Armed Forces: Covid-19 Deployment

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

First, I do not know the exact number of requests. I have actually asked, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the exact numbers, split between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. I know that we have been very active. In fact I recall, right at the very start of this crisis—when I was sadly unwell with the wretched thing and battling a high temperature and other symptoms—getting a call at four o’clock in the morning on a MACA request for a gentleman to be moved from Orkney down to what is probably the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. That made quite an impression on me. It showed me, first, how lucky I was, all things considered—that gentleman was seriously ill; and secondly, how wonderful it is that we have professional armed forces, able at the drop of a hat to go and deliver and collect and look after people, wherever they are in our United Kingdom. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on the specific point regarding the number of MACA requests coming from Scotland. We are delighted to work with the Scottish Government.

On the roll-out of the vaccines, I will not speculate on what role there might be for the Ministry of Defence. We clearly work with other Government Departments, giving logistical and planning support. We are there to help and to provide assistance, but we are still at the very early stages on the vaccine, as the Prime Minister was clear yesterday, so it would be inappropriate to speculate at this stage.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Given that planning for sudden, fast-moving events and surges is part of our military’s stock in trade, why have they not been more involved in planning since the outset, especially given the comparison with all those costly and failing private contractors?

[Jeremy Quin]

I think the hon. Gentleman is aware that Defence has been involved from the outset on planning and logistics. At an early stage, Defence was called on, as it is regularly; we have had, on average, about 130 MACA requests a year for the past few years, and we are well used to working at a local level and a national level with partners across Government. There is a role for the military and a role they can pass on. For example, the military did a fantastic job on working with our partners in Health to provide the mobile testing units, but it is appropriate at some stage, when others get up to speed, that we hand over that task in order to be ready to undertake the next role, which in this case includes the whole-city pilot in Liverpool.