Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I got the gist. The armed forces compensation scheme and the war pension scheme will be dramatically improved by the ongoing digitalisation of veterans’ services. That is a huge commitment that will bring us into the 21st century and improve the service that is provided to veterans who are seeking compensation. The hon. Gentleman will know that in the last financial year there were 61 complaints to Veterans UK and 2,000 expressions of thanks for the services people had received.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

9. What recent progress his Department has made on the AUKUS partnership.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

I am pleased to confirm that we have made significant progress in developing the AUKUS partnership. The AUKUS defence ministerial meeting last month announced a range of tri-national activities taking forward advanced capabilities, including our deep space advanced radar capability, DARC. Australian personnel are training in the UK and the US, and £4 billion-worth of contracts have been awarded to UK companies building SSN-AUKUS. Finally, Congress passed legislation to enable AUKUS to facilitate frictionless trade between partners, including the reform of the international traffic in arms regulations.

[Mrs Latham]

The Secretary of State, together with the Australian Prime Minister, was recently welcomed at Rolls-Royce Raynesway in my constituency as part of the AUKUS preparations. I am sure the Minister would also be welcomed, if he can find time in his schedule for a visit. Two years ago, Rolls-Royce opened its doors to the UK’s first nuclear skills academy, which takes on 200 apprentices annually and trains them to become nuclear engineers. Has the Minister considered how the Government can work with Rolls-Royce to further the UK’s nuclear skills capacity?

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her excellent question and I would be delighted to visit Raynesway. Last August, I was pleased to announce the launch of the nuclear skills taskforce, jointly with the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). The taskforce will drive activity through a coherent action plan, bringing together Government, academia and employers, crucially from across both civil and defence nuclear sectors, including from Rolls-Royce. It will build on existing work to address the skills challenge across the nuclear sector and will bolster our ability to deliver on our commitments made under the AUKUS defence partnership.

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[Grant Shapps]

Of course anyone who is serious about the defence budget has to make the decision about whether to put into maintenance ships that have already served twice their intended lives—18 years and more, times two—and that would come out of that maintenance after brand-new ships were at sea. There is obviously a decision for the Royal Navy to make on that, but I remind the House that there are eight Type 26s and five Type 31s under construction or under contract.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T5. We face a complex range of security threats and challenges in our rapidly changing world. Cyber-attacks are increasingly common and nations across the world are preparing to become combat ready for space warfare. What assessment has the Minister’s Department made of supporting defence jobs to assist the UK’s efforts against cyber and space warfare?

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who asks a second excellent question, given the growing importance of the cyber and space domains. On cyber, I can confirm that the 2022 national cyber strategy highlights the Government’s commitment to growing the UK cyber-ecosystem and that new cyber-career structures are being developed across Defence, with new ways of training, upskilling and rewarding our people. On space, we have created a space academy for Government, industry and academia and are supporting cross-Government work to develop a space workforce action plan for 2024.

Ukraine Update

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out the Russians’ woeful performance. I do not celebrate the loss of anyone’s life, and when I see the huge casualty rates of Russian soldiers, I think, as a former soldier, that it is a disgrace and a betrayal of those young men. It is hard to have sympathy when clearly it is not just the generals who are engaged in the war crime and butchery that we have seen, but mothers and wives in Russia are left behind because the arrogance of generals, poor performance and corruption has led many of those young men to their deaths.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about mercenaries, yes, we see evidence of the Wagner Group now being actively deployed in Ukraine. We have seen some free Syrian fighters. We have seen media reports around Chechnya volunteers. The Wagner Group is a pain and a pest globally used—deniably, apparently, but it is not really that deniable—as an arm of the Kremlin. We have seen it in Africa. We see it in Mali now. We have seen it in Libya and elsewhere. The international community needs to come together to deal with the Wagner Group because whatever happens in Ukraine—its members are not getting very good kit and they are being some of the first to die, so it is not a great recruiting advert for it—it is going to be a problem that we have to deal with.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I commend the Secretary of State for the actions he has taken to help Ukraine. In history, this will be seen not just as war crimes but as a genocide. Will he work with me to persuade the Foreign Office that, although obviously different from the Holodomor in the 1930s, this will be seen as a genocide in the same way?

[Mr Wallace]

What is really important on the accusation of both genocide and war crimes is that it does not need a politician to make that allegation. We are lucky in this part of the world to have the International Criminal Court, courts in the Hague and independent investigators who are right now collecting evidence and will be able to point a finger without any favour or political agenda. That is a really important difference between us and them. The Russians would love politicians in the west to be standing up and pointing fingers because then they can say, “You would say that, wouldn’t you?” I want to see our respected judiciary and our law enforcement agencies gathering the evidence and then putting it to the people who politically we all think are clearly responsible for many of the problems in Ukraine.

Ukraine

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and the way that he and his Front-Bench Labour colleagues have engaged with the Government throughout all of this. It just goes to show that at times of national emergency this House is at its very best.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that NLAW—the next generation light anti-tank weapon—has already proven to be invaluable. They are unsubstantiated reports, but none the less we are aware of a number of circumstances in which they have been used to defeat Russian armour. We are therefore very aware of their utility, both in open battle, during the initial phase of the conflict, but also in the urban domain, in any resistance or insurgency that might follow. It will not surprise the right hon. Gentleman to know that NLAW, among other systems that have similar dual utility in both open battle and whatever may come next, is high on our list of things that we are looking to supply.

I can sense the right hon. Gentleman’s frustration, and I know that the House would like to hear the full detail. Suffice to say that the Secretary of State has instructed military officers in Defence to look across the full UK inventory for everything that we have right now that might be usable in the circumstances and to look at whether that could be sent forward and absorbed by the Ukrainians. However, one has to be clear that most systems require some degree of training, so it is not just the logistics of moving them to the country, nor indeed the challenges of the export of systems, in that we would need all the countries that have intellectual property or that operate the system to give their permission for it to be donated. It is also the ability to train up Ukrainian forces to use it thereafter. However, we are leaving no stone unturned, and the right hon. Gentleman should be assured that we want to see as much British kit in the hands of the Ukrainians as we can manage.

The right hon. Gentleman asked which objectives were not taken. He will forgive me if, while clearly we indulge in a bit of information manoeuvre from the Dispatch Box to remind the Russian public that President Putin may well have bitten off more than he can chew, we are not going to compromise the intelligence that we have got altogether. Suffice to say, we are pretty certain that in the Kremlin last night there will have been some pretty urgent reflections on the speed of the advance compared with what they anticipated. The Russian people should be calling President Putin and the kleptocracy that surrounds him out on that, because young Russian men and women are being sacrificed in the name of President Putin’s hubris.

As for the NATO response force, further contributions are under consideration. The UK is already the second largest contributor in terms of the surge forces that have come forward, second only to the United States, but we are clear that we may need to provide more in land, sea and air, and we will do so if other NATO allies are unable to respond at the pace that we could. The 1,000 troops that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned who are on standby for humanitarian support in the countries immediately adjoining Ukraine will be deployed as and when those countries ask for them, but thus far no request has come. They remain at high readiness, forward present at a camp very close to RAF Brize Norton, so that they can be deployed at hours’ notice, but at the moment Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Poland have not yet asked for that support.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about when the enhanced forward presence battlegroups will have been doubled up and when the brigade headquarters will be in place. I encourage all colleagues to follow the excellent Twitter feed of the 3rd (United Kingdom) Division, the Iron Division as they call themselves. There were some fantastic pictures yesterday of Challenger 2 tanks being loaded on to low loader trucks to be driven north through Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, and into Estonia. That is an extraordinary effort for a battlegroup that was not supposed to be deploying for three more months and was in the middle of a training routine in Germany. It has turned that around very quickly. It is a testament not only to the Royal Welsh battlegroup but to the brigade headquarters, 3rd Division and the Field Army that that work has been completed so quickly; we expect them to be complete in Tapa by 1 March.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

What reassurance can my hon. Friend give to the Ukrainian community in Derby and Derbyshire, who will have family members over there, that we are doing all we can to support the everyday, ordinary Ukrainian families who are having to put up with this incursion by Putin? I would like my hon. Friend to give an assurance that we are doing whatever we can.

[James Heappey]

Last night the Secretary of State and I had to leave during the Prime Minister’s statement to return to the MOD for another briefing. To the surprise of the Prime Minister’s protection officers, we decided to walk back through the protest that was happening on Whitehall. I was struck not by the anger and the screaming and shouting that normally accompany protests in Westminster, but by the incredible sombreness and resolve, but also the fearfulness, shown by so many in that protest. They, as my hon. Friend said, will have family and friends back home in Ukraine. These were not people protesting over a political cause; these were people protesting for help with the safety of their loved ones.

The United Kingdom is not regarded by Ukraine as one of its best friends in the world by accident. For the last 10 years we have been training the Ukrainian armed forces through Operation Orbital. We were one of the first movers in providing lethal aid, and we sent troops to Ukraine only two or three weeks ago, when the build-up of Russian troops was well under way, to deliver the training that was required to allow those highly successful anti-tank weapons to be employed in battle, as they have now been. We will continue to do all that we possibly can, and I know that the excellent Minister for Europe and North America, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), is driving hard to ensure that all the necessary consular support is in place so that people who have connections with Ukrainians who are still in Ukraine can be supported through the excellent work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

Again, that is completely incorrect. The Royal British Legion does not think that. It thinks that there is a risk, and it has outlined that risk. We have taken that risk into consideration, and the Bill does not breach the armed forces covenant. It is a good piece of legislation and the House should support it tomorrow.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that UK armed forces will not be complicit in sexual exploitation and abuse by international peacekeepers in Mali?

[Johnny Mercer]

This country has a very long-standing system to ensure that we have strong safeguards against that sort of behaviour. Everyone deploying to Mali will be equipped with the mission-specific training that we have done on operations over many years now. We have some of the highest and most rigorous standards in the world, and that will be continued in operations in Mali.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition for their comments.

We have one of the greatest commitments to shipbuilding in this country, and we see that in terms of not only the Type 26, but the Type 31e. There is a great opportunity for shipyards right across the United Kingdom to take part in these contracts, and we will look at every stage at how we can do the very best for jobs and opportunities.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to invest in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence capability.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

The Department regularly looks at CBRN capability as part of the annual financial planning round. The Ministry of Defence will consider its overall CBRN capability as part of the modernising defence programme.

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. Will he update the House on the continuing contribution of MOD personnel now that the urgent response to the Russian chemical attack in Salisbury has moved into the recovery and clean-up stage? Can he confirm that our armed forces have everything that they need to continue to keep all our constituents safe from such attacks in the future?

[Gavin Williamson]

Very much so. It is pleasing to be able to report the progress that Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey and Sergei and Yulia Skripal have made since that attack. Let us not forget the important role that the Ministry of Defence and our armed forces played in assisting the police with their investigations. More than 170 armed forces personnel were involved and, due to our unique capabilities, 192 British service personnel will be involved in the clean-up operation in Salisbury.

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[Gavin Williamson]

I am sure the hon. Lady is very well aware that the Ministry of Defence does not actually administer LIBOR funding—that is the Treasury. So much of the LIBOR funding has made such a difference, not just to those who have ceased to serve in our armed forces but to those who continue to serve. We are very grateful for the positive impact of that funding on so many of our services.[Official Report, 24 April 2018, Vol. 639, c. 6MC.]

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T3. Will the Minister inform the House of how the new veterans gateway is rolling out the provision of support to those calling the helpline, now that it has been running for a year?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

I pay tribute to the large number of charities that support our military sector and our armed forces community. There are more than 400 charities and it can be unclear where individual personnel should turn. The gateway has been fundamental in providing help to individuals who are unsure of where to turn for support. I am delighted that I will be visiting the gateway in the next couple of months.

Modernising Defence Programme

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We have outlined in the programme the fact that we need to do this quickly. We are conscious of the concerns that many people in the armed forces have expressed, which is why we are committed to ensuring that we report back before the summer recess.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

The Secretary of State might not realise that, although Derby is as far from the sea as anyone can get, we have a very strong relationship with the submariner associations. The submariners are our unsung heroes: they are under the sea for months at a time. Will he ensure that they form an essential part of this review and that they are looked after? And do not forget that our submarines are powered by Rolls-Royce engines from Derby.

[Gavin Williamson]

And very fine engines they are! We have had a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent for almost 50 years. The work of our submariner force inevitably goes unnoticed—that is the aim—but what they do to protect our country is truly magnificent. Without their commitment and dedication, the country would be a lot less safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

12. What progress is being made on implementing the Dreadnought submarine programme.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

16. What progress there has been on the programme to build four Dreadnought submarines.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)]

Thanks to the vote a year ago, the Dreadnought programme to replace the four Vanguard-class nuclear-armed submarines is on schedule. Construction on Dreadnought, the first of her class, commenced as planned in October 2016 at the BAE Systems yard in Barrow-in-Furness.

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[Mr Speaker]

Perhaps the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) would be good enough to circulate to all parliamentary colleagues his textbook on succinct questions from which they would greatly benefit.

[Mrs Latham]

The Dreadnought submarine programme is important to my constituents, many of whom work at the Rolls-Royce Raynesway facility which is building the pressurised water reactors that will go into those submarines. Rolls-Royce has been investing very heavily in the new facility to meet the demands of this programme. When will the Government make a decision?

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the fact that companies not just in Barrow-in-Furness but up and down this country are involved in carrying out highly skilled work in this incredibly elaborate programme. I had the pleasure of visiting Raynesway and her nearby constituency and I know how many people in Derby and in Derbyshire depend on that programme. I can assure her that we are making substantial investment in the site.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Let me make it clear to the hon. Lady that we are currently considering the options for the future provision of an effective unarmed guarding service throughout the United Kingdom, which, at the moment, is being provided by a multiplicity of different services. The aim is to achieve maximum value for money to ensure that we can focus resources on military capability, but security remains a priority, and no decisions will be made that would compromise the security of our personnel, our information or our physical assets.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T5. Can my right hon. Friend recall a time when the deployment of British forces to a NATO ally has not had the support of the whole House?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

This House has a long history of supporting our armed forces as they serve and protect our country and our allies. I am obviously disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition has described this week’s defensive deployments to Estonia and Poland as escalatory, and I hope the shadow Defence Secretary will take this opportunity to condemn those remarks today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I know that the hon. Gentleman cares passionately about these issues. I point him to a number of investigations that have gone on, both very lengthy investigations by the Ministry of Defence and investigations by Committees of the House into Afghanistan and, in particular, Helmand in 2006. It is important that we learn the lessons from those inquiries. I hope that he will be able to see from operations today, in particular Op Shader, that we are acting on those lessons learned.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in other NATO countries on spending 2% of GDP on defence.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Mr Philip Dunne)]

The UK is proud to be one of five NATO countries that meet the commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. Since the defence investment pledge was made at the Wales summit in 2014, progress has been made, with 16 allies increasing defence spending in real terms and 24 allies now spending more of their defence budgets on equipment. As it happens, the leadership role that the UK is given in NATO on this issue was warmly welcomed once again by the US Deputy Defence Secretary in my bilateral discussions with him last Friday.

[Pauline Latham]

What signal would it send to our NATO partners, and to our adversaries, ahead of the Warsaw summit if the Government took the advice of some in the House and failed to commit to spending 2% of GDP on defence? Will my hon. Friend update the House on the Libya and wider middle east situation?

[Mr Speaker]

Briefly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

That is primarily a matter for the Department of Health. I have been engaging in a series of negotiations with my counterpart in that Department, and I am sure that we will report to the House in due course.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of his Department’s procurement expenditure which goes to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of his Department’s procurement expenditure which goes to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Mr Philip Dunne)]

We expect small businesses to take an increasing share of our increasing defence budget, as they provide a vital source of innovation and flexibility in meeting defence and security requirements. In October, we announced a new target to increase the proportion of Ministry of Defence procurement spent with SMEs to 25% by the end of this Parliament. That target is 10% higher than the one that was set during the last Parliament.

[Pauline Latham]

What role are SMEs playing in the Trident replacement programme—for example, in the Rolls-Royce propulsion supply chain?

[Mr Dunne]

The Successor submarine programme will be one of the Department’s largest projects, and we expect about 850 suppliers across the UK to be involved. They will employ thousands of people in what is a very high-skilled domain, using cutting-edge technology. That will include the supply chain for Rolls-Royce nuclear propulsion systems based at Raynesway. Many of those companies will be SMEs, and I am sure that many of them will be from my hon. Friend’s constituency in Derby.