Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that nobody, including the Israelis, saw what Hamas were about to do coming. That points to the need for much greater surveillance, but also—much wider than that—the need to pursue the two-state solution, which is official British policy and is something that the world must do as this conflict, we hope, comes to an end.

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question about being able to deploy British troops and, indeed, assets is that when I asked the question, the answer came back immediately: “Yes, we can do it, and there is more that we could do should we need to.” I am satisfied that we cut our cloth in order to react to events around the world, which of course came on top of what we are doing in Kosovo and elsewhere. We will certainly make sure that we maintain the resources to carry out those important missions.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of service accommodation for armed forces personnel.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

8. What steps he is taking to improve service accommodation for armed forces personnel.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

Currently, 96.5% of the service family accommodation meets or exceeds the Government’s decent homes standard; only those properties should be allocated to service families. The Government continue to invest significant sums to improve the quality of UK service family accommodation. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation received an investment of £400 million over this financial year and the next as part of the defence Command Paper refresh, meaning that the forecast £380.2 million for this year is more than double last year’s investment in maintenance and improvements.

[Chris Elmore]

The Minister will be aware that this time last year, almost 5,000 homes of armed forces personnel were affected by black mould and damp, which obviously included many properties that had children in them. A year on, too many of our service personnel and their families still have this problem. No matter whether it is one house or 5,000 houses, can the Minister set out how he is going to tackle this problem quickly? Our armed forces personnel and their families deserve better than what they have been getting to date.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman asks an excellent question. We are aware that what happened last winter was not good enough. Too many homes were affected, particularly by damp and mould. That is why we have prioritised getting the investment in, and it has more than doubled in the current financial year. I am pleased to confirm to him that last week I set out our winter plan. It shows that 4,000 homes in the defence estate would benefit from significant work on damp and mould, which is about 60% of the total number that require that work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

4. What recent steps Veterans UK has taken to support veterans and their families.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

5. What recent steps Veterans UK has taken to support veterans and their families.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

8. What recent steps Veterans UK has taken to support veterans and their families.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Heappey]

The digitisation programme I referred to in my initial response to the hon. Lady’s question will make a big difference; in fact, the early evidence is that that is the case. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs recently visited Veterans UK and was hugely encouraged by what he saw. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families, who sends his apologies, Mr Speaker, for not being able to be here today, is on this issue very closely. Whatever the failings of the past, the transformation process should lead to significantly better outcomes.

[Chris Elmore]

The Minister will know that 14% of veterans in England and Wales are female. In a recent survey, 23% of those veterans said they had suffered sexual harassment in the armed forces, and a further 23% said they had been subject to emotional bullying. That has significantly contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder cases among female veterans. Will the Minister set out what the Government are doing to ensure that these veterans get the best support they can and that they get it while they are serving, so that we can both encourage more women to join the armed forces and meet the Government’s target of 30% of the armed forces being female in the next five years?

[James Heappey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising such an important issue, which gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) on the Defence Committee and while she was a Minister in the Department. This is an issue that the Department is working on. The Defence Secretary has made it a priority that we address any remaining issues around the culture in our armed forces. As the hon. Gentleman noted in his question, we need to make sure that that extends to the support we offer female veterans as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am getting lessons from the SNP on procurement, when Ferguson shipyard is clinging on by its fingernails. When push comes to shove, Scotland buys its ferries from Turkey, not from Scotland, when it has a perfectly good Clyde in which to build them. The hon. Gentleman goes on about all the things that he thinks are wrong with the armed forces, yet he will campaign to break Scotland away from the UK, reduce the Scottish armed forces to a rubber dinghy and tell everyone else that it is all the fault of the English. The reality is that Scotland is a proud contributor to our armed forces—it has been in history and is today. Also, the accommodation, the experience and the equipment that the soldiers have today are far better than many of us had in the early ’90s. It would be nice if, once in a while, the SNP in Scotland did more than stand in front of ceremonial troops, and instead got out there and helped to recruit soldiers and helped the schools to talk about what is important about defence, rather than always talk it down.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

2. What steps he is taking to ensure that the UK meets its obligations to NATO.

[Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)]

12. What steps he is taking to ensure that the UK meets its obligations to NATO.

[The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

Our commitment to NATO and Euro-Atlantic security is unconditional. In response to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, we have enhanced our force posture in Estonia and have sent warships and fighter aircraft to south-east Europe and the Mediterranean. We contribute to every NATO mission and declare the UK’s nuclear deterrent to NATO. The UK is committed to remaining NATO’s leading European ally.

[Chris Elmore]

A recent report by the Defence Committee raised concerns about the UK’s lack of ammunition reserves. The Committee said that the inability to restock our supplies puts at great risk our own defence, along with our commitments to supporting Ukraine. The Minister will say that the Department is announcing today that there are £2 billion-worth of stockpiles, but he cannot magic up munitions off the shelf—they can take years to be created. What assurance can he provide to me and the House that the shortage will not impact our domestic abilities and our wider commitments to NATO?

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point. The Select Committee’s report is being read at the moment and will be responded to as would be expected. There is an important distinction to make: only a small proportion of the equipment and stockpiles that we are providing to the Ukrainians come from the current active inventory and stockpiles of the UK military. A very large proportion of the ammunition is at or slightly beyond the date by which we would normally seek to dispose of it, and an even larger proportion of it—the majority—is sourced or manufactured from stockpiles or manufacturing capabilities overseas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Alex Chalk)]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion of steel. I agree with her. The support ship competition winner has indicated that it intends to use UK-sourced steel whenever practical and, in any event, for the majority of the build.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

T2.   Over the summer, much noise was made about the Government’s raising the defence budget to 3% of GDP. That has now transformed into the Secretary of State’s accepting a £2.3 billion real-terms cut to the defence budget. Do Ministers accept that that cut will have a negative impact on recruitment, training, family support and pay for our armed forces personnel?

[Mr Wallace]

First, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s figures. Secondly, between now and next year’s Budget, I have been given enough to insulate us from the effects of inflation, and we can continue within our current comprehensive spending review envelope. We can discuss the next one when it comes up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the impact of the cost of living crisis on veterans.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

8. What assessment he has made of the impact of the cost of living crisis on veterans.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What assessment he has made of the impact of the cost of living crisis on veterans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. It is important to understand the extent of this, which is why the Government have backed Cobseo to do a deep dive in October on how the cost of living is impacting on our veterans. In advance of the outcome—the Secretary of State and I will have meetings to discuss that shortly—I point out that we have accepted the armed forces pay review body’s recommendations in full, we have frozen the daily food charge to our personnel, we are limiting the increase in accommodation charges, we have increased the availability of wraparound childcare, which is vital for families, and we intend to have a cost of living roundtable before the end of the year.

[Chris Elmore]

The Royal British Legion has identified a 20% increase in requests for support from veterans in urgent need—that is a deeply concerning figure. The RBL has also put forward information stating that veterans who receive sickness and disability benefits now face extra costs of £500 per month as a consequence of the cost of living crisis. What are Ministers doing to support veterans in this country, who are, frankly, being let down by this Conservative Government?

[Dr Murrison]

I do not accept that. I have just explained what we are doing to address that. We are trying to understand how the cost of living crisis is impacting on our service and veteran community, and we have already put in place a large number of interventions that will go some way to addressing it. I expect to meet my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State shortly, with representatives of the service community, to discuss the matter further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

We are able to do that, and where we do not have our own stocks, alongside international partners and donors we scour the world to find them and make sure that we have them. Ukraine and Russia are both discovering that a prolonged battle is very hard to manage with their own stocks. Russia is now using very old equipment, some of which came out in the 1950s, and using it incorrectly—for example, using equipment designed to kill a ship to hit a building.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Complaints about service accommodation have rocketed in the first four months of this year, and are 20% higher than last year. Can Ministers explain why, and say how they plan to rectify this urgently, given the already undue pressure experienced by families and those who are married to someone in the armed forces?

[Leo Docherty]

We take these issues extremely seriously. That is why we have invested more than £936 million in service family accommodation in the last seven years, and there is more coming. Under the future accommodation model, we want to give choice, flexibility, and accommodation of the highest possible standard to those living in service family accommodation.

UK Military Personnel Serving Overseas: Vaccination

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I certainly can. The second doses will all be deployed so that everybody overseas gets them as soon after their first dose as is medically advisable. Achieving that is not without challenge: getting these doses forward can require quite a logistical effort given some of the locations in which our people serve, but that has gone well and it is testament to military planners in the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Medical Services that that is the case.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is obviously deeply troubling, no matter how many service personnel who have been deployed have now got covid—whether the number is 80 or 28 or whatever the clarification the Minister has given—that there are also media reports that those personnel did not have enough test kits or enough space in order to self-isolate. Can the Minister clarify that he is doing all he can to get test kits out to those service personnel who are defending us, as it should be the first duty of Ministers to protect service personnel who are protecting us, and can he ensure that any troops deployed in the coming months on operations will have everything they need in terms of testing and space to self-isolate if, unfortunately, they contract covid-19?

[James Heappey]

We do not recognise the reports in the press about lack of access to testing equipment; I have been assured that testing equipment was available in all theatres. The article to which I think the hon. Gentleman refers was about Mali, and there was certainly sufficient testing equipment in Mali at the time the article refers to.

The ability to self-isolate is slightly more challenging in some military settings than in others; in submarines, for example, it is quite hard, but in many other deployments it is perfectly possible. We do our best to make such provision available, but obviously field conditions are at times a slightly austere environment, in which case that is not always possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The Government are committed to Operation Shader and will continue to be so. The threat of ISIS has not gone away. Indeed, throughout her deployment, the carrier will also potentially take part in operations to support it. It is very important that we continue to degrade ISIS capability, because of its destabilising effect in Iraq and the threat it poses directly to us.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

  I congratulate the new Veterans Minister on his promotion to the Ministry of Defence. In doing so, may I ask him to resolve an issue that I was told six months ago would be sorted out, which is the roll-out of the veterans’ ID card? This has been rolled out to personnel leaving the armed forces, but not to existing veterans. It was announced by his predecessor-but-two. His predecessor told me it would be resolved in due course. Six months on, it would be good if veterans in my Ogmore constituency and across the UK had an answer.

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)]

I recognise that this is an important issue. This is taking too long, so I look forward to reporting back to the hon. Gentleman with an update on progress.

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The military’s response is a response to help civilian authorities meet requirements. We have made it clear that enforcement is not our job. Our job is to help the police, backfilling to help to free up the police should they need to do more on the streets. Our main job is logistics, planning, mass—for example, for mass testing—and things such as helping to deliver the vaccines with our specialists.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State has rightly praised the armed forces and referred several times to reservists and the work that they have done, especially in dealing with testing at the border with France before Christmas and over the new year period. In that vein, will he reconsider his decision—and, indeed, reverse it—to cut the number of training days for reservists, as they are clearly hugely important to our response to the pandemic?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will know, first, that training days may not necessarily align with the covid task and, secondly, that we have a budget to which we are obliged. There are significant pressures on the budget, and the record settlement that we have does not begin until next year. What we did not do was cut reserves—we cut down on some reserves days in this financial year. That does not take away from the future; it just means that we had to meet some of the financial pressures across the board. It is not the only measure that we took. It is a significant pressure, and that is why the record settlement that kicks in next year will help us to make sure that we have a much more holistic approach and a more sustainable deployment of our armed forces.

Remembrance, UK Armed Forces and Society

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The hon. Member is a keen supporter of our armed forces, and I can tell him that the great pleasure of serving in his beautiful corner of the world, as I have done, is not the stunning landscape or the Bushmills, but the Tayto chips in our packed lunches on the ranges.

Beyond the support of the community are our amazing service charities. So many of them do great work for our armed forces all year round, but at this time of year it is particularly important to reflect on the contribution of the Royal British Legion and the importance of its poppy appeal. It is an amazing commitment from poppy collectors all over the country that normally they go out in all weathers, from dawn till dusk, to sell poppies wherever they can. This year, of course, they have been more limited in what they have been able to do, but again and again I have seen in my constituency, and I know colleagues will have seen likewise, that they have done everything they can—within the law—to get out and raise as much money as they can for this important cause. We are all hugely grateful to them for doing so. I know that we would all want anybody watching today’s proceedings or reflecting on the fact that today is Armistice Day and they are yet to get their poppy to know that there is still time and that their money makes a real difference, in looking after both the families of those who have given their lives in conflict and those who have been forever scarred by their service.

That leads me to the service of our armed forces and the unlimited liability that they accept in the service of our nation—to do anything, anywhere, at any time, if this House and Her Majesty’s Government will it. That is an extraordinary thing to sign up and do. Some of us have done it for a few years. Some of us have done it for entire careers. Some of us have not done it at all, but to those who continue to serve, what matters is not whether a person has served but that they pause and reflect that as they go on with their life, and as their family are leading their lives, those who serve have accepted a responsibility on behalf of the nation to drop everything and leave at any moment to go and do whatever the nation requires anywhere in the world. That is an amazing act of selflessness that we should all be grateful for.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister talks about years of service. I wonder whether he would commend and congratulate my constituent, Mrs Barbara McGregor, who is due to retire in January next year after 44 years of service in the Royal Navy to Queen and country. Mrs McGregor is taking part in Armistice services this week, and she was meant to be leading the parade march in the Bridgend county borough this weekend but was not able to. Would the Minister commend her and congratulate her on her service, and on the fact that she has put everything—Queen and country—as a sole focus of her entire service in the Navy?

[James Heappey]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman’s constituent on the longevity of her service and remark on what an amazing lifetime of commitment that is, with all the moments for her family, within her community and for her friends that she missed because she put her service of our country first. It is a quite extraordinary commitment, and I commend the hon. Gentleman for raising it in the House this afternoon.

Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to see fast jet pilots serving in different corners of the European theatre, going out on missions where split-second decisions can be the difference between mission success and catastrophe. I visited helicopter crews in Mali operating in austere conditions, where it is dusty and dangerous and it is pretty hard to keep the Chinooks flying. I have seen air transport squadrons flying day after day and night after night to maintain the extraordinary efforts of our nation’s armed forces around the globe. I have seen troops operating in Estonia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and others on Salisbury plain preparing for a new deployment to Mali next month. I have seen training teams, big and small, working with our partners around the world.

The Royal Navy has had ships recently in the Barents sea, the Black sea, the eastern Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Atlantic, the Gulf and the Indian ocean. Our sailors and Royal Marines right now are responding to the humanitarian disaster that has followed in the wake of recent hurricanes in the Caribbean. We are rebuilding our sovereign carrier strike capability, and yesterday, I had the enormous honour of seeing the awe-inspiring work of Her Majesty’s Submarine Service, who keep our continuous at-sea deterrent hidden from view—silent but utterly deadly, and non-stop for 51 years.

That would just be business as usual for Defence, but this year, there has been an extraordinary contribution in supporting the Government’s response to covid as well. As we emerge from the covid crisis, there is an expectation that instability will follow in its wake, so our armed forces can look forward to even more activity in even more uncertain parts of the world, reassuring our allies, deterring our adversaries, demonstrating our resolve to uphold a rules-based international system and destroying those who mean us harm when they have to.

There are also a vast number of people who have served in our nation’s armed forces and who we must now look after as veterans. I pay tribute to the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for all the work that he does in that regard. Our veterans community matters enormously. They are an important part of the moral component of fighting power. If you are serving in the armed forces now, your confidence to act decisively on behalf of the nation is motivated by how you see the nation supporting its veterans back at home at that time. You want to know that if you get hurt, or take a decision, the Government and the nation will stand behind you for the rest of your life, and that is a commitment that this Government are proud to make.

Finally, sacrifice. Last week I was in Egypt visiting HMS Albion, which was in Alexandria after a successful deployment to the eastern Mediterranean. While I was up on the north coast of Egypt, I went to the cemetery at El Alamein. Like all Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, it was immaculately maintained. It was vast, and all over it were grouped graves, which I understand is symptomatic of an armoured battle where entire tank crews or armoured personnel carrier crews died in one go. Very often their remains were almost impossible to separate, so they were buried with four or five headstones immediately adjacent to one another. That makes one pause and reflect on the horror of a battle of that intensity.

Then, as in so many other Commonwealth war graves cemeteries around the world, there were the unmarked graves of those who we will never know exactly who they were and who lie now underneath foreign soil to be remembered anonymously for all time. Then there were the Commonwealth graves, thousands of them, reminding us that this was an effort not just from all corners of the United Kingdom but from all corners of the Commonwealth. It was pleasing, therefore, to see that in Commonwealth war graves cemeteries around the world and in our embassies and high commissions on Sunday, there were moments of remembrance to reflect on the sacrifice of so many from other countries in the defence of our great nation.

This year, marking 75 years since the end of the second world war, has been a great opportunity for us to reflect not only on victory in Europe but on victory in Japan. That Pacific campaign is so often the one that is spoken about less, yet the acts of heroism and derring-do were no less important. Indeed, in many of the stories I have heard, the deprivation was far greater because of the environment in which the forces were operating. Since then, brave servicemen and women from the United Kingdom have given their lives in Korea, the Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is on those last two conflicts that I have my own personal reflections.

When you join up, you know there is a risk that the moment might come when you have to put yourself in a position where you might lose your life. When you stand there at Sandhurst, Dartmouth, Cranwell, Catterick or HMS Raleigh and the flag is there and the Queen is on the wall and the Bible is put in your hand, you are filled with confidence that you are on a career path that is worthy and great, but when you are behind a wall and the rounds are hitting the other side or an improvised explosive device has just gone off and you know that you have to stand up close with the enemy and do your duty, that is a moment when you realise a lot about yourself. It is also a moment, sadly, from which people do not always return, and their loss is something that I feel keenly every time I pause and reflect on my experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I know that for the entire veterans community there will be a face that is in their minds when the Last Post is blown and the two minutes’ silence is followed. In communities across the country, there will be people who are remembered because they were there one month and then, six months later when their friends and comrades returned, there were no longer there. They were just a name on a war memorial. Those names are lives cut down in their prime and as we pause, over Remembrance Weekend and on Armistice Day today, let us never forget that they turned up at a recruiting office and embarked on their military careers, believing that what they were going to do would make a difference for our country and protect our freedom. They knew in the back of their mind that perhaps they might be called upon to give their life, but they hoped and even expected that it would never be them. Hundreds of thousands have answered our nation’s call and given their lives in doing so. We will remember them.