Nuclear Submarines

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend asks a good question. I emphasise again that there are no safety implications from this type of event—a submarine could continue to operate safely. This is a tiny amount of radiation in a coolant that is itself circulating in a closed system inside the sealed reactor shield, so there is no risk to the submarine crew. If such an event occurred, it would be detected almost immediately because of the daily sampling and analysis of coolant water. We are already looking at the operational implications, in a reactor of this type, of a very minor breach. As I have already told the House, the test reactor at Dounreay was restarted in 2012 and has subsequently run without any further problems. It is not absolutely clear that the result of such a minor event occurring in an operational reactor would necessarily mean that the reactor would have to be withdrawn from service. Clearly, we would do so on a precautionary basis while we considered a longer term course of action, but it is not yet clear that that would have to be the long-term state of affairs.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State has said a number of times that SEPA was kept informed. Will he inform the House at what stage it was first informed? Given that SEPA is an Executive agency of the devolved Scottish Government, were Scottish Ministers informed by SEPA and, if that was the case, why were Scottish Ministers informed but Members of this House not?

[Mr Hammond]

SEPA was informed in October 2012 and has been involved in the discussions since that point. SEPA is an Executive agency of the Scottish Government, but it deals with operators in relation to the discharge of its regulatory functions on a properly regulated statutory basis and, usually, on a confidential basis. Clearly, SEPA did not feel that this event, as a level zero event, needed to be brought to the attention of Ministers or anyone in the central Scottish Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

Yes, I very much welcome the rebasing. It will indeed boost the economy in the country overall, and not least in my own constituency. It is likely that in training and efficiency measures, it will save about £240 million a year. That will be of great benefit to the country in pursuing the prosperity agenda, and it will of course give surety to our troops, which is vital going forward, so I very much welcome it. Our German friends and colleagues are of course being taken along with the programme: they understood that it was coming, and they are very much on side. We pay tribute to the presence of the British Army in Germany for all these years.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In written answers to parliamentary questions, the Government have said that they have had 10,000 applications for Arctic Star medals, of which 4,000 have now been processed. One of my constituents is the daughter of such a veteran who is seriously unwell. I am grateful to Ministers for expediting her application, but I ask them to do everything they can for other next of kin in a similar position to make sure that veterans get the recognition that they deserve?

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. As all my predecessors have said, if any hon. Member has any difficulty at all, they should write to me and we will make sure that we speed up the process. If hon. Members have any difficulty they should contact the Minister—at the moment, it happens to be me—and we will do everything we can to speed that up, because that is very important.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I wholeheartedly join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to our reservists, including her member of staff. Our reservists are essential members of our armed forces who have served and continue to serve with great distinction and gallantry on deployed operations. Since 2003 more than 25,000 reservists have been mobilised for operations alongside their regular counterparts, with a number paying the ultimate price. In the Territorial Army alone, more than 70 operational awards have been earned since 2003.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister is of course right to pay tribute to the contribution of reservists, but could he indicate to the House what protection he will put in place to ensure that reservists are not discriminated against by employers when they go for new jobs?

[Mr Francois]

We are already providing additional support for employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, to assist them to find people to fill in if their members of staff are deployed as reservists on operations. We also plan to give greater notice to employers, so they should have greater regularity in when their employees are deployed for service. We have discussed this in great depth with employers. They are not convinced that we should legislate specifically on this issue, although of course we keep an eye on it as we go along.

Better Defence Acquisition

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He knows me and he knows that I am a cautious person. This is a big and complicated project, and we are approaching it carefully. We are weighing up the options and taking the appropriate length of time to make the decisions, and I am confident that they will deliver the result that we require. He asks about our national sovereign capabilities. We have set out our approach to the defence industry in the White Paper “National Security Through Technology”. We have also set out today, in this White Paper, the proposed changes to single-source pricing regulation and how we expect to drive greater efficiency into the single-source part of the defence industry that delivers about half our requirements. Only by making those in that sector focus on reducing costs, which they currently have very little incentive to do, will we make them not only efficient providers to us but efficient and competitive players in the international defence export market. That is in the interests of the industry, the UK’s armed forces and UK plc.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State referred to the freedom to recruit and reward staff with market rates as, I think, a “critical” freedom in the potential move to a GoCo. In that phased transfer, would any increased remuneration in bonus packages still come from the MOD baseline?

[Mr Hammond]

That depends. We would expect a GoCo contractor to inject a certain number of senior staff who would be part of its package and who would be remunerated through its incentivised fee. Within the overall DE&S work force, getting the right skills in the right places will be part of the task for the management contractor. In some cases, that will mean recruiting at market rates, because at the moment we are haemorrhaging talent. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), has just given me an example where we had nine applicants for 70 commercial posts that have recently been advertised. We have to address the haemorrhage of talent from DE&S by offering market rates if we are to support our armed forces as we need to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

We absolutely believe in the value of our cadet and youth organisations, and not just the armed forces cadet organisations. The Air Training Corps does fantastic work. We are looking to expand, if we can, cadet organisations, particularly the combined cadet forces in all schools. However, the cost is quite large and we are short of money. Nevertheless, we are looking into the matter at the moment—indeed, as I speak.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In his earlier reply, the Minister referred to the touching issue of homelessness. I spent the weekend with soldiers off our streets in my constituency; many homeless veterans are slipping through the net. What work will the Minister be doing, including with the devolved Administrations, to ensure that veterans on the streets are helped to adjust to civilian life again?

[Mr Robathan]

That is, of course, a matter for the devolved Administrations but we are in close contact with them, particularly over the covenant. The Scottish and Welsh devolved Administrations have accepted the covenant in full—I think the Northern Ireland devolved Administration have as well, although there are slight differences there. We certainly wish to see our ex-service personnel receive proper housing support in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as in England. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular case in mind, I would be grateful if he wrote to me.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Peter Luff]

I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend, and Mr Shepherd and Mr Blackadder, that we have a cunning plan to help SMEs, as I hope my original answer suggested. For example, we are revising our internal guidance to ensure that SMEs are not rejected at the pre-qualification stage on the basis of rigid turnover-to-contract value ratios. I would be very happy to arrange for Mr Shepherd and Mr Blackadder to meet departmental officials to ensure that they are fully informed of the opportunities they now have.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In answer to a question I tabled in June, the Minister suggested that only about 50 of some 6,000 new contracts placed directly by the MOD in 2010-11 across the UK are known to have been awarded to Scottish-based SMEs. Given that that is based on an estimate, does he not agree that it is unacceptable that the MOD does not have the actual figures so that we can scrutinise the amount of work going to SMEs and, at the same time, end some of the myths promoted by the separatists?

[Peter Luff]

I sort of agree with that question and I sort of do not. I do not think that it is our job to keep careful records of exactly which SMEs get which business, but it is part of our job to ensure that Scotland shares fully in the benefits of defence expenditure. I get very surprised when the Scottish nationalists frequently represent Scotland as in some sense losing out, which the hon. Gentleman alluded to in his question. That is simply not the case. I have visited Scotland on many occasions over the past few months and seen the massive footprint of defence in Scotland and the massive contribution made to employment and jobs, all of which will be at risk in an independent Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Fox]

The first thing that we require is an end to hostilities; then we require disarmament and the militia’s incorporation into national forces; and then we require the formation of a Government as soon as possible—a Government who include all elements of Libya’s geography and ethnic make-up and are cross-generational.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

T9. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth), waxed lyrical in earlier answers about his support for small and medium-sized businesses and for SME exports, so why are his Government forcing them to bear more of the cost of showcasing their equipment throughout the world?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)]

We are not imposing additional burdens on industry, but clearly we have to take into account the costs of supporting it in these difficult times and in view of the economic inheritance that we were bequeathed by the last lot.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are most grateful to the Minister.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

T3. I am not sure that the Secretary of State’s earlier answer was entirely clear, so perhaps he will try again. Will he tell us who specifically in his Department authorised the involvement of special forces in Libya on 2 March?

[Dr Fox]

I have already made it clear that the Foreign Secretary set out the exact details, as far as we are able to disclose them, on that particular operation. When force protection is to be offered to the sort of diplomatic mission that was undertaken, it is quite usual for the Ministry of Defence to be asked and to agree to do it.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in the debate. As a new Member, I have to say that there have been a number of distinguished and knowledgeable contributions from both sides of the House.

Along with every other Member, I would like to place on record my admiration for the work of our armed forces and for those who work for the Ministry of Defence, particularly at this time. Since being elected in May, I have had the privilege of meeting constituents who have served, or are serving, in the armed forces. A number of constituents work for the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces in a civilian capacity. Too often—although not this afternoon, I am pleased to say—they are dismissed with pejorative labels, when the reality is that they often do important work of great value to the armed forces, and some do so in dangerous circumstances.

As the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said, the previous Government announced the first ever strategic defence review within a month of taking office in 1997 to determine the future of the UK’s defence policy. At the time, the then Defence Secretary, now Lord Robertson, who is one of my predecessors in the Hamilton part of my constituency, said:

“Hundreds of experts from within the MOD, the Armed Forces and elsewhere have given a great deal of time over the past year to produce the most significant reshaping of our Armed Forces in a generation…It is absolutely right that we should have consulted so widely”.

As the right hon. Gentleman noted earlier, that review took 13 months. It was comprehensive in its scope, forensic in its detail and rooted in the needs and priorities of our defence. It would obviously be foolhardy to measure such exercises by such shallow criteria alone, but the strategic defence review in 1998 ran to 390 pages. Given the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) at the start of the debate, I should say that I am not sure how many of those pages were blank, but I am sure there were a lot fewer of them, proportionately, than in the recent strategic defence and security review.

There is a real contrast between the two exercises, not only in the time taken and the depth of content in the reports, but in the detail and the consultation undertaken, which leads many of us to express real concerns about aspects of the current review and the consequences that we will all have to face as a result.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I would like to point out one contrast between the review then and the review now. We now have the National Security Council, which is bringing in a lot of information from various Departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that improvement on the process that the Labour Government followed between 1997 and 1998?

[Tom Greatrex]

I was just going on to say that there are differences in the circumstances in 1997 and now. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has talked about some of the security aspects of the review, and I am sure that he will go into that further if he catches the Deputy Speaker’s eye.

Obviously, the economic circumstances were more benign in 1997 than they have been recently. Reviewing defence requirements in 2010 is not an unnecessary exercise, but as the Secretary of State’s own words in his correspondence with the Prime Minister exposed, perhaps brutally:

“this process is looking less and less defensible as a proper SDSR and more like a ‘super CSR’”.

The strength of the link between the defence and security review and the comprehensive spending review has been widely acknowledged as a deficiency in the strategic nature of the defence and security review. Given the explicit link to cost, it is even more important that the SDSR approach should have been thorough.

That brings me to a specific concern, which has been raised by a number of constituents. Perhaps the Minister will have time to address it at least in passing in his closing remarks. The decision to rebase our forces from Germany is in principle welcome. The presence of UK armed forces on mainland Europe was at one time necessary, but perhaps the need is no longer so pressing. The aim to return half our personnel from Germany to the UK by 2015 and the remainder by 2020, as page 32 of the review states, is laudable, and I am sure there will be very little opposition. However, the lack of detail on how that will be achieved undermines the nature of the review and its thoroughness. In response to a number of parliamentary questions, the MOD said that more detailed work will be required and that it is too early to say what the financial impact will be. It troubles me that the Government have taken such a decision in the context of a cost-influenced—if not cost-driven—review exercise without considering the cost.

One estimate is that the eventual cost could be many millions, and I believe that the Minister is on record as saying that there will be a long-term saving, but there is little detail on when that saving will be achieved or on the figures on which any projection of savings is based.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I had responsibility for this matter as a Minister and we looked at rebasing from Germany. The estimate back in 1994 when we brought most of the RAF back was something like £5 billion. Under the treaty, there is a responsibility to write to the German Government to inform them that we want to withdraw. I made some inquiries this week and found out that that has not yet happened.

[Tom Greatrex]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which I think brings to bear an important aspect of the matter that has not been addressed—I look to the Minister to do so in his closing remarks.

I am raising the issue of rebasing not to devalue the point that defence and security interests should be paramount, but to illustrate that even when it appears that costs have been prioritised, as in the review, there is insufficient detail. That leads to concerns that other matters have not been considered in sufficient detail. Specifically on rebasing, it is unfair on returning personnel and their families to announce their return to the UK without providing detail to allow them to prepare. What does the Minister say to a family who have lived and worked in Germany for the past 20 years and who now face the prospect of a return to the UK in five or 10 years? On what criteria will decisions on when to return troops be made? What assessment has been made of the suitability of using RAF bases that are no longer used as such for housing Army personnel? There are a series of unanswered questions and we need answers—if not this afternoon, soon.

The detailed work of which the Minister spoke in his parliamentary answer—it was a vague but not necessarily unhelpful or unrevealing answer—should have been carried out before, or at least parallel to, work on the strategic review. An SDSR that takes no account of the cost of rebasing troops from Germany to the UK and no account of where service personnel and their families will be housed, and that gives no detail on exactly how the draw-down of personnel from 20,000 to zero in 10 years will happen, has a gaping hole in the middle of it. I hope the Minister will respond to at least some of those points in his remarks.