Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. As he knows, one of the things that I am trying to do is see what lessons we can draw from the relative success in those two areas and apply them to the broader reserves recruitment agenda.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

22. My local artillery Territorial Army unit in Abertillery plans a recruitment surge shortly. Given the self-inflicted problems for Army recruitment over the past year, will the Minister publish figures on how many applicants there are from Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively?

[Mr Hammond]

I do not believe that we maintain those data on the basis of the component nations of the United Kingdom, and the data that are published are a matter for the defence statistician, who is answerable to the national statistician.

IT Systems (Army Recruitment)

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The platform that the Army is putting in place is ultimately intended to deliver for all three services, but at the moment it is the Army that is principally affected by those problems. I understand that Royal Auxiliary Air Force recruitment is going extremely well at the moment.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

On 11 December—about a month ago—I asked the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), why the Government had not planned the ICT better so that the new recruitment processes and Ministry of Defence systems would work better. He said:

“What we have done is to put in proper controls and create the conditions in which smaller and leaner organisations can come in and offer better value.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 225.]

Back in the real world, how many recruitment applications have fallen between the cracks of this failed system?

Defence Procurement

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend raises a fascinating proposition: was this all some complex ruse to try to squeeze greater concessions out of the Treasury? I can assure him that that was not the intention. We genuinely wanted, and want, to explore the possibilities of using the private sector in a strategic role and, through DE&S plus, in a more traditional supportive role to get the best value-for-money proposition for the taxpayer—nothing more and nothing less.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has talked about the MOD becoming a better, intelligent customer, which is a good thing, but how will he get senior officers to adopt the different mindset and skills needed to do that?

[Mr Hammond]

There are two parts to that question. We have made substantial progress on the mindset by devolving budgets to the front-line commands, which now control their own budgets and have significant autonomy in prioritising their requirements. Front-line commands are therefore managing their own requirements, rather than having somebody else tell them what their priorities are. That has had a significant impact on the culture among the senior military cadre. As for skills, we recognise that there is an upskilling requirement, which is a key element of the intelligent customer project that we are currently running in the Ministry of Defence, which includes bringing in civilian specialist skills to support the military command budget holders in acting as customers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I fully understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. The announcement that has been made relates to the removal from Ripon of 21 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, as we consolidate around Catterick. The separate but adjacent site, Deverell barracks, and the associated training area have not been subject to that announcement. A decision on them will be made separately, but I understand that the two sites are very much linked.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

12. What account his Department takes of the social and economic effects of its procurement decisions in the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

Last year, we published the White Paper, “National Security Through Technology”, setting out the purpose of defence procurement—namely, to provide our armed forces with the best capabilities we can afford while obtaining the best possible value for money. The Ministry of Defence makes a significant contribution to the UK economy—approximately £20 billion of annual spend sustaining many highly skilled jobs in communities the length and breadth of Britain—but we also support the defence industry in the UK through active help in export campaigns and in supporting the defence growth partnership, where we share its vision to secure a thriving UK defence sector.

[Nick Smith]

It is good that the NATO summit will be held in Newport in Wales next year. Will the Minister please update me on the procurement of the Scout vehicle, which is important for jobs in the south Wales valleys?

[Mr Dunne]

I add my support to the hon. Gentleman’s efforts to ensure that the NATO summit in Newport is a great success next year. The Scout vehicle is proceeding in its demonstration phase and has passed a number of milestones. As he is aware, it is due to be delivered as part of Future Force 2020. I will not be able to give him an update on the next placing of contracts until such time as the main investment case has been made.

Defence Reform Bill

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend’s view on this matter is well known. Two weeks ago the Government set out robust proposals in a White Paper, “Future Reserves 2020”. I am confident we will be able to deliver the force we have set out, and that that force will support the level of ambition for deployment set out in the strategic defence and security review 2010.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Hammond]

I will take one more intervention and then I must make some progress.

[Nick Smith]

Will the Secretary of State tell the House the annual recruitment targets for reservists for each remaining year of this Parliament?

[Mr Hammond]

I suspect the hon. Gentleman is referring to figures that were put in the public domain last year before this process was fully under way. I have said to the House that I will be transparent about recruitment and trained-strength targets. Later this year we intend to begin publishing quarterly figures, and we will set out the expected forward trajectory at the same time. As I said the week before last, and will say again now, the path will not be smooth and there will be some lumpiness in it. The structural changes we are making in the regular Army and the Army Reserve will have an impact at the front end, but in the long run it will support the growth of reserves that we all seek.

Eliminating waste and inefficiency in our procurement systems, and making best use of the skills available, whether they are in the public or private sector, or indeed in the regular or reserve forces, are at the heart of our plan for sustainable and effective defence in times of austerity. The Government have set about transforming the way that defence is managed and delivered. Starting with the strategic defence and security review in 2010, we have looked hard at how we can carry out our activity to see whether it can be improved. As part of that process, my predecessor asked Lord Levene of Portsoken to conduct an in-depth review into every aspect of how we manage defence, and we are well advanced in implementing the changes he recommended.

Ensuring our forces have the right equipment, delivered on time, is essential if we are to maintain our capabilities in the future, and ensuring we do that cost-effectively is critical if we are to sustain them. Making full use of the expertise and skills of our reserve forces is crucial if we are to meet the security challenges that we face with smaller regular forces. In most areas, we are able to deliver defence transformation through changing the way we are organised and the way we do things in the Ministry of Defence. In two areas—procurement and the use of reserves—primary legislation is required to complete the programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

As the hon. Gentleman will know from his work on the Defence Committee, the orders for the aircraft will depend on the capability requirements of the customer nations. Italy is the European nation that is already procuring the same variant as we are; other nations that have declared an interest thus far have different capability requirements.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

How many joint strike fighter aircraft do the Government plan to have operable by 2020?

[Mr Dunne]

The Government will make their decisions on the next substantial order by the time of the strategic defence review. We expect to place an order for the first squadron this autumn, so by 2020 we are talking about an expected order of 48 aircraft.

Operation Herrick

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I am happy to do that, and it is not yet clear whether there will be any significant financial savings from the measures announced today. Clearly, we will not have to train a final, much smaller brigade for deployment to Afghanistan. That does not mean that the training will not be conducted;, it means that those troops will be training for contingent operations post-Afghanistan. That will present itself as a dividend to the military in terms of an increased readiness for return to contingent operations.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State tell the House who will be responsible for UK forces force protection post-2014? Will it be the Afghan national army, and does the Secretary of State have total confidence in that?

[Mr Hammond]

So far, as I made clear to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), we have committed only to providing trainers and life support personnel in the Afghan national army officer training academy outside Kabul. We are, of course, dependent on Afghan national security forces for overall security in Afghanistan after 2014, but we will be collocated at Qargha, at the Afghan national army officer academy, with US forces who will be running a similar academy on the adjoining site. Detailed force protection arrangements have not yet been agreed, but they are likely to include elements of UK and US forces, providing protection to the combined facility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I understand the issue that my hon. Friend raises. Like him, I pay tribute to the excellent “Fighting Fit” report, which addressed mental health for both serving personnel and veterans. He may be aware that there was a lacuna a few years ago in that reservists returning from theatre were not subject to the same decompression package as regulars and did not necessarily receive the same mental health briefings as regular troops. We have changed that so that reservists coming back from theatre get the same decompression package and mental health briefings as their regular counterparts, which helps to alleviate problems later on.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Minister tell us what problems the Government have experienced in transferring medical records of former service personnel from Defence Medical Services to GPs?

[Mr Francois]

There has been an issue, partly compounded by difficulties relating to the matter of consent. The FMed 133, as the form is known, provides a summary of a person’s medical history while in the services, and is given to members of the services when they leave. They are encouraged to present it to their GP when they resettle in the civilian community, so that the GP knows that they served and are now a veteran. The form provides information to the GP on how to receive more detailed medical records from Defence Medical Services if the GP decides that that is appropriate.

Army Career Offices (Wales)

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who has, in a nutshell, summed up the debate—perhaps I should sit down now—and that is the reason why I have secured it. Put simply, the sacrifice is unique and special. In Wales, we value the contribution that the armed forces make to our freedom. Joining the forces is not a decision that we can take lightly, as my hon. Friend has just said. It is a way of life. It will affect family and friends. Therefore, it is vital for those who seek a career in the armed forces to have all the information and advice possible available to them.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

When I visited the careers office in Cardiff, my experience was that young people, particularly those from the valleys, see the careers offices in places such as Abergavenny and Pontypridd as opportunities to learn lots of information about the great jump that they will make in joining the armed services.

[Chris Evans]

I thank my parliamentary neighbour; I am pleased that both my parliamentary neighbours have intervened on me. On the flip side, people who are not sure might think that the armed forces are not for them, so careers offices are a good facility to ensure that we recruit exactly the right people. I agree with my hon. Friend.

As I said, the armed forces are not something people sign up to online after half an hour of looking for jobs on Google or any other, job-related website and thinking, “Ah, that’s a good idea.” No, it is much more serious than that. Having a point of reference on the high street is vital. Over the years, Army recruitment offices have served Wales and the UK. Also, for the parents of potential recruits, it can be comforting to know that they will have someone to talk to about the career choice that their son or daughter is about to make. Army recruitment offices are familiar and proud features of our high streets right across Wales and Britain. They are a focal point for any young person considering the armed forces as a career.

The Ministry of Defence recently revealed that seven out of 12 Army careers offices in Wales have closed or will close by the end of next month. We are now without an Army careers office in Pontypridd, Abergavenny, Carmarthen, Haverfordwest, Rhyl, Aberystwyth or Bridgend. If we spoke to people in those communities, I am sure that the majority would know where their Army careers office was based. They might walk past it on their way to work, but it was always there. Some of them may even have popped in for a chat about what life in the armed forces is like.

As we move through life, national service becomes a dim and distant memory. Our forces’ footprint is getting smaller all the time. The closures mean that Army life is becoming much more remote. Recruitment offices in south Wales are now consigned only to major areas such as Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. In north Wales, only the offices in Bangor and Wrexham remain open. The thing that I find most disappointing is that the closures were carried out with no formal ministerial announcement and were discovered only following parliamentary questions tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith).

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I listen to what the hon. Gentleman says, but the programme is due to accelerate in 2013, and we will continue to work closely with the Welsh Government through the Wales Office and Broadband Delivery UK so that sufficient and appropriate measures are in place to ensure the funding is ring-fenced and monitored in order to try to achieve the objective. Further progress is needed, and I hope by referencing those points I have demonstrated that we are determined to make progress where needed.

The alternative ways in which potential recruits may now gain information about joining the Army, coupled with the national recruiting centre, will to some degree reduce the reliance on a high street presence. Capita will introduce a wide selection of contact channels to Army careers centres, including access to digital communication through social media, to meet that need.

Of course, at times there is no substitute for a face-to-face discussion, particularly for a life event as significant as choosing a military career in the service of one’s country, which is why the 73 Army careers centres will be retained. The centres will be spread across the United Kingdom to ensure that more than 90% of the population is within reasonable travelling distance, which is assessed to be less than an hour by car.

The hon. Member for Islwyn asked how we will address particularly rural locations, which is a fair point, but each of the Army’s regional brigades will have its own mobile recruiting unit to provide additional cover for rural locations in situ if there is assessed to be a particular need. So we are not relying purely on modern IT and the fixed Army careers centres. As part of the package there will be mobile teams that can take advice out to potential recruits, rather than asking them to go online or physically go to a centre. I hope he accepts that we have thought about that in some detail.

Army careers centres will be used for walk-ins off the street, for nurturing and supporting personnel as they proceed through the recruiting process and for formal interviews for both Regular Army and Territorial Army candidates.

[Nick Smith]

I hear what the Minister is saying about recruitment via the internet. Blaenau Gwent in the heads of the valleys is a good recruiter for the Army in particular, and it is about an hour’s drive down to Cardiff, depending on the route, I seek assurance that there will be a sustained campaign from the mobile units to ensure that young people in the heads of the valleys get a good chance to join the services.

[Mr Francois]

I believe we will still be able to give people a good chance to join the services, which, after all, is what we want. We will have what one might call modern IT methods for gaining information and registering interest. There will still be fixed Army careers centres where people can go to talk about recruitment face-to-face, and there will also be the mobile teams. Where those mobile teams are deployed will be partly down to the experience of recruiters, but the capability is available to go out to people where we believe that that would benefit both them and the Army. If we did not have that capability, the hon. Gentleman might rightly criticise us for not having it, but the fact is that we have it and we intend to deploy it to good use.

The fixed Army careers centres will be manned by a mix of military and civilian staff, whose combined roles will include visits to education establishments and other local liaison activities. That will allow military personnel to spend most of their time face-to-face with potential recruits, rather than on administrative tasks that can be best managed on a centralised basis. Service personnel will continue to be at the front end of the recruiting process. It is less an outsourcing of recruiting, as some have characterised it, and more of a partnership between the Army and Capita. The Army will still be an integral part of the process.

We have heard during this debate that offices in Abergavenny, Pontypridd, Bridgend, Carmarthen, Haverfordwest, Aberystwyth and Rhyl will all be closed by the end of next month. Indeed, some of them have already closed, although not all the closures were due to the recruit partnering project per se. Army careers centres will continue to exist in Bangor, Wrexham, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport to provide guidance and advice as required.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that all the closures have been managed properly and in accordance with best practice. About 300 civilian staff employed in the old offices across the United Kingdom had the opportunity to transfer to Capita, and many chose to do so. Others chose to apply for the Ministry of Defence’s voluntary early release scheme. Full and proper trade union consultation took place throughout the process. As I know that he has a background as a trade union official, I am happy to assure him, before he asks, that TUPE applied.

Members will know of the Army’s intent to raise the trained strength of the Territorial Army to 30,000 by 2018 as part of the Army 2020 transformation. I have a particular interest in the process as the Minister who will effectively be in charge of it on a day-to-day basis and because I served in the Territorial Army in the 1980s as a young infantry officer. We trained for a different war in those days—really for one scenario, world war three—so I was never mobilised for active service, I was never shot at other than in training and I have no medals, but I have the Queen’s commission on my wall at home, I have worn the uniform and I understand the ethos. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that it is personally important to me.

The recruit partnering project is key to success, and I assure hon. Members that I have been taking a personal interest in how the Army are gearing up to meet the challenge. I am keen to ensure that all measures are taken to create the right conditions to grow the Army’s reserve. On Monday, I met with the Adjutant-General and his team at Pirbright as well as with senior officials at Capita, including Shaun King, its business director, to be briefed on how the process will operate. I spent some hours going in detail through how it is intended to work, so that we can meet our objectives, including having 30,000 trained members of the Territorial Army by the target date of 2018.

Deployment to Mali

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

No.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

May I press the Secretary of State? Will he tell us more about the relationship between the European Union training mission and the French military mission? Will he also tell us what is happening to the Sentinel security system, which was going to be cut under the strategic defence and security review? Will it be reprieved?

[Mr Hammond]

To answer the last question first, the ongoing use of Sentinel is not currently funded beyond 2015. It remains one of the candidate programmes for the—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) cackles from the Opposition Front Bench, but he was a Defence Minister in the previous Government who left us with a £38 billion gap between the equipment they had ordered and the budgets available to pay for it. We are having to prioritise and identify the programmes that are most important to maintaining Britain’s national security. Sentinel is a candidate programme for funding after 2015, and we will continue to look at its run-on costs and whether we can justify the investment in them.