Defence Transformation

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I can confirm for my hon. Friend that we do not envisage a change to the usage at present.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can the Secretary of State guarantee that personnel currently serving in Afghanistan and Libya will keep their jobs through these changes?

[Dr Fox]

Looking almost 10 years ahead, it is impossible to predict what changes might take place. That will be a matter for the Army, of course in consultation with the Government. I can say that no one will be made compulsorily redundant within a year of returning from any combat operations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Howarth]

I assure my hon. Friend that I am very aware of the work going on his constituency—I have been briefed on it—and I think it is a sector in which the United Kingdom enjoys outstanding strength. I have also visited the Airbus facility at Filton, where the wings for the A400M are built. That aircraft has fantastic export potential, and I hope that it will be a world-beater.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

How does the Minister expect successfully to sell British industry abroad when his muddled defence review is squeezing firms at home? Is he aware that the pioneering lighting firm in my constituency, Oxley, has been forced to shed another 13 jobs and cites the difficulties created by the Government’s defence review as a key factor in that decision?

[Mr Howarth]

It might have escaped the hon. Gentleman’s notice that the difficulties that the MOD faces are entirely the fault of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister, who destroyed the country’s public finances and forced the Government to take measures to try to restore them. We are ensuring that we maximise the defence industry’s opportunities for first-class British kit in the export market. If he would like representatives from Oxley to come and tell me about it, I would be happy to meet them.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

I now turn to the official Opposition’s amendments. I know that Opposition Members who have just come in will be particularly keen to hear about them—[Interruption] —especially the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy).

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I’ll take her out.

[Mr Robathan]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman needs to offer to do that. That is a bit sexist, if you ask me, but there we go.

The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire asked earlier from a sedentary position where we got the idea from that there was a £38 billion black hole. May I tell her that it came from the National Audit Office report “Ministry of Defence: The Major Projects Report 2010”?

Nuclear Deterrent

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

There are realities of coalition government that simply have to be faced. As part of the coalition agreement, we made it very clear that we would continue and move to the decisions I have announced today, but we also made it clear that the Liberal Democrats, as one of the coalition partners, would be free to make the case for alternatives. We have lived up to that commitment today.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State knows that approval of initial gate is overdue and it is good that more work can finally go ahead, but let me be clear: he has placed yet another review on the future of the deterrent in the hands of a Minister from the Liberal Democrats—a party that is predisposed to rejecting the only option that makes any sense. How can the Secretary of State give us confidence that he will prevent his colleagues, from the Prime Minister down, from playing politics on this issue and that he will back Barrow so that it can deliver for the nation?

[Dr Fox]

What I am making clear today is that for the rest of this Parliament we will be going ahead with the replacement programme. We are setting out the budget, the areas of policy and the industrial implications for doing so. As I have said, it is part of the coalition agreement that the Liberal Democrats are able to look at these alternatives. Having looked, as Secretary of State since we came to office, at all the alternatives in great detail, including the costs and the implications for defence, I remain absolutely confident that the study is very likely to come to exactly the same conclusion as the 2006 White Paper, but we have given a commitment and we are carrying that out, through Cabinet Office officials, for our Liberal Democrat partners in the coalition. We made an agreement and we are going to honour it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I doubt whether my hon. Friend, or many other Members, would believe some of the suggestions that we have had for the future use of Ark Royal. Its use as a helipad is one of them, and although I find it particularly attractive in some ways, I am not sure whether the residents where it might be placed would think exactly the same. Its use is subject to a range of issues, not least planning considerations but also a range of financial ones. As ever, however, he makes a welcome and creative contribution to the debate.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it true that the nuclear deterrent renewal will pass its initial gate this week? Why the delay over the past year?

[Dr Fox]

It has been essential to ensure that all the issues involved are agreed on, including, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware from his constituency interest, those to do with the safety of nuclear propulsion. I will make a statement to the House in the very near future.

Armed Forces Covenant

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I am aware of the individual mentioned by my hon. Friend. Some extraordinarily severe injuries have been sustained by our armed forces personnel and it is testament to the skill of the medical profession that many of our personnel have been able to survive their injuries. Those of us who have visited Selly Oak, for example, will have marvelled at the medical capabilities and at what they have been able to do. There is, however, another side to this medical skill, which means that more people are able to survive these injuries than previously would have been the case and there are more severe disabilities as a consequence than there would otherwise have been. Part of the work we have been doing not just with prosthetics but with wider health care is to tackle that. This is emerging science and the House must understand that this is cutting-edge medical science. We, along with other countries such as the United States, are pioneering medical techniques to enable those individuals to live as full a life as medical science makes possible.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure it was a slip in the heat of the moment, but in responding to the question from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) during Question Time, the Secretary of State neglected to guarantee that reservists would get continuation of employment and that that would not be considered as red tape by the Government. May I give him another opportunity to do so?

[Dr Fox]

I was not evading the question; I said that it is part of the wider review of reservists. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) is a member of that review and we want to ensure that we consider all the issues relating to reserves—the basing, the functions, the funding, the relationship with the regular forces and so on—including how issues of employment are tackled. We have been very keen to look at the experience in this country and overseas and will make an announcement, I would have thought, before the summer recess.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

Yes, I do agree. Individuals will find that the terms of redundancy are generous and attractive, which is why we expect a lot of people to volunteer.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister order an official inquiry into the way that our armed forces personnel continue to learn of their fate through the newspapers, and will that inquiry investigate Ministers themselves?

[Mr Robathan]

No.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The Government will cross-departmentally set out their proposals on the diamond jubilee in the near future. The House will be informed in the usual way.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), exactly how are the public supposed to maintain confidence in our programme to replace the Trident deterrent when the president of one of the governing parties is apparently given carte blanche to cheer up his battered activists by telling them it probably will not go ahead at all?

[Dr Fox]

The coalition agreement made it very clear that the Liberal Democrats within the coalition would be free to advocate alternatives to the replacement programme. The overall Government policy remains the replacement of the Trident programme however, and, as I said earlier today, the best solution for the United Kingdom is a submarine-based, continuously-at-sea, minimum-credible nuclear deterrent that protects the UK while contributing to overall reductions in international nuclear arsenals.

Armed Forces (Redundancies)

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

We will continue to recruit the highest calibre possible. Some reductions in redundancies have been achieved by slowing down the number of those coming into the armed forces, but we cannot avoid redundancies through that process, because we need to continue to recruit, not least for the campaign in Afghanistan.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the light of the Secretary of State’s announcement that 170 trainee pilots will not be retained by the RAF, will he say how much it costs to train such a pilot in the first place?

[Dr Fox]

I am not sure that that figure is available, but I will try to find out. It is important that when we are unable to continue training, we will offer those concerned alternative careers inside the RAF where possible. However, it is inevitable that if we reduce the number of aircraft, we will have a reduced requirement for pilots. Those trainees will not continue to the end of their traineeship because there has been a reduction in the size of the aircraft fleet, which, as I said, is a necessary part of the spending reductions required to bring the budget into balance. We did not create that budget; we inherited it.

Trident

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Benton, and to secure the debate. Its focus is on the cost issues associated with Trident, and on issues of parliamentary scrutiny. Many other issues are associated with Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons, but I hope that in the short time we have today we shall focus on the aspects I have mentioned.

The background to the matter is of course that in March 2007 the House voted to support the decision taken by the then Government as set out in the White Paper “The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Deterrent” to take the steps necessary to maintain Britain’s nuclear weapons capacity after the Vanguard class submarines leave service in the mid-2020s. The motion that was passed also said that we should take steps towards meeting the UK’s disarmament responsibilities under the non-proliferation treaty. I voted against replacing Trident, but I believe the concerns I am raising today are shared by many hon. Members, and probably by Members on both sides of that debate.

After the vote in March 2007, the Ministry of Defence began the first stage of the process known as the concept stage, which was due to end with the initial gate decision point. That was one of the points of scrutiny of the project. The initial gate report was expected in September 2009, but it has still to be published. The decision whether to authorise the construction of the submarines is to be taken at the later main gate scrutiny stage, which was originally scheduled for 2012-14, but following the conclusion of the strategic defence and security review, that has been delayed until 2016, beyond the next general election.

The White Paper published at the end of 2006, which was voted on in 2007, estimated that the cost of the replacement of the system would be between £15 billion and £20 billion at 2006 prices. No updated estimate in current figures has been provided, and today I shall ask the Minister to ensure that one is provided to the House, particularly given that we know from the information that is in the public domain that spending so far is over-budget. Specifically, I understand that the current submarine programme for the Astute class is running 57 months late and £1.35 billion or 53% over budget. Expenditure on the concept phase has also significantly exceeded its budget—£309 million was originally set aside, but spending up to June 2010 exceeded that, with a figure of £570 million. That is an overspend of 84%. The House is right to be concerned, given that the information provided to this place and to the general public seems to show that spending to date has been far greater than originally projected.

The year 2010-11 has £330 million allocated for the Trident replacement programme. An estimated 15% of the submarine cost is due to be spent during the assessment phase prior to the main gate, based on the 2006 figures. That would amount to about £2 billion, using the MOD’s 2006 figure of a requirement of £11 billion to £14 billion for the submarine replacement plans. It is apparent from the concept phase that the cost of the programme is already increasing. The MOD has refused to provide annual budget figures for the assessment phase period up to 2016 until after the publication of the initial gate.

There also seems to be no intention to provide Parliament with regular reports of the progress of the programme until after the initial gate. Recent statements by the Secretary of State for Defence have confirmed that orders for major items required in the construction of submarines will be placed prior to main gate, and indeed a response to a recent freedom of information request revealed a plan to place more than £1 billion before the main gate approval in 2016, in relation to the various orders for submarines and matters associated with that work. That information was confirmed in answers to questions tabled by hon. Members. The answers to freedom of information requests, and recent answers to parliamentary questions, seem to show that a large proportion of the first boat will be ordered ahead of main gate, as well as the reactors for the second and third boat.

The 2010-11 budget for Trident replacement exceeds that of the planned budget for the whole of the concept phase from years 2006-08 to 2009-10, although we have yet to reach initial gate. I therefore think that the House is right to be concerned about the costs incurred to date, which seem to be well in excess of the projections and information provided to the House in 2007, when the decision was taken, but also about the lack of parliamentary scrutiny of the programme.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does she agree that in any decisions that are taken we do not want to add further to the cost of the programme, and that it would therefore be helpful for the Ministry of Defence to set out the change in the cost profile that has already been conferred by the delay in the main gate decision, and the totality of increased costs that could flow from that?

[Katy Clark]

I agree, and my contention is that it would be helpful if as much information as possible could be put before the House, so that this place takes the right decisions, and so that whatever decisions are taken in years to come will be based on the fullest information, made available not just to Members of the House but to the general public.