Health, Social Care and Security

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Deputy Speaker, to see you back in your place. All is well with the world when you are back in the Chair.

May I begin by congratulating new Members from across the House on their maiden speeches, particularly our new friends from different political parties who are representing constituencies in Scotland?

My remarks will primarily focus on defence and international security. I am sure that I am not the only Member of this House who was dismayed by the fact that defence got so little attention during the election campaign, which explains why defence has been given such a poor showing in the Queen’s Speech, adumbrated by the fact that not a single Defence Minister has appeared at the Dispatch Box in the past five days.

That said, I should like to start on a note of consensus. I think that we can work with the Government on the Bill on flexible working for the armed forces. There is much to be welcomed in the fact that the Government are now looking at that seriously, as it is a model that works elsewhere in the world. Our manifesto committed to making the case for having an armed forces representative body on a statutory footing—something that is the norm in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. Our serving personnel should be properly represented within the military, and with defence policy decision makers. We look forward to making that case here in Parliament.

I should also like to express our continued frustration at the lack of a national shipbuilding strategy. In the previous Parliament, the Government continued to move the goalposts and avoided being up front with the country on what was happening here. Despite continual attempts by hon. Members on both sides of the House, the Government continued to duck and dive. Well, the time for ducking and diving on the national shipbuilding strategy is over. If it is not written, get it written. If it is written, the Government need to get it published.

More fundamental was the grave omission from the Queen’s Speech of a new strategic defence and security review. The previous SDSR was based on the premise that Britain would still be a member of the European Union. Given that it has not taken Brexit into account, its risk analysis, and ultimately its conclusions, surely require updating with some considerable urgency.

We will also hold the Government to account on their actions abroad. On Monday the Defence Secretary gave a very helpful briefing on the current situation in Syria, which I thank him for, but we remain concerned about the deconfliction lines between Russia and the coalition forces. We would also like to hear a bit more about what the Government are doing to tackle the poison of Daesh online.

There is something more profound that we would like to see change, and that is the defence posture of the United Kingdom Government. We would like to see not only a shift away from the militaristic projection around the world that relies on Trident, but a shift towards defending our own waters and those in the Icelandic gap and the high north. This is a massive dereliction of duty on the Government’s part in keeping their citizens safe, and it is also a dereliction of what we owe our allies. It was the former United States General and NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Philip Breedlove, who described the north Atlantic as NATO’s lifeblood and the transatlantic link. So I plead with the Government to please face up to their responsibilities in the high north.

I do not have time to cover everything, but however long we are here for, I will be sure to get round to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

I imagine that those sitting on the Government Benches and their new helpers in the DUP would usually find the security day in the Queen’s Speech debate part of their natural territory, but the lack of defence-related issues in either their grubby deal or the Queen’s Speech itself shows how much we have moved away from being what could be called a normal Parliament.

From my perspective as the newly re-elected MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, this week has been a very proud week indeed, as the largest ship ever built by the Royal Navy, HMS Queen Elizabeth, left Rosyth in my constituency for the first time to begin her sea trials. She is testimony to the men and women in Rosyth who played a part in her construction. The Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales, along with the Goliath crane, have become part of the West Fife skyline. There is also sadness that the Queen Elizabeth will be leaving us, but no doubt she will be back very soon for adjustments following the sea trials and refits into the future.

The carriers are a great way to measure the current state of the MOD, central as they are to the stated aims of the strategic defence and security review. This capability will involve the deployment of many of the UK’s premier platforms and people: the Type 26 frigates, the Type 45 destroyers, the Astute class submarines, the P8s, and, not least, the F-35Bs that will fly from the flight decks of the carriers. In the previous Parliament, I asked many questions about the composition of the carrier group and the platforms that make it up, and I intend to continue that during this Session—not that I often got an answer from the Minister. The Government have been exceptionally vague on the individual elements of the carrier group and whether they will even be able to deploy both carriers simultaneously.

The time constraints imposed on me today mean that I will not be able to go into all the issues around the deployment of the carriers. However, three issues need to be discussed in future debates: first, the manning levels within the Royal Navy; secondly, the problems around the F35B; and, thirdly, the Government’s ongoing failure to deliver a shipbuilding strategy. First, on manning, as in the NHS, a 1% pay cap is having a detrimental effect on the ability of the services to keep the personnel they need in post. The Royal Marines are already being sacrificed for this. The submarine service is allegedly 25% short of full manned strength. We can see that this is far from being an abstract debate.

The F-35Bs represent the most expensive military procurement project in the world. Each F-35B plane costs about as much as 10 DUP MP votes in this place, so it is a great investment from the Government in making sure that this works. The workers in Govan need the reassurance that they can continue their work on the Type 26 frigates. First, there were 13 ships, and that was then reduced to eight, with five Type 31 frigates added in. The Parker report failed to inform us that the shipbuilding strategy would be published, and we now have something quite different. I think that the Minister is in the process of announcing three frigates, but we will wait to see how that comes out next week.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Is it not incumbent on all of Scotland’s elected Members of Parliament to hold the Government to account on the roll-back of that promise of the 13 ships that were supposed to be built on the Clyde and in Scotland?

[Douglas Chapman]

Certainly every single MP who represents a Scottish constituency should be fighting for these ships, fighting for these jobs, and making sure that commitments given in previous years are upheld and delivered in full.

In conclusion, I will fight my hardest on behalf of the Rosyth workforce, to make sure that as many jobs as humanly possible come to our constituency, but we cannot forget the workers on the Clyde and elsewhere across Scotland who depend on MOD contracts to ensure that we have a fighting force fit for this century.