Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Mark Francois and Gerald Howarth(11 years ago)
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Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
May I support what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, as the loss of the maritime patrol aircraft capability is the most serious loss we face at the moment? May I urge the Minister not just to push this out to the SDSR of 2015 but to reassure the House that work is being undertaken by the Ministry of Defence today to find ways to remedy that serious capability loss?
Mr Francois
As my hon. Friend—again, a former RAF officer—will be aware, we already work with allies in a number of ways to fill that gap, but I assure him that we will look at the issue seriously in the wider context of ISTAR and of the SDSR.
Armed Forces
Debate between Mark Francois and Gerald Howarth(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Francois
I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry).
Mr Francois
I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend says. Armed Forces day has gathered momentum in the past few years. It has become a bigger event in the calendar of every community around the country, and there will be 300 events across the United Kingdom on Saturday. I hope that it will gather even greater momentum in the months and years ahead. I shall now give way to a knight of the realm.
Sir Gerald Howarth
My right hon. Friend has paid tribute to the excellent Colchester military wives choir, but can I assure him that he has not lived until he has heard the Aldershot military wives choir, which is even better? Unfortunately, it will not be performing here in Portcullis House as originally planned, but it will be available to perform in Aldershot, and I hope that I can encourage all my hon. Friends to come and hear it.
Mr Francois
I can assure my hon. Friend that I most certainly have lived, but we won’t go into that now. I do not want to start anything more than friendly competition between the different military wives choirs, but if his choir is anything like as good as the one from Colchester, it will have achieved a very high standard indeed.
Another important point about Armed Forces day is that all the events will be slightly different, and personal to the groups and individuals involved. That is an important aspect of the day: it is people-led. The Ministry of Defence is supporting the day financially by allocating grants totalling some £320,000 to 100 of this year’s events, but we do not dictate the nature of the events. We do play an organisational role in supporting some of the larger gatherings, however. This year’s national event will be held in Nottingham, and the city has fully embraced its role as host. It will be attended by Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Secretary of State for Defence, the Minister for the Armed Forces, the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff and, I am pleased to say, the shadow Secretary of State for Defence as well.
Our support for members of the armed forces must be more than just symbolic. While it is important to pay tribute to them on Armed Forces day, we must make sure that we provide them with the practical support they deserve all year round. That is why this Government made honouring the armed forces covenant an important objective and why we enshrined in law its two key principles: that the armed forces community should not face disadvantage with regard to the provision of public and commercial services, and that special consideration is appropriate in some cases, particularly for those such as the injured and the bereaved who have given the most.
The Secretary of State for Defence is now obliged to report annually to Parliament and to the country on the implementation of the covenant, and the first of these reports was published in December last year. It is important to this Government to make sure that we support our armed forces as best we can. The Chancellor demonstrated this by allocating £35 million from the fines levied on banks for attempting to manipulate the LIBOR interest rate to support the armed forces covenant, mainly through grants to service charities. The first tranche of this funding included £1 million for Fisher House, which provides accommodation for the families of wounded personnel being treated at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. Fisher House was opened by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, only last Friday; I was privileged to be able to attend and to have the opportunity to visit some of the wounded while I was there.