Ukraine Update

Debate between Ben Wallace and Andrew Murrison

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

On the immigration pathway, the overall number of 200,000 for family and uncapped for humanitarian is a good thing. The fact that Britain is the biggest single donor to humanitarian aid is a good thing. We should not underplay those two facts. I understand the frustration among both Ukrainians trying to flee and Members of this House about the speed of that processing. I said yesterday that the MOD will support the Home Office as requested; it has agreed in principle and we have work on today to make that go quicker.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Exercise Cold Response and the reinforcing of Tapa camp are welcome and will reassure our Scandinavian and Baltic colleagues, but what is being done specifically with Lithuania? It is very much at risk, since Putin’s next move might very well be an attempt to link Russia proper with the Kaliningrad oblast.

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. That is why some of these countries must take some of their decisions bilaterally, because they will face the consequences of a successful Russia in Ukraine and what will happen next. That is why we have paid extra attention to the Baltics. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), the shadow Defence Secretary, is going today to Estonia; I was happy to facilitate that, and I will do likewise for Scottish National party Members they wish to visit. It is important that we work through the Balts together. There are, I think, four enhanced forward battle groups there and we must ensure they are well co-ordinated. For a time, we put some of our Apaches through Lithuania. As my right hon. Friend points out, though, we are acutely aware that the area called the Suwalki gap, between Belarus and Kaliningrad, could be exploited for Russia’s purposes.

Army Restructuring: Future Soldier

Debate between Ben Wallace and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I would have stayed in the Army if it had looked like this, but I was in an Army that I think was hollowed out. The equipment did not quite work and the greatest adventure anyone had was probably going to Northern Ireland every two years—that was about as far as it went. Hong Kong had closed and there was a lack of sense of purpose and a lack of a clearly identified adversary that we were setting ourselves against. That is really important.

This Army will be more exciting, more rewarding and more enabling for young people to grow their skills. It will be more fluid with the integration of the reserves, which will allow reserves and regulars to be much more able to move from one to the other, depending on their personal circumstances. There is the investment in the different models for family accommodation and single living accommodation, and a determination to be out and about around the world. The one thing that soldiers do not want is to be stuck in a barracks in the UK doing not very much. They want to be out. I was in Oman only the other week seeing soldiers exercising with the Omanis, and they could not stop talking about how exciting and fun it was. I was in Poland last week watching the United Kingdom forces doing a live-firing exercise in Poland alongside Polish, United States and Croatian forces. That is what I want our Army to do.

When we are thinking about soldiers’ careers, we have to have a system that is much more enabling to them to move up and down the different functions of, for example, the infantry. By ensuring that we have these infantry divisions, young officers and young soldiers can, if there is not enough space in their own battalion to be a sergeant or a colour sergeant, move to promotions in such a function in a similar battalion in a similar division. A young officer who does not want to do armoured warfare, but wants to be with a security force assistance battalion abroad, they have such opportunities to move up and down. I think that will be exciting and flexible, and it will be an Army that will retain people because it will give them an exciting career and make sure that their families are properly looked after.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I declare my interest as an active reservist and a proud father of two serving officers. For 20 years, I have been fighting what has at times seemed like a rearguard action to keep Army officer selection in Westbury in my constituency. The location will be familiar to the Secretary of State and his two colleagues on the Government Front Bench who went through the process. Will he today commit to a future for the Army officer selection board at Leighton House in my constituency, and how will we invest in that site to ensure that the future officers implied by his description of the challenges going forward have the skills, attributes and characteristics equal to the tasks of the future, as they have been in the past?

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend has been a more than doughty campaigner on the regular commissions board. Let me put it this way: for many of us on these Benches, the Army would not be the Army without the RCB in Westbury. It is part of the rite of passage. I did not want to see it leave Westbury, and my right hon. Friend persuaded me against any move. He has done a brilliant job, and I am delighted that it is going to remain there. My hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement would be delighted to meet him about the investment opportunities, but who could miss the logistics command task about how to cross a fictional river and work out whether we could do it with three or four people?