Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

1. What recent discussions he has had with military charities on improving support for veterans throughout the UK.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

13. What recent discussions he has had with military charities on improving support for veterans throughout the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

Last year we published the first UK-wide veterans strategy, which looks at what more we can do to support veterans. We engaged with service charities for ideas on how we can enhance support for our veterans.

[Gavin Williamson]

I join my hon. Friend in expressing thanks for what they do, and I encourage volunteers across the country to do likewise through such a great initiative. We are always grateful for the many thousands of volunteers who contribute so much to supporting our veterans community, as I know he does.

[Victoria Prentis]

I am sure the Secretary of State is aware of the Royal British Legion’s excellent campaign to “Stop the Service Charge”. Can he update us on what the Government are doing on the possible removal of visa charges for Commonwealth UK armed forces personnel and their families?

[Gavin Williamson]

I was delighted to visit the Heyford and Bicester veterans group with my hon. Friend just a few weeks ago and see the amazing work that it is doing to support so many of our veterans. The issue she highlights is vital. The Ministry of Defence continues to work with service personnel and their families to support them, and we are in discussions and working closely with our Home Office colleagues on that important issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to improve veterans’ access to support services.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to improve veterans’ access to support services.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

I recently made a series of announcements on new schemes and initiatives designed to support serving personnel and their families throughout their military careers and beyond. Those include a further package to support armed forces personnel as they enter civilian life, a veterans ID card and a new fund dedicated to supporting the careers of the spouses and civil partners of those who serve.

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. The armed forces covenant, which I know his local authorities are members of, plays a vital role in ensuring that armed forces service personnel and those who have served are able to plug into health services, help with finding a home or any other support that it is so vital for local authorities to provide.

[Victoria Prentis]

Would the Secretary of State consider visiting the Heyford and Bicester veterans’ group, which meets once a month on Fridays in my constituency and provides a one-stop-shop for veterans and their families, where they can access all the services that they need?

[Gavin Williamson]

I was hoping that I would get such an invite in the near future, and one has just come along. I would be delighted to visit the group. I know that my hon. Friend does so much work there and is so supportive of them, and I look forward to seeing that at first hand.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the support that he offers. I can only repeat that we are keen to get applications expedited as quickly as possible. Although all of the cohort are of a certain age, if any hon. Member has a constituent about whom they are particularly concerned, I ask them to contact us and we will endeavour to get the Légion d’Honneur to them as quickly as possible.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to increase the level of defence spending with small firms.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to increase the level of defence spending with small firms.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)]

Small businesses are crucial for growth and innovation in this country, and we want them to take an increasing share of our growing defence budget. We are committed to achieving 25% of our procurement spend being with small and medium-sized enterprises by 2020. That target is 10% higher than the one set during the last Parliament.

[Victoria Prentis]

May I say how nice it is to see my hon. Friend in her place? May I drill down a little and ask her what steps she can take to ensure that the Ministry of Defence’s largest customers use small firms to deliver their contracts?

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is essential that we work on that not only in our direct defence procurement process but with our supply chains. I am delighted to be able to let the House know that the supply chain advocate network and the supply chain champions, which my predecessor announced, are well under way, and that last year the Ministry of Defence was able to have direct spend with almost 5,000 different companies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I have not heard a fellow European Defence Minister call on us to help to create any kind of European defence force. At the last NATO meeting I attended in Brussels last month, it was interesting that Germany specifically asked for NATO to help police the Aegean sea and deal with the migrant pressure. There is a role for NATO in some of these operations, and a role in other areas for the European Union. We are fortunate in being members of both.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential that all members of our armed forces serving away from home are able to vote in the June referendum?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes. The arrangements for voting in the referendum, as I understand it, are exactly the same as in a general election. Following my hon. Friend’s reminder, we will of course make every effort to ensure as high a turnout by the armed forces as possible.

Iraq Historic Allegations Team

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) for his kind words and for calling for the debate. I will try to reduce my speech in so far as I can, but these matters did concern me in my working life for many years. I was in charge of the MOD’s litigation team in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department when the claims started flooding in in 2010. We faced a tsunami of litigation. I am not going to talk about individual cases, but I will give some recommendations from my experience.

First, IHAT was the least bad option available. The civil courts are not the place for criminal investigations to take place. Some of the claims made were very serious and needed to be investigated. IHAT is independent but secure. It is staffed by excellent officers who can investigate criminal allegations. Unlike the Baha Mousa inquiry, for example, they can refer cases to the Service Prosecuting Authority. Given where we are at the moment, IHAT should be encouraged to press on, but we should find new ways to deal with such issues in any future conflict.

Secondly, lawyers should not act without real clients with whom they are in touch and from whom they can take instructions. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] If, for example, offers of settlement are made, it is essential that a lawyer can get in touch with their client immediately; anything less makes litigation impossible.

Thirdly, access by IHAT officers to the Iraqi complainant should have been provided with speed, but it was not. I can see no explanation for that at all. There is no need, nor is it usual in police investigations, for those who complain of a crime to be represented by a lawyer from the other side of the world.

Fourthly, our disclosure rules should not be used to pervert the course of litigation and push the Ministry of Defence into a position where it feels it cannot defend itself or its soldiers. Fifthly, I support scrutiny of whether legal aid should be available to non-UK nationals bringing action against the Government. That money, in my view, would be much better spent on rebuilding Iraq than on lawyers based in the UK.

Sixthly, I think the UK should derogate from the European convention on human rights—I am certainly no anti-European—whenever we deploy soldiers abroad. The authors of the convention, who were writing at a time when the horror of the holocaust and the battlefield was still fresh, intended international humanitarian law to apply to soldiers. International humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict is robust law, designed for that very purpose; the ECHR is not.

In conclusion, we are not dealing in the main with the fog of the battlefield, but rather with the confusion of detention and interrogation. In Iraq, solders were detaining men who minutes before might have been shooting at them or killing their friends or who were believed to have had information that might have helped us to prevent further attacks on our troops. They were usually not in custody suites, offices or cells, and time for gathering information was perilously short. It was hot—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) not only on securing the debate, but on his excellent contribution and the valuable perspective that he brought to the debate—I think it informed all of us.

This important issue raises emotions and concerns among all hon. Members. It is a matter of tremendous national pride that Britain’s world-class armed forces are renowned across the globe for upholding the very highest military standards, so often while performing in the most dangerous of theatres, and are rightly acknowledged as being expected to conform to, and indeed as achieving, the very highest standards of ethical behaviour. None of us should forget for a moment the debt of gratitude that we owe to our servicemen and women, nor should we lack humility about what we in this House have expected of them under the most trying circumstances imaginable.

I turn to the purpose of establishing the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. Rather than begin a long drawn-out public inquiry, it was considered to be better for all parties concerned to deal with allegations on a case by case basis, managed by a dedicated team, to identify whether there were causes for concern and to manage the process in as timely a manner as possible. In November 2010, IHAT was given full investigatory powers by the coalition Government to ensure that the resulting investigations would be in keeping with the UK’s legal obligations under the European convention on human rights, and I share many of the concerns that hon. Members have raised today.

It is important to re-emphasise that although we all have tremendous respect for our armed forces and the work they do, and although we are all conscious of the danger of malicious inquiries and the effect that they would have on the morale and stress of those serving, nobody in this debate has been arguing that our soldiers are above the law. We have to ensure that when serious allegations are made, they are properly investigated. The UK is among the countries with the highest human rights standards in the world, and we should be proud of being held to those standards.

The work of IHAT, however, was initially due to be concluded in 2012. We are now in 2016, with the conclusion deferred at least until 2019. There is a genuine fear that IHAT is becoming exactly what it was designed to prevent: a drawn-out investigation that becomes a burden on valued members of the armed forces and the taxpayer alike. There is also a sense that the transparency and generosity of spirit evident in the setting up of the team is being abused by irresponsible law firms or malicious complainants.

Although it is right to ensure that allegations are properly investigated, we also have to prevent abuse of the public purse and ensure that our justice system is not being systematically abused. We are all aware of the recent allegations of ambulance chasing by certain law firms, and the Prime Minister rightly said today that certain firms clearly have questions to answer.

As we have heard, only this week 57 allegations of unlawful killing were dropped due to lack of evidence. That is 57 innocent soldiers who have had that hanging over their heads and have faced the prospect of prosecution for crimes of which they knew they were innocent. It is imperative that we do all we can to prevent that from happening again. However, using the alleged cases of ambulance chasing as an excuse to withdraw from the European convention on human rights seems to be the wrong approach. I am happy to look at the details of the Government’s proposals and to support evidence-based measures that discourage claims without merit and make sure they are not funded through legal aid.

[Victoria Prentis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

I do not have time.

I believe that measures such as re-examining the current eligibility criteria for legal aid, or the development of a residency test for civil legal aid, would be very welcome. I know that I, like other Members, would have trouble explaining to my constituents in Chesterfield why an individual who has never set foot on British soil should be able to claim legal aid to bring civil legal action against a member of our armed forces at the UK taxpayer’s expense. Not only is the prospect of prosecution for an alleged historic crime traumatic for the serving soldier, but I am worried, as are other Members, that such a practice could act as a barrier to recruitment in future generations. For that reason, I am also interested to read the Government’s proposals on a time limit for individuals or firms to submit cases to IHAT.

I ask the Minister the following questions. How can the Government guarantee that only individuals with a strong connection with the UK will have access to UK-funded legal aid? Will the Government consider applying a specific time limit or cut-off date relating to allegations of human rights abuse in Iraq? What more can the Minister tell us about the success the Government have had in prosecuting firms who make malicious complaints, as the Prime Minister referred to today? Can she tell us what steps will be taken to enforce that approach and what criteria will be used to decide that a complaint is without merit? What impact do the Government believe the process is having on morale, on the stress levels of people who served in Iraq and on recruitment and retention within the Army, both among those who served in Iraq and more generally? Do the Government think that a timetable of 2019 for concluding the work of IHAT is acceptable, and what steps are they taking to support and reassure servicemen and women who suddenly find themselves within the process?

I want to reiterate our admiration for those who served in Iraq and assure the Government of our intention to support any practical steps that they can take to rebuild confidence in this process.

Armed Forces Covenant Annual Report

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I absolutely concur. Within the community covenant framework, we also need find ways to join things up more effectively when families move. The nature of the armed forces is such that families are expected to move around the UK, and to and from the UK, so it is important that the system really supports them. We have endless examples of systems that do not.

I was very pleased, literally weeks after being elected, to be able to help a family who were leaving RAF Boulmer, in my constituency. The airman in question was leaving the service. He had been on a British Gas training course while he was still in Northumberland—fantastic—and he and his family wanted to move down south to be near his wife’s family. That was all good, and they were looking forward to it. They had found a school in the right area for their children, one of whom had special needs, but when they came to move, they could not find a house. It was impossible; there was not a house to be found. They could not register their children with the school because they were not in the right area, and the gentleman could not start his job because he was not yet registered in the right area.

The system seemed nonsensical, and the lovely family liaison lady at RAF Boulmer was pulling her hair out. As it turned out, she made the right phone call. I did not know anything about Banbury or Bicester, but I had a new colleague in the area, and between us, we were able to find a solution.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

As the recipients of that delightful, hard-working, honourable and brave family, we in Bicester were delighted to welcome them to our area. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would have been much easier—without the intervention of MPs—if some sort of central hotline had been available to the family liaison officer, to enable her to access the line that I, in the end, accessed on the family’s behalf to help them to find a house? My hon. Friend may not be aware of the end of the story: the house that family moved into was an ex-services house.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I was not aware of that, and I am pleased to hear that we are making the best use of our property portfolio. That is most encouraging. Housing is a big part of the covenant’s challenge. The new forces Help to Buy scheme was introduced last year and has been incredibly successful. This year’s report has some really positive messages about that, both because armed forces families are very aware of it—it has been very well publicised—and because it is being taken up in very large numbers. It enables families to get on to, or stay on, the housing ladder as they resettle into civilian life.