Draft Armed Forces (Covenant) Regulations 2022 Draft Armed Forces (Service Court Rules) (Amendment) (No. 2) Rules 2022

Debate between Luke Pollard and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 26th October 2022 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see you in your place, Ms Bardell.

I welcome the Minister to her first statutory instrument Committee on the Front Bench. I hope that the Prime Minister was listening to her speech because, having sat through an enormous number of statutory instrument Committees since I was elected in 2017, it is good to hear a Minister on top of their brief and able to speak beyond the words given to them by officials. That is welcome, and I hope that the Minister stays in her place if any reshuffle comes her way. At a time of such severe international difficulties, we need good people who know our military and can make good decisions.

Labour will oppose neither of the draft statutory instruments. They both move in the right direction. However, I have a few questions and a few points to make. A number of Opposition colleagues have participated in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, as I know have Government Members, which gives parliamentarians an opportunity to look at service life. Indeed, I have just returned from Estonia, where I saw the amazing work of the King’s Royal Hussars and 2 Rifles in defending our allies there. We need to make sure that the systems put in place are suitable for not only service personnel but, importantly, their families. I know that the Minister has an interest in defence families, which is a fresh injection into the way the Ministry of Defence works, and I wish her the best of luck with that. I will ask a few questions about defence families, but I encourage the Minister and all parliamentarians to fully participate in that scheme if possible.

The AFPS could benefit from a slight tweak. At the moment, the three basic courses do not include a module on defence justice. Given the important role that defence justice plays for our service personnel and the confidence that we must have in defence justice, the ability for parliamentarians to have a passing understanding of how the defence justice system differs from the civilian system and why there is a difference would not only aid Committees such as this in scrutinising legislation, but would help us to understand daily service life.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I thought the hon. Member was going to add the experience of women. Although the Minister has done a huge amount of work on the issue, that would be another useful addition to the parliamentary scheme, so that parliamentarians could sit down and hear, behind closed doors, the true lived experience of women in the armed forces.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I agree. It is quite refreshing to see the freedom that service personnel have to speak to parliamentarians on visits, and experiences of sexual violence within the forces, which the Minister will know about from her time on the Defence Committee, are very relevant to what we are discussing today.

I will first talk about the covenant regulations and then move on to service justice. We need to recognise that it is not just our service personnel, their families and people who have served in the past who need to have a robust armed forces covenant that is as effective as possible. Across the country, there are some locations—Plymouth is one—that do the armed forces covenant very well. There are other locations where the armed forces covenant sits gathering dust on a shelf, and the ability to make sure it is truly implemented and lived is a challenge that still has not been fully met.

I would like the Minister to consider important ways in which the covenant could be strengthened. One of those is the extension of the covenant beyond education, healthcare and housing to include other areas of central Government activity—employment, social care, pensions, compensation and benefits, to name but a few. Our service personnel, veterans and their families should not incur unfair disadvantage in any walk of life, and the importance of the armed forces covenant as a principle needs to be extended to all public bodies.

There is a second area where this SI could seek to go a little further. Despite the Minister mentioning the 2023 review of the covenant, there are still no plans for the covenant to apply to central Government, including the Ministry of Defence itself. It is worth taking a moment to consider that omission. If the armed forces covenant is to be real, and if service personnel, their families and veterans are to have confidence in it, the Ministry of Defence must lead by example. I would like to see Ministers, including the Minister here today, put more effort into making sure that happens.

A whole host of service charities, including the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and the Confederation of Service Charities, have expressed concern that central Government do not have a duty under the covenant. In terms of the duties under the covenant, it is fine for this place to put additional responsibilities on local government—which has a lot of responsibilities already, but not the resources to go with them—but the Government need to walk the walk if they are to talk the talk, and that means applying these duties to central Government as well. This is not a small point. National Government oversee many policy areas that service personnel experience difficulties with, so they should have clear, measurable duties under the covenant to deliver for personnel, their families and veterans.

Satisfaction with service life has dropped below 50%, according to the Government’s own figures, which should worry Members on both sides of the House. I seek not to make a party political point; we need to make sure that we increase morale among our armed forces personnel if we are to retain their skills and experience, and honour our obligations as, in effect, employers. There are still clear failings when it comes to housing, healthcare, social care and other issues.

As we approach Remembrance week, attention will naturally turn to how the covenant is implemented, and rightly so. As parliamentarians, we should not only ask questions publicly, but challenge constructively in private and ask when it will apply and whether the 2023 review of the covenant will include consideration of its greater applicability to central Government. I am afraid 2023 is already too late.

Let me turn to the draft Armed Forces (Service Court Rules) (Amendment) (No. 2) Rules 2022. The Minister will know, because she and I have spoken about this many times, that the Labour party stands four-square with our armed forces and backs the Government’s effort in Ukraine to support our NATO allies, but we do need to make sure that we get all aspects of service life right. Although the rules are a step in the right direction, I have some questions about how we can make sure that they are delivered appropriately.

It is entirely sensible to introduce the overriding objective that the Minister has set out for courts martial and to give the Director of Service Prosecutions responsibility for warning prosecution witnesses of trial dates. Those were pragmatic recommendations from the Lyons review, which we welcome.

Likewise, it is welcome that the statutory instrument will ensure that there is at least one woman on the board of each court martial in circumstances where there are lay members on the court. A normal board will have between three and seven people, so it is a step in the right direction to have one woman there, but I would like to have a greater sense that we are moving towards balance. We need to see more women in our armed forces full stop, but the explanatory memorandum could have shown a greater sense of the direction of travel that Ministers wish to take. I would be uncomfortable with the idea that it is good enough that there is a woman on the board and that some additional women may, although not necessarily, be provided by the shuffle that the Minister explained. We need a sense of the direction of travel.

I encourage the Minister, in the implementation of the SI, to look at how the language can be tweaked to make sure we have greater representation, which is particularly important when the board considers cases that include servicewomen or situations in which a servicewoman has been affected as a victim. The lived experience of the people who are judging someone and making decisions on their career and on prosecution should have an element of familiarity with the experiences of either the person on trial or the witnesses and victims.

Some Government statements on upholding military justice are still more rhetoric than reality. I wish to put on the record the Government’s rejection of the headline recommendation of the Lyons review that murder, manslaughter and rape should be prosecuted in civilian rather than military courts when the offences are committed in the UK, with the Attorney General able to rule otherwise in exceptional cases.

It is a shame that the Government have chosen not to adopt fully the proposal—the headline recommendation—but it is more than disappointing, because the Minister may not have listened to her own recommendations. I do not wish to embarrass her, but last year she co-authored a Defence Committee report on women in the armed forces that argued that the Government should remove court martial jurisdiction over cases of rape and cases of sexual assault with penetration, as well as for cases of domestic violence and child abuse. I know the Minister has been in post for only a short time, but I encourage her to continue to provide challenge within the Ministry of Defence in respect of why the full recommendation was not included in the statutory instruments before us and on how quickly the change will come. Will she set out whether any work on that is in train in the Ministry of Defence?

There is a litany of reasons why this issue is important, including serious backlogs, investigators missing obvious lines of inquiry and the unnecessary retraumatisation of victims. Let me give the Committee two examples taken from the written evidence submitted by the Centre for Military Justice to the Defence Committee inquiry on women in the armed forces. In one case in which a servicewoman reported an alleged sexual assault, the Service Prosecuting Authority accidentally revealed the victim’s home address to the alleged assailant by sending to the alleged perpetrator a letter intended for the victim. That is clearly unacceptable. In another case, where a servicewoman reported sexual assault, court martial transcripts show that a judge advocate remarked of the

“quite appallingly bad police investigation…how stupid was it not to interview the people who were at the scene”.

There is still work to be done, and I encourage the Minister to look at whether that recommendation can be brought back.

It is unsurprising that the recent service justice system policing review said:

“The Service Police do not investigate enough serious crime to be considered proficient”.

That makes a clear distinction between service policing and the civilian role. We must understand the particular demands, stresses and secrecy that may apply in a military environment, and have examples of where that should not apply and where the expertise and familiarity of civilian policing could produce better results for victims and greater confidence in the justice system. The numbers speak for themselves. Ministry of Defence figures show that from 2015 to 2020, the conviction rate for rape cases tried under courts martial was just 9%. Recent data shows that the conviction rate was 59% for similar cases that reached a civilian court. We know that prosecution rates for rape are far too low in civilian courts, but that comparison shows a problem.

I would be grateful if the Minister answered a number of questions. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent made a point about the explanatory memorandum. I am afraid that if the Minister is to serve on Delegated Legislation Committees with me, she will need to know that I, too, read the explanatory memorandums quite closely. I am interested in why the territorial extent of the regulations includes United Kingdom overseas territories but not Gibraltar. Considering the large UK military presence in Gibraltar, why is that particular overseas territory excluded from the regulations? Are the provisions replicated elsewhere, or is a separate statutory instrument needed to deal with Gibraltar’s specific legal jurisdiction?

I am not a fan in impact assessments of the phrase

“no, or no significant, impact”

because I believe that those are two very different things. I know that it is not the Minister’s fault, and that officials who write such explanatory memorandums must use the house style, but there is a difference between no impact and no significant impact. When looking at the impact of any SI, it is unhelpful to have those blurred together.

My final question is about the quite helpful expansion of what a “family member” means in the SI. As someone who believes that families should be at the heart of our community but that we should not specify what a family is because each of our families is different and each is loved by the people within them, I was interested to see how the Government have laid out what a family is and what a relation is. When a service person has a foster child, or when there is one in a defence family, I think that would be included within the broader remit, but I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed it for the record.

May I politely challenge the use of the language

“of the full blood or of the half blood or by marriage”

in the Bill? There is language that, as parliamentarians, we should encourage movement away from. When we talk about the “full blood” or the “half blood”, it suggests that some children have a legitimacy that is different from that of adopted children, for instance. I encourage the Minister to look at whether in future SIs that type of language can be retired.

Draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2022

Debate between Luke Pollard and Carol Monaghan

Tuesday 6th September 2022 General Committees

[Luke Pollard]

Indeed. What is the expectation about energy use in the MOD? I suggest to the Minister that now might be a good time for the MOD and the Treasury to get together to look at whether single-year spending cycles are right for investment in the MOD—I do not think they are—and to see whether now is the time for proper green energy investment, especially in the many south-facing MOD-owned roofs on the defence estate, so that we can start offsetting some of the energy use involved in our armed forces. If we were to make the case that every solar panel on our roofs is one less tank that Putin can put into the field, because energy use that draws gas from Russia fuels his regime, that would be a strong signal, and something that could not only save the MOD money, but strategically benefit the country.

The procurement of our armed forces is another area that needs addressing, because it is something that wastes enormous amounts of money that could be better spent. Since 2010, the Government have wasted £15 billion of taxpayers’ money through mismanagement of defence procurement programmes, with £5 billion of this wasted since 2019 when the current Secretary of State for Defence took his post. Defence Ministers have no systematic plans to fix the broken military procurement system, which the Public Accounts Committee describes as,

“broken and repeatedly wasting…money”.

This risks our frontline forces going without the kit and equipment they need to fight, and risks our ability to field full-strength units. There are real questions to be asked about this at the heart of the Government’s incredibly poorly handled Ajax programme. We ask these questions because we want the armed forces to have the best equipment, and for it to be delivered on time with the capabilities that they ordered. However, increasingly with some of those large programmes, the equipment is delivered late and in a poor condition, which, as we have seen with Ajax, could potentially be dangerous to our soldiers through hearing loss, vibration problems and other issues. The UK’s defence industry is incredibly important, and standing next to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney today, who represents a constituency where defence manufacturing is very important, it is worth saying that we want to see this got right, because there are jobs, as well as national security, on the line.

A new threshold is needed for equipment to be sourced inside the UK, requiring proof that defence projects can be built under similar terms in Britain, because far too many of our defence contracts are being sent abroad. The fleet solid support ship is a good example—that entire ship to supply our Royal Navy should be built in Britain using British steel. A fleet solid support ship whose parts are bought from foreign yards and made from foreign steel, only to be assembled in the UK, is not a ship properly built in Britain. That means we are leaking jobs, tax revenues and skills from our shipyards. Ministers should reflect on the procurement process to make sure that all our Royal Navy ships—our Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships—are built in Britain.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about procurement and building the support ships here in the UK. Does he also agree that rather than working on year-to-year budgets, it would be more reasonable to work with much longer defence budgets, maybe covering five to 10 years, so that we could include the economic multipliers he talks about?

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Lady raises a good question about the spending strategy. One reason the Treasury is so reluctant to give the Ministry of Defence a longer running budget is that it has constantly demonstrated its inability to manage those budgets. There is a balance to be struck between longer budgets that enable projects to spend wisely, especially when coming to the end of an accounting period, and processes that ensure grip on total procurement. The hon. Lady sets out a good argument. I know Defence Ministers would like that as well, but their friends in the Treasury might not be so supportive. Such a change would be useful on a cross-party basis to those who have an interest in defence, because annual spending cycles build in waste towards the end of that cycle. We need to look at the current system because it does not drive efficiency in the manner for which we should be asking. Labour would make the Ministry of Defence the first Department subject to its proposed office for value for money’s tough spending regime and commission the National Audit Office to conduct a comprehensive audit of MOD waste to deal with that problem.

In conclusion, Labour backs our armed forces, in opposition as we did in Government, and as we will do again. There has been much cross-party agreement in recent months about our military, our armed forces and Britain’s important place in the world, but it is the job of the Opposition to inquire and scrutinise. There are big improvements still to be made in the culture, efficiency and approach of not only the Ministry of Defence, but sometimes our armed forces as well. I hope the Minister will recognise that I ask these questions from a position of pride in our armed forces. Indeed, I am proud to come from a military family and proud to represent a military city.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, Labour will support the draft order today, but I would be grateful if the Minister provided an update on the issues I have raised.

Trophy Hunting Imports

Debate between Luke Pollard and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on initiating this very good debate, in which good points have been made by a number of speakers. It is a shame that it clashes with Second Reading of the Domestic Abuse Bill, because I know many of my hon. Friends wanted to speak in this debate. I imagine that, had they been here, they would have said much the same as has been said by others in the debate, but the Minister would have heard it from a few more voices.

I welcome the Minister to his place. It may not be fashionable—or productive for my future career—to say this, but I am excited about the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) becoming a Minister. His championing from the Back Benches of causes and views that I believe many Members share has been really powerful. At the risk of injecting a partisan flavour into the debate, I have to say that sometimes we have heard the soundbite from Ministers but not seen the action that goes with it. I am certain that the hon. Gentleman will not fall for any press release camouflage on inaction. This is an area where there is a real opportunity to stop the long-grassing of policies where there is clear cross-party support, and to get on with it. I hope that when he gets to his feet in a moment, he will say exactly the same things.

We have heard some good contributions. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) mentioned a few but I will add a few more. The phrase of the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), that trophy hunting is “nauseating and revolting”, cut through and adequately described what is going on. The hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) rightly said that a ban on trophy hunting is backed by 86% of the British public. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) spoke passionately about the fact that it is not something that only happens abroad. We should recognise that and ensure that any ban takes adequate notice of that, so that it covers not just imports but exports of trophies from UK wildlife.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) used “yellowhammer” correctly—it is good to hear the yellowhammer bird getting due attention after its name has been borrowed for so many things. We all share the complete puzzlement implied by his question, “Who on earth would want to shoot a zebra?” I agree with the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who was clear when he said it was a wicked, evil practice. We should not mince our words about people who go and shoot.

I am glad that it is not just parliamentarians who have encouraged this debate; people have used their fame and celebrity to endorse it too. Ricky Gervais does not mince his words on social media when it comes to this subject. I especially like his tweet from a few years ago, which says:

“The trophies I’m proudest of are the memories of all those times I didn’t kill a beautiful, majestic, endangered species for no reason.”

Although he may choose more powerful language to describe some of the people who are engaged in trophy hunting, his leadership on social media has highlighted a cruel and inhumane practice to many people who might not otherwise have appreciated its barbarity.

Ricky Gervais and the Minister are not alone, however, and have been in good company in championing the cause. Joanna Lumley correctly said that trophy hunting is “cruel, immoral…and unjustifiable”. Bill Bailey said:

“I can’t get my head round why anyone would want to kill a beautiful creature for fun. With the dwindling numbers of species, it’s time to halt this cruel and unnecessary practice.”

He is right, as are the speeches that we have heard today.

I will ask the Minister a few questions to try to understand the detail of the proposed ban. He has been clear that we should ban trophy hunting, but Ministers in the past have not been clear about what that ban comprises in detail, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire hinted in her opening speech. The thread of Ministers to date was that the Government’s proposed ban would affect just threatened species, by taking that international classification and banning the imports of trophies in relation to them. I would like us to go much further. Labour’s position is that the ban should be for every species above least concern. That would effectively capture many more species, not just the most endangered.

Looking around the room, I see that many hon. Members served on the Committee for the Ivory Act 2018 to support the introduction of a ban on elephant ivory. Since that ban has come into place, as expected, and as mentioned in Committee, we have seen the trade move from elephant ivory to other ivory-bearing species, such as the rhino, which has experienced additional hunting since the ban on elephant ivory came in. We knew that at the time and we must not make the same mistake with the trophy hunting ban by banning it for the most endangered and allowing it to slip down to those that are just below the most endangered. The Minister will be well aware of that and, hopefully, with his power, he can make sure that it does not happen.

We need to recognise that trophy hunting, as well as being cruel and unjustifiable, can act as a cover for illegal poaching, which was the sentiment of the intervention of the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin). The proposed ban that we would like the Government to adopt would cover all species above least concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources red list, which would include species classed as vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered and extinct in the wild.

Sustainable alternatives to trophy hunting, such as eco-tourism and photographic safaris, are generating revenues that cover the real costs of conservation and effective anti-poaching work, as well as providing well-paying permanent jobs for local people. Shooting a lion such as Cecil can generate a one-off trophy fee of around $15,000. There is no evidence that that goes toward conservation, no evidence that it goes toward the local community, and no evidence that it goes toward the protection of other animals. Nature tourism, on the other hand, can generate money from the protection and valuing of those wild animals.

There is an opportunity, which has been mentioned a few times, through Brexit to come together. What Brexit has done for DEFRA debates is to open space in the Government’s legislative agenda for issues that might not otherwise have got the airtime they deserved. If we think about what has been passed by this House in recent months, on a cross-party basis, with the Brexit malaise and chaos going on around us, we will realise that many of the same faces in this Chamber have been working together on banning wild animals in circuses, banning the trade in elephant ivory and tightening up regulations across the board.

That work might not have attracted the attention of many people outside Parliament, and certainly it has not troubled some of our friends in the media, but it has been worthwhile. We should continue that spirit, whatever is happening with Brexit or outside, because there is something here that could make a real difference to the species involved.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking very eloquently about the issue and the potential opportunities of eco-tourism. He will know that last year in Scotland, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) has mentioned, the shooting of a wild goat on Islay caused a huge upset among people in Scotland and much further afield. What is most upsetting is that tourism companies are promoting Scotland as a place to come and trophy-shoot. Surely we should be clamping down on that. Companies are not just offering places in Africa as destinations; that is also happening here in the UK.

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Lady makes a very sound point, on a common theme with the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who voiced a concern about what powers the Government have over the advertising of those tourism products. I spent five years working for the Association of British Travel Agents, and in that role I supported the animal welfare guidelines that encouraged ABTA members to ensure that animals are used sustainably and without endangering them, their habitats or their handlers. There are opportunities to ensure that those principles, which are good and strong, are spread across not only ABTA members, but the entire tourism industry. I am sure that the Minister is familiar with those guidelines; if he is not, I encourage him to look at them next time he needs some bedtime reading, because there is some real strength there and some real opportunities to do the right thing. The market does not correct all ills, and in this case there is a role for real moral leadership from the Government.

I hope that the Minister will be as strong and forthright in his new role as he has been in campaigning to date. I was pleased to see a letter that he co-signed in The Guardian in April with a series of high-profile supporters, which said:

“Banning the import of hunting trophies will send a clear message to the international community that there is no place for trophy hunting in this day and age.”

We must be clear that the continuation of that colonial and neo-colonial practice of rich people descending on communities, for whom that extra money can have a positive impact on their lives, to do something that is abhorrent, is something that we should not accept any more.

The Minister was in good company in signing that letter. It was signed not only by the Prime Minister’s father and his partner, but by Michael Palin, Captain Kirk—William Shatner, that is—Matt Lucas, Will Travers of Born Free, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad), for Stroud (Dr Drew) and for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), and many others besides.

As my final remark, I encourage the Minister not to allow his passion for these topics to be diluted by the sense, which there sometimes is within Government, that animal welfare legislation can be cut up and parcelled in different parts, as happened with the Ivory Act. The Ivory Act should have been a comprehensive ban on ivory—I believe that is something the Minister himself supported from the Back Benches—but it was allowed to be parcelled up into smaller bits. I hope that the new Administration will move away from that parcelling up of animal welfare opportunities.

There is a real opportunity here for people who may be bitterly divided on Brexit and other matters to come together, on a cross-party basis, around animal welfare. I encourage the Minister to be as bold as he can be, because in these times animals do not have a voice, and every animal matters. We must ensure that we are their voice. The Minister has the opportunity to be a bull in a china shop on the previous behaviour of the right soundbite but the wrong action, and to ensure that we have the comprehensive trophy hunting ban that we deserve, which animals both in the wild and in the canned lion industry that the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire spoke about can really benefit from.

NATO

Debate between Luke Pollard and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have got towards the end of a defence debate, with all the defence family here, and no one has said the word “Plymouth”, so it seems only appropriate that I should rise to my feet and talk about Plymouth.

First, however, I want Members to cast their minds back a few years. Before I was the wonderful silver fox that Members see in front of them, I had brown hair, and back in 2004 I was at the NATO summit in Istanbul. It was there that my real affection for NATO was formed and that I understood how important it is that we co-operate across borders and are ready to face the threats coming our way.

Warfare is changing—no one is denying that it is changing—and we must keep an eye on the future. NATO needs to be flexible and adaptable, but if I am honest, it has been too hard and too structured to respond to some of its needs. It was too inflexible after the terrorist threats we saw from 2001 onwards, and it is still a little too inflexible. To return to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) made, it does not seem able to cope with understanding how hybrid warfare and online and cyber-threats face us as an alliance, and it needs to.

We know that there is increased Russian activity threatening the alliance. We know that there is a very real risk of Russian cyber-attacks in the UK, and there have been such attacks on our NATO allies. However, article 5 has not been triggered, which means that we are in this limbo land, where the Russians are getting away with these things, but if we were using the tactics prevalent 100 years ago, they would have been in a conflict. We need to understand that threat.

As well as understanding what is being done with hybrid warfare to destabilise our allies, we need to understand the use of drones and swarm warfare, which Russia is practising and using in Syria, as well as the increase in its military activities elsewhere and in the weaponising of migration.

We need to keep an eye on our high-end capabilities. In particular, I want briefly to talk about the maritime role. In Devonport, we have a world-class dockyard, a world-class naval base and skills that we really need. With increased Russian submarine activity in the north Atlantic, the anti-submarine warfare of the Type 23s and the Type 26s, which I hope those on the Government Front Bench will announce are coming to Devonport shortly, is absolutely essential, as is understanding how we can counter the rise in Russian surface fleet activity and under-sea cable spy ships, which are an increasing threat, but which are not often spoken about in this place.

We also need to protect our amphibious capabilities. The UK has fantastic amphibious capability in Albion, Bulwark and the Royal Marines, and we need to make sure that that is protected in the modernising defence review that is coming. In terms of the ministerial assurances that Albion and Bulwark will go out of service in 2033 and 2034, I hope that that commitment will be maintained in the modernising defence review, when it is published next month.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

rose—

Dr Elsie Inglis and Women’s Contribution to World War One

Debate between Luke Pollard and Carol Monaghan

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) on securing this debate. It is timely given the important anniversaries of women’s role in our history that we are celebrating and commemorating.

The contributions made by women during the first world war have long been overlooked. As we commemorate the centenary of those events, it is important that the topic receives the respect and recognition it deserves. It is important to recognise that for too long, the role of women in history in general, and particularly in conflict, has been airbrushed out—largely by men. As the European continent and much of the world descended into war, many brave soldiers and sailors, including Plymouth lads, responded to the call; they were sent overseas to the trenches or to serve their country in the Royal Navy. They were not alone in their bravery: many of Plymouth’s women back home valiantly stepped in to fill the roles that had been left vacant and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South has described, took part in providing medical support.

As more men were sent to the front, women were able to move into roles that previously had not been open to them. In Plymouth, many women became the factory workers, railway guards, postwomen, tram drivers and police officers who kept Britain and Plymouth going during those dark years. That happened right across the country, not least in my area. Thanks to the support of superb local historian Chris Robinson, who writes about the role of women in Plymouth in the world wars, some of the stories of the sacrifices that women made can come to the fore.

One key role that women took up in world war one, which proved vital to our war effort, was the often dirty and dangerous work in our munitions factories. Women put their lives at risk, being exposed to poisonous chemicals and accidental explosions. In Plymouth, a technical school was established for women in that work, and within a year nearly 400 women had been trained there in how to create munitions and were busy working on production lines in Union Street, Prince Rock and Bull Point. Women carried out that important work, helping the allies in their endeavours to outgun the central powers. The great travesty is that women were thanked for that service by receiving less than half the wages of men doing similar work.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the women of Glasgow who worked in the munitions factory. At the start of world war one, about 15,000 women were reckoned to work there; by the end, over 65,000 women were working there and playing a vital role in supporting the Army as they went forward. I place on record my tribute to those women of Glasgow.

[Luke Pollard]

There are many untold stories of women’s contributions to the war effort that need to be told across the country, including in Scotland.

A further way in which women contributed to the war effort came with the establishment of the women’s police service, which was set up by Margaret Damer Dawson in 1914. Damer Dawson had worked towards establishing a female presence in the police force for a number of years, but the war provided a new opportunity. The WPS was Britain’s first uniformed women’s police service, and within the first three months there were 50 recruits in Plymouth. That voluntary service of spirited women paved the way for the first official female police officers a few years later. One of the first to join up and serve in the WPS was Plymouth’s Nancy Astor, who is celebrating her own anniversary in two years’ time as the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat and who represented the seat that I now represent. She opened the door for more women to stand for election, and her service to our country started in the women’s police service in Plymouth.

I pay tribute to the people who have worked so hard over the last year to recognise the role of women in world war one, in particular the volunteers and staff from Plymouth City Council and Plymouth Museum who have expertly welcomed visitors and told stories of men and women’s services to our armed forces at the Commonwealth War Graves’ “Poppies: Wave” on Plymouth Hoe. That memorable and moving installation created a wave over our war memorial and is a fantastic example of how to use the ceramic poppies. It provided an opportunity for events and discussions about the people named on the war memorial, who were predominantly men, and the untold stories of women who contributed.

Earlier this year, shortly after being elected, I tabled a number of parliamentary questions about the role of women in public life and in particular about the number of statues that we have of women. As 50% of the population, it is right that 50% of the stories that are told are about women. I understand that the Department does not keep central statistics on the number of statues or pieces of public art dedicated to women from history, but given the anniversary of women getting the right to vote next year and the 100th anniversary of Nancy Astor’s election in 1919, now might be a good time to start, so we can begin to correct that and to tell the story of women’s role in public life.

When we commemorate the anniversary of the first world war, it is important to remember the brave men and women up and down the country who gave their service to our country, not only those who fought on the front or at sea, but those who fought on the home front as well. I hope that this debate concludes with the erection of the statue and the memorials that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South spoke about, and that it enables us to talk more profoundly and clearly about the role of women in world war one, which has been far too overlooked to date.