal offence that they felt should never have happened. That was the driving force behind the police chiefs’ discussions that led to the destruction of those records. As I have said, it was not a cover-up. There were some people who said, “This is wrong and it should not be on my record. Why should I be known for that?” So we just have to find a way through. If there is anything we can do to find a way of doing this, I will do my very best to do it and I know that the Defence team will as well.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the review report throw any light on the strange paradox that this ban was so rigidly enforced in peacetime, yet during the first and second world wars there was mass conscription, as a result of which many gay military personnel served with distinction and were awarded the highest medals for gallantry?

Defence Command Paper Refresh

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and grateful for his party’s support on Ukraine.

On the Haythornthwaite review and skills, right across Europe and the west we are seeing recruitment challenges in the military. I was with my New Zealand counterpart recently, and my Canadian counterpart, and they too have a challenge. The skills shortage across society is big, and it is no different in the armed forces, which is why we have to adapt rapidly and tackle some of the challenges.

On procurement, as I said, the figures have started to improve. Yes, there are challenges, and we could spend a whole day debating the reasons for those challenges. Complex procurement is not as straightforward as many people think, and the hon. Gentleman will know from the Scottish Government’s procurement issues that it is not straightforward to deal with. I certainly believe that if we invest in the people and are prepared to invest in continuity—if instead of having the senior responsible owners who help manage our projects here today and gone tomorrow, we ensure that they are there for the long term and link their incentives to success, and help them manage our projects—we will have a better chance of delivering better value for money.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I express my admiration for my right hon. Friend’s dedicated and distinguished service as Defence Secretary? It is a sad commentary on the state of the special relationship that our American ally did not recognise his suitability to be the next Secretary-General of NATO.

My right hon. Friend will remember that successive Defence Committees, well before the invasion of Ukraine, argued that defence expenditure should never have been allowed to fall below 3% of GDP. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was standing for the leadership in 2019, even expressed the wish that it should be at 4% of GDP, which would have taken us back to the cold war percentage of between 4% and 5.1% of GDP spent on defence. In what way does this refresh allow defence the potential to expand quickly if that extra money is belatedly made available?

[Mr Wallace]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. Long before I was doing this job, he was campaigning for defence to be properly apportioned the funding it deserved to keep this country safe, and I pay tribute to him for that. He has fought for that for many years.

Should there be an increase in funding for defence—and I seriously hope that there will be, based on our Prime Minister’s 2.5% pledge—and if we invest in our specialties and our skills, we can expand our armed forces when the threat increases. Finding a way to hold those skills on the books even if they are rarely used, is why it is important to develop a single armed forces Act. Currently we have legislation that says that if you want to join the reserves from the regulars, you have to leave the regulars and join a separate legal entity—the reserves. That prevents soldiers from going backwards and forwards and people from being mobilised in the way we want. We want to introduce a single armed forces Act. We think this will help us do that. Skills are at the core.

The second thing is the investment in rapid procurement—the ability to keep headroom in the budget to respond to the latest threat as the adversary changes. The third is making sure that we invest in sustainability and enablers, because there is no point in having all the frontline vehicles if you cannot get anywhere.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I think it is best if I write to the right hon. Member about the details of that. I will look at it and am happy to discuss with him what he thinks needs to progress. We will get to the bottom of it.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department’s implementation of the lump-sum payments for war widows who previously lost their pensions after remarrying or cohabiting with another partner.

[The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I was delighted to announce the war widows ex gratia payment scheme last month. A specialist team is being stood up to deal with applications and assist and advise widows when the process opens. This will ensure that people are treated with the care they deserve and that their individual needs are met. The scheme will start as soon as possible, and in any event by this autumn, and will be open for two years. It will not erase their loss, but I hope that this payment will offer some comfort to those affected. I again pay tribute to the staunch, dignified campaigning of the War Widows Association, which has brought us to this point; I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who has been absolutely four-square behind the campaign.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

In return, I would like to thank Ministers for persevering with the matter in the face of many obstacles erected by the Treasury. There is just one last hurdle to surmount: the question of taxation of the ex gratia payment. As war widows’ pensions are a recognition of sacrifice and not a benefit, they are not taxed. If this ex gratia payment is taxed, some war widows will get only slightly more than half the lump sum concerned. Will my right hon. Friend use his very best endeavours to avoid that unintended and unfortunate result of an otherwise successful initiative?

[Dr Murrison]

I fully understand the point that my right hon. Friend is making. He will know that the payment was uplifted to take tax into account. I appreciate that it may not be taking care of all tax in many, if not most, circumstances. What I will say to him, without setting any hares running, is that I am having a conversation with colleagues, but I emphasise that it is around how we deal with tax on this payment. I cannot really give him any more comfort than that.

Service Family Accommodation: Maintenance

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I hope that the scale of the challenge and the financial commitment that Defence has made to improving accommodation are clear. They are certainly heartfelt as far as I am concerned, but for context, it is worth pointing out that we are also committed to keeping rents low. The hon. Member for North Shropshire may be interested to know that, on average, our service families in North Shropshire pay £323 a month for a three-bedroom property. I have checked and I found that private renters in the same area can expect to pay an average of £750 a month for the equivalent home.

Defence is responsible for 47,800 military homes across the country. Right now, 97% of all MOD family accommodation nationally meets or exceeds the Government’s decent homes standard, and the figure for occupied service family accommodation in North Shropshire is also 97%. By means of comparison, in Shropshire, 76% of all private rented homes and 79.5% of social housing meet the Government’s decent homes standard. I hope that the hon. Lady has raised that with her local authority.

I should say that the seven occupied properties in the hon. Lady’s constituency that are below the decent housing standard are structurally safe and sound and met the standard when occupants moved in, but have since fallen below. Remedial action on the door and window lintels at fault is expected this summer. I hope that she is reassured by that.

However, when we are dealing with housing, it is inevitable that things will go wrong, as we all know. When they do, the response needs to be first-class, but according to the last armed forces continuous attitude survey, which canvassed service personnel late last year—and was published earlier this month—only 19% of respondents were satisfied with the response that they got. That is not good enough.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is being characteristically frank about the problems, as well as the successes, of the policy. Can anything be done to the model of financing for the maintenance of service housing that would perhaps incorporate a financial incentive on the people who have the contracts, so that if they do not arrange for repairs quickly enough, they could conceivably feel it where it hurts, in their bank balance?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. The FDIS contract that was introduced early last year does just that. If he will forgive me, I may just come on to describe what that might mean, or has meant, in a few moments.

The day-to-day management and maintenance of service housing has, since early last year, been through FDIS, and it has been contracted out to three separate contractors: Amey in the central and northern regions; VIVO in the south-east and south-west; and Pinnacle, which runs the national service centre and co-ordinates activity.

Any contract transition is fraught with difficulty, and it certainly has been with FDIS. But there is a third issue that challenges delivery to our service families—namely, the underlying issue of poor original build quality, which flowed from decisions made in the 1950s and 1960s and was compounded by historical underinvestment. When combined with a resource-constrained “fix on fail” regime, the resulting effect has led to a maintenance logjam estimated to cost around £960 million.

These are explanations, not excuses. The new contracts introduced a number of improvements: clear customer satisfaction targets, for the first time in MOD housing history; more demanding target response times for most types of reactive maintenance; a higher standard of preparation of homes for families to move into; and financial consequences for contractors that fall short, and incentives to go beyond the minimum standards.

Currently, as a result of some of the poor performance already outlined this evening, the MOD’s contractual rights to withhold payments from suppliers are being exercised and deductions are being made, as appropriate. Withheld profits will be reinvested for the benefit of service families. In addition, a total of £1.14 million in compensation has been paid direct to service personnel by FDIS suppliers, at no cost to the Ministry of Defence, since the FDIS accommodation contracts went live on 1 April 2022.

We are taking further measures to address issues related to damp and mould. We have established a dedicated hotline to address specific concerns, and we have improved the initial triage process to prioritise cases. This is followed by an on-site visit to apply the initial treatment, assess the need for a follow-up and decide whether a professional survey is required. Since early 2022, homes are not being allocated where there is a known damp or mould issue.

Separately, tomorrow we will table a written ministerial statement titled “Defence Infrastructure Update,” which will update the House on the work being undertaken to reduce a backlog in expired gas and electrical safety certificates in MOD properties through an accelerated and targeted renewal process. I am not going to pre-empt that announcement, but suffice it to say that Ministers were made aware in May of an issue relating to a backlog of expired gas certificates that had accrued while families were occupying their properties. That has occurred for a variety of reasons, including residents being unavailable to allow access to their homes for inspections, and supply chain resource and contractor IT issues.

The backlog of electrical certificates is a consequence of changes in regulations in August 2020, which required certificates to be completed every five years instead of every 10. Needless to say, we have acted immediately. The Secretary of State and the Minister for Defence Procurement have spoken with FDIS contractors personally, stressing that we expect this backlog to be cleared in the next few weeks. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation has worked with its suppliers to improve communications to families, to ensure availability for inspections. The MOD’s contractors have also made progress in recruiting additional resource and improving their data management to reduce this unacceptable backlog.

The Government have required all contractors to submit rectification plans. There is no complacency, but those are now showing progress. Pinnacle’s national service centre is answering all calls in an average of 14 seconds, which is significantly better than its 90-second target. Amey and VIVO have brought waiting lists down significantly, with very big improvements in maintenance response times. At the end of last month, the maintenance backlog stood at about 5,000, which is down from a high of 21,100 in December 2022. The number of open complaints is down by about 70%, and most key performance indicators are now at acceptable levels or better across most regions.

We need the final few measures to be brought up to scratch and, crucially, for that performance to be sustained. That is easier said than done, but we are making headway. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation is working with VIVO and Amey to develop a programme of straightforward interventions to address damp and mould. Critically, we also have the means, through FDIS, to hold our contractors to account should they fail to meet their end of the bargain. If required, we can recoup money or refuse to pay it out. We have already used those levers robustly where we can and where it is appropriate to do so, and they have made a difference.

So I hope I have reassured the hon. Member for North Shropshire that we are on the case, and we will most certainly continue to hold our contractors’ feet to the fire. Our new accommodation strategy, published last October, sets out a clear ambition for where we want to be: a situation where all our people have access to good-quality accommodation, in line with modern living standards.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend the Minister accept that, while people who served with our armed forces are at grave risk within Afghanistan, they are not out of danger even when they cross the border into Pakistan? If they cross the border without papers, they could well be sent back. What pressure are we putting on the Pakistani authorities to ensure that no one who served with British forces is sent back to a terrible fate while we are processing their applications?

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the Pakistan Government for the co-operation they have shown in helping us to deliver ARAP. We are not encouraging people to cross the border illegally, and the Pakistan Government have given us a number of windows in which to bring people across legitimately. The consular section at our high commission in Islamabad has grown to support those who are in Pakistan waiting for their onward transportation to the UK. However, my right hon. Friend has raised specific cases with me in the past, and if he knows of people who are at risk or are being pursued in a way that I do not think is in our agreement with the Pakistan Government, I stand ready to take up those cases with them through our high commission.

Top Secret Document Leaks

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

First, I thought I was clear in my initial answer that the Secretary of State is in Washington for a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that was requested in December and scheduled in January. It is fortuitous that he is there to discuss these matters in addition, but it would be inaccurate to say that he is there because of what happened last week.

The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) asks about previous incidents where the UK MOD has been responsible for leaks. I agree with him that it happens too often, but every time it happens, reviews are put in place and lessons are learned in terms of both the way that information is handled digitally and—because this was the case last year—the way that documents are removed from the building. On the former, there has been a wide-ranging and robust effort to assure the digital security of documents and to ensure that all users of secret and above systems are aware of the way that those systems should properly be used, and of how it should not even be attempted to move information from one system to the other. On physical documents, the Secretary of State put in place random bag searches at MOD main building immediately following the leak of hard documents last year, and those searches remain in place now.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to observe that some of those documents have, since their apparent leaking, apparently been manipulated for various misinformation and disinformation purposes. That is why it is important to qualify that colleagues should be suspicious not only of the original content, but of the different versions that are in circulation subsequently, because they have been manipulated for various means. He is of course right to flag his concern, which mirrors our concern, about any force protection implications from such leaks. That was indeed our first concern, and the chief of joint operations was able quickly to reassure us that all those involved in the protection of diplomatic mission in Ukraine are not compromised in any way by the leaks—nor are any of those involved in the wider support for Ukraine and the wider continent beyond.

I do not think that there is any impact on the Ukrainian plans for the offensive. In fact, as the right hon. Gentleman will have seen in the reporting of those, there has been a degree of amplification from the Ukrainians around some of the casualty statistics—I make no comment on the accuracy of the figures being pumped. Indeed, there is reporting that those figures have been manipulated by both sides to tell their story. But I am pretty confident that the Ukrainians are intending to stick to their plan and go for it. I do not have the information today on precisely how many breaches there have been, but I will write to him.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I do not wish to be disobliging to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who succeeded me as Chairman of the Defence Committee, but I feel it necessary to ask the Minister to clarify beyond any doubt or confusion that matters relating to defence intelligence—like those relating to the intelligence roles of other Departments—do not fall within the ambit of the departmental Select Committee, but should, and rightly do, fall within the ambit of the Intelligence and Security Committee. My right hon. Friend was courteous enough to let me know that he had been granted this urgent question after it had been granted. Had he asked before applying, I would have advised him, first, that it was not within the remit of the Defence Committee to seek information on this matter, and secondly, as the Minister’s replies have indicated, that it would be very unwise, particularly at this early stage, to discuss the implications of such a leak in public. Will the Minister confirm that, in any future questions and answers about defence intelligence, he will address his answers to the appropriate Committee, which is the Intelligence and Security Committee?

[Mr Speaker]

May I just help a little bit? I granted the UQ not because the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) is the Chairman of the Defence Committee, but because I thought it was appropriate, so we do not need to level it in that way.