Modernising Defence Programme

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

There has been an awful lot of speculation over the past few months and virtually all of it has been proved to be completely untrue. I will continue to keep the House updated on progress, as I promised to in my statement. I will do everything I can to make sure that the armed forces, as well as the House, are listened to as we develop the programme going forward.

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

There is real logic in separating out the security and defence reviews that the Secretary of State has referred to, but going forward, things such as cyber, intel, asymmetric warfare and drones will touch on both security and defence. How will he distinguish Sir Mark Sedwill’s review from the one that he has announced and will lead?

[Gavin Williamson]

We will be continuously working very closely with Sir Mark—given that a great deal of work has already been done on the NSCR, it would be crazy for us not to do that. What the review identified was that more work needed to be done on the Ministry of Defence budget. If the exercise were fiscally neutral, it would not have been possible to deliver in such a way. We will be working closely with the Cabinet Office to ensure that everything that we have done sits within the priorities of the National Security Council. As for cyber-attack, the Ministry of Defence itself leads on aspects of that. All the work across all those realms is done in conjunction with all the parts of our national security infrastructure—GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. It is essential that that continues going forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

What we have done is to create the veterans board. It was previously co-chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and me, and it will now be co-chaired by me and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. We have found that the feedback about what we have been doing and trying to achieve in creating the board has been very positive. This is about not just the Ministry of Defence, but every Department, every local authority in the country and businesses helping and supporting our veterans and our service personnel.

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

Housing regularly tops the list of concerns expressed by the Army Families Federation, as my right hon. Friend will know. Since 2014, CarillionAmey has been responsible for 50,000 service homes, and its website boasts that 1,500 calls are taken from concerned service families every day. What will he do, given that Carillion is about to collapse, to ensure that those calls are responded to appropriately in the immediate term and that service housing is dealt with in the longer term?

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There were some problems, and the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), has done an awful lot of work with CarillionAmey to tackle these issues. We will be making every effort to ensure that the accommodation provided by the partners with which we work and from which our service personnel benefit is of the highest standards.

National Security Capability Review

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point on morale in the armed forces. To read speculation in the newspapers is not good for anyone. That is why I hope we can conclude the national security capability review at the earliest possible moment; then, we can make clear some of the options and what we want to do to take our armed forces forward and to make sure that they have the right investment, so that they continue to be the successful, vibrant organisations in which so many people take great pleasure and pride in serving.

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

Does the Defence Secretary agree that the British Army headcount now is at an irreducible minimum? Does he also agree that the Sedwill review must deal principally with the threats that face this country—cyber and terrorism, and asymmetry—and will he reconcile the two?

[Gavin Williamson]

We will continue to do everything we can to fulfil our commitment. I confess that, probably like all Defence Secretaries, I am a little greedy: I would always prefer to have larger numbers in our armed forces. In the coming months, we will do all we can to drive up the numbers through the new recruitment campaign. We hope that will attract significant uptake and an increase in the number of people joining our forces.

Armed Forces Pay

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith]

As my hon. Friend says, that is absolutely outrageous, and it betrays an appalling attitude on the part of the Government.

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

I am listening carefully to the points that the hon. Lady makes, and as a current reservist I have every sympathy with the idea that pay should rise. However, does she appreciate that within ranks in the armed forces there is pay progression? It is right to talk about starting salaries, but one also has to appreciate that pay will progress within particular ranks.

Has the hon. Lady taken into account the non-contributory pension that applies to the armed forces? Despite the fact that the 2015 changes represented a deterioration in terms and conditions, the pension still represents a wonderful gold standard that is the envy of both the public and private sectors.

[Nia Griffith]

In any career, one would hope to have career progression. The hon. Gentleman also refers to the fact that the pension offer is not as generous as it once was. The problem is that people still face a perfect storm of rising costs and pay that is not keeping up with those costs.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords]

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but there is nothing sinister about this. Different regiments recruit in different ways, and my understanding is that the data are not collated on a constituency basis. However, I would be very happy to have another look at that.

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

I very much support this measure; it is absolutely right to compete for workers in the 21st century. However, terms in the guidance notes such as “back-filling” are troublesome. I am sure that my right hon. Friend would agree that it is necessary to maintain whole-time equivalents in our armed forces rather than relying constantly on back-filling. My 35 years’ experience in the regulars and the reserves tells me that back-filling usually means colleagues filling in for others. Does he agree that that is guaranteed to demoralise people and cause the retention problems to which he has referred?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

My hon. Friend has a great deal of experience in these matters. I know that when the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), winds up the debate, he will want to address that question about back-filling. This is not about making other members of a unit, a platoon or a section do more work to compensate. It is about arranging people’s time in a more satisfactory manner.

The Government acknowledged the strength of feeling in the other place about ensuring that the new regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure, so my colleague the noble Earl Lord Howe accepted Labour’s amendments to that effect. It is of course important that Parliament ensures appropriate scrutiny of the forthcoming regulations. In practice, the arrangements will be temporary, limited to defined periods, and always subject to service needs to maintain operational capability. I want to be absolutely clear that maintaining operational effectiveness is our absolute red line.

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[Nia Griffith]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. If we see the likes of REME in Wrexham and Prestatyn close, opportunities for the whole of north Wales will effectively be withdrawn. That will impact badly on recruitment to our reservist forces and lead to the loss of buy-in from those communities, both of which are serious issues that need addressing.

[Dr Murrison]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is far more important for families to have some sort of certitude about where they are going to be based for a protracted period of time? Moving around the country in the old way was hopeless in that respect and was one of the principal reasons why people decided to leave.

[Nia Griffith]

I think we are talking about two slightly different things. In the cases of Wrexham and Prestatyn, we are talking about particular reservist bases, and my worry is that if we do not draw reservists from across the country, we will miss out on talent. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the other issue.

If the beneficial impact of this Bill is to be fully felt, it is also vital that every effort is made to ensure that service personnel are made aware of the options it affords. We know that individuals are often reluctant to talk about difficult family circumstances for fear of that being seen as a sign of weakness, so it is vital that personnel know about the new options that the Bill introduces before they need to access them. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister outlined how service personnel will be made aware of the options open to them through the Bill.

A decision to take up the option of working on a part-time basis, with the consequent reduction in pay, is not something that anyone would undertake lightly, but it is a decision that may have to be taken at a time of particular stress or difficulty. The Ministry of Defence, as an employer, therefore has a duty of care to ensure that individuals are fully aware of the financial implications of any request and to point out to them that they may wish to take independent financial advice because, although everyone would want to calculate the immediate impact of going part time on their take-home pay, the effect on pensions is not so obvious. Even a limited period of lower contributions could have an effect later in life on what a person receives in every single year they draw their pension. I would be grateful if the Minister set out how the new framework established by the Bill will be made clear to personnel. What assurance can he give that the impact of any change in service arrangements will be highlighted appropriately?

Although we welcome the Bill, it is not a panacea for the very real challenges of recruitment and retention in our armed forces. Members on both sides of the House share my concern that numbers continue to fall in every single service. The trade-trained size of the Army is now well below the 82,000 target that the Conservative party promised to maintain in its manifesto, and intake rates are falling in each of the reserve forces, too. Indeed, a recent report by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), commissioned by the Government, found that recruitment to the armed forces is “running to stand still,” resulting in the “hollowing out” of the services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

If the Scottish people want their armed forces to be run down and demoralised, they should listen to what the hon. Gentleman just said.

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

The Royal Navy has run EUNAVFOR Operation Atalanta successfully for many years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should continue to usefully co-operate with our European neighbours on such things after we leave the European Union?

[Mike Penning]

We are leaving the European Union; we are not leaving Europe. We will continue to consider all the work that we can do with our European friends.

Armed Forces Covenant

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend reflects the deep concerns about the way in which the survey was put together and the framing of the questions, which left a lot of personnel unable to give the answers that they wanted to give. I think the Minister is mindful of that, and I am glad to hear that no formal decisions have yet been made.

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

I do not want to get involved in a dispute between two of my hon. Friends, but does my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) agree that, of all the surveys published in recent times, the one that matters most is the monthly service personnel statistics of 19 January this year? They show, sadly, both reservists and regulars voting with their feet.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

Sadly, that is the reality. I talk continually about retention risk. That risk is very real, and we are suffering from it.

I want to take the Minister and the House a little further into the FAM survey. The survey talked about choices, but no one felt that SFA was a choice that the MOD wanted to keep on the table. The Minister and I will continue to discuss the matter, but that is what the personnel who completed the survey felt. Giving service personnel the choice to live where they want is fine, if the option to live with their family when not deployed during the week is real. However, housing costs in too many parts of the country where forces are based are too high, so the likely reality is that families will be spread across the country and unsupported. We cannot plan for a peaceful world when all our troops are at home.

We are undermanned, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) says, our recruitment numbers are a challenge. The offer needs to hold up if recruits are to remain in service once they have families, and a key component is getting the housing offer right. Choice is a great thing, but it simply will not work to drive a policy change that breaks up patch life or creates effective salary drops because of housing market stresses.

The annual report shows the continuous work of the Department’s team to help to reduce disadvantage. That is commendable, but there is so much more to do. Not a single person here would ever want to hear the words that I have heard far too often: “This is just too hard; we are going to leave the service.” The most recent continuous attitude survey shows that there is a stark gap between the 76% of respondents who are proud of their service and the 45% who would suggest that one should join up. That is a gap that we cannot fix.

I hope that in the year ahead we can focus on actively encouraging service families to talk to their MPs when they have problems, so that a strong new constructive dialogue can begin. The covenant is one of the most powerful tools we have to drive through good decisions, to reduce the looming capability risk gap and to increase our servicemen and women’s belief in their value to us. I fervently hope that we can harness such a dialogue across the House in 2017.

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[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I entirely agree. I felt at the time that that man Phil Shiner was a disgrace. He was a dreadful man engaged in the cowardly and unacceptable activity of trying to find people to stand up and accuse their fellow countrymen who had gone to relieve the people of Iraq from their suffering. He tried to do down those people and I am very pleased to hear today that he has been struck off. Frankly, I do not think that that is enough; but then I always was a supporter of capital punishment.

[Dr Murrison]

I of course agree with my hon. Friend. Does he agree—I am trying to think of something nice to say about IHAT; I appreciate that that is very difficult— that IHAT has at least the benefit of being relatively contemporaneous, unlike Operation Banner? Under Operation Banner, people are being dragged out of their beds many decades after the event and trying to work out what they were doing three or four or five decades ago. That is very difficult indeed. At least IHAT is investigating within a relatively short space of time from the alleged incidents.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend who succeeded me as Minister with responsibility for international security strategy at the Ministry of Defence. I would like to say more on this subject, but you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have asked us to be brief.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on introducing the debate and on her incredible work in highlighting this issue. The military covenant is not specific to any particular party. All of us, across the Floor, can embrace this issue. It is a covenant not between the Government and the armed forces, but between the armed forces and the people. We, as Members and Ministers, are acting on behalf of the people. I represent the home of the British Army, Aldershot, which has about 5,000 troops and their families, and we feel that acutely.

Project Allenby Connaught is the largest private finance initiative in the country. Nobody knows anything about it because it is hugely successful—a £19 billion PFI which, I have to say, was started under the Labour Government. I would like to put on record the fantastic job Aspire is doing in running the garrison under the PFI. Admittedly, it has released land to build 3,850 units of accommodation to sell. Nevertheless, the result has been a complete transformation of the military facilities in Aldershot. We have some of the finest single living accommodation and new headquarters—the recently opened Montgomery House—for the home command. The whole garrison in Aldershot has been transformed thanks to this PFI, so a small note of thanks to Geoff Hoon. He opened the fantastic sports facility, which is the home of the army sports board. There are world-class tennis courts. It really is a great garrison and I pay tribute to all those who have contributed to it. I rarely receive complaints about accommodation. The Minister, whom I actually met in my constituency when he was a sapper with the Royal School of Military Engineering—

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing this debate and on the manner in which she presented it? Her work does her very great credit, particularly that in relation to the Public Accounts Committee.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) for giving us a wonderful plug and for promoting my book, which is available from all good booksellers. In a similar spirit, may I thank him for all his hard work on the armed forces parliamentary scheme—he has done a great job rejuvenating it and giving it a new lease of life—and for his work as chair of the all-party group for armed forces?

It seems like the covenant has been around for a long time, because, semantically, it has biblical or mid-17th century connotations, but the truth is that it was really only invented in 2000 in a staff paper. In 2007, the then Leader of the Opposition decided that it would be a good idea to create a Military Covenant Commission and appointed Frederick Forsyth as its chairman. People such as Simon Weston served with great distinction on that commission. It informed the thinking of the then Opposition and subsequent Government, and resulted in the inclusion of the military covenant in the Armed Forces Act 2011. That pretty much brings us to where we are today.

This report contains some great news. I give credit to the Government for their hard work and commitment, and I particularly thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Minister, who approaches this work with dedication and enthusiasm. There are a lot of positive things in the report. I was particularly taken by the fact that 73,000 pupils benefit from the pupil premium, which I feel strongly about as many of my young constituents benefit from it. Some 9,000 personnel are accessing the forces Help to Buy scheme, so that is having a real impact on people. The innovation is entirely compatible with the modern way of living for young people and has much to commend it, notwithstanding the points raised, quite rightly, by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) about the future accommodation model. I share many of those concerns. I could see that the Minister was listening attentively, and I am sure that he will go away and reflect on my hon. Friend’s insightful remarks.

Having been ever so nice about the Government, I would just like to reduce my diminishing prospects of preferment by pointing out that we have recently had some fairly bad news about the recruitment and retention figures for regulars and reserves. I am particularly worried about the Army. The figures are really very bad. Of all the surveys we do, this one matters most. People are not daft. They pick up on what is going on around them and vote with their feet. We are at a time of reasonably good, robust employment and people have other options, so we have to work twice as hard as ever to attract people and, much more importantly, to retain them.

[Mr Gray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one thing we have to get right is the means by which people are recruited into both the reserves and the regulars? It is currently taking far too long.

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People simply walk. They do not give a reason; they just get fed up and go. That will not be reflected in any statistics. Those people are a wasted asset. I think that a lot of men and women who consider joining the reserve forces simply go and do something else.

The figures would have been even worse had we not changed the way in which we count people. We have now included phase 2 trainees in our trained strength. The logic behind that is perfectly sound in that phase 2 trainees can be used in the UK to do all sorts of exciting things do to with resilience and all the rest of it. Nevertheless, one is left—being a cynical politician—with the sense that this is, in fact, improving the figures. We have to compare like with like, but if we do that, we end up in an even more unhappy place—[Interruption.] I have been reminded that, of course, we are talking about phase 1 trainees: people who have completed phase 1, but not yet embarked on or completed phase 2.

The new employment model, the new recommendations for the service families accommodation and the future accommodation model have been discussed at length. I cannot expand on that in the time available, but I entirely agree with some of the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury. What has been proposed is exciting and forward-looking. It kind of taps into the way society is today. We always have to do that when trying to work out how the covenant will work into the future. However, it seems that this will disadvantage people and remove something valuable in service life. We must be very careful about that.

I am concerned about mental health in the armed forces. I wrote a report a little while ago called “Fighting Fit: a mental health plan for servicemen and veterans”, which the Government, to their great credit, implemented pretty much in full, but what I missed was the level of alcohol abuse in the armed forces. Some would say that that is up to the individual and has nothing to do with combat. I would say that the culture in our armed forces—I have seen this over many years—is one of encouraging the abuse of alcohol. We have a duty under the covenant to ensure that we deal with this, but I fear that we are not doing so at the moment. Some 65% of our military are at higher risk for their excess drinking.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

This has been an excellent debate with much consensus. I speak as someone who is proud to be the wife of an armed forces veteran from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Alcohol difficulties in the Army also reflect mental health issues. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that alcohol is often a suppressant for underlying mental health issues?

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. If we accept that we have a culture in the armed forces that encourages the use of alcohol—possibly with some benefits, actually—we have a duty of care to people to ensure that we try to tackle it. We were told that we were going to have an alcohol working group and that it would report shortly. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister where we are with that group and when we can have its report and the action points arising from it.

I suspect that the advent of lawfare will be discussed at length by one of my hon. Friends in a moment. However, I would like to weigh in, because the issue has already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), and I agree with his remarks. I am deeply concerned about this issue. I wrote to the Prime Minister in October and received a very satisfactory response, in which she made it clear that she takes this matter extremely seriously. I am pleased to note that we have an intention to derogate from the European convention on human rights in respect of future conflicts. Of course, had we done so several years ago, we would not be running into some of the difficulties that have been alluded to this afternoon.

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team must conclude its work by the end of 2019. I am pleased that the Government have committed to making sure that that happens, in so far as they are able to do so. I am also pleased that they will be giving support to those veterans who find themselves having their collar felt; it is entirely appropriate that we should do that. Will that also apply to Northern Ireland veterans—Operation Banner veterans —who have been issued with letters from the Ministry of Defence inviting them to unburden themselves? Many of these gentlemen are in their 60s or 70s, and it is a troubling experience for them. My advice to them, quite frankly, would be, “If you receive one of these, you should seek the advice of a solicitor.” It would be nice to know that the MOD agrees with that advice and that it will undertake to fund it.

Finally, I would like to give my observations on accommodation in relation to CarillionAmey. My sense is that, in recent months, things have improved. As somebody who represents a garrison town, I of course get correspondence on this issue regularly from my military constituents, and it has tailed off recently. However, there is no denying the conclusion in the extremely good report from the Public Accounts Committee, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed contributed, that the

“performance of CarillionAmey has been totally unacceptable and it is right that the Department is considering terminating the contract.”

Those are strong words from a highly respected Committee of this House, and I would be interested to hear what the Minister is doing to rein in the worst excesses of a company that, frankly, has let the men and women of our armed forces and their families down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I will not comment—the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to—on the current level of sterling vis-à-vis the dollar or the euro. Suffice it to say that the Ministry, like any other large organisation, takes precautions against fluctuations in currency rates. It is far too early to say—indeed, it is wrong to speculate—where those exchange rates will eventually settle down.

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

The Ministry of Defence’s permanent secretary has said that the European Union is “operationally irrelevant” to defence, but does my right hon. Friend agree with me that there are many areas where there is room for continued collaboration, particularly on a project-by-project basis, through the European Defence Agency?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

The permanent secretary agrees with me on these matters. Of course, after we leave the European Union, we will still have the largest defence budget in Europe, the largest Navy in Europe and some major capabilities that our other partners do not have. We will continue to collaborate with our partners, including key allies such as France and Germany, but also northern European allies, on different programmes. Our leaving Europe does not mean that we will not continue to seek the efficiencies that come from future collaboration.

Trident: Test Firing

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman, who is a supporter of the deterrent, says that, but the security of our deterrent is absolutely paramount at a time like this. Whether he likes it or not, I am not going to respond to speculation about the tests that occurred last June or give details of the particular operations of HMS Vengeance during that test.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent has kept us free from aggression day in, day out since 1968, and that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the men and women who operate it?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I wholeheartedly endorse what my hon. Friend says, and I hope that that at least would be common ground. The nuclear deterrent has played its part in keeping this country safe through a series of continuous at-sea patrols seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. I join him in paying tribute to the crews of all four of our nuclear submarines.

Yemen

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

The official confirmation about this particular allegation has come today—this afternoon—from Riyadh. I thought it right that Parliament should be informed as soon as that announcement was made in Riyadh. Other allegations are outstanding and we continue to press the Saudi authorities to get those investigations wrapped up, publish the findings and then take action if there are weaknesses in their command and control procedures, to get them remedied. It is only through that that they will continue to demonstrate that the assurances they give us and their other allies are properly valid.

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

What analysis has the Defence Secretary made of the humanitarian consequences of the illicit redistribution of cluster munitions, including BL755, from chaotic, failed and post-conflict states, on civilian populations throughout the middle east and north Africa, and much further afield?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Clearly, we oppose the use of cluster munitions. We do not keep records of how the stocks that may have been accumulated by countries in the middle east have later been distributed or sold on, but clearly we oppose their use in any conflict now.