Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Heappey and Jamie Stone

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The most effective deployment of our submarine forces in response to Russian deployment is surely intelligence-dependent. Membership of the joint expeditionary force is not synonymous with that of NATO. I press the Minister: are we making every effort to glean intelligence on Russian naval deployment from those other countries?

[James Heappey]

Our intelligence on Russian submarine movements is, as the hon. Gentleman can imagine, some of the most sensitive, but he will be reassured to know that we are absolutely working with allies to ensure that our understanding of where Russian submarines are is the best it can possibly be, and that we are postured to ensure that we meet whatever threat there may be as a consequence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Heappey and Jamie Stone

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

In the first instance, my right hon. Friend could advise them to go to the ARAP website and apply to the scheme, but it does no harm at all to write to me or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in parallel, as many colleagues have done, and we are working through those cases at best speed.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

When people who are pursuing successful careers in the armed forces go back to their old schools and say, “Look, this is what I have done; this is what you can do”, that can be a real incentive to recruitment. Does the Secretary of State agree that this would be a good way for him to co-ordinate with the Secretary of State for Education in future?

UK Military Personnel Serving Overseas: Vaccination

Debate between James Heappey and Jamie Stone

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

First, I would like to challenge the hon. Lady: I am not sure that correcting the assertion that there had been 80 positive cases with the fact that there had been 24 shows pride in that fact; it is just correcting the record in response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) in the first place.

It is certainly the case that everybody who is deploying on operations now has been jabbed. That goes without saying given that we are now at the stage where everybody under the age of 40 has had their jab. It is not necessarily the case that everybody has had two jabs and not necessarily possible to accelerate that. The Royal Anglian battlegroup, for example, who have just deployed to Mali, have had their first jab. They will receive their second when the appropriate period of time has passed between jabs. Otherwise there is no point in jabbing them because the effectiveness of the vaccination will not be as high as it should be. However, we have certainly reached a point in the vaccination programme where everybody who is being deployed has been vaccinated.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Clearly we must make sure that there is availability of vaccinations, and we must do everything we can to build public trust right across society, including our armed forces, in the effectiveness of the vaccinations. There has recently been some press comment about what the Government might do with those in the armed forces who refuse to accept the vaccine. I seek two reassurances from the Minister: first, that the maximum will be done to persuade them of the advisability of having a vaccination; and secondly, that they will not have their careers damaged because of their refusal to accept the vaccine.

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. It is not in our gift to order people to take a medication should they not wish to do so. Prior to deployments where we have been seeking to fully vaccinate beforehand, we have been having a conversation with those who have expressed concern to try to reassure them that the vaccine is entirely safe and that it is in their interest to take it. I can absolutely assure him that anybody who needs to be removed from an operational deployment because of their unwillingness to take a vaccine is not in any way career fouled as a consequence.

Afghanistan

Debate between James Heappey and Jamie Stone

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

Within the 150,000-plus service personnel who have served in Afghanistan, there will be many thousands of reservists who have mobilised and answered their nation’s call, and they have done so with great distinction, as my hon. Friend describes. He will be pleased to hear, I am sure, that the design of our armed forces for the next decades recognises absolutely the importance of the role that reservists play both as individuals, with the expertise that they bring to the force, and as formed units. There is every intention of building on their success in Iraq and Afghanistan as we look at how we use the reserves in the future.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Let us be quite honest about this: we are where we are today because the United States is going to do what it is going to do. Some of us will remember the scenes of Saigon in 1975, with people who had helped the US forces scrambling desperately to get on board the helicopters. Those who were left faced imprisonment and in some cases execution. So my question is very clear: the Minister and the shadow Secretary of State have touched on the fate of those Afghanis who have helped us—the translators and the like—but will we give them asylum and will we give them residency in the UK to thank them for what they have done? Let me go further: will we extend the same offer, because there is interchange, to those who helped the US forces if the United States refuses to do so?

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman asks me a very straightforward question, and I hope I can give him a very straightforward answer. Between 1 May and the completion of the withdrawal in September, any attack on NATO troops will be responded to robustly. The withdrawal will happen in good order; there will be none of the scenes that he evokes from previous conflicts. The plans are well established, and I have every confidence in the ability of our military and the militaries of our allies to deliver them. He is quite right to raise our responsibility to those who have served alongside us. It is not for me to pre-empt the decision that is yet to be made by the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary, but I can reassure him that they are both seized of our responsibility, and I know they are working with all appropriate haste to make sure that a solution is put in place.