Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend highlights the important effort that the military made in setting up the Nightingale in Harrogate. I visited it during the set-up time, and it is also welcome that that Nightingale has been used for other NHS tasks, which is an important step in building NHS capacity where it is under pressure elsewhere. Of course, we should make sure that we always bring to bear the best of our armed forces to help wherever we can right across the board. Resilience is Defence’s middle name, and it is that key part of our skill that we are bringing to support most of government across the country.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

We welcome the recent Government announcement from the other place of the 7,000 personnel who will be brought to readiness ahead of the winter period. In light of that, does the Secretary of State agree that Government should keep the House regularly updated on the numbers of personnel being deployed, how they are being deployed, and if any further strengthening of the numbers of personnel deployed will be necessary as we progress through the winter period? Can he provide an update now?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, because I am very happy to inform the House on a periodic basis, perhaps every two weeks or weekly, of the MACA—military aid to the civil authorities—tasks that are being fulfilled. I can place that in the House of Commons Library. In the previous lockdown, we committed more than 10,000 troops. The number is 7,500 at the moment, but we always keep that under review. During the last lockdown, we actually only used at most about 4,000 or 5,000 at any one time, but of course we stand by to help. At the moment, there are over 20 MACAs in place and being used, and as we speak, we are examining some significant asks from a number of local authorities.