Defence Personnel Data Breach

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments about attribution. MPs and the electoral register have been hacked, and he therefore encourages me to jump to the conclusion at the Dispatch Box that the malign actor is China in this case as well. I am simply unable to do that at this stage. He would expect me to follow due process, but I rather support his view that if attribution is required, it should happen in a timely and speedy manner. I undertake from the Dispatch Box to ensure that that happens in this case, and that we do not have many months or years pass by without it being mentioned.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

The malign actor did not need to access the armed forces payment network to find out the salary of a British private soldier. A quick search of Google—or indeed Baidu—reveals that the salary of a British soldier on completion of initial training is less than £24,000 a year, which is less than the average UK salary of £35,000 a year. Russia is currently paying its soldiers a starting salary of more than 2.5 million roubles for fighting in Ukraine. Will the data breach by the Conservative Government’s contractor shame the UK Government into paying some of our lowest-paid servicepeople a decent salary?

[Grant Shapps]

That was creative, if nothing else. The fact that we paid a nearly 10% pay increase—9.7% last year—to many ranks of our armed forces, and that the Conservative party has committed to spending 2.5% of GDP, which is a pledge I have not heard repeated by the Opposition, rather suggests that we are prepared to do something about pay and retention.