UK Amphibious Capability

Debate between Lord Beamish and Johnny Mercer

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Johnny Mercer]

I am so sorry; I am half asleep. It is only a matter of time.

I want to make three really clear points to the House, to the Minister and to the Government. I have made my views on this clear. I am grateful for all the support that we have had from across the House because this is an issue of singular importance. However, it is very important that we do not dictate tactically what we ask our professionals to do in this country. What I mean by that is that our job here is to hold the Government’s feet to the fire, and to ensure that what they do is consistent with what they say. I do not think it is our responsibility to say, “You can never change this or that capability.” My attempts with the letter that has been signed by so many are simply a first stage in drawing a line in that battle.

What I am saying, though, is that I hope the Government, the Department and, critically, the Treasury and the Prime Minister now understand that there is a resilient cohort of Government MPs who will hold the Government to account on defence spending. Whatever our party or priorities, above all we are patriots, and it is not right to allow the Government to say something about defence on the one hand and yet under-resource it on the other. They cannot always say that defence is the primary duty of Government and yet hold their hands behind their back.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

So why are you a Tory then?

[Johnny Mercer]

That is an interesting intervention —in fact, I am just going to ignore it because it was pretty childish.

We must get our priorities right when it comes to defence. Over the weekend the Government announced that £2.3 billion would be put into artificial intelligence and driverless cars. Fantastic—great stuff—but when it comes to social policies such as those we cut our cloth according to what we can afford. When it comes to defence, we listen to the professionals who we ask to go and do the job for us and to wear the uniform. We ask them what we need and we provide them with what they need to keep us safe. As has been alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) time and again, the idea that we can come to this place and say, or sell it to the general public, that threats have intensified, diversified and increased so much that another security review needs to be conducted, and yet reduce the budget or capability for our armed forces to do that, is simply not credible. It will not be worn by the British public and it will not be worn by Back-Bench Conservative MPs.

Finally, all that I am asking for, and all that the MPs who have signed my letter, and MPs across the Conservative party, are asking for—we are the party of defence—is that we meet our manifesto commitment of a 2% of GDP spend and a 0.5% above inflation increase in the defence budget. That is the platform on which I stood at the general election, and I fully expect that commitment to be realised. We must get to a stage where we are being realistic about defence, and if the threats have increased, that must be met by a commensurate increase in money, commitment and willpower from both No. 11 and No. 10.

Armed Forces Pay

Debate between Lord Beamish and Johnny Mercer

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Government are nothing if not consistent, as Conservative Governments have been throughout history, in that in opposition they call for more expenditure on the armed forces and argue that they are proud supporters of the armed forces, but when they get into power the first thing they do is cut the defence budget and show no respect for the men and women of the armed forces in terms of their pay and conditions. We have heard some remarkable things today. Conservative Back Benchers—including the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who must have quite a few members of the armed forces in his constituency—have been suggesting that pay is not important. Well, I am sure that will be news to those members of the armed forces, when they get that message.

[Johnny Mercer]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that what I was trying to say—and what I did say—was that pay was not the No. 1 issue for service. It would be disingenuous to suggest that it was. There are a number of reasons why people serve, and a great experience is on offer to the people of this country who serve. Pay is important, but it is not as important as this debate suggests.

[Mr Jones]

I find that remarkable. The hon. Gentleman is letting down his constituents by not supporting what we are arguing for, which is a fair deal on pay for members of our armed forces. If I were in his shoes, I would be making sure that I did.

The last Labour Government, during which I served in the Ministry of Defence, had a proud record of accepting the recommendations of the pay review body every single year. For example, the increase was 3.7% in 2001 and 2002 and 3.2% in 2003, and that goes right up to 2010, when the increase was 2%. However, this Government have put in an artificial cap, completely ignoring the pay review body, and it was remarkable to hear the Minister say that that does not matter because people are receiving increments. I am sorry—this may be the trade union official in me coming out here—but where someone starts affects where they end up. A 2% incremental increase may mean an increase in pay, but a 2% increase on the basic level of pay is a damn sight bigger, and we need to recognise that.

Something else that cannot be forgotten is this idea that armed forces pensions are, as I think someone said, gold plated and generous. However, people do not recognise that that is taken into account by the pay review body. I also want to remind the Conservatives that if I had sacked armed forces personnel or made them compulsorily redundant weeks away from their retirement date when I was in charge, I would have been rightly condemned. That is just another example of a Conservative Government saying one thing, but doing another. Making people compulsorily redundant is astounding.

As for the independence of the pay review body, it is clear that the Government have completely ignored its recommendation, but things are even worse than that. The previous Prime Minister David Cameron sacked the head of independent pay review body in 2013 because he did not like what it said about the X factor and pay increases. The Government have not just ignored the pay review body; they have interfered in the independent process. Conservative Members may say that pay is not important, but I am yet to meet anyone in life who does not think that getting a decent reward for their efforts is important to them.

Alongside that, we have seen declining morale. One of the Conservative Government’s betrayals is that they say, “We stand up for the armed forces.” Well, the armed forces stood at 191,710 personnel in 2010, but that is now down to 149,366. The situation is worse than that, however, because there are artificial caps on numbers in the individual services, including the Navy, which is leading to real deployability problems. Ships are not sailing because they do not have the crews. As I said, the Conservatives say that they stand up for the armed forces, but if they genuinely want to do that, they should pay people accordingly and recognise the efforts and sacrifices that individuals make on our behalf. Empty words are fine, but actions in government are different. I am proud that the Labour party—not just in the last Labour Government, but throughout its history—has always stood up for our armed forces by supporting personnel and by ensuring that our country is defended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

Thank you for squeezing me in, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not going to speak today but I felt compelled to come to the Chamber and give my two pence-worth. I very much enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), but it would be remiss of me not to point out how narrowly he danced on the line between delusion and fiction. He was veterans Minister in 2008-09, when I was fighting those campaigns. This is not about me or about anybody’s personal service; this is about truth and fact, and the fact is that the equipment with which we fought those campaigns and the care for veterans were simply appalling. I cannot stand here and allow Opposition Members to say that Labour’s record on defence is so—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Johnny Mercer]

No, I will not give way at this moment.

I cannot say that the Labour party’s record on defence is so superior to the Conservative party’s.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for one Member to accuse another Member of something that is not true and then not allow that Member to respond to it?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sure the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) will feel that if he has referred to another hon. Member in that way, he might like to take an intervention.

[Johnny Mercer]

Am I alleged to have said something that is not true? What have I said that is not true?

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am not going to get into a discussion. What is not true is what the hon. Gentleman just said about cutting support for veterans.

[Johnny Mercer]

I didn’t say that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Can we not have conversation across the Chamber? This is an intervention and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View will then respond to it.

[Mr Jones]

I was proud to introduce the Army Recovery Capability, which made sure we supported the armed forces coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq with severe injuries. I was proud to be a part of a Labour Government who introduced the Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Act 2004, which for the first time brought in lump sum payments for those severely injured. The track record of our Administration on support for veterans will stand up to any scrutiny in comparison with what the Conservative Government have done since.

[Johnny Mercer]

It may be worth the hon. Gentleman putting that debate on our offer to our veterans and service personnel to the court of public opinion. The time between 2003 and 2015 saw the biggest explosion of military charities this country has ever seen because of the lack of provision that he presided over. It would be a good thing to put that into the public domain and to see whether his argument bears out the facts.

It is important that this debate is grounded in fact. This should not be a partisan issue. We should not be talking about what Labour did or what the Conservative Government did. There are areas—[Interruption.] I have to talk about it, because of the fiction coming from the Opposition. We need to work harder on some serious elements of defence—mental health, veterans’ care, what we want our armed forces to stand for, and, crucially, what we do not want from our armed forces as we move forward to the period post-Brexit—but we must ground this debate in credibility and reality.

Yes, when it comes to pay everybody would like to be paid more. I could not find a single serviceman or woman in the UK armed forces today who would not like more money, but it would be disingenuous in the extreme if I were to stand here and say that that is the single blanket issue that drives down recruitment and reduces our ability to retain skilled men and women, or to say that a career in the armed forces is not worth it or completely constrained by appalling terms and conditions. That is not the case.

I want to address what is one of the most frustrating things about this place. We have a world-class military. Of all the things I can be accused of, of which there are many, being a Government lackey on defence is not one of them. If Members look at my record on the Iraq Historic Allegations Team and defence spending, or have a brief conversation with the Minister for the Armed Forces, who recoils at the very mention of my name, they will know that I am not a defence lackey. On our capability, yes, we had more ships in the Falklands and more tanks and so on, but in the Falklands a lot of the guns and the ships did not work. The Type 26 frigate is one of the world’s most capable combat ships. Members can shake their heads and say, “Well, it doesn’t employ millions of people and the steel did not come from exactly where I wanted it to,” but we have a world-class military. It is therefore extremely disingenuous to the people of this country to constantly use this as a political football between the Labour party and the Conservative party over who is doing better on defence. We have deep challenges, but I gently suggest that pay is not one of them.