Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

My right hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the fact that the one thing we do not want to do is to lose talent. I made reference earlier to the medical review process that we are looking at. We have already found areas where we think we can improve, and I look forward to those improvements being implemented shortly.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

May I welcome the Secretary of State to her post?

It is scarcely credible that after all Capita’s incompetence on the recruitment contract, its failure on the defence estate’s management contract and the assessment by experts that this company carried the highest possible risk factor, the Minister is still pushing ahead with plans to outsource the Defence Fire and Rescue Service to Capita. To make matters worse, his Department is now spending hard-earned taxpayers’ money on an expensive legal battle with rival company Serco. Is it not high time that the Government stopped throwing good money after bad in pursuit of an ideological fixation with privatisation, did the right thing and abandoned plans to outsource the Defence Fire and Rescue Service?

[Mark Lancaster]

I do not think there is any ideological belief about having to use Capita. For reasons I have already explained, we are seeing progress in the one particular contract that I am responsible for. With regard to the Defence Fire and Rescue Service, which also falls under the Army, there has been a court case that is currently under review, as the hon. Lady knows.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The size of the Army is in freefall under this Conservative Government. The number of fully trained regulars has fallen from 78,000 to 75,900 on this Minister’s watch. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has responsibility for defence people, is reported to have said that he will resign if that number falls below 70,000. What about the Minister for the Armed Forces—is he prepared to make that same commitment?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am certainly not prepared to resign from my role as a member of the Army Reserve, because that would really not help matters, would it? The hon. Lady over-eggs the pudding slightly by saying that the numbers are in freefall. Yes, numbers have fallen but, with the highest number of applications on record in January, we have already explained why we are confident that the numbers will increase. Crucially, the Army remains at 93% manning and can meet all of its operational commitments.

[Nia Griffith]

Does that not say it all? The Minister does not even have the courage to put his job on the line. Time and again, he comes here and bluffs his way through with empty rhetoric, but the simple fact is that he has failed completely and Army numbers are falling month after month. At best he is complacent; at worst he has junked the stated target of 82,000 and does not have the guts to tell us. When is he going to accept that it is his responsibility to end this failure and get a grip?

[Mark Lancaster]

I have been accused of many things in my life, but lacking courage is probably not one of them. If the hon. Lady knew anything about me, she would probably realise why that is the case. None the less, the issue remains a challenge and I am confident—as I have just said, recent figures show the highest number of applications on record in January—that the situation is improving.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Following on from what was said by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mark Francois), the reality is that the size of the Army has fallen in every year since the Conservatives came to power. For all the talk, the fact is that the initial applications are not turning into enlistments. Will the Minister tell the House what the trained strength of the Army will be at the end of this Parliament if the current trend and record we have seen so far continues?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am confident that at the end of this Parliament, assuming that that is 2022, the trained strength of the Army will be higher than it is now.

[Nia Griffith]

I do not think that gives us very much reassurance. Let me tell the Minister now that, if the decline continues at the same rate it has been over the time the Conservative party has been in government, by May 2022 the Army will be down to just 68,000. Given that the promise to reach 82,000 soldiers was unceremoniously dumped from the Conservative manifesto at the last election, will the Minister tell the House whether the Government are still committed to reaching that number? If so, what is his plan for how to do so?

[Mark Lancaster]

With respect to the hon. Lady, she talks about “the Army”. I assume that by that, she actually means the Regular Army—when she talks about 68,000. As far as I am concerned, the Army also includes the Army Reserve, giving a combined force of about 112,000. It also includes the approximately 3,500 soldiers who wear a uniform and are proud to call themselves soldiers but are currently under training. I think she needs to think about what definition she is using.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

I have not seen any evidence that supports what my hon. Friend has just said, so I would be grateful if he could supply it. None the less, the point he makes about our veterans being pursued legally is an important one. I can only refer him back to the Adjournment debate, I think on 25 June, when over 50 right hon. and hon. Members came to the House to discuss the matter. There is a consensus across the House that this is an issue we simply must address. He will be aware that the Government have consulted on the issue and we intend to publish the results of the consultation shortly.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

A scathing report by the Public Accounts Committee has found that the Ministry of Defence lacks the strategy to remedy, before 2023, the skills shortages now apparent in over 100 critical trades. Those shortages are putting an unprecedented strain on servicemen and servicewomen, with morale in freefall. When will the Government face up to the fact that personnel numbers have been plummeting on their watch, and what specific action will the Minister take to respond to the recommendations in the Committee’s report?

[Mark Lancaster]

We have already discussed some of the actions we are taking, but equally it is important to say that, while the hon. Lady likes to project a picture of gloom, the Army, for example, is actually over 93% manned and fulfils all its operational commitments. Our service personnel are getting opportunities today—the opportunity to train overseas, or, crucially, through training itself—that they may not have had five or six years ago. I have already talked about the fact that the Ministry of Defence is the largest provider of apprenticeships in the United Kingdom. These are some of the things that the hon. Lady might like to champion and praise for a change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Capita’s recruiting partnership project is failing on every measure. It has missed the MOD target for savings by more than £100 million in the past six years and the latest figures show that the number of personnel in the Army has fallen yet again. Does the Minister agree with Labour that it is time to take this failing contract back in-house?

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mark Lancaster)]

No, I absolutely do not. The hon. Lady’s comments are slightly short-sighted. There have been challenges for the defence recruiting system in recent months, but I am confident that, because of some of the hypercare measures, we are firmly on the up.

[Nia Griffith]

After Capita’s abysmal failure to deliver the recruitment project, many people would question its capacity to carry out any major MOD contracts, but the Government’s decision to outsource the Defence Fire and Rescue Service to Capita when the MOD has scored the company as 10 out of 10 for risk simply beggars belief. The Minister’s response to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) suggested that the Government are ideologically obsessed with privatising key services without considering the consequences. Is it not surely time for an urgent rethink of this dangerously short-sighted policy?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

We do not directly target cadets for recruitment in the armed forces. However, it is a fact that nearly 18% of members of the armed forces were once cadets and 4% of cadets go on to join the armed forces.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Potential recruits may well be concerned about the issue of legal claims against personnel and veterans, especially in the light of the Iraq historic allegations team debacle. It is now more than a year since the Conservatives made a manifesto promise to tackle those claims, and the issue has been raised repeatedly by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Why has nothing been done?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

We have heard from the Government ad nauseam that the Royal Navy is growing when that is demonstrably untrue. There continues to be a sharp divide between rhetoric and reality. It is utterly unacceptable that the House should hear about significant potential cuts from the newspapers, as we did yet again this weekend. Can the Minister refute those reports, and confirm that we will not see a repetition of the 2010 scale of cuts in our armed forces?

[Mark Lancaster]

It is deeply disappointing that the hon. Lady once again comes to the Dispatch Box almost trying to talk down our Royal Navy. As is clear from the opening comments, we are absolutely committed to some £63 billion-worth of investment in our Royal Navy. Only shortly before Christmas we saw the Queen Elizabeth arriving in Portsmouth, after £120 million worth of investment in Portsmouth. We have now laid the first contracts for the first three Type 26s, and we are looking at Type 31s, and there are also nine new P-8 aircraft. The investment in our Royal Navy is significant, so for the hon. Lady to come to the Dispatch Box and simply try to talk it down is deeply disappointing.

[Nia Griffith]

Once again we do not seem to have very clear answers on that front. We also know that a lack of personnel is a driving factor for decisions in the Royal Navy. Capita is failing miserably on recruitment targets, failing to deliver savings, and is still bungling its IT systems, so what specific steps will the Minister be taking to get to grips with this situation?

[Mark Lancaster]

We seem to be switching seamlessly from the Navy to the Army. [Interruption.] If it is in order, that is fine, but there is continuing work on recruitment in the Army. I am pleased to say that compared with this period last year, applications are up about 20%. There have been some minor glitches in the new computer system, but they are being ironed out and I am confident that we will see recruitment into the Army increasing.

Armed Forces Pay

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

So we have a crucial marketing budget. Would that be scrapped? I am going to Catterick in two weeks to be the passing-off officer for the latest group of Gurkhas to pass off. That is a fully recruited course; not all courses are, but I am delighted to say that the last Sandhurst course was also fully recruited.

[Nia Griffith]

rose—

[Mark Lancaster]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, but then I must make progress.

[Nia Griffith]

As the Minister knows well, newspapers do not always report things the right way round. The point we are making about the marketing costs is that they have rocketed. The question is, what value for money are those costs providing? What value for money is the contract with Capita providing? What evaluation have the Government done of whether the money spent on Capita—spent on marketing—is providing value for money in view of the returns they are getting? That is what we want to see.

[Mark Lancaster]

I am not sure whether we have seen a U-turn in Labour party policy—[Interruption.] So we have not seen a U-turn. Would Labour still scrap the marketing budget? Can we have some clarity? Is Labour proposing to scrap the marketing budget or not?

[Nia Griffith]

The point that I was making is that there has been a massive increase in the marketing budget for zero returns in additional recruitment. That is the point—is it value for money? The Government are running the contract. They are employing Capita. They need to answer as to exactly what value they think they are getting out of Capita.

[Mark Lancaster]

I am going to do the House a favour and move on.

As alluded to earlier, for those joining our armed forces, pay is not the be all and end all. People sign up to challenge themselves, experience adventure and learn new skills. The most frequently cited reason for leaving, according to the 2017 armed forces continuous attitude survey, is the impact of service on family and personal life. That is why we are keen to do all we can to improve life for our personnel. Some 70% of our people told a recent MOD survey that they wanted more flexible working opportunities, so we are introducing a flexible working Bill. It will enable regular service personnel temporarily to change the nature of their service, enabling part-time working or protection from deployment to support an individual’s personal circumstances “where business need allows”.