Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend asks an excellent question. It helps that we have lots of school groups and young people in the Gallery today, it being half term. I can confirm that last year’s defence Command Paper identified skills as a priority, including the shortage of engineering, digital, cyber, STEM, nuclear, and space-based skills. The defence head of profession for engineering, who also supports the Government science and engineering head of profession, has a defence youth engagement strategy that drives STEM outreach activities and the encouragement of engineering uptake in individuals aged four to 14.

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

13. What recent discussions he has had with international partners on future military support for Ukraine.

[The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

Everything that I had intended to say in response to the hon. Gentleman was covered in response to the supplementaries to Question 2.

[Richard Foord]

Lord Ismay said of NATO that it existed, among other things,

“to keep the Soviet Union out”

and “the Americans in”. The Foreign Secretary was misunderstood on a recent visit to the United States when he proposed that Congress should pass a new military aid package for Ukraine, and he was rebuffed by some Republicans in the House of Representatives. What can the Defence Secretary do to encourage the US to maintain its commitment to Ukraine and to NATO?

[James Heappey]

Again, we covered this earlier, but it is an important issue. The Secretary of State and I, and other Ministers from the MOD and across Government, put our shoulder to the wheel whenever we are in Washington, to impress on the US not only the importance of its continued commitment to Ukrainian security, but that Euro-Atlantic security is integral to US security. The US cannot simply look towards the Pacific; it needs to remain engaged in the Euro-Atlantic, in its own interests as well as those of NATO allies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s interest in this matter. He can be sure that the special forces—although we never talk about them—are always at the forefront of our minds.

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

11. What military aid his Department plans to provide to Ukraine in financial year 2024-25.

[The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Secretary of State’s earlier answers to the former Secretary of State and shadow Secretary of State.

[Richard Foord]

In 2022, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced what military aid the UK would make available to Ukraine through to April 2023; in September 2022, the subsequent Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), announced—a full 15 months ago—what military aid she would make available to Ukraine through to April 2024. Why has there not yet been an announcement on funding for Ukraine for the rest of 2024 and beyond?

[James Heappey]

In the interests of brevity, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers given to the former Secretary of State and shadow Secretary of State earlier.

Service Accommodation

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern). He gave an excellent speech and asked some really good questions—some really inquiring, curious questions—of the Minister, and we look forward to hearing the answers.

I shall present two anecdotes and make one comment about some of the effects of what we have talked about today. One anecdote relates to a time during my service, and another relates to some correspondence that I have received much more recently. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire talked about the experiences of people who are serving in his constituency. I served at Army Training Regiment Bassingbourn in Hertfordshire, just over the county border from Bedfordshire, and I have very fond memories of the good-quality single living accommodation at ATR Bassingbourn.

Five or six years later, living with a family in service family accommodation, my experience again was a good one. On one occasion, we had water dripping through the ceiling of the family home; we rang up to try to get it solved and it was fixed within days. That was an excellent rapid turnaround time for the service family accommodation at Shrivenham when I was there in 2009.

In some ways, that made me slightly sceptical when I heard all of these stories about service family accommodation being in such a poor state, so I decided that I would have some conversations with people who are still serving to find out whether that was really the case. Somebody who I trust a great deal told me me that they had a baby last year, and they had no mould-free room in the house to put the baby in. We have to bear in mind when talking about armed forces personnel in service family accommodation that many are younger people, who are starting their family.

I was frustrated to learn over the summer that the Defence Committee’s Sub-Committee that is looking into service family accommodation will not be hearing evidence directly from service personnel. I do not know whether that has been put right since, but I read over the summer that the Defence Secretary was not permitting service personnel to give testimony directly to that Sub-Committee.

[Mr Francois]

Perhaps I can assist the hon. Member. That was the position of the previous Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), but, in fairness to the new Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), he rescinded that instruction so that defence personnel were able to give evidence—certainly written evidence—directly to the Sub-Committee, without fear or favour for their career, as it were. It is analogous to what happened regarding the inquiry into bullying allegations from female personnel.

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that clarification. As a member of the Defence Committee, he will be much closer to this matter than I am. What he says has not stopped us as constituency MPs from receiving correspondence on the subject. I received a letter in October from a regimental sergeant major—a warrant officer, first class, who has had a very long career in the armed forces. He is frankly at the end of their career—a top-of-the-tree, very senior soldier. He wrote on behalf of his son, who is serving and clearly did not feel able to write directly. The RSM writes:

“Briefly my son, who was on exercise in Germany at the time, had left his wife and two sons (aged 5 and 3 months at the time) at home presuming they would be safe. Unfortunately, one evening my daughter-in-law heard a noise from upstairs and went to investigate. Imagine her shock and horror to find an adult rat in the baby’s cot!”

There is a series of letters about what this former senior soldier regards as having developed over the past 15 or 20 years. He talks about the substantial subcontracting that goes on. While VIVO was perhaps initially responsible, it subcontracted to Pinnacle, and then when the rodent infestation was being dealt with, there was a further subcontracting to Vergo Pest Management. That pest management company sought to deal with the rats in that one house, but failed to notice that the entire street was infested. He says that Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14 and 15 were all suffering from rat infestations.

It is plain to me that some of the companies responsible for this issue these days have noticed that it is clearly something they are under the cosh for. Indeed, many of us will have had an email from a lobbyist from Amey earlier today to say that it

“recognised the challenges that families faced with their accommodation during the mobilisation period of the new contract”.

I resent the defensive language used by some of these companies. When it mentions the “mobilisation” of the new contract, it is hiding behind language that the armed forces tend to use, and it is obfuscation.

[Helen Morgan]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. A mobilisation period under a contract is typically six to nine months. To my knowledge, it has been 18 months since that contract was implemented. We should not still be experiencing problems with it. That is why it is so important that we get clarification on whether steps are being taken to improve performance under it.

[Richard Foord]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that excuses to do with a contract handover period are hard to bear in any case, but certainly when such a great length of time has elapsed.

To bring all that to a conclusion, we need to step back from the detail and ask what this means. The Army is being shrunk to just 73,000 regular soldiers. That is a substantial drop from 84,000 even a year ago, and certainly a large drop from 120,000 when I was serving. Partly, that is due to a failure to retain excellent people. Clearly, the armed forces continue to retain some truly excellent people, but some great people are being lost to the service because of experiences such as those I have described. In the armed forces continuous attitude survey this year, just 34% of service personnel said they felt valued. If we do not realise that service is not just about the service person, but the experience of their wider family, we will continue to have these sorts of problems.

Ukraine

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

Well of course, this is the last sitting day. I would simply say—[Interruption.] I might sound like a stuck record, but this is so important. In this game, what matters is what we actually do on the ground. We have just announced a maritime coalition. We continue to send air defence systems, which are incredibly important. We have sent 300,000 artillery shells, thousands and thousands of helmets, 4 million pieces of small arms ammo. This is what matters. This is the action that delivers. We know there is more to do, and we are going to keep playing that role.

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

The Russian energy giant Gazprom earned £39 million last year from the North sea Sillimanite gas field, which is partly underneath UK waters. Gazprom is majority owned by the Russian state and is Russia’s largest taxpayer. Will the Minister talk to his counterparts in the Department for Business and Trade to avoid a situation where UK defence is giving generous military aid while the new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation overlooks the Russian state funding of its aggression from the proceeds of the sale of North sea gas?

[James Cartlidge]

I am happy to look into that further.

LGBT Veterans Independent Review

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The answer is “with difficulty”, given what happened in 2010 for perfectly understandable and perfectly good reasons—it is the law of unintended consequences, is it not? I cannot give the hon. Lady that detail at the moment, because it is being worked out. It is so very difficult: if everybody had their records marked up, it would be quite straightforward, but they do not. We need to know who the folk are who are in scope, and then we need to look at what records exist. Many of those records had tags placed on them when papers were removed, which I think will help.

We also have to look at other schemes, such as the Canadian scheme. However, I suspect most right hon. and hon. Members in this House would be cautious about the Canadian scheme, because it drew the criteria very narrowly. Those who were nudged out, or inched out, through all sorts of means—innuendo, personal pressure, or being tipped the nod and the wink that somebody was on to them—would be disadvantaged under the Canadian scheme. I hope they will not be disadvantaged under ours.

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

The RAF lost a courageous serviceperson in 1997 when it sacked Carl Austin-Behan. Carl won the Royal Humane Society bronze medal for rescuing a pilot from a burning Hawk aircraft at RAF Chivenor. Last September, an inquiry found that there had been accelerated enlistment for women and ethnic minority candidates in the RAF, which was found to be dubious and possibly in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Clearly, we are not looking for that sort of overcorrection, but what assessment have the Government made of the legacy of the sackings of people such as Carl for recruiting the next generation of courageous gay service personnel?

[Dr Murrison]

Let me be absolutely clear: Defence wants people, regardless of their sex, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and social class. We just want people with talent—that is the touchstone for recruitment into the Army, Navy and Air Force right now. I do not care if people are gay; I welcome gay people serving side by side with everybody else. Our history is full of examples of the most courageous individuals who served in uniform and were gay.

Former Afghan Special Forces: Deportation

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I apologise to the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I said that we would do it by August and we have not. I own my words and thank the right hon. Lady for pointing out that I have not achieved that. My knowledge is that there are less than a few hundred eligible applications that we need to find. There are around 2,000 people in Afghanistan who we need to move out and around 1,800 left in Pakistan who we need to bring in. In all, I would expect another 4,000 to 4,500 arrivals. We are aiming to that get done as quickly as possible, because the Pakistan Government are keen that we do so without delay. We are working with them to achieve that.

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

I am grateful to the Minister for explaining what engagement he has had with representatives of Pakistan’s Government in Islamabad. Does the assurance he received from Islamabad in relation to personnel who will not now be deported to Afghanistan extend to their families?

[James Heappey]

Yes, absolutely. For those who are in Pakistan with an acceptance or eligibility, we have been working with the Pakistan authorities through our high commission in Islamabad to make sure that the Afghan principal and their family are protected from the work the Pakistan immigration service has under way. If the hon. Gentleman, or indeed other Members shaking their heads knowingly know otherwise, I would be grateful for the names of the people they are concerned about and I will make sure that is discussed with the Pakistan high commission without delay.

Middle East: UK Military Deployments

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I will go for the last of my right hon. Friend’s many good questions. This Government are committed to 2.5%, as conditions allow. I know that he will be making his own representations to the Chancellor. I have previously talked about my own belief that we need to reach not just that 2.5% but 3% and higher.

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

It was reassuring last week, in answer to my question, to hear the Minister for Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) telling us that UK surveillance flights would not involve the use of intelligence for target acquisition. I also welcome the Secretary of State talking today about how information that would be helpful to hostage recovery will be passed to the so-called appropriate authorities. We have now heard two questions about the International Criminal Court. Will the UK pass any evidence that it gathers of any breaches of international humanitarian law by combatants in Gaza to the ICC?

[Grant Shapps]

As the hon. Gentleman says, that question has been asked, and I have answered it a couple of times. The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—ISR—flights are to look for British hostages and indeed other hostages. That is the information that will be gathered from those flights. Of course, if we saw anything else, we would most certainly alert our partners, but the purpose is to find our hostages and bring them home.

Nuclear Test Veterans: Medical Records

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered nuclear test veterans and medical records.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Vickers.

British nuclear test veterans have now rightly received medallic recognition for their service, and for that I am very grateful to the Government, but the Minister must know that behind their proud smiles, those veterans are really struggling. They—and sometimes their wives, widows and descendants—have reported making repeated requests to gain access to the results of their blood or urine testing samples which they recall being taken during the nuclear testing programme. Sadly, many confirm that their service medical records do not include the test results, and they just do not understand why. The issue is relevant to the current health concerns of many veterans and their descendants and the treatment they need for anaemia, leukaemia and rare genetic conditions. That is why it is so important for them to access the information urgently.

As the Minister will know, nuclear testing veterans first raised the issue of health problems in 1983. In 1985, the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, ordered a health study by the National Radiological Protection Board, which in 1988 reported that there was a “slight risk” of veterans getting leukaemia. The report was only seven pages long, and it was criticised by veterans as a whitewash. It was repeated, with similar results, in 1993 and 2003. Further, it has been reported in recent days that the 1988 scientific report was altered on the instruction of officials.

The link between radiation and illness is now well established. In 2007, genetic research found that nuclear victims had the same rate of DNA damage as clean-up workers at Chernobyl. In 2011, a Ministry of Defence health study found that 83% of survivors had between one and nine chronic health conditions, and further surveys of nuclear veterans report that miscarriage rates are three times higher among their wives and that their children have 10 times the usual number of birth defects. However, despite the clear health risks and the apparent causal links to the conditions experienced by many nuclear testing veterans, very few war pensions are approved unless veterans can clearly show information proving risk and the impact on health. Such information would include, for example, blood and urine samples demonstrating high levels of radiation exposure, but information from successive Defence Ministers or potential record holders has been inconsistent and unclear on whether there were tests, whether records were kept, where they were kept and whether records are now accessible for searching.

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

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate and on all her successful campaigning work on this issue. I have a constituent whose late husband was one of the test veterans who served in Kiritimati, or Christmas Island. She wrote to me a couple of months ago and said:

“On landing back home after an arduous journey at the young age of 20 or 21 years old, he started to regress into bed-wetting…None of the politicians that are now in the House could possibly know what it was like to be ordered to be guinea pigs for the so-called good of the country.”

Given what my constituent writes, does the hon. Member agree that some of the illnesses and symptoms were mental as well as physical?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with his comments. It is not just physical conditions that impacted on these veterans; there were indeed profound mental health concerns reported afterwards as a result of what they experienced.

My constituent’s grandad, John Morris, is just one nuclear testing veteran who has suffered and who has been trying to locate the relevant information so that he can apply for a war pension. He was a Royal Engineer and served on Operation Grapple on Christmas Island, and he witnessed four nuclear explosions. He told me that one day he and his colleagues were told to sit in the open air with their backs to the explosion. Shorts and shirts were the norm, but on this day they were told to wear Army-issued sunglasses and find a cloth to put over their eyes. They were then hit with a flash 1,000 times brighter than the sun. His hands became an X-ray, as he could see every bone and every joint, and he was then hit with the heat blast. It was so intense that the palm trees scorched, as did the men’s backs.

On his return from service, John’s first-born son tragically died suddenly at four months old due to birth defects that John believes were linked to radiation. John himself has since been diagnosed with cancer, and at age 26 he developed pernicious anaemia, a blood disorder linked to radiation. John gave multiple blood samples during his service, but they cannot be found on his main medical records. When he asked for details of the blood test, he was told:

“Everything you have received was all that was held in your Army personnel and medical file.”

John’s story is matched by countless similar battles for test and medical information by other nuclear veterans.

My first simple question to the Minister is this: were blood and urine samples taken from nuclear testing veterans, and was a record kept of those samples? To help in his analysis, I will share with him the information that I am aware has been archived on this basis so far. First, there are publicly available documents—limited documents, notes, forms, official instructions and guidance—that are accessible in the National Archives. They highlight a range of pertinent references that suggest blood and urine test data was collected from servicemen and that this information was stored and analysed.

For example, documents show that the MOD had a director of hygiene and research who organised blood tests of personnel and kept a “master record” of results. They note orders from the Air Ministry and War Office telling unit medical officers to arrange repeated

“blood testing of personnel working regularly with radioactive sources”.

They detail the medical forms used and the instructions on how to duplicate and store them. They point to Army blood tests being copied from Atomic Weapons Research Establishment records to be put in soldiers’ main medical files. They show that pathologists attached to the weapons trials were told to create a “special health register” to log the data. There are countless other documents ordering the testing of servicemen at various nuclear trials.

It seems clear that blood and urine tests were routine, that they existed as formal documentation and, indeed, that a register and master record were kept; yet to my knowledge the register and master record have not been released, nor has specific documentation relating to each individual, bar one or two exceptions. It should also be noted that thousands of the released documents relating to this period reference the AB and ES series of files, which I understand were withdrawn from the National Archives for a security review in 2018, with no expected date of return.

Secondly, the Minister will be aware of a freedom of information request made to the Atomic Weapons Establishment in September that uncovered a list of 150 documents currently held by the AWE. Three are in the public domain, but the remainder are not. These documents include titles such as “Blood Examinations Personnel Proceeding to Christmas Island”; “Message from AWRE Christmas Island To AWRE Aldermaston reference Blood Count Irregularities from”, and the rest is redacted; “Blood Counts at Maralinga”; and “Dose Record Grapple Z—record of 4 urine samples”. There are many more documents referred to in a similar vein. Again, these documents seem to clearly point to the existence of blood and urine test results.

The Minister might be as perplexed as I am as to the location of such sample results and why they have not been released to veterans. Indeed, the Government’s responses to such questions over the last few years have certainly sown a great deal of confusion. For example, in 2018 it was stated that:

“The Ministry of Defence is unable to locate any information that suggests that Atomic Weapons Research Establishment staff took blood samples for radiological monitoring at the tests.”

Then in November last year, it was stated that:

“The Atomic Weapons Establishment holds copies of the results of urine radioactivity measurements and blood tests for a small number of individuals where these were included in scientific documentation on the nuclear weapons trials.”

In December last year, the opposite was again indicated:

“We would also like to take this opportunity to confirm that AWE does not hold the medical records or the results of blood and urine tests for current or ex-servicemen.”

That merry-go-round of confusion goes round and round, month after month, with every question asked and response received.

Ukraine

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

On the first point, “enough” is what there is. Part of military planning is to moderate consumption levels to meet the scale of deliveries. Ukraine’s military planning must reflect manufacturing capacity and stockpiles across the donor community. Enough is getting through, but we will not find a single Ukrainian general who would not want 10 times that amount if it were available. On the second point, my hon. Friend is absolutely right: we must ensure that the donor community remains foursquare behind Ukraine. In all probability the plans for next year will need to be more around consolidation than the plan for this year, but it is very important that those in the donor community see whatever consolidation is necessary as the right military, strategic judgment—and still worthy of maintaining donor support—rather than peeling away because it does not feel as sensational as plans in previous years.

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

The previous Defence Secretary the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) was well thought of for the support he demonstrated for Ukraine, and in September last year he told the House that the Government had written “letters of comfort” to industry outlining the Government’s intention to place orders with manufacturers. In last year’s autumn statement the Treasury announced £560 million for the replacement of the UK stockpile, to be funded from the Treasury reserve rather than the MOD procurement budget. Where does the Minister think industry, Ukrainians and British service personnel should look for comfort given the silence in the autumn statement on the subject of continued UK support for Ukraine?

[James Heappey]

I suspect the first line of the hon. Gentleman’s question would make it into the leaflets of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) if he were standing again as that was rare, but much deserved, praise. I am not sure I understand the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s question. The Ukrainians know what they are getting this year and they have seen time and again the UK seeking to lead the world and catalyse donations. We have been the first to go through every capability threshold; they know that and they continue to know that.

UK service personnel will take comfort from the fact that in the autumn statement the Chancellor promised to maintain the 2% commitment—we are actually comfortably exceeding that—and that the complete modernisation and recapitalisation of the fighting echelon across all three services is well under way, with investment, too, in sorting out all the strategic enablers that bring credibility to our warfighting force. I do not see where any further comfort is needed, either on the Ukrainian side or for the men and women of the UK armed forces. In fact, it is quite the reverse; I think they know exactly what the Government are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Obviously, we strongly want to see defence expenditure benefiting every part of the Union. I can confirm expenditure with industry in Wales amounting to about £744 million. Just to reassure him and show him how importantly we regard Wales, the week before last I heard I held my small and medium-sized enterprise forum in Cardiff at Space Forge, a brilliant Welsh SME that we are supporting with half a million pounds of funding to develop in-space manufacturing of semiconductors. That is a strong example of how we are supporting Welsh SMEs in the defence sector.

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

19. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of RAF surveillance aircraft on UK strategy and operations overseas.

[The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the work of the slightly less glamorous part of the Royal Air Force that does long-distance surveillance missions. They are an important part of the UK’s defence strategy and our ability to monitor and observe what our adversaries are doing. Their work over the past year above the north Atlantic and the high north, the Baltic, the Black sea, the eastern Mediterranean and across the middle east has been central to defence operations. The team at RAF Waddington and at Lossiemouth should be congratulated.

[Richard Foord]

We understand that UK surveillance assets such as Rivet Joint are providing surveillance support to Israel. I appreciate that, for reasons of operational security, the Minister cannot comment on the operational specifics of this activity, but will he rule out the possibility that these platforms are being used to support target acquisition?

[James Heappey]

While I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his initial question, he also gives me an opportunity to make an important clarification. Rivet Joint is not flying in support of Israel; it is flying to observe the risk of escalation in the region, to inform decision making in the UK MOD, and for nothing else.