Oral Answers to Questions
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Francois
My hon. Friend might want to turn up to Treasury questions in the near future and ask the same question. In the meantime, as he mentions overseas deployments, he might be interested to hear that last week I visited 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in Cyprus, in which I know he takes a strong interest. I can report to him and the House that despite difficult circumstances its members are in good order. The planning for the merger of the two regiments of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is almost complete and a number of soldiers in the 2nd Battalion have expressed interest in remaining in the Army. We are seeking to facilitate that wherever possible.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
In paragraph 32 of its recent report on Army 2020, the Defence Committee stated:
“We were…concerned to hear that it was the Ministry of Defence’s Permanent Secretary who told the Chief of the General Staff the future size of the Army under the Army 2020 plan.”
Will the Minister say what exactly the role of the Chief of the General Staff was in determining the size of the Army? Why was it left to the permanent secretary to inform him what the size of the Army would be under Army 2020?
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I do not disagree with my hon. Friend’s assertion that we need to look at how we provide maritime surveillance cover. That will be part of the strategic defence and security review in 2015. However, I am afraid that he cannot argue that this incident demonstrates that need. In fact, this incident shows that we are perfectly capable of maintaining an intelligence picture through imagery, signals intelligence and reports from our NATO allies of movements of Russian ships without having access to maritime patrol aircraft.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
In the light of this incident, will the Secretary of State tell the House what he is going to do to plug the capability gap in maritime surveillance that has been created by his Government, apart from relying on Twitter?
Mr Hammond
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not have time to amend his question following my last answer. We will review the provision of maritime patrol cover in the strategic defence and security review in 2015. We will look at the need for it and at how it could be provided, including the possibility that it could be provided through the use of unmanned aerial systems. It is a bit rich for him to say that the gap in maritime patrol cover was created by this Government. What this Government did was to recognise the reality that his Government had been investing in aircraft that would never fly, would never be certified and would never be able to deliver a capability.
Mr Hammond
I think I have dealt with this on a previous occasion. We are aware from anecdotal evidence that some applications have been lost in the system—
Mr Hammond
By definition, we cannot answer that question. Every effort has been made by the application of additional manpower to the system, going back manually checking records, to make contact with anybody who may have got lost in the system during the past year, and I welcome the opportunity to place it on record that we would welcome being contacted, as my office has been, by anybody who is so affected who wants to pick up the threads and re-embark on the process. We will make sure that that happens.
IT Systems (Army Recruitment)
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Hammond
First, we need to be careful about succumbing to the temptation which there always is in this House to blame Capita.
Mr Hammond
No, I did not. It is Atlas that has failed to deliver an IT platform that Capita can utilise effectively.
To answer the question of the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), just under 1,000 personnel are involved. Some of them have been surged into front-end recruiting and are acting as military recruiters on the ground, and others are providing manual support for administrative tasks that should be, and ultimately will be, carried out by the IT platform.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Dunne
As I said to my hon. Friend in my fairly comprehensive initial answer, we have allocated £1.5 billion, which is essentially to support the elements being brought back into the core. The original capital cost was more than £5 billion in Iraq, and, I think, £7.6 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. That is of course money that has already been spent, so it is not a continuing drain on the Ministry of Defence budget.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Government previously announced that the cost of the Vanguard successor programme would be part of the MOD main core equipment budget. I note that today the Minister has published a document on the costings of the assessment phase of Vanguard. It makes reference to the alternatives review. Will he inform the House when the Department will be in a position to tell us the cost of that review?
Defence Procurement
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I remind the hon. Gentleman that his Front-Bench spokesman welcomed the competition and said that we needed to test the GoCo proposition against the DE&S plus proposition—
Mr Hammond
I have the Hansard quote in front of me. The former shadow Secretary of State welcomed the competition and said that we needed to test the two propositions against each other, which is what we have done. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) makes an assertion that I can tell him is wrong. I have always recognised that there are significant risks to the GoCo proposition and significant potential benefits from it. The challenge is to weigh the risks and the benefits and we would not be able to do that until we received the bids, which is why we had to run a competition.
We have seen the proposal that has been worked up by the DE&S plus team only in the last three weeks. It has worked behind a Chinese wall and has made clear that it believes that there will have to be an injection of external private sector skills in the form of an external business partner, in addition to the freedoms and flexibilities that it seeks within the organisation. That is the model that we are now going to put in place.
Defence Reform Bill
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Brazier
May I express my thanks to my right hon. Friend? I am delighted by that, and I know that the knowledge that the reserve units out there will once again have a powerful independent voice will make a difference. When I talk about some of the current problems, people will understand just how much that voice matters every bit as much as it did in 1914.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I pay tribute to the work he has done over the years on the reservists. Can he explain why, when the Opposition tabled an amendment in Committee that asked for figures to be—
Mr Brazier
I do not think the gathering of individual statistics should be a statutory matter, but the fact is that the Government have made a perfectly clear pledge that they are going to publish them. The crucial thing from the point of view of the ordinary reservist is that this body, which is elected by former reservists and respected by them as a body that effectively looked after their interests for nearly a century, is back with a really crucial position, able to make this report. When it visits the Army Recruiting Group, it will be heard with considerably more authority when it is known that it will be put on a permanent statutory basis and will be able to tell us what is really going on. I would like to say, however, that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has taken a close interest in this matter, which I respect.
The plain fact is that when the Regular Army took over recruiting in 2006, the numbers collapsed. The collecting of statistics collapsed, too, and the structure made no serious effort to address the challenges it was taking on. It simply raided the budget and used it for Regulars. To provide just one example, from 2006 to this day—it is now seven years on—Army recruiting offices are open only from 9 to 5.30 Monday to Friday, so they are not even available for people with civilian jobs.
A number of other things happened at the same time. There was a steady reduction in the flow of equipment to the reserves. There was a huge cut in the training budget. In 2009, we almost lost the whole training budget for the Reserves for six months, and I pay tribute to a small number of colleagues on both sides of the House who supported us in that battle. Worst of all, from 2009, all deployments of formed bodies to Afghanistan stopped—echoing the argument that had taken place at the outset of the first world war—and units were effectively told, “You are just here to act as part-time personnel agencies for the Regular Army”. That really destroyed much of the Territorial Army’s officer corps.
I strongly support what the Government are trying to do with the reserves. The House will know how much I am in favour of a rebalancing. I also commend many things that have taken place: the equipment is improving; there has been a huge increase in the funds available for training, particularly for collective training; and there have been some interesting initiatives at Sandhurst, under the charismatic leadership of the recently appointed Commandant, General Tim Evans. He started a number of improvements in officer training, one of which was the personal brain child of the Chief of the General Staff—taking people through the training in a single eight-week package, timed to coincide with the summer vacation in universities. The pairing of units is another initiative.
The Army Recruiting Group, however, has not got its act together; it is every bit as disorganised as it has always been. I hope the House will forgive me if I give just one example in detail to show just how hopeless it is. When the RFCAs lost their recruiting brief, the requirement for medicals, which had been very efficiently organised, disappeared. Suddenly last year, as part of common selection, it was announced that the Territorials were to do medicals, too. A system was set up, using the NHS as the old one had done, but in a fashion that had not even been cleared by the lawyers in relation to the Data Protection Act 1998. It was completely unworkable. People were told to take a form to their GP and get him to sign it off and send it in. So inefficient was this system that GPs did not know what to do. If units rang up to see what was going on, they were breaching the Data Protection Act. The system was so hopeless that a unit I know well—for obvious reasons, I will not say which—that had had an average of 48 successful enlistees per quarter in the months up to that change, saw a rising trend in applicants turn into just eight enlistees per quarter in the subsequent quarters.
I could go on and on. The software is unworkable; Ministers have already acknowledged that. Unfortunately, that compounds the problems at the recruiting centres. Because it is de facto impossible for somebody to do the form online on their own—if they make one mistake, their application is lost in cyberspace—it has to be done either at recruiting centres or in the units. The recruiting centres, of course, are not available.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
I agree with everybody who has said that reservists have performed a singularly valuable task in recent operations—about 25,000 have been deployed—whether by augmenting existing units or by contributing specialist skills that would not have been available to the regular armed forces. I remember very well visiting Basra with the Select Committee on Defence just a couple of months after the war ended, and finding that the entire Iraqi economy was being put right by an Army officer who, in civilian life, was a banker. He was responsible for putting Iraq’s finances in order. Clearly, he had more success than the previous Prime Minister had in this country.
That brings me to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Select Committee, about the budget deficit. It is important that we all understand why we are here today and why we are debating these matters. We would not be here if Labour had not left this country with a catastrophic budget deficit of £156 billion. That is why we had to make tough decisions—
Mr Jones
I remind the hon. Gentleman that when he was in the shadow defence team in opposition, he was calling for a larger Army and a larger Navy. Did not the present Prime Minister and his team, when in opposition, agree with all our spending commitments, including those on defence, right up to 2008?
Sir Gerald Howarth
The hon. Gentleman had better wait to hear what I have to say. What I am about to say now is what I said when I was a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, which I would say more privately than I have been saying more recently. It is important that people recognise that in the Ministry of Defence we were faced, like every other Department bar those whose budgets were ring-fenced, with a requirement to produce savings immediately, because unless the Chancellor of the Exchequer was able to deliver a comprehensive spending review that reassured the capital markets that Britain was intent upon putting its public finances back in order, we would have been in an even worse position than we inherited in May 2010.
I have much sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and I can see where he is coming from: he wants a larger standing Army, and so do I. I am a Conservative. I believe that defence of the realm is the first duty of Government. I found it deeply distressing to be a Minister in a Ministry of Defence that was having to cut its budget, but we were in coalition. I see my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), who was an extremely collegiate colleague in the Ministry of Defence. I make no criticism of him; my criticism is of his leader. We had to make some pretty tough decisions, and ultimately it was not we in the Ministry of Defence who decided what our budget was. That was decided at No. 10 and in the National Security Council. That is what happened.
We are here today because we had to make some tough decisions. In other circumstances we would not have wished to have a standing Army reduced by 20,000 and a requirement to supplement it with another 30,000 reservists. The White Paper which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State produced earlier this year is littered with remarks about the financial constraints in which we have to operate, so it seems to me that we are making the best of a difficult situation. I hope, though, that the strategic defence review of 2015 will give us, particularly in the Conservative party, an opportunity to tell the nation that we intend to reorder the public spending priorities of the next Conservative Government.
I believe that in this uncertain and volatile world an increase in defence expenditure is a must. We are not there yet, and I hope to make the case over the next couple of years that that is what we have to do. We must restore some of the capability gaps from which we are suffering, and we must seek to repair some of the damage that has inevitably been done by the cuts that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) had to make. He and my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State for Defence should be hugely congratulated on having sorted out the Ministry of Defence’s appalling finances, which they inherited from the previous Administration.
The budget of the Ministry of Defence is now back on track, which is good news, but the strategic defence and security review of 2015 must give us an opportunity to enhance our niche capabilities, such as cyber, where my right hon. Friend has done an excellent job. I hope we can increase our investment in defence diplomacy.
I also believe that we need a larger standing Army. I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) that I am not sure that he can predict what kind of world we will find ourselves in when we draw down from Afghanistan. The past four years have taught me that predicting the future is pretty difficult. None of us could have foreseen the Arab spring, the conflict in Syria or what is going on in the South China sea as we speak. This is an unstable world. Ultimately, the niche capabilities are important, but being able to take and hold territory requires having boots on the ground.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Ind)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). Many of his remarks I agree with; some I disagree with. However, I particularly admire my close and hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—who sadly has gone for a cup of tea—and my other close and hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). They have opposing views, but they both have the good of the nation and the armed forces at their heart. I have no doubt about that.
I think I am right in saying that of all the ex-regulars and ex-Territorials in the House, I am the only one who has been a professional recruiter. My last job in the Army was as a colonel in the Army training and recruiting agency. I use the word “agency” with a curl of the lip: it was not a command or a military formation of any sort, which was one of the reasons I resigned from the Army—because of its disgraceful conduct, particularly over recruiting. I will return to that in a moment. I also had the privilege to belong to and to command a battalion that, at the height of the Territorial Army, had to find permanent staff instructors, adjutants and the like for up to four Territorial battalions—our third and fourth battalions, and what were then called the 1st and 2nd Battalions the Mercian Regiment.
That is where I first heard about STABs, which stands for stupid TA—and then a word that means “illegitimate people”—and about arrogant Regular Army “illegitimate people”. That is an example of the desperate confusion and rivalry between regulars and Territorials, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury made such clear reference, from the first and second world wars, and so on. I am a little out of date now, but in my experience that was a deeply divisive and extremely unhelpful view. In the Regular Army, we had to provide a lot of those individuals, which absolutely was a nuisance. None the less, anybody who looked at the colours of my regiment—or, indeed, of the fusiliers or any of the infantry or cavalry regiments in the British Army—would have seen that the majority of the battle honours on those colours were won by battalions and regiments from the Territorial Force or the Territorial Army. It is a fact; we cannot get away from it. Any Regular Army individual who ignores the importance, the potential or the sheer enthusiasm of the reserves—the TF, the TA or whatever we want to call them—is simply daft.
However, there are reservations I would like to express about the future of warfare and the type of forces we need to fight those wars. Turning to new clause 1, my experience as a commanding officer is that I was told in the late ’90s that my battalion was about 40 men under strength and that we could not recruit more than that, which, in a recruiting famine, would be quite impossible. I talked closely to what was then called the recruiting group of the Army training and recruiting agency, listened to its advice and did precisely the opposite.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Gentleman has first-hand experience of recruitment. Does he agree with the earlier comment of the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) about recruiters being staffed from the sick, lame or lazy?
Patrick Mercer
I was deeply offended by that remark. If I may, I would gently suggest that it sounds like a comment from someone who left the Army as a junior officer, without having to provide the sort of individuals that we provided for our recruiting offices, who were the very finest, Brecon-trained senior and junior non-commissioned officers inside the battalion.
Andrew Selous
A lot of sorrow and anger has been expressed on both sides of the House this afternoon about the fact that it has been sadly necessary to make reductions in the Regular Army. We all understand that, but we all also understand that it was a necessary reaction to the £160 billion deficit with which this Government were confronted on taking office and the £38 billion black hole in the defence budget that there was at the same time.
We have heard a lot of praise for the reserves and for the Territorial Army throughout the debate, and that is right and proper.
Andrew Selous
Not at the moment.
As a former Territorial soldier, I extend that praise to the regular forces alongside whom I have had the pride to serve. There are wonderful people in both the regular and reserve forces of whom this Parliament can be justifiably proud. It is absolutely right, however, that the Government have agreed to new clause 1. Like many others, I pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) for tabling it. Indeed, I went to see the Secretary of State yesterday to lobby for new clause 1 and I am delighted to see that it has been accepted by the Government.
New clause 1 is important because, in spite of the praise we have heard for the reserve forces and specifically for the TA from Members on both sides of the House, all Territorials will say that a certain amount of antipathy exists between regular and reserve forces as they serve our country together. It is absolutely right that the new clause should put into law independent scrutiny and independent control over what is happening to our reserve forces and the reserve forces estate, as well as the progress in recruitment and so on.
The Government had to take very difficult decisions, and they decided to move towards a Regular Army of 82,000 and an Army Reserve, as we will soon call it, of 30,000, making a total Army strength of 112,000. Incidentally, we would still have the fourth largest defence budget in the world and a considerable list of new equipment to go with those armed forces.
The point that has been made, first and most clearly by the Chair of the Select Committee on Defence, is that the reductions in the regular forces have already been made and are in place and on track to happen. There is no proposal to increase the number of regular soldiers from any quarter of this House. A prescient intervention by the Secretary of State on the shadow Secretary of State led the shadow Secretary of State to say that the Labour party had no plans to increase the number of regular soldiers. The question before the House is therefore how to press on and ensure that the reserve recruiting plan works and is successful. That is at the heart of what we need to do this afternoon, and the question is what will best help and bring about that recruitment effort. I listened to the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, who said that any legislative impact that would put a halt to the plans to increase the reserve forces would be a hammer blow to the morale of the TA. We need certainty, and for everyone in this House to get behind the plans and ensure that we can successfully increase the strength of the Army Reserve from 19,000 to the 30,000 that we want.
We must remember that as recently as 1990 we had 72,000 Territorial soldiers, so it is entirely possible for us to move up to 30,000. It is an increase of only 20 extra Army Reserve recruits by parliamentary constituency and is an entirely achievable objective. I believe that we can bring that about. We need employers’ help, and I am encouraged by the fact that companies such as Carillion, Barclays and BT are very much getting behind the measures to make sure that we get the reserves that we need.
We will have full parliamentary scrutiny of the process; of that there is no doubt. We do not need new clause 3 to have proper parliamentary scrutiny of it. That is what the House is providing this afternoon, and that is what happens every month at Defence questions. It is also the role of the Select Committee on Defence to make sure that we have proper scrutiny.
Mr Ellwood
I am afraid that I do not have time to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Of course, Labour also cut TA training completely in 2009, so it is difficult to take lessons from Labour Members. It is opportunistic to join this argument now, as others have said.
Mr Kevan Jones
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) for the constructive way in which he has engaged with the Opposition. We are not used to that—certainly not from the Secretary of State—on Bills or things to do with defence. The Committee as a whole gave a good and detailed examination of all aspects of the Bill. I accept that parts of it are still developing as we speak. Events this week have shown that with the withdrawal of one of the contractors for the proposed GoCo.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) for her work on the Bill. I also add my best wishes as she should hopefully become a grandmother for the second time in the next few hours. May I also thank the members of the Committee, the Clerks and the witnesses who came before us? I thank, too, the Minister’s hard-working civil servants who, at times, had to think on their feet when replying to some of the points that were made. I thank them on behalf of the Committee for their work.
I do not think that there is any disagreement in the House that we want to ensure that we procure the best equipment and support for members of our armed forces. In the debate this afternoon, it has been recognised that we should thank the men and women of our armed forces for the contribution they make to our safety. We often take that for granted, but we should never do so because they put their lives at risk to ensure that we can sleep safely in our beds at night.
The first part of the Bill concerns defence procurement. The Government have put forward two options: a GoCo or DE&S-plus. It was clear in Committee and is still quite clear that there is a determination within the MOD that a GoCo should be the way forward—
Mr Jones
I am sorry that the Secretary of State says that, but that was not the tenor of what we heard in Committee. Clearly, the withdrawal of one of the potential bidders has left serious questions about the future of the GoCo. We will certainly look closely at how the process goes forward.
Mr Hammond
For the sake of the record, I have said many times before in this House and say again today that we are open-minded about the choice between the GoCo and the DE&S-plus solution. We understand that the GoCo will bring certain advantages, but DE&S-plus might bring different advantages. We will weigh the two in the balance and select the solution that is in the best interests of the taxpayer and the armed forces.
Mr Jones
I am pleased to hear that, but I am also rather sceptical about what the Secretary of State says. Clearly, the emphasis in Committee and the mood music have been that the GoCo seems to be the main show in town, and there has been scant examination of what DE&S-plus will do. We must ensure that as the process goes ahead and the Bill goes to the other place proper scrutiny is maintained. Not only is this a major change to how we procure defence equipment in this country but it will have an impact on our relationships with international allies.
Mr Dunne
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s final point: this clearly needs to be scrutinised properly. However, let me gently make the point to him that part 1 of the Bill inevitably focused on a GoCo rather than DE&S-plus because DE&S-plus does not need legislation whereas a GoCo does.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
We have been here before with such privatisations, but surely the concept of competition is stretched to absurdity when there is only one bidder. We risk demoralising the staff we employ at the moment; today, we did not even reach the part of the Bill that would have given them the assurances that are needed about their long-term employment prospects.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As the process goes forward, there is obviously a lot of concern among people who work in defence procurement. It is important that things are brought to a conclusion so that they can have some reassurance. It will be interesting to see how the process goes ahead with just one bidder. We need to ensure that that is scrutinised in the other place, as I am sure it will be. I hope that the Minister will keep us informed in the House about that ongoing process.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the key concerns was that if a new provider was created to run the GoCo it would effectively be difficult for another provider ever to come in and take it on. Are not those concerns aggravated by the fact that we have only one bidder going through the process to start with?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for his work in Committee. He raises an interesting point, as one of the concerns raised in Committee was what would happen after the nine-year process as regards renegotiating the contract. We will now have only one contractor who, if successful, will certainly be in pole position come the renegotiation at the end of the contract, whether or not any others are able to bid. We must consider those issues very carefully in the coming months as the process develops.
The other issues on which we spent a lot of time and about which there are still concerns are those on intellectual property and single-source procurement, about which we had numerous discussions in Committee. I think that industry still has concerns on those points. Part of the process is about not only reassuring the work force but ensuring confidence about working with the defence sector, because it is a major employer in this country. It is also important to ensure that we are at the leading edge of not only defence technology but security technology. Full involvement of the sector throughout the process will be very important. I think that the Bill will have an interesting passage through the other place.
We spent most of the afternoon on the reserves part of the Bill. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), the shadow Secretary of State: Labour Members—and Members generally—look with pride on the contribution that reservists make to our armed forces. I have seen them at first hand, in both Iraq and Afghanistan; they are very brave men and women, doing a fantastic job on our behalf.
On the process ahead, I welcome the Government’s slight change of heart on producing an annual report. May I say thank you to the Secretary of State for including mental health in that report? If he wishes for any assistance with the organisation involved, in terms of how it approaches that, I am quite willing to engage, or point him in the direction of other organisations that will be interested in knowing how mental health can be seen as a priority, because there is an issue, whether we like it or not, with reservists and mental health. I know that the Government have followed through on work that we did in government and have added to that, in terms of making sure that veterans’ mental health is seen as a priority.
On the overall position of reservists, after this afternoon’s debate, I would say that the jury was still out, but we did get some clarification from the Secretary of State on the reduction in the Regular Army. Remember, when the strategic defence and security review was first announced by the Prime Minister, there was to have been a reduction of 7,000; then the figure went down from 95,000 to 80,000. I think the Secretary of State was very candid this afternoon: that was about money, not about what was best for our armed forces.
Mr Jones
Well, we can have a debate about that; the Secretary of State still bandies around the £38 billion figure. What he and many others seem to forget is that there was also the impact on the defence budget of the 9% decrease that this Government brought in as part of the SDSR.
On monitoring how the changes go forward, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has done a fantastic job. He has been an assiduous champion of reservists for many years. When we were in government, he worked closely with the then Secretary of State to try to improve the lot of reservists. He raises an interesting point about the issues between the regulars and the reserve forces. There has been, in some quarters of the Army, a view that somehow the reserves are second-best. It will be important to ensure that that is not the case going forward.
It was interesting to hear General Sir Peter Wall say that the proposals were the way forward. When we were in government, he was part of the senior command of the Army that recommended the £20 million cut for the reserve forces. It is important that senior officers in the Regular Army fully buy into the process, because that is how we will make sure that we have the joined-up approach that we require.
The Secretary of State has moved a lot this afternoon; he has gone from holding the position that we should not have annual reports to giving a commitment to them. However, we need parliamentary time, so that the report does not just sit on a shelf in the Library, but is debated on the Floor of the House. I tell him gently that the more engagement he has, not only with the Opposition, but with his party’s Back Benchers, the better, when it comes to making sure that the best intentions that we all have for our armed forces are realised.
The nonsense that we are still going through—we are being barred from speaking to senior officers, and barred from military bases—is not helpful. When I had a role in the Ministry of Defence, I took the view that the more engagement that parliamentarians, irrespective of political party, have with members of the armed forces, the better—and not only for MPs’ understanding; members of the armed forces also get a lot out of coming to understand how this place and politicians operate.
Mr Hammond
For the record, we have, as far as I am aware, arranged for the Opposition Front-Bench team and individual members of it to visit military bases.
Mr Hammond
I am sure we have. If the hon. Gentleman wants to contact me—I have said this to the shadow Secretary of State—and let me know where they would like to go and when they would like to go, we will facilitate it.
Mr Jones
That is a very good change of heart. [Interruption.] It is a change of heart; that is not what has been going on over the past few years since the right hon. Gentleman has been Secretary of State. I know it is an issue that the Chairman of the Select Committee has raised as well. I take that at face value and we will test the system, as the Secretary of State has made the offer on the Floor of the House.
We will not press the motion to a vote—[Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering away. The shadow Secretary of State wrote to the chiefs of the armed forces, wanting to meet them, and I have here a note from this afternoon which says that the MOD just rang the shadow Secretary of State’s office to say that the pre-arranged meetings with several chiefs have been cancelled because there is a change in protocol and he must now arrange the meetings through the Secretary of State’s office. Under the old process, the request would be made and the Minister would sign it off at the end. I know that he is paranoid about leaks, and the process is not helping.
I conclude by wishing the Bill well when it goes to the other place.
First World War Commemoration
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Murrison
It is rare for me to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I agree with him on that point. I note that the Heritage Lottery Fund, which has been at the centre of all this through providing a great deal of the underpinning finance, has recognised that and been making grants accordingly. I hope that the hon. Gentleman approves of that.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I concur with the sentiments expressed about the Irish Government. Is the Minister aware that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is working closely with the Irish Government to erect headstones in the Republic and that it has been involved in the re-siting of the wall of remembrance at Glasnevin cemetery?
Dr Murrison
Yes, I have been to Glasnevin recently. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that point, because it is a special place in the history of the Republic of Ireland. None of us should underestimate the enormity of the totemic things that are happening around this in Dublin right now. I see that as part of the improvement in relationships that is happening independently of the centenary. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, as a Commonwealth war graves commissioner, will see these events as part of that process.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), and of course I join him in paying tribute to Warrant Officer Ian Fisher from 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, who tragically lost his life in Afghanistan. It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that his sacrifice is never forgotten.
It is an honour to open this debate on behalf of the Opposition, and it is heartening to know that there is such widespread interest across the House in the 100th anniversary commemoration of world war one. I look forward to what I know will be a good debate and to the eloquent and no doubt poignant contributions from Members of all parties. It is fitting that we will hear from Members representing every corner of the United Kingdom, expressing their interest in plans for the centenary commemorations and illustrating the huge impact that world war one had on the whole of Britain. Our commemorations here will also be part of what will be a truly global event, which will include contributions from our friends in the Commonwealth and events that are taking place around the world.
Let me take the opportunity at the outset to pay tribute to the Minister for the calm, measured and dedicated way in which he has prepared for the centenary commemorations. We look forward to continuing to work closely with him, with the Government and with all in this House to ensure that world war one is commemorated in a fitting manner.
The Minister has outlined some of the Government’s plans to commemorate the centenary anniversary next year. Aside from the multitude of events that will take place up and down the country, the Government have pledged over £50 million, which will be put towards the centenary anniversary commemorations. The plans include a refurbishment of the world war one galleries at the Imperial War museum; a nationwide scheme that will allow school students from across the country to visit world war one battlefields; community projects funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and designed to educate young people to conserve, explore and share local heritage of world war one; and a grant from the national heritage memorial fund to support HMS Caroline in Belfast—the last surviving warship from the world war one fleet. We support those plans and will work with the Government to ensure their smooth delivery.
Additionally, a huge number of other organisations are planning their contributions to the commemoration. There are too many to mention by name, but I would like briefly to mention, of course, the First World War Centenary Partnership, led by the Imperial War museum, which will present a programme of cultural events and activities to commemorate the centenary. Also as part of the commemorations, the BBC has commissioned over 1,000 programmes across various platforms, helping to inform and educate the public about the events and the impact of world war one. The Woodland Trust will launch a project in May 2014 to commemorate British and Commonwealth great war heroes through the simple, yet poignant act of planting a tree. I look forward to hearing from Members about how the commemoration will be marked in their constituencies.
As we commemorate the centenary of world war one, there will be those who say we should seek to understand the fundamental question of why Britain went to war in the first instance. A recent poll for British Future asked how much people knew about the war. Its polling showed that 66% of people knew that world war one began in 1914, that 47% knew that the war was in part sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and that 9% knew that Herbert Asquith was the British Prime Minister at the start of the war.
What polling will not capture, however, is the extent to which the public understand the original motivations for the war. A student of history might conclude that, aside from the strategic rationale, Britain’s motives for entering world war one demonstrated a conscientious effort to uphold international law and a desire to defend smaller, more vulnerable nations. There will be those who will seek to have this informed debate, but there should be no doubt about the profound impact of this war.
Many people may know that between 1914 and 1918, 1.2 million volunteers came from around the globe to serve alongside the allies, answering the call of “Your Empire Needs You”. Many people appreciate the scale of the loss of life that was to follow, and many people know something of the 750,000 British soldiers who died or the 1.5 million soldiers who returned home injured. They may have heard something of the 20,000 British soldiers who were killed on the first day of the Somme or they may recall Wilfred Owen’s imagery of choking soldiers drowning in a sea of chlorine gas. They will also understand that sacrifice on this scale must always be remembered—it must always be commemorated.
It is important to remember world war one for more than just the industrialisation of death that it brought with it. The war paved the way for numerous world events, including, of course, the outbreak of the second world war—events that have ultimately shaped the world we live in today. The war had a profound impact on Britain too, and many countries in the Commonwealth sought independence after it ended. Britain lost its place as the world’s largest investor, and the role of women changed for ever. By 1931, 50% of women remained single, and 35% never married while of childbearing age.
The other great social change that came from world war one involved voting. Before the war, neither working men nor women had votes. The sacrifice of men from all classes, combined with the fact that women were taking on jobs that had previously been seen as a male preserve and with the campaigning of the suffragists and suffragettes, compelled politicians to change the position.
In the light of that, Labour Members consider it essential for us to ensure that the right tone is struck when we are remembering world war one. I believe that we are all clear about the fact that this is not a celebration, but a commemoration. War should never be celebrated; instead, it should be remembered, and we should learn from it. Getting the tone right is therefore imperative. We agree with the Government that there should be no flag-waving, that there should be an absolute right to remember those whose opinions differed, and that there should be no rigid Government narrative. It is right for us to give people the facts, and then to let them conduct their own analyses and form their own judgments.
However, it is important that, as a country, we do not shy away from addressing some of the war’s complications. There is a strong public perception of what it was like, formed partly by war poets and reinforced by the 1960s production of “Oh! What a Lovely War” and television programmes such as “Blackadder Goes Forth”. Those cultural representations stand as powerful and eloquent testimonies to the savagery of world war one, but if they are all that we know of the war, they are poor history.
Those who have been schooled in stories of the “lost generation” may be surprised to learn that the fatality rate in the British forces overall was 12%. That is a terrible figure—and some communities were affected much worse than others—but the figure is not as high as people tend to imagine. Nor are public impressions of daily life during the war always accurate. Blackadder lived for years in a dugout, but in reality infantry battalions spent an average of about one week of every month in the trenches. There were notable exceptions, but they do not disprove the generality of soldiers’ experiences.
Mr Kevan Jones
I am glad that my hon. Friend has mentioned “Blackadder”, which, although obviously very amusing, constitutes something of a misrepresentation of events during world war one. One example is the idea that senior officers were not part of the action. In fact, nearly 70 generals and major-generals died in action on the western front and in other conflicts.
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important intervention. Let me be clear: I think that “Blackadder” is an excellent programme. It is very funny, and Members in all parts of the House will remember the very moving scene at the end of the series in which Blackadder and others advance into no man’s land. That certainly serves as a powerful testimony to the savagery of world war one. However, my hon. Friend is right to point out that it is not a strictly historical account. I think that the commemorations that will begin next year will give us an opportunity to revisit some of the history, to look carefully at the detail, and, perhaps, to promote a better factual understanding of it.
We believe that, in order to ensure that world war one is remembered and commemorated appropriately and its complications are addressed, those involved in the centenary events should be mindful that—as the Minister rightly pointed out—there will be debates about the history. Some will say that we should go further than the western front. Some of the bloodiest battles may have been fought in western Europe, but battles fought in other parts of the world are also important in the overall context of the war, and it is therefore right for us to recognise the huge contribution of British Empire forces from around the globe.
Some will say that we should address the gap between the “pointless futility” narrative and what soldiers actually believed that they were fighting for, both during and after the war. Today our forces in Afghanistan rightly take pride in the job that they do and the bonds of service that they form, and the same applied to those who fought in world war one. During those years, soldiers fought for much. They fought because of a belief that their country was threatened, but ultimately, when it came down to it, they fought for their regiments, and for the man standing next to them in the trench. If we want to pay proper tribute to the war dead—as I know that we do—and also to those who came through the war, we should seek to remember that.
Some will say—and, as the Minister said, there are clearly sensitivities in this respect—that we should recognise that the British military, along with their allies, defeated Germany militarily in the war, with the final period marking one of the most effective in the history of the British Army. For many decades, historians have pointed to military tactics developing and improving between 1914 and 1918, which eventually enabled the allies to break out from the stalemate of the trenches. Although that is little consolation to those who lost ancestors in the war’s early years, it does explain why there was so much public grief at Haig’s funeral in 1928 from the veterans who had served under his command, surprising though that is to us now. It is important that we get this right and we will work with the Government to ensure that we do so.
Around the country, I have been privileged to meet scores of people and I have seen at first hand the coming together of people and communities. I have seen the passion and the interest that the commemoration has already invoked. In my constituency of Barnsley Central I have been struck by the amount of enthusiasm for the commemorations, led by individuals such as Aubrey Martin-Wells and Goff Griffiths from the central branch of the Royal British Legion. I am sure other Members will echo similar sentiments from their constituencies. I urge Members from across the House and from around the country to continue to encourage and spark debate in their own constituencies, to ensure that their communities come together to commemorate the war.
In my constituency, it is the bravery of the Barnsley Pals who formed the 13th and 14th Battalions of the York and Lancaster Regiment that will be remembered. Both Barnsley Pals battalions were part of the attack on Serre on the first day of the Somme campaign. On that one day, 1 July 1916, the 1st Barnsley Pals lost 275 men, while the 2nd lost 270. It is in such events that the true impact of world war one can be understood—when we think of the countless husbands, fathers, brothers and sons who never came home, and the unassuageable loss suffered by those families and their communities.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I think that we all agree that the first world war was a truly terrible conflict. There can be no doubting the bravery of the millions who fought for their country, many of whom lost their lives—nearly 1 million soldiers from the British Army and over 700,000 from the British isles. But I believe that we should also acknowledge the conscientious objectors to the war. They, too, were people of courage who stood up for what they believed in and experienced enormous public opprobrium as a result. They also experienced huge personal hardship and discrimination after the war ended.
Caerphilly has a two-fold distinction in that respect. First, two of its MPs, Morgan Jones and Ness Edwards, were conscientious objectors. Ness was the Member of Parliament from 1939 until 1968 and served as Postmaster General in the 1951 Labour Government. He was preceded by Morgan Jones, who served as an Education Minister in the Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929. Secondly, Morgan Jones was the first conscientious objector to be elected to the House of Commons—he was elected in a by-election in August 1921—and it is about him that I would like to say a few words this afternoon.
Morgan Jones was born in May 1895 in Gelligaer in the Rhymney valley. He came from a modest background, his father being a coal miner. He left the valley to receive an education at Reading university but returned to become a local councillor. He was elected as a socialist and a member of the Independent Labour party. He was a man of principle, courage and conviction. He did what he thought was right and held firmly to his principles throughout his life.
From the moment Britain entered the great war in August 1914, Morgan Jones was a vocal opponent of the war. Like many in the ILP, he believed that the war was unjustified and unnecessary, a nationalist conflict that set worker against worker. He therefore opposed the war as a socialist and as an internationalist. But he also adopted a Christian pacifist position and declared his opposition to all forms of warfare, believing that the destruction of human life should not be a means of solving international disputes. His unequivocal views led him quickly to join the No Conscription Fellowship, and he was appointed to its national committee in 1914.
In the early part of the war, until 1916, the British Army consisted entirely of volunteers, and south Wales was a particularly important recruiting ground. However, it soon became clear that relying on volunteers was not enough, so the Government introduced the Military Service Act 1916 and conscription. Under the Act, local tribunals were established to determine cases of exemption for men who could best contribute to the war by continuing in their civil roles. One of the effects of the Act was to create two kinds of conscientious objector. The absolutists were those who adopted a maximalist position of being opposed to the war but also refusing to accept any kind of alternative work. The other type of conscientious objector was the alternativist. These individuals were wholly opposed to the war but prepared nevertheless to accept some form of alternative employment, mostly in transport or mining. Morgan Jones was one of those conscientious objectors, and he eventually came to accept membership of this voluntary scheme.
Early in 1916, Morgan Jones received his call-up papers. At about the same time, Gelligaer urban district council, of which he was a member, was informed—
Mr Kevan Jones
My hon. Friend is making a very good speech that shows how we are going to look at all aspects of the first world war in the coming years. Is he aware that some 7,000 conscientious objectors went to the front and some were killed as a result of doing stretcher-bearing and ambulance work?
Wayne David
Yes indeed. Those who became stretcher-bearers were probably at the greatest risk of all those in the armed forces, and the casualties among them were particularly high.
Morgan Jones was a member of Gelligaer urban district council. His own council, at a full meeting in February 1916, voted by 10 votes to eight to empower the chairman and the clerk to convene a special meeting wherever necessary to take appropriate action to consider the cases of those who were making conscientious objections. Such a meeting was convened in his case, but it was inquorate, and it seems very likely that the Labour members absented themselves to make it so. Nevertheless, the local tribunal was eventually convened and Morgan Jones appeared before it to put his case.
Interestingly enough—I have done some research on this matter—the minutes of Gelligaer urban district council have mysteriously disappeared from the Glamorgan record office, as have the minutes of the local tribunal, and nobody seems to know why. However, we know from the local press that when the tribunal was convened, Morgan Jones put a robust case, declaring himself a socialist and someone who was
“resolutely opposed to all warfare”.
He argued that the war was the result of wrongheaded diplomacy. Predictably, however, the local tribunal concluded that he would not be excluded from military service. He therefore appealed to the tribunal in Cardiff, but his appeal fell. At the same time, action was being taken against the No Conscription Fellowship, and he was found guilty in that regard as well.
In essence, after all was said and done, Morgan Jones went to trial and went to prison, and, as a consequence, suffered a great deal of physical and mental hardship. However, at the end of the war, when he was eventually released, an opportunity arose for him to stand for election to this Parliament in 1921. He was successfully elected and, as a result, made his true imprint on history by being the first conscientious objector to be elected to this House.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
First, may I declare an interest, in that I am a commissioner on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, along with my friend the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson)? I consider that to be a great privilege, as I know he does. The CWGC commemorates the 1.7 million people who died in the two wars. I wish to record my thanks to Alan Pateman-Jones, its director general, and his staff for the work they do in more than 153 different countries. I also thank the Governments of New Zealand, India, Australia, Canada and South Africa for their contributions, all of whom will be joining in the commemorations of the 1914 to 1918 war.
I wish to mention a fact that not many people recognise. We all see the iconic sites in France, but we also have 170,000 graves in this country, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) mentioned. Every community will have CWGC graves in their local churchyard or municipal cemetery, and I am pleased that the CWGC, along with the all-party group on war heritage, has broken these down by constituency. One thing that I have been working closely on with the CWGC is raising awareness in communities of those graves. One initiative has been to erect Commonwealth war grave signs and, in some cases, information boards, so that local people know that the graves are there and are aware of why they are there.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the good work that the CWGC does. He will know that many graves of Victoria Cross holders across the country are neglected and that only those soldiers who died in battle have their graves covered by the CWGC. May I commend to him the work of the Victoria Cross Trust, a charity, of which I am a patron, that does such good work in restoring the graves of VC heroes across the country?
Mr Jones
I commend that body. The CWGC’s remit is defined by its charter, but the important point is that the CWGC does look after all those graves in the UK that come under its charter. We are talking about either the traditional stones that people will recognise or private memorials. I pay tribute to councillors in the north-east of England, all of whose areas have now erected these green signs. I ask hon. Members of any party who wish to have them erected in their local cemeteries to contact me or the hon. Member for Broadland, as we will be only too willing to help. We have had a bit of a glitch with the Church of England—I am sorry that the Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) is not here for this—which seemed to offer a protracted and bureaucratic reason for why we could not put these signs up. I am glad to say that some progress has been made, including in Durham, where the Archbishop of Canterbury, the former Bishop of Durham, seemed to cut through the red tape of the Church of England. It would be nice to see those tasteful signs on all churchyards, just to raise awareness, so that local people know that the graves are there.
Let me now deal with the issues raised by the Minister. I congratulate him on the work he has done on them, because I think he has got this right. There was a real danger that this could go wrong. As he said, it is right that there will be national and international commemorations, but the real focus has to come from below—I totally agree with him on that; local communities have to get involved. I pay tribute to the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is providing grants for local communities, a few of them in my constituency, including Park View school, which has just received a grant for doing a world war one project. I know that there are many others. Pelton Fell memorial park is applying for a grant and a number of other villages want to hold events. Sacriston, for example, wants to hold a village at war event.
I am passionate about ensuring that those who lost their lives are remembered, but another important aspect is what happened in local communities. In the north-east and County Durham, for example, the role of coal mining in the first world war was important, as were the roles of women in munitions factories and the munitions industry in Tyneside.
I am pleased that my hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) mentioned conscientious objectors, because the war was divisive. In the early parts of the conflict, members of the Independent Labour party were very much against the involvement of Britain in the war. There were some notable exceptions and some people broke away, including Clem Attlee, who fought bravely at Gallipoli. One of my predecessors, Jack Lawson, the Member for Chester-le-Street—who, by coincidence, was a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission in the 1920s—fought on the western front, even though he was an ILP member.
There are opportunities for communities not only to remember the first world war but to do some good things about their own history and to ensure that people remember the contribution that everyone made to the war effort. When I was the veterans Minister, I had the privilege of meeting Harry Patch, Bill Stone and Henry Allingham. Sadly, I also attended their funerals. As the Minister said, they were the last living link to the first world war, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said, has now passed into history. This is a great opportunity to ensure that future generations not only do not forget but know of the important role that their local communities played in that important part of our great nation’s history.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
As my hon. Friend suggests, the reason a two-boat solution was not considered in the review is that it did not meet the hurdle test of providing a credible deterrent. I am actually rather more interested in the views of official Opposition Front Benchers on this matter than the views of our coalition partners. I welcome the fact—[Interruption.] Hang on a minute. I welcome the fact that the first visit in office by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was to Barrow-in-Furness, the home of Britain’s submarine fleet.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
On the alternatives review, at Defence questions on 2 September the Secretary of State told my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who had asked about costs:
“If he submits a written question to me, I will ask the Department to produce the best estimate”.—[Official Report, 2 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 5.]
I have now tabled a number of parliamentary questions, but the Government seem to be refusing to produce a figure. May I gently ask the Secretary of State when he will produce the answer to my questions?
Mr Hammond
I am rather glad that the hon. Gentleman asked me that question. Let me tell him that the Cabinet Office has the lead on this matter because it was a Cabinet Office review. Any question that is phrased in general terms will be answered by the Cabinet Office; were a question to be phrased in very specific terms as to Ministry of Defence resources, then it would fall to me to answer it.
Nuclear Test Veterans
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Anna Soubry
That is what I am told. If my hon. Friend is saying that it is not true, we will get it sorted out and we will find out. My information is that there have been two payments. He misses the point about the American system, which is that it is means-tested, while ours is not. I have made my point about Canada, where the scheme applied to 900 personnel involved in a clean-up after a radiation leak. I would therefore suggest that there is no comparison to be made in relation to nuclear test veterans.
On the science, my hon. Friend relies on one report, and I have made my comments about it. I rely on three reports, which have been done over many years, and I know of no one who challenges their findings.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I apologise for not being here earlier, but I was in another meeting. Does the Minister agree that the issue with the Rowland study, which I have read on several occasions, is that although it found radiation could, in some cases, cause chromosome abnormality, it did not—this is the important next step—show that those chromosomal changes led to cancer?
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for providing that information. That is another compelling argument in relation to the science.
I want to make it absolutely clear that it gives no one any pleasure to stand up and to have to talk about these things, because it sounds as if no one cares. On the contrary, those of us who do not agree with my hon. Friend and the £25 million fund that he advances do so not because we do not care, but because we know what the science says and because—I certainly take this view—we have to set this issue in the context of all our veterans, so that we do justice by everyone. We must always be careful not to be seen in any way to single out one group and put it above another.
I really take issue with the idea that we are somehow being shameful, or that we are in any way wrong, in our attitude to our nuclear test veterans. That is not the case. The existing scheme is good, fair and, arguably, generous, and it is one we should be proud of. Of course one could always argue that anyone in receipt of any form of compensation or benefit should have more, but what we have at the moment is fair and generous.
Let me come on to our scheme, because it is important to put on the record that any veteran who believes they have suffered ill health due to service has the right to apply for no-fault compensation. We therefore have a no-fault compensation scheme under the war pensions scheme. Where there is reliable evidence that disablement is due to service, a war pension is awarded, with the benefit of reasonable doubt always given to the claimant. Nuclear test veterans are no different, and war pensions are paid to claimants for disorders accepted in principle as being caused by radiation, where the evidence raises a reasonable doubt of service-related radiation exposure. In addition, awards are made automatically to nuclear test veterans who developed certain leukaemias within 25 years of participating in the tests. For some, therefore, there is an automatic entitlement, which is absolutely right. Again, that begins to move us up that so-called league table, if, as some would argue, such a table exists.
It should be noted, however, that in May this year the first-tier tribunal, the war pensions and armed forces compensation chamber, delivered a decision in a group action of 14 nuclear test veterans’ war pension appeals. The majority of the appeals were rejected. The tribunal found material exposure where appellants undertook work in forward areas or otherwise came into contact with radiation, but not in relation to the majority of the bystander appellants. The decisions of the tribunal support the MOD’s current policy relating to claims for a war pension made by nuclear test veterans.
Anna Soubry
I do not think that that is the strongest of cases. We know what the science tells us. If the view is advanced that the group of veterans in question—and I pay tribute to their service—should have the money just because they did that work on the country’s behalf, I can hear that being advanced by all manner of other veterans groups with equal force.
Mr Kevan Jones
When I was a Minister, I authorised a settlement proposal, because in my opinion large amounts of public money should not be wasted on lawyers when the case could be settled without the question of liability. Unfortunately, the settlement that I authorised was rejected by the lawyers involved. I am sorry, but I think that it was the individual veterans’ best chance of getting a large amount of compensation. The figure stretched to several million pounds.
Anna Soubry
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend—there is no harm in my calling him that—who raises an important point, which has already been explored, quite properly. I was shocked by it. I do not know the details, but I have experience as a criminal barrister and know that every lawyer is under a duty to consult the client first. No lawyer ever makes the decision—although, apparently, in the case in question, very unusually, that was what happened. The client provides the instructions and makes the decision. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I should talk about those events after the debate. I should like to know more.
I was talking about a case that went to the Court of Appeal, where the general merits of the claims were found to be extremely weak. On appeal, the Supreme Court ruled in March 2012, on a majority decision, in favour of the MOD. Significantly, all the justices, even those dissenting, recognised that the veterans would face extreme difficulties proving causation. That brings us back to the science.
The MOD continues to recognise the concerns of nuclear test veterans—I am always prepared to listen and like to think that I have an open mind, although I have spoken frankly this afternoon. However, there is no medical or legal evidence to support calls for compensation of the veterans as a group—and I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay says about seeking a benevolent fund, not a compensation fund. Any veteran who believes that service has had an impact on their health can submit a war pension claim. Where the evidence supports their claim, we will provide financial compensation. However, recent legal cases have shown that the incidence of that is far lower than many veterans organisations claim.
The argument for a £25 million benevolent fund to compensate veterans and family members affected by ionising radiation is flawed. The UK’s existing health, social and welfare support for its citizens and the specific support for all veterans make it unnecessary. Indeed, when we consider the public investment in the NHS and in the social and welfare fields, it can be argued that the financial value of that support far exceeds the monetary value of any compensation payment that the Government would pay.
Defence Reforms
Kevan Jones Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Baron
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the original plan, which was to allow the build-up of the reserves before we axed regular battalions because it was deemed that deployability was terribly important. Exchanges took place on the Floor of the House in 2011 between the then Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), which clearly confirm that the plan was to get the balance right—to build up the reservists before winding down the regulars.
My first questions, then, to the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, who is replying to the debate, are: why and when did the plan change? To make this debate as productive as possible, I would be delighted to take interventions from my right hon. Friend if he wishes to answer the questions we pose as the debate proceeds. I think that the questions why and when the plan changed are wholly legitimate ones, because the plan has changed and the House should be in no doubt whatever about that. Just two years ago, the plan was to say, “We will not wind down the regular troops until we know that the reservists are up to strength”. That plan has changed.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the plan also changed in respect of the original strategic defence and security review. It initially planned for a reduction of 7,000 troops, but it suddenly increased to 13,000 and if recent press reports are to be believed, it might be even higher.
Mr Baron
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. A number of changes to the plan have occurred, but to my knowledge, at no time have we had any explanation from the Dispatch Box of why the plans have changed, of the cost implications or indeed of when they changed.
The entire Army reforms depend on the successful recruitment of reserves. Let us examine that for a moment, and let us remember that without such recruitment up to 30,000, the Army reform plans fall apart. What do we know about recruitment so far? We know that TA numbers have been falling, not rising, since 2009 and are now at their lowest ebb since 2007. We know today that new reservist recruitment targets are being missed. The front page of The Daily Telegraph, under the heading “Reforms have left the Army in chaos” refers to documents clearly showing that reservist recruitment targets both for this and next year are being missed—and not just by a small margin, but by a massive margin—thus bringing the whole plan into doubt. Various reasons are put forward, including criticism of the Ministry of Defence for closing down local recruitment offices, and there is talk about privatisation and Capita, but I think that is somewhat overplayed. What we know is that there has been a lack of communication in the IT systems in the MOD as between Capita and Atlas. There are all sorts of reasons, but the bottom line is that key reserve recruitment targets are being missed.
Mr Jones
May I, from the Opposition Benches, welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? I see that you are getting clear guidance from your fellow Deputy Speaker. From my experience of the right hon. Member for Chorley (Mr Hoyle), I would not listen too closely to him on every occasion, as he has a mischievous sense of humour.
Mr Nuttall
My constituents in Bury are concerned that not enough reservists will be recruited to fill the massive hole that will be left by the disbandment of the 2nd Battalion. The original plan was to keep the Regular Army battalions in place until it was clear that the plan to replace them with reservists was viable. It surely makes sense to be absolutely certain that the reservists recruitment plans are on track before the regular units are disbanded. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay that the plan to recruit more reservists is behind schedule, but we should not have to rely on leaks published in The Daily Telegraph. What are the facts? Exactly how many reservists should have been recruited by now? Exactly how many have been recruited? They are not a cheap option. We need to know the facts. I urge the House to vote for the motion.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
May I wholeheartedly join in the warm welcome that has been extended to you today, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is delightful to see you in the Chair.
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). I echo what she and other speakers have said about the size of the task that is facing Ministers with the £35 billion black hole they inherited, the need to put our armed forces on a sound financial and strategic footing—
Mr Clappison
The figure comes from someone who knows more about this than me; it is contained in the National Audit Office report of 2010. I have only six minutes to speak. I will happily debate the black hole in the accounts and the whole of the debt that the previous Government left to this Government, but that is not really why I want to take part in the debate. I wanted to do so to pay tribute to our Ministers. We have an excellent Minister who has served in the armed forces and we are lucky to have him serving in this Department.
The longer this debate has gone on, the more it has become clear to me that something is going wrong with the implementation of the Government’s plan. I speak on these matters as a layman. I do not have any gallant service of my own, but as a Conservative I take an interest in our armed forces and the strength of our defence. I am not remotely qualified to judge the merits of the plan, nor the size of the Army, although I have some sympathy with what the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) said about the size of our armed forces. Least of all am I qualified to judge the relative capabilities and costs of reservists as against regular soldiers. However, there is clearly common ground emerging that something is going wrong with the recruitment of reservists. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who has played a distinguished role in this regard, described it as “uneven”. Perhaps the Minister can put me right, but it seems that initial reports are not uniformly optimistic about the recruitment of reserves to take the place of our regular forces.
Let me put to the Minister the case that has already been put in a very distinguished way by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). If there is a problem with the recruitment of reservists, and those reservists are needed to make up for the capability lost through the loss of the five regular battalions, surely the Government should look again at the question of disbanding those battalions.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing the debate, which has been excellent. There have been 16 speakers. I have done a quick tally and I think we have had 10 blue on blue attacks and two yellow on blue attacks so far. It has been good to recognise the importance of our armed forces and the unique role that reservists play. I have seen our reservists in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think everyone in the House would like to thank them for their contribution to the defence of our country. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
My hon. Friends the Members for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the hon. Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) raised the issue of the fusiliers. The Minister needs to answer why the Government have decided to axe the fusiliers in spite of the their good recruitment record.
The current situation needs to be put into context and I know that some hon. Members have short memories. It is important to recognise that, at the time of the strategic defence and security review, the Prime Minister said:
“Our ground forces will continue to have a vital operational role, so we will retain a large, well-equipped Army, numbering around 95,500 by 2015—7,000 fewer than today.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 799.]
We all know the reduction was increased to 13,000 and that compulsory redundancies have taken place. There is concern among many that the increase in the reserve is not for operational purposes, but to fill the gap.
We have heard that the reason for the gap is the previous Labour Government’s black hole in the finances—the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) tried to support that notion. We have heard about a £35 billion black hole, a £36 billion black hole and a £38 billion black hole. The fact is that a 2006 National Audit Office report said that the gap in the defence budget, if it continued in line with inflation, would be £6 billion and would only go up to £36 billion if there were flat growth over a 10-year period. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), will learn to listen in time. The Government have used that to hide behind their reason for making cuts to defence spending.
Mr Jones
I will not give way. Unfortunately, I do not have much time.
It is time for the Government to be honest with our servicemen and servicewomen and say why they are making these cuts. The real reason is that in the SDSR, the Government reduced the defence budget by 9% and have made some silly mistakes since.
The hon. Member for Bournemouth East spoke eloquently about the need for the carriers, but he was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary who not only recommended changing the “cats and traps”, which wasted £74 million, but wanted to mothball one of those carriers.