MOD Logistics (Bicester)

Debate between Tony Baldry and Dai Havard

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[David Wright (Telford) (Lab)]

I am the MP for Telford. Donnington falls within the constituency of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), but is about 150 yards from the boundary of mine, and many of my constituents work at what I will call the depot at Donnington, mirroring what the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) calls the depot at Bicester. Clearly, he is making a pitch for Bicester, but I argue that Donnington is an ideal location for the work.

It is important that the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) has secured this debate. I am interested in the fact that, if further changes are made to how logistics operate in this country, they must be considered on a level playing field. If we are to make decisions about the future location of logistics work, we must use information that is even and level across the sites and easily understandable. We must be able to compare sites properly. I hope that the Minister will confirm that that will be done.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds, I remind hon. Members that interventions should be short.

[Tony Baldry]

I do not think that the Minister or any of us would disagree with that. The point that I am making is that the hon. Gentleman who introduced this debate did so on the basis that systemic failures and abuses of practice were occurring at Bicester. My response is that he has not produced any evidence. Further, if there were any such evidence, I assure him that that it would have been drawn to the attention of management, politicians, the House and me by the trade unions and that it would have been investigated.

I understand, of course, that in the run-up to ministerial decisions about the future of defence logistics, there are some around the country who will have an interest in rubbishing Bicester, but I am sorry that it has been done in such a way. I will come to what I think would have been the correct way to deal with the matter.

[Tony Baldry]

I apologise if I did not refer to the right hon. Gentleman as such. He should not be quite so touchy. What Neil Firth said at that meeting was, as everyone would concede, that thousands of items go out from Bicester each day, and errors are always possible, particularly as priority is set not by Bicester but by the requesting unit.

A little while ago, a constituent of mine, who left Bicester shortly afterwards on voluntary agreement, made allegations not dissimilar to those made by the right hon. Gentleman, relating to boots and one or two other items. He did not assert that there were systemic failures at Bicester, but he thought that occasionally, boots and other things were made more costly than necessary. I immediately took up the matter with Ministers in the Ministry of Defence, and the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) responded. In fairness, in response to my letter, a full investigation was carried out at Bicester. The Minister for the Armed Forces said, perfectly fairly:

“Every day, consignments and routes are developed to ensure that freight carriage is optimised and the use of commercial hauliers balanced against in-house resources. Of course, from time to time, routing errors do occur, but this must be placed in context. On a daily basis the JSCS”,

joint support chain services,

“handles between 8,000 and 10,000 transactions, of which the large majority are delivered on time and in the most cost-effective way. Indeed, the costs of transport have been reduced by £10 million in the past two years against 2008 operating costs and the level of service improved from a success rate of 80% of transactions completed on time based on 10 working days to a success rate of 95% based on seven working days.”

Suggestions were made about agency staff. The Minister for the Armed Forces said:

“Of course there are occasions when agency staff will be required to supplement existing staff resources, for example to respond to increases in demand and to meet operational needs. In such cases, existing MOD-wide commercial arrangements are used which ensure that agency staff are employed at the most cost-effective rate.”

He went on to conclude:

“JSCS is an operational organisation that exists to meet the often urgent requirements of the armed forces. The organisation, therefore, has to balance these demands against achieving value for money for the taxpayer. The 2009-10 annual report and accounts clearly demonstrate that operating costs are now 28% less than they were six years ago, but that service delivery has significantly improved.”

I suspect that if every public service could show a 28% improvement over six years, we would all be grateful.

There are two issues in respect of Bicester that I should like the Minister to hear. First, I genuinely believe that defence logistics should be consolidated at Bicester, for the reasons that I have said. I also suspect that, as part of that, the private sector will increasingly need to be involved, as it is currently involved, not least when investing in new logistics sheds, warehousing and equipment at Bicester. However, age is an issue. Bicester’s existing work force are loyal and have worked there for a long time, and being civil servants is an important part of their lives. I hope that if changes are made at Bicester, transitional changes will be possible whereby those with civil service status can retain it if new private sector investors and partners start to work more with the MOD on logistics handling, support and delivery. I am sure that that is possible.

I invite the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd to come to Bicester. He is welcome to visit, and to come with me to meet the trade unions of Bicester, so that he can put his allegations and assertions to them and the work force at first hand. I think that he would be interested in their detailed response, but he would also see the huge land footprint at Bicester. It has a lot of surplus space that is not being used as effectively as it might be. I have no idea why, in the first world war, such a huge area of land was taken for those purposes at Bicester. The rumour is that it was to resist zeppelin attacks. That is a matter of history, but we have an enormous amount of space; we are at the heart of the country; and we have excellent rail and road connections.

Rather than an investigation into unfounded allegations about what is said to have gone wrong at Bicester, it would be more helpful to have a review of how to get the maximum potential for the country out of the Bicester estate, both for the defence industries and in terms of releasing surplus land for other commercial and residential use. The potential is considerable.

I do not think that the assertions made by the right hon. Gentleman have any substance. There is no smoking gun. In an operation as large as that at Bicester, things will occasionally go wrong, but I suspect that other logistics operations such as DHL, the Post Office and Amazon are not always perfect. I do not think that the percentage of error is greater in defence logistics than in any other major logistics operation.

To conclude, I return to the first line of the Library briefing for the debate:

“Bicester’s MP has called for the Ministry of Defence to consolidate its UK logistic operations in Bicester.”

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I call Alison Seabeck. Are you right hon?