Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement and I welcome this direct update to the House. This is a chance for us all to thank and pay tribute to the 5,000 forces personnel, both regulars and reservists, who are currently providing covid assistance, and to the leadership from Standing Joint Command under Lieutenant General Urch. The Labour leader and I saw at first hand in November the professionalism and commitment that the team at Aldershot bring to this task. The public also welcome the important contribution our armed forces are making to help the country through the continuing covid crisis, from troops on the frontline building Nightingale hospitals, community testing or driving ambulances and tankers, to the planners, analysts and scientists behind the scenes. The military is an essential element of our British national resilience, and people can see this more clearly now than perhaps at any time since the end of national service. I trust that this will reinforce public support for our armed forces and help to redefine a closer relationship between the military and civilian society.

However, I detect a sense of frustration from the Secretary of State in his statement. The Government have been too slow to act at every stage of the pandemic, and too slow to make the fullest use of the armed forces, as I and others on both sides of the House have argued since the summer. During the first lockdown, the covid support force was 20,000 strong, yet fewer than 4,000 were deployed. The winter support force numbers 14,000, yet now, even with what the Secretary of State calls

“the most significant domestic operation in peacetime”,

just 5,000 are being used, with only 56 military aid requests currently in place. How many of the 14,000 troops does the Secretary of State expect to be deployed by the end of the month, as we confront the gravest period of this pandemic to date?

On vaccinations, it is very welcome that from this week the armed forces are finally being used to help deliver the nation’s No. 1 priority, the national vaccination programme. The Secretary of State has said that 250 teams of medical personnel are on stand-by, and yet only one in 10 is set to be posted this week to the seven NHS regions in England. When will they all be deployed and working to get vaccines into people’s arms? We in Labour are proud that Britain was the first country in the world to get the vaccine, and we want Britain to be the first to complete the vaccinations. We want the Government to succeed. Does the Secretary of State accept that military medical teams can do much more to help?

On testing, we also welcome the work being done across the UK to reinforce community testing, from Kirklees to Kent and in the devolved Administrations. Fifteen hundred personnel had also been provided to support schools with covid testing. Now that schools have moved to online teaching, what changes are being made to those plans? When infection rates come down, testing will again be vital to control the virus. Yet the £22 billion NHS track and trace service is still failing to do the necessary job. There is no military aid agreement in place for Test and Trace, so may I suggest that the Secretary of State offers military help to get the outfit sorted out?

Finally, I turn to service personnel themselves. MOD figures confirm that the average number of tests for defence personnel since April has been just 1,900 a week. With 5,000 troops now deployed on covid tasks in the UK and more on essential operations or training overseas, what system is in place to ensure that those personnel are tested regularly, and what plans does the Secretary of State have to ensure that they are also properly vaccinated?

The challenge of covid to this country is unprecedented. Yesterday, the chief medical officer said that we are

“facing the most dangerous situation anyone can remember”,

so, if the Secretary of State seeks to expand the role of the military in defeating this virus, he should know that he will have our full support.

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. First, on the issue of military willingness to engage, he knows we are of course incredibly keen and eager to offer whatever assistance we can. I will address his questions on the range of those subjects one by one.

One of the reasons why we invest in people as planners in the heart of Departments and local government is to ensure that we shape that ask as it develops and to ensure that we are dealing in the art of the possible, as well as with realistic deployment requests. Sometimes we get initial requests for thousands of people, but once we scale it down and work through what is required, it ends up being a couple of hundred.

That has been partly because some of the Departments or local authorities are not used to MACA. Funnily enough, Departments used to using MACAs, as indeed local government or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government would be—local authorities that have had significant flooding in their time—will be used to that relationship, but for others this is a new experience.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the scale between the designated force and the force actually used. He is right to say that 20,000 were earmarked for the covid response at the beginning and that 4,000 to 5,000 were deployed. That was at any one time. As he knows, our forces work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so we rotate many of those personnel through. Right now, 5,000 might be deployed at any one time, but people will be earmarked to become much more ready—in a higher state of readiness.

To be at 24-hour readiness, or ready within a few hours, places a huge demand on anyone—in effect, to be sitting in your house or barracks waiting to be deployed—so we rotate the forces through the different readiness stages. One stage might be to be ready to move in 24 hours, one might be with three days’ notice or one might be with one week’s notice. Those different readiness stages mean that they can either get on and do their day job, or basically just stand and wait. Therefore, of a force of about 14,000 who are currently earmarked, yes, we have 5,000 today, but I suspect that by the time we have got through this phase—if all demands remain the same—somewhere between 10,000 to 12,000 of those 14,000 personnel will have been used at some stage on the covid response. The 5,000 who are on today will come off, get a period of rest and build-up time with their families, and then come back again. The force has a fixed amount in terms of where we draw the different readinesses, but the deployments are drawn through that process. Of course, all armed forces personnel are able—“available” would probably the wrong word—to help the Government in their resilience and defence; that is obviously the purpose of their job.

We have over 100 people in the planning process for the vaccination roll-out across the whole United Kingdom: in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. We also currently have 21 quick reaction vaccination teams, who are usually staffed by a doctor, some combat medics and nurses. Their job, in a team of six, is to deploy as required. We are holding 229 teams in reserve, should we wish to deploy all 250. The limiting factors at the moment will be the delivery schedule and timetable of the vaccines themselves; of course I could deploy 100,000 soldiers tomorrow, ready to vaccinate, but if the stock is not there, we would be better off deploying them in other ways.

The Government are very keen, and the Prime Minister is determined, to ensure that we match the pace of stock delivery with the pace of delivery into people’s arms—the jabbing. We are very clear that we can do more to assist. The Prime Minister knows that and has indicated that we will be called on as the NHS requires, but we should not forget that the NHS is also recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers, former clinicians and former nurses who are able to do the vaccinations; it is not a purely military response.

In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question on testing and tracing, we have had a one-star within the organisation of test and trace from very early on. We originally earmarked 1,500 personnel for schools testing. We have reduced that down to about 800, who stand by to help not only where needed in the schools that are currently taking key workers’ children, but also with talking to people, through webinars and other remote methods, about how to administer lateral flow tests. We stand ready to do more if required. We have scaled the number of personnel down slightly simply because of the school closures, but we stand ready to increase that number if required.

Let me turn to the personnel themselves. When they deploy on a MACA task, such as the 800 personnel deployed to Manchester, they will be tested before they go and throughout the process. They will abide by whatever the current NHS guidelines are: if they feel ill, they should get a test; and if we feel that they are going in front of people who are vulnerable, we will also take steps to test them. If people test positive, they are very quickly isolated. I can get the latest figures for the House, if that helps. The lateral flow tests have opened up a huge amount of much more easily accessible testing to do that.

I am grateful for the right hon. Member’s support of our Defence. I assure him that both the Prime Minister and I are determined to lean into this problem, and to maximise our efforts wherever we can. Wherever we see an opportunity, instead of waiting for an argument about who does what, we offer to do it. That is why only recently the House will have seen us fly out those vaccines to Gibraltar. We put them on a plane, get them out there and get it done. We can have all the arguments we want after the fact; let us get on with it. We are all—I know this includes the loyal Opposition—united in working to help deliver this. Defence is doing its bit, but we should not forget that it is doing its bit alongside the amazing people of the NHS, who are on the frontline in their tens of thousands, day in, day out.

UN Mission in Mali: Armed Forces Deployment

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It was good to have the written statement last Thursday, as troops began to arrive in Mali; it is better still to have his oral statement today, with the Minister ready to answer the range of questions that arise from this new deployment.

Let me say at the outset, as I said to the House on Monday, that Labour strongly supports this commitment of UK troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, and we do so with our eyes wide open to the risks they face. The public expect Ministers to be open about this too, so I hope the Minister will undertake to give regular reports on progress to Parliament during this deployment.

The Minister rightly said today that deploying “to MINUSMA does not come without risk.” The UN has described this as its most dangerous mission, with 227 personnel killed since 2013, so what assessment has he made of these risks and what specific steps have been taken to reduce them? Last week the French base in Mali at Gao was attacked; where will our troops be stationed and how secure will the British base be?

The Defence Secretary has told us:

“This deployment reflects our continued commitment to multilateralism and international peace and security”.—[Official Report, 3 December 2020; Vol. 685, c. 14W.]

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Britain does have this special responsibility, which we in Labour also take seriously; too often, however, there has been a view that, somehow, peacekeeping is beneath Britain, so I hope to see confirmation in the integrated review that this has changed as part of the Government’s plans for a post-Brexit global Britain.

Certainly, as with Mali, where Britain has special military skills we should step up, and the Light Dragoons and the Royal Anglian Regiment are filling a capability gap in Mali as long-range reconnaissance specialists. Since the Government first announced the intention to deploy these troops in July 2019, however, Mali has become more complex, less stable, more violent. This deployment is rightly limited; what measures must be met for the Government to judge it a success, are there circumstances in which the Government would widen the scope or increase the size of this UK military mission, and could troops in this UN deployment also serve in the distinct and complementary French-led Barkhane mission?

The Government have said that

“it is stepping up its engagement in the Sahel across the development, diplomacy and defence pillars”.

The Minister says that there is, rightly, very significant development interest in Mali, with 6.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. There are also significant security concerns, with drugs cartels, arms traffickers, and al-Qaeda and Islamic State terror groups all active in the region. When co-ordinated action and help are clearly needed, the deep cuts made in the spending review to the conflict, stability and security fund could not have come at a worse time for the Sahel. Will the costs of this Mali deployment be met from that fund? How much in development aid is planned for Mali and the other Sahel countries over the three-year period of this military deployment, and how are Britain’s development, diplomatic and defence activities being co-ordinated within Government?

Finally, Britain’s responsibilities as a leading UN member are being met with this Mali mission, alongside our continuing commitment to peacekeeping operations in eight other countries around the world. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel who serve in these missions. They will, as the Minister says, continue to make the UK proud.

[James Heappey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his positive response to the statement. As we were saying in the Remembrance Day debate a few weeks ago, as people deploy on missions such as this it matters enormously to see support on both sides of the House for what they are going out to do. He rightly asked some questions that I will do my best to answer, starting with, of course, an intent to regularly update the House either verbally—although that met with no support from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—or otherwise on the progress of the mission and the threat as it evolves.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to pick up on the line in my statement that says that this mission is not without risk. This is a dangerous part of the world in which to be operating. It is because it is such a dangerous part of the world that the case for being there as part of a peacekeeping force is so easily made. We should be clear that, despite all the training, all the equipment and all the mitigations that we will put in place—I will explain some of those in a second—our troops are accepting a risk to life and limb in serving in the Sahel, and we thank them for that. We genuinely believe that it is in the interests of the UK and the people of Mali that we contribute to that mission.

We have recognised that in previous deployments perhaps there has been a gung-ho willingness to expand the mission quickly and get on with things without fully understanding the realities of the threat on the ground and how that manifests itself in relation to military operations. In this first rotation—the first six months—we will be expecting the Light Dragoons battle group to deploy and to find its way in the immediate vicinity of Gao, the city in which the UN camp where they will be based is. If, over time, we come to understand that they can operate at range, we will consider that on its merits, depending on the mission design from the UN force commander. Our intention is to find our way slowly, to build our confidence and our understanding, and then to grow the mission, within the confines of MINUSMA. It is important to stress that there is no UK agency in being able just to decide what we do; we are under the command of the UN force commander.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the camp. It is a brand-new camp, and it is indeed in the UN super-camp at Gao. That camp is protected by a German early warning system called MANTIS—the modular, automatic and network capable targeting and interception system—which picks up the IDF, or indirect fire attack, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his reply. That allows people in the camp to take cover and adopt all of their drills when there is incoming indirect fire. Sadly, as a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, I know that that is just the reality of being in camps in those places, but these early warning systems give people great confidence that they can find cover before the rounds start landing.

This is, indeed, a complex mission. The UN’s mission is made all the more challenging as a consequence of the changing political tides in Mali—there was a coup only four months ago—and that means that the military mission, as designed by the UN force commander, and the political mission have some work to do to evolve and to react to those new political realities in Mali, hence our caution over the speed at which we unleashed the Light Dragoons on their mission. We want to see how things develop, and we will update the right hon. Gentleman and colleagues as that happens.

There is no scope to widen the size of our force; we are limited by what the UN requires of us. There is also no scope for us to decide unilaterally, as the United Kingdom, that we want to do more; we are within the UN’s mission. MINUSMA and Operation Barkhane are entirely separate; there is no opportunity to flex one from the other, as to do so would be to break the rules on UN peacekeeping contingents. In any case, the missions are so different; Barkhane is a more offensive, counter-terrorism operation, chasing both JNIM—Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin—and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara around not only Mali, but Burkina Faso and Niger. MINUSMA is a Mali-only peacekeeping operation led by the UN.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked me about funding. We are talking about £80 million over three years, which is indeed funded by the conflict, stability and security fund. It will matter enormously to people deploying on this operation to see the tone of these exchanges. Our intention is to keep the House informed as best as we can. This is a dangerous mission, but our people are well-trained and well-equipped. They are ready and they are up for it, and I wish them a good tour.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman asks a valid question about the timing of the integrated review, and there will be an integrated review at the beginning of next year. The defence announcement was a building block as part of that review, and it will obviously work towards the overall posture of global Britain when it is announced in the new year.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The extra funding was a welcome promise to upgrade Britain’s defences after nearly a decade of decline, so it is long overdue. The capital announcement is one thing, but what is the real-terms revenue funding for defence over the next four years?

[Mr Wallace]

Over the next four years, £188 billion will be spent on defence. Some £126 billion of that will be set for resource spending, while £62 billion will be for capital spending.

[John Healey]

I asked the Secretary of State about resource funding, and he has to face that question. The answer is on page 67 of the Chancellor’s spending review report, which shows a 2.3% real cut in resource funding through to 2024-25. That means less money for forces’ recruitment, training, pay, pensions and family support, at a time when our armed forces are already 12,000 below strength after the last review. That could mean new ships, but no sailors. Will the Secretary of State recognise that hi-tech weapons systems are essential for the future, but highly trained service personnel are indispensable? May I urge him not to repeat the mistakes of past Conservative reviews, and instead to put forces personnel at the heart of the current integrated review?

[Mr Wallace]

I know the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in Mr Brown’s Government, who did not have the greatest reputation for financial accuracy. Although we can agree on the spending profile, his interpretation of the rates of inflation and alleged real-term cuts is not something that we recognise. On the “decade of decline”, as he calls it, I thought that before coming to the House I would read the National Audit Office “Major Projects Report 2010”, into the Government in which he was Minister of State, and the spending on defence. That report highlights that in one year up to 2009, the Government overspent by £3 billion. That is where the black hole that amounts to £38 billion came from, so before he throws stones in glass houses about managing defence budgets, he should be very careful.

Perhaps I could be very clear about how we went about getting to this settlement. We started, as I have said repeatedly in the House, with the threat and what we need to meet the threat and to fight tomorrow’s battles, not the last. We then took that request to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, had a discussion, and it resulted in the record settlement that Members see before the House today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I had better not cross that, then. My hon. Friend has rightly championed the Army Foundation College, which was assessed as outstanding during its most recent Ofsted inspection. The college is just one part of the training and education that make our armed forces admired across the world. We expect it to continue to play that role as we modernise the armed forces and train the skilled persons we need to meet future threats.

As we approach and prepare for Christmas, I would like to place on record that not only the young men and women training in the Army Foundation College and the other depots across the United Kingdom, but the men and women operating above the sea, below the sea, in Iraq, Afghanistan and right across the world will be standing guard and looking after our values and interests and allies while many of us are getting time off at home. I think this is the last Defence questions before our Christmas session, and, on behalf of my Department and my Ministers, I would like to pay tribute to them.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I reinforce that tribute to our armed forces, who will be serving throughout the Christmas and new year period. I welcome the report that the Secretary of State says he has had placed in the Library this afternoon, and his apology. I also welcomed his written statement last week after troops had begun to arrive in Mali, because on the Opposition side we strongly support the deployment of our forces to support the United Nations mission in Mali; I simply believe that any Secretary of State should report directly to, and answer questions in, this House before committing British forces to conflict zones.

I ask the Secretary of State now, if I may, to report to the House on another matter that for many is at the heart of forces life and aspirations: why is the forces Help to Buy scheme now helping fewer forces families than when it was launched six years ago? What action is he taking to fix the failings of this scheme, so that those who serve are not denied the same dream of home ownership as everyone else?

[Mr Wallace]

I would be troubled if fewer were being helped by it. That is not our intention and, indeed, one of the early things I did when I took this office was to extend the Help to Buy scheme, because it is a thoroughly worthwhile scheme. I will be delighted to look into the matter and present to the right hon. Gentleman why the numbers have dropped and what we can do to increase them.

Remembrance, UK Armed Forces and Society

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have to say that it is an honour to follow the Minister and his moving speech this afternoon, and I pay tribute to him for his four tours of duty and his decade of service in the Rifles, just as I pay tribute to the service that other hon. Members in all parts of this House have given to our armed forces. Parliament is all the better for Members who have committed service in the forces, and this House is also all the better for the service of Members who are committed to the forces. I look forward to the contributions to this afternoon’s debate of many of those hon. Members who are on the long call list.

As we did this morning in this Chamber, this is indeed the moment we commemorate the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when hostilities ceased in 1918. It is the focus of our national remembrance each year: the moment the nation comes together to honour those who have served, those who have fought to keep us safe, and above all, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives so that the rest of us may continue to enjoy the freedoms we do today. The Minister put it far more eloquently than many of the rest of us can, but the men and women who wear a British military uniform make a unique commitment to, if needed, put themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us. I want this day’s debate to recall not just the lives of those lost in the two world wars, but those of the 7,190 UK service personnel who have died in operations since 1945.

I was reminded of this on Sunday, when I, like the Minister, was proud to lay a wreath alongside the president of our local British Legion branch in Rotherham. His name is Ron Moffett; he served for more than 20 years in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and he talked to me of comrades he had lost in Northern Ireland, in the Falklands, in Afghanistan, and in Germany in training. I want my relatively brief remarks in this debate to concentrate on the ordinary servicemen and women: on their extraordinary sense of duty, and on our duty, in turn, to them.

The Minister was right to say that remembrance has a particular poignancy this year. During 2020, we have marked 75 years since the end of the second world war—VE Day and VJ Day—and 80 years since the battle of Britain, and we have all been forced to find new ways to remember: ways that are perhaps more private, but no less important and no less personal. This year, we have also seen the hallmark values that have been there in generations of our forces personnel come to the fore again, as our troops have stood alongside frontline workers in the fight against the covid virus. I have said to the Defence Secretary that during this new national lockdown in England and the national vaccination challenge ahead, if the Government are willing to make further use of our forces in this fight, they will have our full support and strong backing from the public. The system that we have of military assistance to civil authorities is sound. It has been used 341 times for covid help since mid-March and 41 agreements are still in place, but people want to know now what the plan is. They have a right to know, and they also have a right to regular ministerial reporting on such decisions. I say to the Minister that I hope he and his colleagues will do this, because it will also help better understanding and better support for our military.

The Chief of the Defence Staff was right when he said recently that this should worry us all. He said that the level of understanding about our armed forces is at “an unprecedented low.” That is borne out by research that the British Forces Broadcasting Service published in June, which confirmed that 68% of the population do not know what the military actually do when they are not in combat. One third had no idea that our military play a part in thwarting terrorism or dealing with the aftermath of floods, and 53% believe that they use battle tanks to get around on a daily basis.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Sounds good to me.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is harking back to the days when perhaps he did use battle tanks on a daily basis, but I think we are a little short of tanks to go round these days.

On a serious point, the number of veterans in society is set to fall by a third during this decade. It is clear to me that we must do more at all levels to reinforce our country’s understanding of and commitment to our armed forces.

On cadets, community cadet numbers have been falling and we cannot just rely on private schools. We can do more to reinvest in more community cadet forces. We now rely more on the professional expertise and skills of reservists, but the numbers are still below target, and we can do more to make recruitment better and employer support stronger.

On resilience, the covid pandemic has demonstrated that national resilience is an important part of national defence, and we can do more to strengthen Britain’s total deterrence, with large-scale joint civil, corporate and military exercises. On veterans, the Office for Veterans’ Affairs was a welcome step last year, but we can do more to make the UK the best place to be a veteran by enshrining the armed forces covenant in law. I say constructively and respectfully to the Minister that if the Government are willing to take those steps, they will have our full support to do so.

In this debate, we rightly celebrate the national pride we have in our military personnel, full-time and reservist. They are respected around the world for their professionalism and their all-round excellence, but I say again constructively and respectfully that if Ministers talk up our armed forces, they must also account for the declines there have been in the past decade or two. Since 2010, our full-time forces numbers are down by 40,000. Our military has never been smaller since we fought Napoleon 200 years ago. Forces pay is down, forces recruitment is down and forces morale is down. One in four military personnel now say they plan to quit before the end of their contract.

In 2015, the strategic defence review, in 89 pages, devoted just one and a half pages to personnel. Just like the 2010 defence review, it was largely a cover for cuts, which is why our armed forces are nearly 12,000 short of the strength promised in that 2015 review. It is why essential equipment, from new tanks to the radar system to protect our new aircraft carriers, is long overdue, and it is why our defence budget has a £13 billion black hole.

The Defence Secretary has rightly said that previous reviews

“failed because they were never in step with the spending plans”.—[Official Report, 6 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 647.]

Both sides of the House recognise that the Chancellor cut the ground from under the Defence Secretary when he postponed this year’s comprehensive spending review, but we also know that our adversaries will not pause. They confront us with continuous and constantly developing threats that no longer conform to any distinction between peace and war and are no longer confined to the land, sea and air domains of conventional warfare. So the Government’s integrated review is needed now more than ever.

As we move, as the Defence Secretary has put it, from “industrial age” to “information age” warfare, we must never neglect one fact: at the heart of our defence and security remain our forces personnel. Autonomous weapons, artificial intelligence and robotics will all become more and more widespread in the years ahead, but the essential utility of the men and women of our armed forces will remain central. Whether it is the frontline forces personnel doing city-wide covid testing in Liverpool or the special forces who took back control of the Nave Andromeda in the English channel last month, these are only the most recent reminders that although high-tech systems are essential, our highly trained British troops are indispensable. When the Chief of the Defence Staff launched our important new military doctrine, the military integrated operating concept, in September, he stressed that it

“emphasises the importance of our people—who have always been, and always will be, our adaptive edge.”

We honour them and we remember them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind)]

Because we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of world war two, I shall concentrate entirely on that conflict. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you are quietly but rightly proud of your father’s brave record of fighting in the second world war, but as the years and decades go by, fewer and fewer people have that sort of direct personal knowledge. In the limited time available, I would like to take one brief example from each year of the second world war, to try to humanise the picture a little bit for those who do not have the sort of personal connection that I just described.

Let us take, for example, November 1939. A converted passenger liner, HMS Rawalpindi, found herself trapped by two of the largest and most deadly ships in the German navy: the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. The captain of HMS Rawalpindi was Captain Edward Kennedy, who was 60 years old. He had come out of retirement after his service in the first world war and between the wars to re-enlist. Rather than surrender, he took on those two deadly ships, and the Rawalpindi, as was entirely predictable, went down with all flags flying and with few survivors. I am going to develop that theme, which is that many of these events are not necessarily successful, but that does not mean that they are not ultimately setting standards for inspiring their fellow service personnel, their comrades and future generations. They certainly inspired me.

We move forward from Captain Kennedy—who, incidentally, was father of the late Sir Ludovic Kennedy—to November 1940. In 1940, another converted passenger liner, HMS Jervis Bay, was escorting a convoy of nearly 40 ships. The Jervis Bay found herself standing between that convoy and the German pocket battleship the Admiral Scheer. The convoy was instructed to scatter, and Captain Fogarty Fegen, who was the commander of the Jervis Bay, steamed towards certain death and destruction and saved three quarters of the ships in that convoy. There was a time when the names “Rawalpindi” and “Jervis Bay” were known throughout the land, and it is important that we periodically remind ourselves of these inspirational examples where people sacrificed themselves doing the right thing, even though they knew they had little or no chance of survival.

On a happier note, we turn to May 1941, when HMS Bulldog is a member of a flotilla of anti-submarine escorts that bring to the surface the U-110. My late friend, the then 20-year-old Sub-Lieutenant David Balme, heads up a rowing boat of half a dozen sailors. They get on board the U-110 submarine, which has been forced to the surface. They go down, not knowing whether the submarine will blow up from scuttling charges or whether there are people waiting armed at the foot of the conning tower ladder as they climb down, unable to defend themselves. They recover the Enigma machine and the code books and thus make a vital contribution to the winning of the battle of the Atlantic.

Then we come back to the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. It is February 1942, and half a dozen clapped-out, obsolete Swordfish biplanes take on the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau as they sail up the English channel with enormous air cover. Of those six biplanes, all six were shot down. Five of the aircrew survived the operation and four survived the war, and one of them later became my friend: Pat Kingsmill DSO. He is typical of these people who did courageous acts that were on everyone’s lips at the time, but then went on to live quiet lives—in the case of Pat Kingsmill, as an administrator in the NHS for many years.

[John Healey]

I suspect that, like me, the whole House is enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s year-by-year exposition of the second world war. I wonder whether he would accept another minute as a result of my intervention.

[Dr Lewis]

That is extraordinarily generous, but quite typical of the right hon. Gentleman.

We come to September 1943, and three midget submarines attack the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord. Godfrey Place, the captain of the X7, escapes from his sinking submarine, and later becomes admiral in charge of reserves. Although he was a very important figure in the Royal Navy, he still had time to meet somebody like me—a schoolboy in Swansea, when he was there on a visit—and to autograph a book about submarine escape. These little gestures from truly great men inspire young people.

We come to the last two. The airborne assault at Arnhem in September 1944 was another disaster. But Tony Hibbert MC, who later became a friend of mine through my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), went on to work throughout many years, trying to argue for civil defence and protection for this country.

Finally, Operation Meridian—the raids on the oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra—happened in January 1945. Norman Richardson—again, a friend of mine, who sadly passed away—was commemorated on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in the special edition of obituaries in The Daily Telegraph. He was a telegraphist air gunner. These were people who flew on a raid in January, when people in Sumatra were not expecting it, but they did not knock out all the oil refineries so they went back a few days later, when everyone was expecting them, and they did it again. They were shot down, but three quarters of Japan’s oil refining capability was lost to the Japanese war effort.

We remember them all.

Armed Forces: Covid-19 Deployment

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), I want to put on record our thanks to our armed forces for what they are doing during this pandemic. Personally, I appreciate it.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the deployment of the armed forces to assist civilian authorities in dealing with the continuing covid pandemic.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) for his urgent question and for the opportunity to highlight the vital role of the armed forces in responding to the pandemic.

The Secretary of State was pleased to commit to updating colleagues about the latest developments on covid support by placing regular updates in the House of Commons Library, the first of which will be delivered today. I am also pleased that the shadow Secretary of State will be visiting Standing Joint Command later this week to meet in person the senior military leadership delivering the support across the country.

The armed forces are renowned for their planning skills, technical capabilities and ability to provide rapid and effective deployed response. They are being put to good use yet again. At all times they are acting in support of, and at the request of, the civil authorities from every part of the United Kingdom. So far this year the Ministry of Defence has received 420 MACA—military aid to the civil authorities—requests, 341 of which have been covid-related. The armed forces have provided enormous support while themselves taking all appropriate covid precautions and while maintaining our critical defence outputs, ensuring that at all times they are protecting our country, our interests and our friends.

Our present support for the Government’s preparation for the winter period, including the covid-19 response, is one of Defence’s highest priorities. Defence has established a winter support force of approximately 7,500 deployable personnel, in addition to the many defence medics already embedded in the NHS and the support, when called upon, of our defence scientists in the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Defence is currently supporting 41 MACA tasks, including assistance to the whole-town testing pilot in Liverpool and the Birmingham City Council drop and collect scheme. Personnel have previously supported activities from the Nightingale facility construction, vaccine planning, personal protective equipment distribution and the staffing of testing centres. They remain ready to undertake further tasks.

Defence has made thorough preparations to contribute as requested to civil authorities’ responses through the MACA system and will keep the force elements held in readiness to do so under constant review, adjusting the capabilities provided to meet demand. The nation can be reassured, especially in this week of remembrance, that Defence stands ready, as ever, to support whenever, wherever and however required, and will continue to do so, for as long as is necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

Last Monday, ahead of the new national lockdown in England, I said to the Defence Secretary:

“If he is willing to make further use of the forces this time, this House and the public will back him.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 7.]

The Minister has said 341 MACA requests for help have been in place since mid-March. People want to know now what the plan is; they have a right to know and they have a right to regular ministerial reporting of such decisions, which would also help to build better public understanding and support for our military.

From Friday, 2,000 troops have been deployed to Liverpool, which is double the number we have posted in Afghanistan. Mayor Joe Anderson told me last night that they are delighted to have them, for their sheer numbers and their logistical expertise. He said they had set up 17 centres and had done 23,170 tests in just 72 hours. Is the MOD willing to agree similar MACA support for other local authority areas?

The city-wide testing, of course, is to find people with covid who are infectious, but asymptomatic, and then to ensure that they isolate and do not infect others. That requires regular, routine and continual testing. How sustainable is that deployment? When will the 2,000 troops start to be withdrawn? How scalable is the deployment? Which other cities and towns will also benefit?

The Minister said that 7,500 troops are already on stand-by as part of what he called the winter support force. Our adversaries will watch the extent to which our forces are focused on covid. Will the Minister therefore confirm that it has had no impact so far on forces’ training, standing commitments or capabilities to respond to conflicts and threats?

Finally, the Government have raised the whole country’s hopes with the news of the Pfizer vaccine, but it is vaccinations, not vaccines, that will protect people from the virus. Getting the vaccine to the point of vaccination requires storing and transporting it at -70°C. How is the military involved in planning for nationwide vaccination? Will the military be involved in its delivery? How soon will it start?

If the Government do now make more use of our armed forces to help fight covid, that will be widely welcomed.

[Jeremy Quin]

I very much welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s warm words of support for the wider tasks of the armed forces. I absolutely assure him and the House that all essential Defence tasks continue to operate, with the great professionalism and resolve of our armed forces, be that the continuous at-sea deterrence or quick reaction alert or our army deployments around the world. Clearly, we have had to take precautions; we have had to keep our troops safe and have had to ensure that they continue to operate. Those precautions have been put in place, but they have continued to meet the needs. Early on, we had to pause training. That has now gathered momentum again and I am pleased to say that we are seeing an increase in the number of people applying to join our armed forces, which is, I think, inspired by the work that they are doing in all our communities.

The right hon. Gentleman raised other points. What is the plan? We stand ready to support other parts of the Government. We work in partnership with other parts of the Government. As the Department of Health and Social Care and the devolved Governments require our support, we are there to provide and assist.

I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman spoke to the Mayor of Liverpool yesterday. I hear constantly of the great work between Liverpool City Council, the local NHS and our forces who are assisting them in this process. I think the pilot is now at 18 test centres, with a large number continuing to be supplied as we work with the city council. However, it is a pilot, and we need to see what we can learn from it and test its effectiveness, which has been so far, so good. It is scalable, and as part of this programme we are talking to civilian agencies, the council and the NHS about how others can step in. Often, as in the case of the mobile testing units, the armed forces lead the way, but others may well come through if the Department of Health and Social Care and others believe that this should be deployed more widely across the country.

Draft Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 General Committees

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir David. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is some time since I have had that pleasure, but it is a pleasure nevertheless.

I thank the Minister for his technical explanation of this technical set of regulations, and I welcome the level of interest on the Government Benches. As he knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) has been working from home since March, otherwise he might have been in his place as the shadow Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) is one of the few people who seems to have been traced by the Government’s system to deal with the covid virus; he has been advised to isolate for the next two weeks, but is keeping very well. Of course, I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate is here to support me.

The statutory instrument is indeed a largely technical set of propositions which ensure that the procurement provisions of both the withdrawal agreement and the European economic area and European Free Trade Association separation agreement are properly transposed into UK legislation, and correctly applied at the same time to those procurement contracts that have already been launched but not yet finalised.

As the Minister said, the regulations obviously update the 2011 regulations. First, can he confirm how many contracts the regulations apply to? In other words, how many contracts will have been launched but not yet concluded before the end of the transition period? Secondly, can he confirm that the transition period or implementation period will end on 31 December?

The Minister said a couple of other things that I think are of wider interest. He said, as his counterpart in the upper House did when the upper House considered the regulations, that a comprehensive review is under way on the defence and security public contracts regulations. Given that it is more than four years since the Brexit vote, more than two years since the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 reached the statute book and almost one year since this country’s exit date from the European Union, why has this work not been undertaken already? Why are we dealing with these temporary, interim, make-do and make-and-mend measures rather than considering a full set of new regulations that should govern our procurement of defence and security needs for the future?

In addition to the number of contracts or framework agreements covered by the regulations, can the Minister confirm how many applications are expected to be launched between now and the end of the implementation period, or in other words that will fall in future within the remit of the regulations? I also note that the de minimis threshold has been increased by some £65,000. Can the Minister explain why there has been such a big leap? Does it simply update the 2011 levels, or has some other factor come into the calculations made by the Ministry of Defence?

The framework that we are considering is an interim one, as the Minister said, but will apply to contracts that will be in place well into the future. Could he indicate how long the contracts to which the draft regulations will apply may be extant? Finally, the Minister called our departure from the European Union an opportunity for Britain. As a result of the draft regulations, the new system and our departure from the European Union, how many more defence and security public contracts will be placed with British firms over the next year, rather than with EU firms, as the previous regulations would have implied?

[Jeremy Quin]

First, as I am sure the whole Committee does, I wish the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) a safe period, having been traced. I trust that it is no more than being traced, and that he will soon be back among us.

I am honoured that the shadow Secretary of State has joined us this afternoon. It is good to see him in fine form. I thank him for translating into English my technical description of the regulations and the pith of our attempt to provide legal certainty; he was absolutely right. He raised several technical questions that I will try to assist with. Inevitably, I cannot give him the exact number of additional contracts that will flow under the draft regulations between now and year end, but in a typical year we would expect between 2,000 and 2,500 contracts and frameworks to be awarded within the Ministry of Defence overall. On 8 November, we were running at 2,104—slightly below the average for the year, I suppose—of which 35% would normally be awarded under the DSPCR, so that gives an indication of the numbers.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that some of the contracts may run on for some time. As he well knows, I cannot be definitive about how long that will be; it depends on contract negotiations, but it may last for a period of time. However, that is the value of the draft regulations: suppliers will know with certainty the legal basis under which they will operate. They will know that for however long the period lasts, the contract was awarded under the DSPCR, which currently prevails as per the draft regulations.

[John Healey]

I am grateful for the Minister’s attempt to provide specific answers to my questions. Under the DSPCR—if he cannot confirm the answer this afternoon, perhaps he would write to me—how many of the contracts or the framework agreements to which the draft regulations are designed specifically to apply have been launched but not concluded?

[Jeremy Quin]

I can inform the right hon. Gentleman that that is the exact question that I have asked. I have yet to be enlightened with the answer; I wanted to come armed with the statistic to share with him in case he asked me a direct question, but I cannot do it on my feet right now. Given the number of contracts and frameworks that we are discussing—there had been some 2,104 by 8 November—he will appreciate that finding an exact number may be a bit of a compilation exercise, but I appreciate why he asked the question. I will research the answer and write to him, and if I cannot enlighten him fully I will explain why and put a date to it.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the shift in the thresholds. We have introduced the correct number as of 1 January 2020; the main change will have been currency movements over that time, because the DSPCR is set out in euros and clearly we have put down a sterling number.

Perhaps the most important aspect that the right hon. Gentleman asked about is when we can expect the excitement of new regulations, which will be how we procure in future. As he is aware, we have launched DSIS, the defence and security industrial strategy. That work is ongoing, and we look forward to announcing it in due course. It looks very closely at how we can embrace new regulations in future, and how we can ensure that strategic industries remain and flourish in the UK that meet the needs of our defence requirements.

[John Healey]

I am quite attracted to the picture that the Minister paints. Could he give some indication of when he expects the comprehensive review of the regulations to conclude?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his work in leading the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The UK, along with NATO allies, takes the maritime threat from Russia very seriously. This tempo and assertiveness of our operational output will continue for as long as Russia continues to pose a threat and challenge to freedom of navigation. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces would be delighted to meet him and his colleagues to discuss it further.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

As we belatedly go into this second national lockdown, can we as a House pay tribute to the role of the armed forces? I say to the Defence Secretary that his commitment to update the House regularly on the use of the armed forces in this second lockdown is very welcome. If he is willing to make further use of the forces this time, this House and the public will back him. I also pay tribute to the professionalism of the special forces who took back control of the Nave Andromeda last week. With the integrated review in mind, this is a timely reminder that while high-tech weapons are essential, our highly trained British troops are indispensable. The Secretary of State promised at the Dispatch Box “a multi-year integrated review”, with

“a four-year spending settlement…for capital and a three-year settlement for revenue”.—[Official Report, 21 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 607.]

When will it be published?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for paying tribute to the armed forces. He is, of course, right that the armed forces have gone above and beyond in making sure that we get through this covid process. Because of their training and the skills that they possess, we can answer the call to help with resilience throughout the country. We will not hesitate to take advantage of all their skills. The demand must come from the ground up—from local authorities or, indeed, the rest of Government. We stand by our offer to any part of Government or the devolved Governments to help in that struggle.

As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), the integrated review will be resolved; where we are going to go with it will be resolved. We are thinking through the impact of the Treasury’s announcement that there will be a one-year spending settlement. Once we have thought through those consequences and worked through the implications, I will report straight to the House on what that means.

[John Healey]

Is it not the regrettable truth that the Chancellor has cut the ground from under the Defence Secretary and our British forces? The Secretary of State rightly said that previous Tory defence reviews have

“failed because they were never in step with the spending plans”.—[Official Report, 6 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 647.]

They were a cover for cuts, which is why our armed forces are nearly 12,000 short of the strength promised in the 2015 review; essential equipment, from new tanks to the new radar system protecting our aircraft carrier, is long overdue; and the defence budget has a £13 billion black hole. A fully fledged, fully funded strategic defence and security review is needed now more than ever. What does he say about the failure to deliver on that?

[Mr Wallace]

I think the right hon. Gentleman delivered the speech for a potential future statement. No one has said yet that the integrated review will be delayed or curtailed. What we are saying is that we are studying the implications of the one-year spending review on that. Once we have worked through those implications, he is of course welcome to make his points across the Dispatch Box. I know that he is keen to make those points, but I respectfully suggest that he waits until we have thought through the implications. Then we can have that discussion in Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say that topicals are meant to be short and punchy? We have got to get into that habit.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

As we have seen this afternoon, there is growing cross-party concern over the Secretary of State’s overseas operations Bill. Will he now accept, after 10 Committee sittings, that it is clear that the Bill simply does not do what it says on the tin—to protect British troops overseas from vexatious litigation and repeat investigations? Will he also accept that, as we have seen this afternoon, the Minister in charge is in denial about the Bill’s flaws and dangers? Will the Secretary of State himself therefore join me tomorrow for Report stage so that we can work together on the changes needed to make this legislation fit for purpose?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the Front Benchers once again, if you are going to ask questions in topicals, they have got to be short and punchy. That is the idea of topicals. I call the Secretary of State.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

John Healey Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I start by also paying tribute to the role, dedication and work of our armed forces. They face exceptional risks, give exceptional service and require exceptional skills. As we face as a nation a second covid crisis, they are likely to be called on again, more heavily, including overseas.

I am pleased that we have come to the Commons debate on this legislation. I thank the Secretary of State for the way he introduced the Bill. The first duty of any Government is to protect the nation and its citizens, and the first duty of any Defence Secretary is to protect the men and women who dedicate themselves to the service of their country. We have our own British way of doing this. Since the days of Churchill and Attlee, when Britain led the global efforts to establish the rules-based international order after the second world war, we have been the champions of democracy, freedom and universal human rights. Our British forces uphold, unequivocally, international law and conventions. By adhering to the highest standards of legal military conduct ourselves, we can hold other countries to account when their forces fall short. The Bill calls into question Britain’s proud commitment to the Geneva convention, our duty as a “permanent five” member of the United Nations to uphold international law, and our moral authority to require the conduct of other nations to meet the standards set by those international conventions.

Since the end of the 2000s, all parties in this House have upheld a strong commitment to the armed forces covenant, which declares that those from the armed forces and their families

“should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services.”

The Bill breaches that covenant by denying troops who serve overseas the same employer liability rights as are held by the UK civilians they defend. Our aim with this Bill is, first, to protect British troops and their right to justice from the MOD, and secondly, to protect Britain’s reputation as a force for good in the world, upholding human rights and the rules-based international order. We will work to help forge a constructive consensus through the Commons and the Lords for the changes necessary to achieve that aim.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The right hon. Gentleman must recognise—I am sure he knows this well, having spoken to his opposite numbers in socialist or left-wing parties around Europe—that many other countries follow this system of derogation and have national caveats. France itself has a reserve of emergency powers it can use to defend its troops against vexatious or inappropriate litigation. Is he seriously suggesting that France is not a law-based state, or that it is in some way immoral and has no right to sit as one of the P5? Surely he is not suggesting that.

[John Healey]

No, I am very clear that we want to and must protect our British troops against vexatious claims and repeat investigations. Important parts of the Bill are wrong; we can get them right and that is what I want to do. There has been a problem—I get that—arising especially from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the Secretary of State said. The al-Sweady inquiry chairman, when he finally cleared the troops in 2014, spoke forcefully of the “most serious allegations”—of murder and mutilation—that

“have been hanging over these soldiers for the past 10 years”.

The family of an Iraqi boy, Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali, who drowned in a canal in 2003 with British soldiers directly implicated, had to wait until the Newman inquiry reported in 2016 before they got the truth and the MOD issued a full apology.

Long-running litigation, repeat investigations and judicial reviews are indeed the signs of a flawed system—a system that has failed British troops and failed victims under successive Governments. I get this problem, and it must be fixed, but it is important to see it in perspective, not least so that we can see clearly the problem that we are legislating in the Bill to fix.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend was touching on an important point that Members on the Government Benches have touched on as well. The problem is, as it stands, the long investigations and the repeated investigations that allow double jeopardy not via the courts, but by intimidation of investigation. The Bill does nothing whatever to deal with some of those issues. Is that not a reason for the Government to go away and rewrite parts of the Bill or even issue proper investigatory guidelines to stop that kind of thing happening?

[John Healey]

I sincerely trust that the Government will rethink and will be prepared to rewrite parts of the Bill. If they do so, I think they will find broad consensus for some of the changes that could be made to the Bill to help protect our troops and protect Britain’s reputation worldwide at the same time.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

On that point, I have seen successive Governments overlook the armed forces, having been one of those people thrown on the pile to fend for myself. This Bill is a massive step forward for any veteran who has served on the frontlines. We are playing politics with this issue, and I plead for all Members to put that aside and focus on the massive step this Bill is for our armed forces.

[John Healey]

I will come on to that matter in a moment, because the Bill does nothing for those troops who have served, as the hon. Gentleman describes, on the frontline overseas. It does nothing to deal with the past cases and the past problems.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

I will give way one more time, then I will make some progress.

[Jim Shannon]

On that point, the right hon. Gentleman is right about the armed forces covenant and the ability of members of the armed forces community to bring a claim for injury or death after six years. There is some concern about the unique deviation of the Limitation Act 1980 in the Bill that will place members of the armed forces community at a disadvantage compared with civilians. After six years, civilians can register a civil claim, whereas soldiers and Army, Navy and RAF personnel cannot.

[John Healey]

In his typical way, the hon. Member puts his finger on an important point. He understates his argument, as there is more than just some concern; there are, for instance, according to the Royal British Legion, very clear grounds for concern that the provision breaches the armed forces covenant, and I will come on to that point.

Let me deal with getting this problem, which does exist and must be fixed, in a proper perspective. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was absolutely right about how hard it is to get hard, clear information out of the Government. Over recent months, I have had to prise figures out of the MOD. There is a deep resistance to releasing full, open information. The first important figures to give a broad perspective are these: over the past 15 years, there have been 25 cases brought by injured British troops against the MOD for every one case brought by alleged victims against our troops. You can see why, Madam Deputy Speaker, some of the veterans I have talked to about this Bill reckon it is more about protecting the MOD than it is about protecting troops. Britain deployed 140,000 troops to Iraq over six years. The Government cite—the Secretary of State did so today—1,000 civil claims, all against the MOD, not individual service personnel, as evidence for the Bill to end vexatious legal claims. One third of those cases—330—have had the MOD pay compensation. Clearly, they were not vexatious as the MOD rightly insists on only settling cases in which it accepts liability. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says, “No, we don’t,” but if he looks at the annual report on the cases that the Department publishes and takes, he will see exactly that commitment and clarification. It does not have the power to settle claims where it judges that it would not be found liable in a court. However, one fifth of the cases—217—have been withdrawn or struck out. They may well have been vexatious cases—they were certainly baseless. They may have taken too long, but the system, even as it stands, has dealt with them.

Two fifths of the cases—414—are ongoing, according to the MOD, although that definition could mean that those cases are settled and the MOD has agreed to pay compensation, but there may still be outstanding arguments over legal costs. Those cases may again be long-running, but they are hardly vexatious if they have not been struck out by now.

On the criminal side, the Government cite 3,400 allegations. The Secretary of State referred to the Iraq Historic Allegations Team that looked into them. Despite deep flaws in that investigation, 70% were ruled out as there was no case to answer or no proportionate grounds for a criminal investigation. In other words, those allegations did not warrant a full investigation so got nowhere near the point of decision about prosecution. They would have been wholly unaffected by the Bill if the measure had been in place because, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, it does not deal with investigations—as it should—but only with prosecutorial decisions and process. By the way, just seven prosecutions have been brought against British soldiers from the remaining allegations and investigations, and all but one have now been dropped.

On Afghanistan and criminal cases, the Operation Northmoor investigation in 2014 examined 675 criminal allegations from 159 people. The investigation closed and no charges have followed. Indeed, the investigation concluded a year before the MOD confirmed in public in June that it had closed.

On judicial review, the Government have cited 1,400 JRs of civil and criminal Iraq and Afghanistan cases as justification for the Bill. I can only find evidence that two judicial reviews are continuing. The court gave the MOD permission to strike many of the others out three years ago. Yet in April, the Minister told me in answer to a written parliamentary question that the MOD had still only notified fewer than half—630—of the court’s decision not to take the investigations further.

To put the matter in perspective, certainly some vexatious claims have been lodged and the current system has taken too long to weed them out, but the bigger, more serious, more consistent problems lie in the system of investigations, which lacks speed, soundness, openness and a duty of care to alleged victims and to the forces personnel who may be in the frame. Those are the problems, which occur well before the point of decision about prosecution, which is the point at which the Bill starts to operate. They are what the Bill should and can deal with. Our aim during its passage through Parliament is to help ensure that it does.

To pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), I must confess that when I first looked at the Bill, I thought that it was designed to draw a line under the cases still caught up in the problem of so-called lawfare. The first paragraph of the explanatory notes gives the same misleading impression. It says:

“This Bill aims to provide greater certainty for Service personnel and veterans in relation to vexatious claims and prosecution of historical events, that occurred in the uniquely complex environment of armed conflict overseas.”

But this legislation will have no impact on any past or any continuing cases, and clause 15 on commencement makes that clear, so it offers no hope and no help of faster resolution either for the troops or for the alleged victims, who may still be involved in long-running litigation or in repeat investigations. I want to make sure that no one in this House and, much more importantly, in the armed forces and the veterans community is misled by what they may have heard or may have understood before now.

Similarly, nothing in this Bill applies to Northern Ireland, despite the same commitment in the Conservative manifesto, similar concerns on the Government side about drawing a line for British troops who served in Northern Ireland and the Secretary of State’s letter to all MPs last week in which he confirmed his eagerness

“to ensure also the equivalent protections of our veterans who served in Northern Ireland.”

The Secretary of State’s speech looked back, but we now legislate for the future. The Bill is not a framework fit for the future point when Britain must again commit its forces to armed conflict overseas. The Government have got important parts of the Bill badly wrong, and I want to see Ministers work with all parties in both Houses and with groups beyond Parliament who have expertise to offer on this—from the British Legion to Liberty—to get this legislation right.

There are problems. The Bill is silent on the command responsibility and the role of commanders in some of these cases. There is a problem, I think, with the Attorney General’s consent, as it risks political factors coming into prosecutorial decisions. There is nothing on the disclosure rights, responsibilities and duties of the MOD. Let me summarise our biggest concerns about the Bill.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I agree with many of the points the shadow Secretary of State has made during his very valid contribution. Does he agree that one of the fundamental weaknesses with the Bill was put forward by the UK’s most senior military judge, who has argued that the consequence of the legislation is that UK military personnel are more likely to find themselves in front of the International Criminal Court?

[John Healey]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for conceding that I am making some valid points. His point is certainly valid, and it will be a point of central argument, probably in the debate today, but certainly as the Bill passes through both Houses.

Let me return to the biggest problems in the Bill. Part 1, as the Secretary of State said, introduces what the Government have called their so-called triple lock to make prosecutions for the most serious crimes harder. The presumption against prosecution for all crimes except sexual violence clearly creates the risk that the very gravest crimes, including torture and other war crimes, go unpunished if an incident does not come to light for five years or if the investigations are drawn out beyond that deadline.

[Stephen Doughty]

My right hon. Friend is making an extremely constructive and compelling speech, and I hope that all Members on both sides will listen to what he is saying. On that specific point about torture, may I commend to him the article by our hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who has very clearly set out today the objection he has, as I do, to vexatious claims and vexatious investigations? He is also very clear that the prohibition on torture is absolute: there are no exceptions. We as a country are a signatory to a whole series of international conventions on that very issue, and the derogations we talked about under the European convention make it very clear that we have to comply with those international obligations.

[John Healey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for a very succinct and spot-on point, and I look forward to the contribution that I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) will be able to make in the debate.

[John Redwood]

Will the changes the shadow Secretary of State wants to make overall give more protection to our veterans, or will they actually reduce the protections in this legislation?

[John Healey]

The changes will give protections that are fit for the future. They will give protections that are required, and they will avoid parts of the Bill that at the moment put at a disadvantage in a unique fashion those British troops who serve overseas, which is why we argue that it breaches the armed forces covenant.

To come back to the presumption against prosecution, in the explanatory notes the Government maintain:

“Nothing in this Bill will stop those guilty of committing serious criminal acts from being prosecuted.”

That is a point the Secretary of State made, but many legal experts disagree and say that the Bill, as it intends, will be a significant barrier to justice. The Law Society’s briefing on this debate says:

“The Bill creates…a limitation period for a select group of persons in specific circumstances, i.e. armed forces personnel alleged to have committed offences overseas.”

Alongside the extra factors for prosecutors to take into account and the requirement for the Attorney General to give the go-ahead for such prosecutions, that clearly risks breaching the Geneva convention, the convention against torture, the Rome statute, the European convention on human rights and other long-standing international legal obligations. Where the UK is unable or unwilling to prosecute, the International Criminal Court may well act. So rather than providing relief for the troops accused, the Bill also risks British service personnel being dragged to The Hague, the court of Milošević and Gaddafi, instead of being dealt with in our own British justice system.

Let us just step back a moment from the technical detail. This is the Government of Great Britain bringing in a legal presumption against prosecution for torture, for war crimes and for crimes against humanity. This is the Government of Great Britain saying sexual crimes are so serious they will be excluded from this presumption, but placing crimes outlawed by the Geneva convention on a less serious level and downgrading our unequivocal commitment to upholding international law that we in Britain ourselves, after the second world war, helped to establish.

[Mr Wallace]

What is appalling is the straw man being put up time and again by a Labour party half-funded by these ambulance-chasing lawyers. That is going to damage our reputation. No apology for the money they took from a number of them—no apology whatever. What we should recognise is that many of—[Interruption.]

[Mr Wallace]

Much of the mess we are having to come and clean up today is because of your illegal wars, your events in the past and the way you have run the safety of our forces. To put up straw men and make wild allegations that are wholly inaccurate, and disputed by people much more learned than the right hon. Gentleman, does a disservice to our troops and is all about making an excuse for not supporting the Bill. We will see tonight whether or not he supports the Bill.

[John Healey]

That is not worthy of the office of the Secretary of State for Defence. We are dealing with matters of torture, war crimes, MOD negligence, compensation for injured troops and compensation for the families who have lost their loved ones overseas. This is too important for party politics. It should be beneath the Secretary of State to reduce this to party politics. We on the Labour Benches will work with the Government to get the Bill right.

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)]

This is embarrassing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. When you speak, you speak standing up not sitting down. Now, we will just have a drop in temperature while we consider the facts of the Bill and let the emotions settle down somewhat.

[John Healey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The facts of the Bill are that it places torture and other war crimes on a different level to crimes of sexual violence. That is not embarrassing; that is unconscionable for a country with a proud record of upholding unequivocally the international conventions that we helped to draw up.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

No, I will not at this point.

Ministers must think again. No wonder that the former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, says that the Bill as it stands would be a stain on Britain’s standing in the world. Ministers must think again. They must remove torture and other war crimes from the Bill. There are better ways of protecting our troops and Britain’s good name.

Part 2 creates a higher hurdle for civil cases after three years, as the Secretary of State said, with extra factors that a prosecutor must take into account, and a hard block on any case after six years. For British troops serving overseas with claims to make against the MOD, that does breach the armed forces covenant—a point that I made to the Secretary of State early in the summer, reinforced today by the Royal British Legion in its briefing for this debate, which says that in removing “the ability of members of the armed forces community to bring a claim for injury or death after six years, the Government will create a unique deviation from the Limitation Act 1980.” It denies those who serve our country overseas the same employer liability rights as the rest of us enjoy at home. It creates circumstances that allow the MOD to avoid claims when it fails properly to equip our troops or makes serious errors that lead to the death or injury of British troops overseas.

It is plain wrong that those who put their lives on the line for Britain overseas should have less access to compensation than the UK civilians they defend, and, since 2007, there have been at least 195 cases of troops who would have been caught by the Bill. Ministers have tried to play that down by saying that the clock on that deadline starts only at the point of diagnosis, but that is misleading because diagnosis is not in the Bill and the point of knowledge is in the Bill. That is another important provision that we must put right.

ln conclusion, we believe, and I believe strongly, despite what the Minister for Defence People and Veterans is chuntering under his breath, that the Government, Labour and the armed forces ultimately all want the same thing: we want to protect British troops and we want to protect British values, and that should not be merely a matter of party politics.

I say to the Secretary of State, during the Bill’s passage through Parliament we want to help forge a constructive consensus on the changes needed to overhaul investigations, to set up safeguards against vexatious claims that are entirely consistent with our international obligations, and to guarantee troops the right to compensation claims when MOD failures lead to the death or injury of our forces overseas. It is not too late for Ministers to think again about the best way to protect service personnel from vexatious litigation while ensuring that those who do commit serious crimes during operations are properly prosecuted and punished. As the Bill begins its passage through Parliament, I urge the Secretary of State and his Minister to work with us to ensure that it does just that.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to follow my friend, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), who made some interesting points, some of which—forgive me—I am going to disagree with. He will not be surprised to hear that, because we have often entered into many civilised, and sometimes lubricated, conversations on these very subjects. These issues affect the whole House and have been discussed by many Members in here and in other places, because they really matter.

I declare an interest; I got into politics on leaving the Army, after writing a paper for Policy Exchange in 2013 called “The Fog of Law”, which covered these very subjects and highlighted many of the issues raised in this debate. I appreciate that there are difficult decisions and that it is hard to balance what the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) quite correctly said was the difference between the liability that a civilian employee could expect with their employer and that which a soldier on overseas operations could expect. I accept that that is different.

I accepted that it was different when I swore allegiance to Her Majesty and put on the uniform for the first time. I accepted it was different because the job that I had accepted to do was different; it was fundamentally different—different in every sense from any civilian job at all. Why? Because I promised, as the men and women of our armed forces still promise, to give everything even unto death. That is not something that any other employer asks of their team or their staff. Nobody who is not wearing the Queen’s uniform pledges to defend our people, our islands, our values, our country, our allies and our interests even up to their own life. That is different.

In recognising that that is what we need from our armed forces, we must also recognise that the law defending our troops and the law that applies to their terms of employment must also be different. It simply cannot be the case that civilian employment contracts are applicable to the invasion of Iraq or hard detention operations in Afghanistan, or even to training missions in other places that go wrong and become combat in ways that the people involved do not expect. Of course they must be different.

[John Healey]

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that this is a distinction not just between the armed forces serving overseas and civilians, but between armed forces serving overseas and armed forces serving and based in this country? To that extent, this legislation uniquely disadvantages the latter and reduces their rights.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will accept that this is an overseas operations Bill and that being on patrol in Helmand is different from bringing on guard at Buckingham Palace, and therefore the rights that troops should accept in different places under different terms should of course be different.

I have served, as have many of my colleagues in all parts of the House. Indeed, my friend and former comrade in arms the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and I served in camps in places where the electricity could best be described as ropey and would fail any civilian investigation. We served in places where to walk outside the camp was to risk everything, from loss of life or limb to very real mental damage. We served in those places because the national security and the interests of our country—decided on by people here, by the way, not soldiers—was judged to be that important.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Defence Intelligence uses its 4,500 exceptionally talented staff to collect, analyse and exploit intelligence. By working internationally and with other Departments, it is able to judge today’s threat and tomorrow’s and ensure that that feeds into the future design under the integrated review.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

May I start by paying tribute to the forces men and women who are working to help the country through the covid crisis? We may soon need to turn to them again, in the face of this renewed pandemic threat.

On the integrated review, I recognise that the cycle of defence decisions does not match the cycle of political elections. Britain still benefits from the skills, technologies and capabilities at the heart of Labour’s Drayson review 15 years ago. The Opposition want the Government to get this integrated review right, but when this is the third Conservative review in just 10 years, how will the Defence Secretary avoid making the big mistakes of the last two?

[Mr Wallace]

The mistake of all the defence reviews—including the 1998 one, which was exceptionally good, and Lord Drayson’s review—was that they were not matched by funding. The Labour party had exactly the same problem at its last review, which is why in 2010 we inherited a black hole of billions of pounds, and indeed, there is a black hole now, identified by the National Audit Office. This is not unique to any political party. Selective picking of the last two reviews, when I could probably talk about the last five, makes no difference. The key is to ensure that our review is driven by threat. The threat defines what we need to do to keep us safe at home, and the ambition defines how far we wish to go. All that then needs to be matched with Treasury funding. If we are over-ambitious, underfunded or both, we will in a few years’ time end up in the position we are in today and have been in the past. It has been my determination to support the men and women of the armed forces the shadow Secretary of State talks about by making sure that we give them something we can afford and tailoring our ambition to match our pocket.

[John Healey]

Of course, the Labour Government invested in defence at a higher rate each year than that of the previous 10 years, but the Secretary of State is right about the big aims and challenges. He has previously described the 2015 review as over-ambitious and underfunded, and to over-promise and under-deliver has become something of a hallmark of this Government, but that most recent review left Britain with a £7 billion black hole for military equipment; 8,000 fewer soldiers than Ministers pledged as the minimum; and multibillion-pound contracts placed abroad when we could build in Britain. Of course, there is also a pandemic disease, which was confirmed as a tier 1 threat but no Government action was taken to prepare for it. For all the Secretary of State’s talk of the grand picture and grand strategy, does he accept that the British public and the Opposition will judge the Government by these tests?

[Mr Wallace]

I think that I misheard. I thought the shadow Secretary of State was talking about the position that we inherited in 2010, which was underfunded and over-ambitious—indeed, there was an equipment hole so big that many of the tanks could be driven through it. He could also point out that our men and women in the armed forces have been ready: they have delivered an excellent covid response and have not been found wanting in any way. That is partly because of the investment we have put into them, but also because of expert leadership through the officers and the civil servants in the Department and across the Government.

I assure the shadow Secretary of State that the best way to avoid the pitfalls of the past is to make sure that our ambition is matched by our pockets and what we put into the review. That is fundamentally the best thing we can do for all our forces. I would be delighted to hear the Labour party’s ambition on foreign policy and security; the previous Labour party leadership’s ambition for foreign policy was surrender.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the Rolls-Royce workforce for their important support for defence and, indeed, during the covid outbreak. The Winsford distributed generation systems plant provides crucial capabilities to our armed forces. I am impressed by the company’s innovative solutions to the challenges we face, for example on sustainability. It is an excellent example of UK engineering and of high-quality jobs. I look forward to seeing Rolls-Royce developing its private and public sector customer base.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The House is grateful to the Secretary of State for his impromptu statement. I wonder whether he could place the terms of reference for the Tom Kelly review in the House of Commons Library. Can he confirm this afternoon when he expects that review to be completed?

Just 79 people were invited to yesterday’s battle of Britain commemoration inside Westminster Abbey, rather than the 2,200 planned. Remembrance Day ceremonies in seven weeks’ time are unthinkable without so many of those who have served in our armed forces. Will the Secretary of State say what special guidance he will give to make sure ceremonies at cenotaphs across the country can go ahead safely and respectfully?

[Mr Wallace]

On the first point from the shadow Defence Secretary, I will of course let him know and put in the Library of the House the terms of reference for the review and when we expect it to be completed.

On remembrance, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is the lead. However, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is an incredibly important for our Department and our men and women in the armed forces to contribute to it. I am working with the DDCMS to make sure we get that guidance. He is right to highlight the issue and I thank him for doing so. Of course, some in the veterans community are the most elderly and vulnerable at present, and we have to ensure that whatever we do we protect them in services of remembrance. I took part in VE Day by ringing a number of veterans who could not attend those events. Talking to numerous second world war veterans is quite a moving experience. One raised a problem about being able to get to an optician and it was useful to ring his local regimental association to try to get him that help. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight this issue. As soon as we have worked out the plans, I will share them with the House.

Counter-Daesh Update

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for making this statement and for advance sight of it. I hope that this marks the return to Ministers fulfilling the Government’s commitment to provide the House with quarterly updates on Daesh. It has been a year and 20 days since the last statement and a lot has happened since, including that the last Secretary of State to make this statement is no longer a Member of this House or, indeed, the Conservative party.

I begin by paying tribute to the dedication of our armed forces and those from the multinational coalition, who continue the fight to counter the deadly threat of Daesh. I also salute the service of Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. Her death is the toughest possible reminder that our troops, both full-time and reservists, put their lives on the line to defend us. Today, I want to reaffirm the strength of the commitment of my party for the UN-sanctioned global coalition and the comprehensive international approach against Daesh.

The coalition’s success so far is clear. Daesh no longer controls any territory, compared with its height six years ago, when it had sway over 8 million people and a land area the size of our own UK. However, it is also clear that Daesh is stepping up its insurgent attacks and must be at risk of gaining a foothold south of the Euphrates in the area controlled by the Syrian regime, backed by Iranian and Russian allies. The Secretary of State said this afternoon that the RAF has conducted 16 air attacks since July last year. Half of those have been in the past two months alone, so can the Secretary of State confirm how many air strikes have been carried out by the global coalition as a whole in the past two months, and is the number of such attacks rising?

In April, NATO agreed to an enhanced role against Daesh. Will the Secretary of State explain what this role will be, what additional activity will be conducted by NATO and what the UK contribution will be through NATO? In particular, will more NATO mean less US in Iraq and Syria?

A special concern arises from reports that Daesh foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq are relocating to join other jihadist frontlines around the world. Others—the Secretary of State’s 40%—are detained in poorly defended prisons and detention centres in the region. With coalition Ministers set to discuss the emerging threat posed by Daesh and ISIS affiliates in west Africa and the Sahel, what role and commitment is the UK willing to consider as part of any coalition action?

Earlier, I talked about the Labour party’s support for the comprehensive international approach against Daesh. With 1.6 million people still displaced within Iraq and 6.6 million within Syria, the need for substantial humanitarian and development aid is acute. The Government’s Iraq stabilisation and resilience programme was set to end in March 2020. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether it has indeed ended and whether such support will be extended beyond this year, especially in the light of the abolition of the Department for International Development?

More than 3 million of those displaced in the region are refugee children, the blameless victims of conflict. Since the Government voted against the Dubs amendment, what steps have they taken to allow unaccompanied refugee children in Europe to be reunited with their families in the UK?

Finally, the protection of civilians and the upholding of international law through implementation of UN resolutions remain the foundation for the global coalition’s actions further to degrade and ultimately defeat Daesh. Our challenge, as the Secretary of State said, is now indeed to see this through, so that the Iraqi people and the Syrian people may rebuild their lives and their country in peace.

[Mr Wallace]

I will do my best to answer all the questions. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support of the counter-Daesh actions.

The right hon. Gentleman asks whether the number of strikes has increased. I can write to him with the details of the total global coalition strikes, but I can say that United Kingdom strikes have increased in the past few months, although that is mainly a reflection of the functioning Government of Iraq and a better outcome that they are requiring and requesting in support. He might remember that the previous Government were in a state of paralysis and then on a number of occasions not functioning. The increase in strikes is mainly a reflection of what we have seen since then, but I am happy to write to him and clarify more the overall coalition responses.

On NATO and training, NATO has sought to see where it can step in and support specifically in the areas of training, security improvements, nation building and so on. It has not progressed as fast as needed, because of covid and the quietness at the beginning of the year, from both the threat and everything else. Also, many of the traditional partners we work with feel that their training has been completed. Therefore, we are working with NATO and the Iraqis to see where else we can assist. We stand ready to do more, and we are exploring more.

At the same time, in answer to the question whether more NATO means less US, the outcome of the US security dialogue will, I think, be the next stage where we will be able to understand what more we can do. We all recognise that the previous Iraqi Parliament passed a non-binding resolution asking the United States forces to leave. That only becomes binding if the Iraqi Government act on it. The new Iraqi Government have said they continue to require coalition support, and that is why the security dialogue is ongoing at the moment.

The right hon. Gentleman also asks about the dispersal of Daesh into other safe spaces. It is absolutely the case, as he rightly points out, that safe spaces have been identified by Daesh, such as the Chad basin in west Africa, and indeed we see Daesh active in Afghanistan and Somalia. There is definitely a terrorist threat in west Africa—not all Daesh, but certainly an extremist, radical, militant, Salafi-type threat. That is why the French mission in Mali is supported by a squadron of our Chinook helicopters. At the end of this year, 250 British soldiers will deploy as part of the UN multidimensional integrated stabilisation mission in Mali—MINUSMA—to improve the security situation in that part of the country. For us, it is not only about helping our allies, the French and other European nations there, but about ensuring that the knock-on effect of a destabilised west Africa does not end up on the shores of the Mediterranean and cause another immigration crisis, as we have seen in the past, and that is something we are working towards.

On the repatriation of child refugees, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, we took the path of identifying the most vulnerable in refugee camps—either surrounding Syria or where they were—and bringing them back and repatriating them to this country to give them the support they need. It is my understanding that we have done that for over 20,000 of them. As for his comments about Syrian children in Europe, I will have to get back to him about that. However, the Government have made our position clear that we felt the best way to help in that situation was to take refugees from in-theatre, and other European countries should stand by their obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers. In addition, the Foreign Secretary has made it very clear that if children are identified in Syria, for example, who are vulnerable or orphaned and so on, we will explore in every case, on a case-by-case basis, what we can do to help those children as well—whether by bringing them back to this country or making sure they get the help they need.