James Cartlidge MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Dec 2024 · LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review · Hansard source

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  Victoria and all those with first-hand experience, or anyone who has read the testimonies or received constituency correspondence, such as that mentioned by the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford), will know how harrowing and horrific those experiences were. They are at the front of our minds as we debate this subject. I join the hon. Lady in welcoming what the Government have announced today. As the report makes abundantly clear, the ban on LGBT people serving in the military saw brave service personnel face awful sexual abuse, violence, harassment and bullying. Lord Etherton’s report also found that invasive investigations undertaken into individuals’ sexuality caused long-lasting and severe impacts for some. It found that many veterans subjected to the ban developed mental health issues including PTSD, and experienced difficulty with their employment, finances and homelessness, as we have heard. They found it hard to form long-term relationships due to shame and trust issues and, perhaps inevitably, some turned to alcohol and drugs. Compounding that, due to an absence of transition support, many veterans felt isolated. Tragically, the stress caused by the ban means that we have lost LGBT veterans to suicide, and others have contemplated it. When meeting campaigners I was struck by a particularly powerful point: what they want most of all is to feel a full and equal part of today’s veterans family. As a House, I know we speak with one voice in saying to everyone affected: you are as much a veteran as anyone else who served this country. The financial package announced today will not undo the past, but it means that both parties in government have taken significant steps to deliver redress. Important progress has been made in recent years to improve the experience of LGBT personnel, particularly in terms of training. The Home Office’s disregards and pardons scheme was set up to ensure that those who received a conviction for same-sex sexual offences can have that conviction wiped. The Office for Veterans’ Affairs awarded £250,000 last year to LGBT organisations to provide support services for impacted veterans. That was on top of the £45,000 provided in 2022 to help organisations gather evidence for the review. In office, we launched the Etherton review and accepted the intent behind each and every one of Lord Etherton’s recommendations. We were committed to implementing them in good time. We set deadlines and made good progress, and we will support the Government as they conclude that work. We understand that 38 of the 49 recommendations have been delivered—the Veterans Minister is welcome to correct me in his wind-up, but I am sure that we would all welcome his providing clarity on the timeline for delivering the remaining recommendations. For all the work of the previous Veterans Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), it was never going to be straightforward coming up with a deliverable package of financial compensation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) said in his intervention, there is the crucial issue of gathering data, which is complicated. That being so, I welcome the two-pronged approach to the scheme, and in particular the fact that payments will be exempt from income tax, although I believe that means that the timing is linked to the passing of the Finance Bill. My understanding is that those affected will be able to apply under the dismissed or discharged payment scheme from tomorrow but, inevitably, the impact cohort will take longer due to the involvement of the independent panel. I urge Ministers to keep us posted on how the scheme works in practice. As the Secretary of State said, time is ticking and we all want to see this resolved and money awarded as soon as possible. We fully support the plans to restore rank and amend official reasons for discharge, and ask the Minister to clarify when those affected will be able to ask for that to take place. Finally, I pay tribute to the many colleagues who have campaigned on this issue with passion and persistence, and to those in the last Government for their work getting us here, particularly Ben Wallace, Johnny Mercer and the previous Veterans Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire. Finally, I pay tribute to Craig Jones, Caroline Paige and Ed Hall of Fighting With Pride, for their extraordinary effort to campaign, raise awareness and deliver this change. They have helped to ensure that a tangible righting of a deep wrong is now happening in practice, underscoring the equal place for people of all backgrounds in our veterans community and our armed forces.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the impact of the Government’s Chagos negotiations on the UK-US defence relationship.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. At a time when we face the most challenging military threats for years, surely our top priority should be to preserve the strongest possible US-UK relations, given that this is so vital to our national security, yet it appears that the Government are seeking to agree a deal surrendering the sovereignty of the Chagos islands before President Trump is formally in post. We know that the new US Administration are concerned about the Government’s deal because presumptive nominee US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the deal “poses a serious threat to our national security interests”. He has also suggested that “it would provide an opportunity for communist China to gain valuable intelligence on our naval support facility”. Let us be clear: our military base on Diego Garcia is a vital strategic asset for the UK in the Indian ocean, and it is critical to our presence and posture in the Indo-Pacific region. In particular, it is an especially important base for the United States, and we believe that anything that damages its defence posture, particularly in relation to China, also undermines our national security. We understand that the new Mauritius Government have now launched a review of the deal. Will the Minister therefore confirm that the Government’s policy really is to try to rush through their Chagos deal before President Trump’s inauguration? Does he not see how that would be hugely disrespectful to the new Administration and President Trump’s democratic mandate? Given that we now know it is common for the MOD to state the cost of overseas bases, will he be transparent and finally tell the House how much we will have to pay to rent back the vital military base that we currently own? Finally, although we would prefer the Government to cancel the whole deal, at the very least will the Minister pause any further ratification until the new US Administration are in place and the Mauritius Government have concluded their review?

• 27 Nov 2024 · UK Air and Missile Defences · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 27 Nov 2024 · UK Air and Missile Defences · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I will just say this: last week the Government announced very significant cuts to defence capability without waiting for the SDR, so why do they have to wait for the SDR to realise that we need to go to 2.5% to replenish our munitions as a matter of urgency? They must know that, no matter how many SDRs they undertake.

• 27 Nov 2024 · UK Air and Missile Defences · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. My strong congratulations to the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on an extremely timely debate. He spoke very well—in fact, all colleagues have contributed very thoughtful speeches on this important subject. Because of what is happening in Ukraine and what we have seen in the Red sea and Israel, many now say we should adopt some form of Iron Dome. This debate is very timely and I am grateful for it. I echo the comments of my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) and the hon. Member for North Durham in asking the Minister to update us on the overnight story of drones flying over United States Visiting Forces bases in Suffolk and Norfolk, and the apparent deployment of the negation of improvised non-state joint aerial, or NINJA, and ORCUS systems—which is different from the AUKUS defence pact with our partners. It would be good to have an update on how that was used. The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) made a key point. I launched the integrated procurement model in February, and he is right that one should not look at missile defence in silos—no pun—because there has to be a joined-up multi-domain approach, particularly for space. I strongly agree with him that that will be a decisive factor in the early stages of something we hope will never happen: existential war. We need to be interoperable with allies, and the systems we procure need to be integrated across all the domains of our defence posture. We do still need to consider these issues at domain level. My last visit to an army base, a week before the election was called, was to Thorney Island on the south coast to the 7th Air Defence Group. It used to be regarded as quite obscure but, because it is a ground-based air defence unit, it found itself at the heart of the debate on future defence. When I visited, I was clear that we would be ordering significant new levels of GBAD, including lightweight multi-role missiles for short-range, but also Land Ceptor units. I hope the Minister can confirm that those orders are continuing under the new Government and will be scaled up. As colleagues have said, we need more scale than we currently have because of the changing threat. In the air domain, we currently rely on the Typhoon as our backbone. The hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) made a good point that GCAP, which I support, is way off in the future, in the 2030s. What is going to happen to boost lethality in the near term? It would be good if the Minister could update us on E-Scan radar with Typhoon, which will significantly increase its capability. It has been intercepting drones and missiles in the middle east and remains the backbone of our air defence. We must ensure that it is operating at the most capable level it can achieve. I am particularly concerned about the maritime threat. We are supporting Ukraine, not in the theatre, but through the supply of ordnance. In the naval situation, our own ships were threatened, along with our own British sailors. It is in the public domain that the Houthis have obtained ballistic missiles from Iran and possibly other actors. That is a very serious threat. They may not yet have the fullest capability, but there was a worrying report this week that they are sending troops to support Russia in exchange for targeting information. That is a very serious development. Given the ballistic threat, and given that Sea Ceptor cannot currently intercept in the terminal phase, we need rapidly to accelerate the Evolution upgrade, as far as we are able. That would give us an anti-ballistic capability. We may have to consider an urgent operational requirement for the standard missile 3—a US missile on the USS Arleigh Burke—that can intercept ballistic threats. I believe that could go in our Mark 41 launchers when our Type 26 and Type 31 start entering the sea. We will have to think like that because the threat is evolving so fast. I strongly feel that technology is where we can enhance our forces. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), Chair of the Defence Committee, spoke about laser. When I was presented with DragonFire, I thought, “Wow!” If we can get this capability into service as fast as possible, crucially—although is obviously experimental up to a point—there may be a way to intercept drones without denuding our missile stockpile. That is incredibly significant. The other directed-energy weapon we looked at was the radio frequency one, which I saw at Thorney Island. That is not an electronic warfare system; it is a kinetic strike from sound waves that can take out multiple drones at once, for something like 10p a shot. At the moment, it has a relatively limited range. I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government will be pursuing those directed-energy weapons. If we go at them hard and fast, and deliver them into the arms of our forces quicker than other nations, we will boost not only our lethality and capability, but our defence industry. It is not just the link with industry, but the link with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and our brilliant scientists that matters, as well as creating the integrated procurement system that I wanted. I was pleased that the hon. Member for North Durham talked about that system, which enables us to develop really quickly and remain at the cutting edge. Obviously, as I think all colleagues have said, there is one key issue: procuring these weapons, systems and capabilities costs money. We need to commit to 2.5%, and the Conservative position was to achieve that by 2030. Now, we can go back to the 2010s, as the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) did. He knows that I am a great fan of his; he showed me around the cockpit of an A400 and I was very grateful. He has huge expertise from his time in service, but I have to be clear that the Labour party would have cut defence spending by 25% in 2010 had they won the election. The financial position then was incredibly bleak. We now have to put the past behind us. It was a long-term decline— [ Interruption. ] The Minister is chuntering, but the fact is that defence spending fell under both the Conservatives and Labour, as it had around the world since the end of the cold war, because we all thought peace was upon us. In defence, we all have to adjust to the threat picture as we see it. This is the crucial point: when we announced our funding pathway to 2.5% in April, which the Prime Minister announced in Germany, it would have included reducing the civil service to its pre-pandemic size to pay for it. That is not a particularly ambitious target, but the No. 1 priority of that extra spending would have been replenishment and rearmament. By replenishment, we mean replacing the arms we have given to Ukraine, and by rearmament, we mean replacing our technological warfighting capabilities—for example, making the evolution system for Sea Viper an absolute priority. If we have a multi-year funding path in the MOD, we can procure at scale and at pace. If we have one-off, one-year adjustments—even if it is £2.9 billion—they will not enable procurement at the scale and pace that we require, and that is a fact. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) actually made the very good point that, if we go back to the Select Committee appearance by the Secretary of State, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan of military capability said that we need “always on” production. That is what a multi-year settlement gives us. Ultimately, wars are fought on industrial capability. I will make two more points. On our allies, an excellent point was made about DIAMOND—delivering integrated air and missile operational networked defences, an initiative that I launched—which is about having tests for missile defence, like those we have in the Outer Hebrides for cruise missiles with the Navy. We need to train to be interoperable as NATO in Europe in those capabilities. We also have to look at multilateral procurement so that we as a continent are buying together to leverage economies of scale. My final point, which I think is absolutely crucial, is about the deterrent. The hon. Member for North Durham said at the beginning that this is about conventional air defence. We have to be absolutely clear that, when Putin starts talking about an intercontinental ballistic missile being used, he is not going to not use it because we have missile defence; the thing that will stop him using it is fear of second strike from our ballistic missiles. We hope that would never happen—it is the extreme response to the extreme threat—but, while people talk about neglecting homeland security, we have had a submarine continuously at sea since 1969 with the most extraordinary lethality aboard. The scale of what it can do is quite unimaginable, and it is still absolutely at the technological cutting edge. My point is this: we must not take that for granted. It must still be the cornerstone of the SDR; it is our No. 1 defence and it is ultimately the reason why countries will not, I believe, be tempted to launch conventional missile attacks. After all, if they attacked London with conventional missiles, that is a declaration of war under article 5, and a country doing that would ultimately have to be prepared to risk a nuclear response—that is what would be at stake. That is not to say for one moment that we should not be considering how we upgrade our air defence— I totally agree with everyone who has spoken about the importance of that—but in the SDR, the nuclear deterrent should still be the No. 1 priority because it is the fundamental way in which we defend ourselves. Again, that means a multi-year funding settlement so that we can invest in infrastructure and the expensive capabilities that come with it. We have heard some excellent speeches. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) spoke about the need to get to 2.5% as soon as possible. The Conservatives strongly agree with him, and we hope the Minister will still be pushing for that.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Defence Programmes Developments · Hansard source

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  We have heard it all today. The Secretary of State claims that Labour is the party of defence, when barely an hour and a half ago, Prime Minister’s questions was taken by a Deputy Prime Minister who, along with the Foreign Secretary, voted against the renewal of Trident. The Secretary of State talks about inheriting a financial black hole. I remind the House that in 2010, when the Conservative party last took office, the deficit was 10.3% of GDP and we were on the verge of bankruptcy. When Labour took office in July, the deficit was 4.4% of GDP. Had the deficit Labour inherited been the same as in 2010, it would have been £160 billion bigger—the same as the NHS budget in England last year—so we take no lectures on black holes. The fact is that Labour has refused to set a pathway to 2.5%, and now we see the consequences: cuts instead of a pathway. The Secretary of State says that his path to 2.5% will be fully funded, while describing our path to 2.5% as a gimmick. Our plan was funded by reducing the size of the civil service. That is not a gimmick; it is just something that Labour’s union paymasters will not allow them to do. The Secretary of State says that defence reform was of little interest to recent Defence Secretaries. If he is talking about Ben Wallace, he was the Defence Secretary who took the massive decision to provide battlefield weapons to Ukraine before Russia invaded it, and to provide it with Storm Shadow and Challenger 2. If he is talking about Grant Shapps, he gave me his 100% backing in delivering the integrated procurement model, a fundamental reform of defence procurement that was all about modernisation, and that accelerated our procurement of anti-drone lasers. Having delivered a 9.7% pay rise for the most junior personnel in 2023, we welcome the retention payments. However, given the cuts relating to the Royal Navy and its staffing pressures, will retention payments be offered to non-aircraft engineers, and will the RAF and Navy also receive the £8,000 four-year retention bonus? If not, why not? The Secretary of State says that we “superficially” kept Bulwark and Albion on the books. Yes, we placed them in extended readiness, but to be clear, I personally sought and received assurances from the Navy’s leadership that in the event of a full-scale warfighting scenario in which the priority for the Navy was littoral capability, those ships could have been regenerated to a condition that enabled them to fight, and the crews could have been found. That is what the Navy’s leadership confirmed. Permanently scrapping the landing ships means removing that capability entirely. What impact will that have on the operational effectiveness of the Royal Marines? The multi-role support ship is intended to fill the gap, but it is at least eight to nine years away. Is the Secretary of State still committed to MRSS, and if so, how many will he procure? Turning to rotary, what will be the operational impact in the immediate term of the Puma and Chinook decisions, and what will be the cost of the commercial solution that the Secretary of State will use to fill the capability gap in Brunei and Cyprus? As for the Conservatives’ record on rotary, the Secretary of State knows that we secured £320 million of savings by renegotiating the Chinook extended range procurement, and that I personally commenced the new medium helicopter competition. On the new medium helicopter, I insisted that the procurement should have strong scoring for maintaining skilled rotary work in the UK, and for exportability, to sustain that work. Can the Secretary of State confirm that he will not change the competition, and that he is still committed to procuring the new medium helicopter without delay? Will the NMH come into service before those Pumas are retired? On Watchkeeper, as the Minister who launched the MOD’s first ever drone strategy, I appreciate that this is an area where we need to move fast and to have the capability to deliver in the modern battle space. Will the Secretary of State be gifting any of these capabilities to Ukraine, such as the older Chinooks or the Pumas, especially given what happened yesterday? Finally and most importantly, what on earth does all this mean for the strategic defence review, from the MRSS to future drones for the British armed forces? The Secretary of State will no doubt say that I should wait for the SDR, so why did he not wait for the SDR before making today’s decisions? To conclude, whatever the Chancellor’s true grasp of economics, she has certainly been able to force her priorities on to the country, getting the MOD to scrap major capabilities before it has undertaken the Department’s much-vaunted strategic defence review. The Labour Government have killed off North sea oil, undermining our energy security. This week, they are killing off the family farm and threatening our food security, and today, they are scrapping key defence capabilities and weakening our national security. The Government have made their choices, and they own the consequences.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are now widespread reports in the media of Storm Shadow missiles being used in Russian territory for the first time. To be clear, I entirely sympathise with the Secretary of State in his reluctance to provide an operational running commentary, but equally he will appreciate that once these matters are being reported in the media there may be an expectation among colleagues that we will hear more in the House. Madam Deputy Speaker, have you been given any representations about a possible statement on these matters by the Ministry of Defence?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I join the Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), in strongly welcoming the decision by the United States to permit Ukraine to use long-range missiles in Kursk. I know the Secretary of State does not want to go into operational detail—I understand that—but I assure him of our support if he follows through in relation to Storm Shadow, as we believe he should. There will be those who talk about escalation, but does he agree that the only escalation that matters here is 10,000 North Korean troops on the ground supporting Russia in its illegal war?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  That is an excellent point. I pay tribute to those sorts of schools and how they share in society’s commitment to our armed forces. It has been Labour policy since the 2017 general election—seven and a half years ago—to introduce VAT on school fees. Families who have personnel serving abroad this Christmas will have just December to deal with whatever those new fees mean for them. That is a shockingly short amount of notice. On pay, we agree that those who serve their country must be appropriately rewarded, which is why in 2023 we announced a core armed forces pay rise of 5%, plus a further consolidated increase of £1,000, equating to a rise of approximately 9.7% for the most junior ranks, and including a freeze in food charges. Alongside pay, accommodation is an important part of the offer from the MOD. We all accept that much more needs to be done, and presumably that will form a key focus for the commissioner. I stand by what I said in the Remembrance debate: the problem is the underlying structural nature of so much of the accommodation in the defence estate. For that reason, as a Minister I wanted to see us potentially buying back the defence estate in England and Wales from Annington, so that we could plan a full rebuild and regeneration of the estate—the long-term solution that I think the Veterans Minister referred to earlier. I hope the Government will take that work forward, but I appreciate that it is highly legally and commercially sensitive, and there is a limit to what they can say on that. As for the short term, the lesson from our winter plan last year is that investment and a plan for the defence estate can still yield results. Early on as the Minister responsible for the estate, in 2023, I accepted that the previous winter we had let down service families, and with the backing of Ben Wallace and then Grant Shapps, we secured £400 million in the defence Command Paper refresh, and delivered a winter plan that saw thousands of homes treated for issues such as damp and mould. Complaints to contractors fell sharply between 2022 and winter 2023. That brings me to the final critical point—funding. The new commissioner will almost certainly be assailed with accommodation cases, but any reports that he produces will inevitably form one conclusion: there is a need for more investment in the estate, at a time when there are many other competing priorities. The £400 million that we announced required us to make choices about spending, and to prioritise accommodation and the welfare of personnel over other pulls on funding. It is incredibly important that the Government commit to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence as soon as possible. The Secretary of State will inevitably say that the last time we reached 2.5% was in 2010. I could as easily say that the last time we reached 3% was in 1996. They were two points on a pathway of consistently falling spending since the cold war, because successive Governments believed, like many around the world, that we were in a more peaceful era. That is a statement of fact. The point is that welfare in the military is about us as a nation and a Government saying to those who serve, “We have your back.” That is impossible without more funding, and that means setting a definitive date for getting to 2.5%. The Conservative party will always support the welfare of service personnel. That is why we will try to work constructively with the Government on the Bill. We will not be dividing the House this evening.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  At all times, and on both sides of the House, we should want to ensure that our armed forces have our back and that their morale and the offer from the MOD is as strong as possible. The Opposition recognise that the Bill introduces a manifesto commitment for which the Government have a clear mandate and, moreover, that it creates a new mechanism by which the MOD intends to boost the day-to-day experience of our armed forces personnel. No one could disagree with that goal. While it remains to be seen exactly how the Bill will deliver in practice, we will not oppose it but will be a constructive, critical friend, because the least that those who bravely put their lives on the line to defend our country deserve is proper scrutiny from Parliament in matters of legislation and the armed forces. Of course, there are areas of welfare not directly affected by the Bill where we want to see further progress, but, in terms of the Bill’s provisions, we wish to probe a number of matters. At face value, there is clearly merit in seeking to ensure extra accountability for how welfare matters are conducted in the forces. I note in particular, as the Secretary of State just stressed, that the commissioner will explicitly not be drawn from the ranks of either the military or the civil service, precisely in order to deliver genuine independence. In many ways, that provision is not dissimilar to the principle that I wanted to see in the integrated procurement model back in February, with the idea of a second opinion in procurement, not least from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the science base—the point being to ensure that major procurement programmes and the requirement request from the single services could similarly be subject to genuine challenge and transparency. After all, the Sheldon inquiry focused on transparency and openness as key tools to guarding against the bad culture that can pertain without confidence for military personnel and officials to come forward and air their concerns—what we call being “psychologically confident”. Therefore, in principle, the proposal appears to be consistent with the push for a more transparent culture in defence that makes it harder to hide embedded problems. The most serious such examples could include the issues raised by the Lyons Review and the Defence Committee’s “Women in the Armed Forces” report, as referred to at oral questions earlier by the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). As such, if the new office of the commissioner genuinely exposes cultural weaknesses and hidden systemic problems that would otherwise not have been disclosed or would take longer to emerge, it should be welcomed. That said, such extra transparency cannot be at the expense of operational effectiveness. That is why one of the most significant issues that we will want to probe further is the interaction between the commissioner and the chain of command, especially in sensitive operational settings. The Bill states that visits will not be permitted on national security grounds, but what if the commissioner and the chain of command disagree on whether those grounds apply? Will the Secretary of State adjudicate? If so, how will that work in practice? As my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) alluded to in his earlier oral question, how will such visits work in practice without disrupting live operations? We must have clarity. Off the back of the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Act 2015, the previous Government did much work to reduce bureaucracy, shorten the complaints process and strengthen oversight. It is important that that is not undermined through the organisational upheaval that the Bill will inevitably generate. What steps will the Government take to ensure a smooth handover, especially in relation to existing casework? A few of our colleagues have experienced that recently. On the territorial application of the Bill, as things stand there is a permissive extent clause that enables an Order in Council to provide for relevant sections of the legislation to extend to the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or any of the British overseas territories except Gibraltar. First, what is the rationale for apparently excluding Gibraltar? Secondly, what of the US visiting forces? As Minister for Defence Procurement with responsibility for the estate, I visited both Lakenheath and Mildenhall in my county of Suffolk, where there is a significant presence of US forces, F-35s and F-15s. I had the pleasure of meeting the then commanding officer, Major General Campo. There were a significant number of infrastructure, planning and other matters where, inevitably, the USVF needed clearance and input from the UK MOD. What will the Commissioner’s responsibilities be in relation to USVF, particularly where British personnel are stationed alongside them? Similarly, what about the personnel of the many nations assisting with training Ukrainians for Operation Interflex on the UK bases? My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) made a very good intervention. We agree that we want to question the point about veterans, and we will probe that in Committee. Finally, on costs, we note that the Department expects the annual cost of the commissioner to be higher than that of the current ombudsman, and overall in the region of £5 million. Does the Secretary of State anticipate that the cost will grow further and above that estimation in the years ahead, as the commissioner becomes more established? More broadly, we know that many issues affect morale, recruitment and retention in the armed forces. We want the Bill to succeed, but there remain a number of areas of concern where delivering a better offer to our service personnel is critical. On recruitment and retention, hopefully all hon. Members understand the critical importance of boarding school to service families, and that there are very few places not in the independent sector. Boarding school provides stability for their children in a career that does not automatically lend itself to such. Yet families affected by VAT on school fees will not find out until December exactly how they will be hit by a tax that commences the very next month. Let us remember that many such families do not receive continuity of education allowance, and will have to cover a 20% hike in fees from their taxed income. That is why the Opposition wanted the type of VAT exemption for all children of service families that is offered to children with special educational needs and disabilities with an education, health and care plan.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Improving Service Life: Personnel and Families · Hansard source

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  On the subject of improving service life for service personnel and their families, thousands of families will be getting the unwelcome Christmas present this year of a 20% tax on the school fees that they pay to fund an independent boarding school or, otherwise, will have to allow their children’s education to be constantly destabilised. Given that this new tax is 100% the responsibility of the Government, will the Secretary of State confirm that the continuity of education allowance will be uplifted to fund 100% of the new tax on those fees?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In relation to the cost of renting back our own military base on the Chagos islands, last week the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), said that the reason the Government refused to tell us what the cost will be is that “it is not normal practice for the UK to reveal the value of payments for military bases anywhere across the globe”. —[ Official Report , 13 November 2024; Vol. 756, c. 793.] Is that correct?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State says it is true that it is not normal practice for the UK to reveal the value of payments for military bases, but there have actually been several written answers, under this Government and previous ones, giving the costs of overseas bases. For example, in November 2015 the then Minister for the Armed Forces—Penny Mordaunt, no less—revealed in a written answer the cost of 10 overseas bases, including Diego Garcia and the cost of leases. The reason for withholding the cost does not stack up. What does the Secretary of State have to hide from Parliament?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Chagos Islands · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Obviously, the issue of cost is of huge importance, because it is public money, and the Opposition think that the public should know about the cost involved in this agreement. The Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) that the Government do not give out the figure because they do not state the cost of overseas bases. My hon. Friend pointed out that the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), has clearly stated the cost of the base in Kenya. The Foreign Office Minister said that that is only a training base, but I can confirm to the House that back in November 2022, James Heappey, the then Minister for the Armed Forces, stated the cost of running the base in Akrotiri to the then Member for East Lothian, and that is not a training base at all. Mr Heappey gave three years’ worth of figures. Such a request is therefore clearly not unprecedented and it is an extremely important point of public interest, because this is public money. How can we hold the Government to account if they will not tell us what they will pay to rent back the base that we already own?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Chagos Islands · Hansard source

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  Yes, very much so.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Chagos Islands · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment · Hansard source

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  Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker, especially on Armistice Day. I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s response, but he keeps going back to 2010 when we spent 2.5%. That is true, but he says it without adding the fact that his Government had bankrupted the country. In fact, I asked the House of Commons Library about this. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed that if Labour had returned to government, it was planning cuts to the defence budget of 20% to 25%. But this question is about today. The threat picture is far graver than it has been for many generations, as the Chief of the Defence Staff confirmed at the weekend. As the Secretary of State says, the Labour party committed in its general election manifesto to a “path to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence.” The Prime Minister said shortly after taking office that it was “cast iron”, which the Secretary of State has repeated today. With President Trump’s election victory, there will inevitably be a greater focus on what more European NATO members can do to boost Europe’s own defence, but yesterday the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and this morning the Secretary of State himself were unable to say whether the Government would deliver on 2.5% in the current Parliament. In addition, yesterday The Sunday Times reported that Defence Equipment and Support in Abbey Wood has effectively been instructed to avoid any new procurement at all for the rest of this financial year. Spending 2.5% is not an end in itself. The key reason that in April we set out a fully funded multi-year pathway to 2.5% was to enable the Ministry of Defence to procure, at pace and at scale, the munitions that we need to urgently replenish our stocks to warfighting levels. With the whole world wanting to buy more munitions, we cannot afford to delay any further. I have key questions for the Secretary of State, because at the same time we are having this debate, there are a whole load of new burdens coming for the MOD which it will have to cover. In which financial year does he expect the share of GDP spent on defence to start rising significantly, and will he guarantee to hit 2.5% in this Parliament—yes or no? Not including existing programmes, is it true that there is a freeze on new procurement of defence equipment and support for the rest of this financial year? Will the MOD be 100% compensated by the Treasury for higher employer national insurance contributions and for the cost of increasing continuity of education allowance, and will service families be 100% compensated for the extra VAT on school fees? Penultimately, on Armistice Day can the Secretary of State absolutely rule out surviving spouses of service personnel being taxed on death in service benefits? Finally, on the Chagos islands, in the Department’s written answer to me it refused to say how much the MOD will contribute to renting back our own military base, so this is a very simple question: the Secretary of State will not tell us how much it is going to cost, but does he know how much it is going to cost?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You know how strongly the House feels about the Government’s decision on the Chagos islands. The Defence Secretary has made it very clear today that the Government know what the cost of that settlement will be to the Ministry of Defence. Many colleagues have repeatedly asked, through oral questions and written questions, what the cost will be. This is public money. Given that the Government refuse to tell us what the cost will be, can you advise us on how else we can probe to find out how much public money will be used?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Remembrance and Veterans · Hansard source

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  With respect, I think the hon. Gentleman misses the point of my speech. As I said at the beginning, I am here to talk about remembrance, and I sincerely believe that the best way to honour the fallen is by learning the lessons of the past. That means always standing up for our country and ensuring that we have the strongest possible deterrent. That is why, with a Budget on Wednesday, it really matters that we talk about defence spending in this debate. This is a matter of supreme national interest. As we prepare to remember all those lives lost serving in our Navy and merchant fleet, this replenishment would have addressed key emerging threats to our naval ships that have been exposed in the Red sea, such as by funding DragonFire laser procurement to tackle drones and upgrading our Sea Viper system to combat ballistic missiles. People may think that that is not relevant, but after all the tragedy we saw when we lost those ships in the Falklands we should be doing everything possible urgently to procure systems that can help to defend our ships against these emerging threats. Another key challenge is retention. We know that we need to do everything possible to support those who serve in our armed forces today. Two days from the Budget, I hope that the Secretary of State has read today’s warning in The Times online that hundreds may leave the armed forces because of the Government’s education tax. The article quotes the many service personnel who have emailed me with their concerns, such as the wife of an Army major who writes: “The extra 20% will make things extremely difficult, and we fear we will have to choose between my husband’s career or our daughter’s education.” Labour should not be forcing thousands of military families to make so stark a choice when we cannot afford to lose such experienced personnel, and when it costs almost £48,000 a head to train just one much less experienced replacement. Finally, there is the key issue of accommodation. I am proud of the additional £400 million that the Conservative Government injected to help address damp, mould and the many other problems that routinely affect our military homes. However, as someone with a background in housing before entering Parliament, it was clear to me from day one as the Minister responsible for the defence estate that we had to do something far more radical, given the inherent structural problems with so much of our service accommodation. That is why I built on my predecessor Jeremy Quin’s work to put the wheels in motion so that, subject to negotiation, we could buy back the defence estate from Annington Homes. If we really want homes fit for heroes, as I am sure we all do, I strongly believe that we need a complete rebuild of the defence estate, rather than year-to-year sticking plaster solutions. It could be one of the country’s most exciting regeneration projects, but it requires ownership to be fully restored, and that means Annington. Of course, Annington is an area of considerable legal and commercial sensitivity, so I do not expect a direct answer, but I hope the Government will continue to build on my considerable work in that area. If we are truly to honour the fallen, we must do everything to avoid future conflict by having the strongest possible deterrence. I have huge respect for the Secretary of State, but I believe it was a mistake to say that we are not ready to fight. We now need to see whether he is ready to fight for our armed forces. We need two things in Wednesday’s Budget: a VAT exemption on school fees for forces families, and a clear pathway to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence so that we can urgently replenish our munition stocks to war-fighting levels. Those who serve our country deserve no less.

• 28 Oct 2024 · Remembrance and Veterans · Hansard source

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  I join the Secretary of State in congratulating our brilliant Royal Marines on their 360th anniversary. This timely and important debate coincides with Mr Speaker’s official opening of the constituency garden of remembrance earlier today. It marks the point where, as a House, we pay tribute to all those who serve and have served our country, particularly those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. As we approach Remembrance Day, I thank the Royal British Legion and charities across the UK that ensure that our collective memory of the fallen never fades, while providing invaluable services and support to today’s veterans. I am also proud of the previous Government’s record on veterans, which my colleague, the shadow Veterans Minister, will cover in his closing speech. The focus of my speech is primarily on the remembrance part of this debate. I believe that politicians best honour the fallen by never forgetting the lessons of the wars in which they fought. This means never being complacent about the threats we face and doing everything possible to strengthen our deterrence, so that this country is never again embroiled in the senseless slaughter of existential war. It must be obvious to all of us that the threat of such a war looms larger over our continent than it has for many years. To that end, and I say this with respect to the Secretary of State, it was profoundly ill-judged of him to suggest, at a time when deterrence is of paramount importance, that Britain is not ready to fight a war. I reassure the British public, millions of whom will soon wear their poppies with pride, that our armed forces remain among the best in the world. After all, it would be wholly unrealistic to expect this nation to fight Russia single-handedly. The challenge is to be ready to fight and deter as part of NATO, and no one should be in any doubt of the outsized scale of our contribution to the alliance. First and foremost, we unambiguously and unflinchingly offer our 24/7 nuclear deterrent for the defence of all European NATO allies, and we are incredibly proud to have delivered a continuous at-sea deterrent every day since 1969. Moreover, during NATO’s Steadfast Defender exercise earlier this year—its largest such exercise since the end of the cold war—we led the way with 20,000 service personnel, eight warships and submarines and an aircraft carrier, plus tanks, artillery, helicopters and Poseidon P-8 surveillance aircraft. That is not the contribution of a nation unable to fight. As we prepare to look back and remember past conflicts, the most important example of our readiness is not an exercise but a real-world war that is happening on our continent today. When it comes to Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the UK, under the previous Government, played a singular leadership role, which started before the Russian tanks rolled in. Since 2014, we have trained thousands of Ukrainians to fight and we provided crucial anti-tank weaponry before the invasion commenced. That helped the Ukrainians to defy expectations and stay in the fight. Surely we can all see that, had Ukraine fallen early, the world would have been an even more dangerous place, with our adversaries emboldened and with NATO’s borders potentially threatened. As the previous Secretary of State, Grant Shapps, revealed, President Zelensky has said that the UK, more than any other nation, has been responsible for helping to ensure that the majority of Ukraine remains free, more than two years after Russia’s main attack. Far from talking down our armed forces, we should be extremely proud of the role we have played in supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom. That said, of course we have our challenges. First and foremost is the need to replenish munitions, not least after gifting so many to Ukraine. That is why, in April, we set out a fully funded plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, paid for by reducing the civil service to its pre-pandemic size and prioritising £10 billion of additional funding for replenishment.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I offer my condolences and those of Opposition Members to the family and friends of Corporal Christopher Gill, who we understand tragically lost his life during a training exercise recently. We understand that he served his country for 13 years, including in Afghanistan, and more recently volunteered to train Ukrainian soldiers in the UK. Having visited Salisbury plain last May to see Operation Interflex, I know that we should be grateful to all our service personnel, including Corporal Gill, who have played such a huge role in training the Ukrainian armed forces so that they can continue to fight and defend their homeland. That fight goes on, and we continue to offer all support to the Government for that, as well as standing by the Government, people and armed forces of Ukraine. We therefore warmly welcome the G7 joint declaration and funding announcement, but we share the Government’s concerns in relation to North Korea. I have lost count of the many times that Vladimir Putin has accused us and our allies of so-called escalatory action in our support for Ukraine, but today we are considering the very real threat of North Korean combat troops being sent to support Russia’s illegal invasion. Let us be in no doubt: any potential agreement between Putin and Kim Jong-un to have North Korean boots on the ground in Ukraine at all—let alone in the numbers that have been reported—would be a major escalatory ratchet by Putin himself. After all, as the Secretary of State confirmed, Russia has already procured munitions and ballistic missiles from North Korea. The transfer of those weapons in the first place was not only completely unacceptable, but a blatant violation of the UN sanctions that Russia itself voted for. The transfer of North Korean weapons and now the threat of combat troops show weakness and desperation, not strength, on Putin’s part, as the Secretary of State said. Above all, this raises the question of what Putin is offering North Korea in return, but we should not be deterred and must respond. We took decisive countermeasures to help constrain the transfer of weapons between North Korea and Russia. The Conservative Government imposed sanctions on the arms-for-oil trade between Russia and North Korea, including asset freezes, travel bans and transport sanctions. The new Government, in turn, must now respond to this latest threat of combat troops. Can I press the Secretary of State to look at how the UK should respond in the round? Yes, we need to look at the diplomatic tools we can use to disrupt co-operation between North Korea and Russia, but we also need to urgently look again both at our military aid to Ukraine and at the freedom we offer it to use the munitions that we supply, particularly long-range missiles. Given the need to continue providing further capability to Ukraine, we welcome yesterday’s announcement that the UK will contribute £2.26 billion to the G7 extraordinary revenue acceleration loan scheme for Ukraine. The Conservative Government were a vocal advocate for mobilising frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. We strongly welcome the additional funding. When will the money be made available to Ukraine, and over what term? The sooner those funds are mobilised, the better. When exactly will Ukraine receive the funding? Finally, we have spoken many times of the reality that we are facing not just Russian aggression, but a broader authoritarian axis that ultimately threatens the UK. We have seen that explicitly with Iran and the Red sea, and now we see it coming ever closer to home with the prospect of North Korean troops deploying in a European theatre of war. Surely that strengthens even further the argument that the Government need to deliver on their supposed cast-iron guarantee to spend 2.5% on defence. As the Secretary of State failed to answer me at Defence orals, can I once again press him to confirm that he is fighting hard, with the Treasury, to deliver a clear pathway to 2.5% in the Budget at the end of this month?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I associate all of us in my party with your comments about the late Alex Salmond. The most important point about the SDR is that it must not be used as an excuse to delay increasing the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP. In September, in answers to written questions, the Department said that it would set out a path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence “as soon as possible”, but last week, at the Dispatch Box, in his middle east statement, the Prime Minister said that the Government would go to 2.5% “in due course”. We all know that there is a massive difference between the two, so which is it?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  That is a concern. In 2010, just to remind the House, the black hole in the defence budget was bigger than the defence budget, and we were left a note saying that there was no money left. It is significant if the wording is no longer “as soon as possible” and is now “in due course”. It is in the national interest to go to 2.5% because of the threats we face as a country. If the Secretary of State told us now that he was fighting hard with the Treasury to go to 2.5% in the Budget at the end of this month, he would have our full support. Is that what he is doing?