Ukraine and Georgia

Debate between Nia Griffith and Leo Docherty

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

We are all rightly proud of the skills of our armed forces personnel and the training that they are providing for Ukrainians through Operation Interflex, but I understand that that programme is only designated up until this summer. Can the Minister confirm that it will continue for as long as it is needed?

[Leo Docherty]

Wholeheartedly, Mr Speaker. Our commitment to training our Ukrainian allies is enduring, and of course, we will always respond to the type and form of training that they themselves require.

Death of Alexei Navalny

Debate between Nia Griffith and Leo Docherty

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

I agree. Apart from anything else, it is a matter of justice and international law. The cogs turn slowly, but we should have confidence that they do turn.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The gruesome treatment and appalling murder of Alexei Navalny are a stark reminder, if one were needed, of the evils of Putin’s regime. Time and again, we have asked what progress the Government are making on overcoming the legal concerns about repurposing frozen Russian assets to support the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine, as countries like Canada and Estonia are already doing. Yet again, we have had an empty response this afternoon. Will the Minister now prioritise this issue and come back to the House as soon as possible with a real plan for how the UK can use those assets to help Ukraine?

[Leo Docherty]

We are working at pace. It is urgently important and, of course, we will keep the House updated.

Ukraine Recovery Conference

Debate between Nia Griffith and Leo Docherty

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct: the last two days have embodied hope of a brighter Ukrainian future, based on their tremendous courage and human capacity. When it comes to Russian assets, as the Prime Minister made clear, we are looking at lawful routes. That work will continue at pace, and I am grateful for her sustained interest.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Ukraine’s extensive grain fields provide food not just for Ukraine, but for people living in countries many miles away. The task of recovery from landmines and devastating floods is immense. What in particular are the Government doing to prepare to assist that recovery, and what further steps will they take to encourage a broader range of countries to contribute to that work?

[Leo Docherty]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that very relevant point. The impact of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam was appalling. We have injected an additional £16 million-worth of humanitarian assistance to enable aid partners to help some 32,000 people affected by it. That is on the back of more than £200 million of humanitarian aid last year. I think that our example has encouraged others. The global flow of humanitarian aid to Ukraine in order to deal with the impact of the dam, or to cover anti-mining, is hugely impressive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Leo Docherty

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

2. What steps the Government are taking to tackle sexual harassment against women in the military.

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)]

We are doing a huge range of work right across defence, both institutional and cultural, to ensure that sexual harassment is not an issue. We have taken the complaints procedure out of the chain of command, and established the Defence Serious Crime Unit to tackle any criminal wrongdoing. We will introduce training right across defence to ensure that we generate a military culture that respects women. That is all the more important because women can now serve in every single role.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

If the Minister has not already done so, I recommend that he make contact with the excellent organisation Salute Her, which I visited in North Tyneside. It supports women veterans, many of whom suffered sexual abuse in the armed forces, and their stories are harrowing. I remind the Minister that, shockingly, a recent Ministry of Defence survey showed that one in seven women in the armed forces has been subject to sexual harassment in the past 12 months alone. What more can he do to work with colleagues throughout the armed forces to root out that dreadful culture?

[Leo Docherty]

I have met Salute Her, and we pay attention to its recommendations. The work being done following the Wigston review is hugely important, and I commend the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton). That body of work, and the recommendations that we have overwhelmingly accepted, will be carried out at pace across defence.

Ukraine: UK and NATO Military Commitment

Debate between Nia Griffith and Leo Docherty

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. This is turning into a war of attrition. It will last as long as President Putin has the mistaken conviction that, by killing people in the Donbas region and occupying Ukrainian sovereign territory, he is somehow delivering a strategic victory for Russia. He is not. Ultimately, the Russian people, undermined by their leadership, will be the lever to ensure a different direction is taken.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Since 2010, consecutive Conservative Governments have cut our Army by over a third, from over 102,000 to some 80,000, with further cuts planned. I absolutely despair at the Minister’s set-piece answers about changing threats. In the very week when the head of the Army, Sir Patrick Sanders, said that we need to be

“ready to fight and win wars on land”

and the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Chair of the Defence Committee, who speaks with deep knowledge of the subject, says that the armed forces are overstretched, will the Minister now commit to rethink, forget the set-piece answers, and actually consider what numbers we need in our armed forces going forward?

[Leo Docherty]

We have considered what we need. We have more money than ever before, with an additional £24 billion, which is delivering a more lethal, better protected, more mobile and readier military. It is in the defence Command Paper; we have been at this for a couple of years. The Chief of the General Staff’s remarks are in accordance with that—he agrees with the plan, of course, because he is the head of the Army. It is not about simplistic measurements of numbers of people, but about effect. At long last, we are embracing technology to give our people the most lethal capability, which is what they need.

Armed Forces Pay

Debate between Nia Griffith and Leo Docherty

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith]

The hon. Gentleman needs to take cognisance of the fact that in every year we were in office, we spent considerably more on defence than the 2% of GDP commitment. In fact, in our last year in office, we spent 2.5% of GDP on defence—a figure that this Government have never matched.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am a former soldier and not a mathematician, but I suggest that the hon. Lady studies the figures that the Ministry of Defence has released, which show that in 2015 its annual budget was £34.3 billion, and that in 2020-21 it will be £39.7 billion. That number is clearly going up, so overall the budget is increasing. To characterise the situation as a landscape of cuts is, frankly, erroneous.

[Nia Griffith]

Indeed, the number needs to go up, because costs are escalating. We have said clearly that we would match that increase, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that costs are escalating far higher than that figure will accommodate.

At this time of immense global uncertainty, we cannot allow numbers to continue to slide, month after month, while all we get from the Government is warm words and crippling complacency. The Government’s chosen recruitment partner, Capita, is completely unfit for the job at hand. We have had warning after warning that Capita has not fulfilled its basic obligations, but as the number of personnel recruited continues to fall, the amount paid to Capita has grown and grown.

We propose to take real action to begin to address that state of affairs, by lifting the public sector pay cap and giving our forces a fair pay rise. I recognise that that alone would not be a silver bullet for the crisis in recruitment and retention, but we know from personnel that pay is one of the main reasons why they choose to leave our armed forces. Satisfaction with basic rates of pay and pension benefits is at the lowest level ever recorded. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has found that there is an

“over-riding sense of uncertainty and an increasing view that the offer will only get worse”.

Barely a third of service personnel are satisfied with their basic pay, and 42% have said that pay was a push factor for them in choosing to leave the forces. Is that any wonder, when our servicemen and women have had to shoulder real-terms pay cuts that have left them badly worse off? Between 2010 and 2016, the starting salary of a corporal fell by nearly £2,000 in real terms, whereas for a flight lieutenant that figure was £2,800.

At the same time as they have been hit by real-terms pay cuts, our servicemen and women have faced rising costs in forces housing because changes to charges for service family accommodation mean rent increases for nearly three quarters of occupants. The Government’s future accommodation model risks adding to that pressure because it fractures forces communities by forcing service families into the private rented sector, with all the additional costs that that brings to them and the taxpayer. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has warned of a “perfect storm” for personnel who face increases in rent and national insurance contributions, at the same time as their pay is cut in real terms.

Let us be in no doubt that the responsibility for the below-inflation rises lies firmly with the Government. Since the Government lost their majority at the general election, Ministers have made great play of the supposed independence of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. They would have us believe that the pay review body sets the rates and Ministers merely implement them, as if it were some coincidence that the body had not recommended an above-inflation rise since 2010. But that is little more than a cynical attempt by Ministers to shirk responsibility, because of course they instruct the pay review body to work within the context of the cap. Despite all the warm words from the Secretary of State and Ministers, the Treasury has said that it will not fund increases above and beyond the 1% cap; that is a fact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

I shall make some progress before I give way.

A few years ago, the Leader of the Opposition said:

“I would like us to live in a world where we spend a lot less on defence.”

In 2015, he said:

“Why do we have to be able to have planes, transport aircraft, aircraft carriers and everything else to get anywhere in the world?”

Shortly after that, he said:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world, instead of taking pride in the size of their armed forces, did what the people of Costa Rica have done and abolished their army”.

What a disgraceful indictment of the Leader of the Opposition’s attitude.

[Nia Griffith]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to do what the Leader of the Opposition is going to do today and vote for the motion to show his unequivocal support for our armed forces.

[Leo Docherty]

I look forward to every single opportunity in this place to demonstrate my commitment to the armed forces, but playing the games of the Opposition will not be included in my repertoire.

I was pleased during Prime Minister’s questions to extend a warm invitation to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to visit my constituency, Aldershot, the home of the British Army, and the Aldershot garrison. In the spirit of public service and the national interest, I extend that invitation to the Leader of the Opposition. If he made time in his diary to spend time with some of the regiments we have in the garrison—including the 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards, the 1st Battalion the Scots Guards, the 4 Rifles and the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment—that would not only improve his turnout, but generate a greater degree of sympathy for the armed forces that he would do well to express in future.

On a slightly more serious note, the message that we send to our young men and women who are considering a career in the armed forces must be positive and upbeat. We live in a time of unparalleled global instability: the middle east is in flames; NATO is being challenged by Russia; and there is a potential nuclear conflagration in North Korea. We have huge global threats and challenges. I am very pleased that the British armed forces will be able to deliver on a global scale both hard and soft power over the coming years. We should make it very clear to the young men and women who are considering serving in the armed forces that the future is very bright. If there are any young people who are watching this debate, they should know that there are tremendous careers available in the armed forces. If they do join up, they will be doing their country proud.