Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

Let us be clear. The Government are clear about British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, and in March 2013 the Falkland Islands referendum reaffirmed the islanders’ overwhelming wish to remain British, with 99.8% voting in favour. We should always defend the right of the Falkland islanders to determine their own political future. I believe the question may refer to media reports that the Argentines were proposing to purchase Su-24 aircraft from the Russians, although this proposal came as a surprise even to the Argentine Defence Minister and was swiftly denied by the Argentine Government. Nevertheless, we are not complacent and the Ministry of Defence undertakes regular assessments of potential military challenges to the Falkland Islands to ensure that we retain appropriate defensive capabilities, but it seems that the Russians did not tell him.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that the defence of the Falkland Islands would be made much more difficult if we failed to spend 2%, at least, of our gross domestic product on defence? If we encouraged all parties, including Labour, to do that—

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

And yours.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

And ours, indeed. Then we would be standing by the encouragement and the commitments that we made at the NATO summit only six months ago.

[Mr Francois]

There are currently about 1,200 UK military and civilian personnel in the Falklands Islands. They support a range of air, sea and land capabilities, including Typhoon aircraft, support helicopters, offshore patrol vessels, air defences, and a resident infantry company. My right hon. Friend is an established former member of the Defence Committee—indeed, its former Chair—and the whole House will have heard what he said.

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is a completely different issue. As members of the armed forces do not have the same access and rights as other workers, this Bill ensures that they have a rigorous complaints system, so that when they have a grievance, whether it is about an allowance or because someone is bullying or harassing them, they can make a complaint, which will be taken seriously and dealt with in an efficient and fair manner. If it is found that that complaint is right and it is upheld, there will then be efficient redress. So this is about individuals and their grievances. Whistleblowing is a different matter and does not sit within the service’s complaints, and I do not think that anybody would want it to do so.

May I now deal with the remainder of the Bill, which is, I am happy to say, uncontentious? I am talking about the financial assistance to organisations that support our armed forces community. The voluntary and community sector has a long history of supporting our services personnel, veterans and their families. Many of those groups are small and locally based and run by dedicated volunteers and they have the greatest understanding of the sort of caring and focused support that is needed. The Government need to work in partnership with those organisations and that includes providing financial assistance where appropriate.

Over the past four years, the Government have given £105 million to such groups to help them deliver the commitments of the covenant. That money has been used to deliver everything from veterans’ accommodation to short breaks for families with disabled children. The groups range from huge organisations—some of our greatest and biggest charities—right down to very small local charities delivering right at a local level.

We are also looking at how the future armed forces covenant grant fund, set at £10 million a year in future—it is set in perpetuity—will be managed. If we are to make the most of that money, we must ensure that it goes to the right places. Organisations working with the armed forces community are based throughout the United Kingdom and beyond, and we want them to be able to benefit from this money wherever they are located.

Under existing legislation, we can fund charities and make payments to local authorities that benefit serving personnel in Great Britain but not to veterans in Scotland. We have navigated those constraints on a temporary basis, but clause 4 enables us to deal with them in the long term by allowing payments to organisations anywhere in the world.

The Bill has already gone through detailed scrutiny in the House of Lords where there was widespread support for its aims. There was a clear consensus on the need for reform of the complaints system although there were, of course, different views on the detail of those reforms. In particular, there was extensive debate on whether the ombudsman should be able to investigate wider issues beyond those covered by individual complaints. I am sure that this will be discussed further as the Bill proceeds through the House. No doubt we will be hearing from Members on this matter. I am happy for them to intervene on me now. It is an important matter and I know that people feel very strongly about it. I do not have any fear about engaging in that debate, although I will not intervene on any speeches from Back-Bench Members if they make the points that I anticipate.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for trailing her coat in such an attractive way. Might I ask why she is so set against thematic reports to be produced by the ombudsman, which was recommended by the wonderful Dr Susan Atkins?

[Anna Soubry]

I disagree with my right hon. Friend’s interpretation of Dr Atkins’s views. Obviously, I have seen the Select Committee’s excellent report. I may be wrong—I am quite happy to be corrected if I am—but I do not think she said that we should go as far as thematic reviews.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

This is probably the last defence debate in which I shall speak.

It is good that the subject is the introduction of a service complaints ombudsman, because the Defence Committee has been making points about that issue steadily since before I became a member in 2005. As far as I know, the only person who has been a member of the Committee since the beginning of the campaign for the establishment of a Service Complaints Commissioner —which was followed by the campaign for the appointment of an ombudsman—is the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard), who, like me, will stand down as a Member of Parliament in a couple of months. He will leave a gaping hole in the Defence Committee and in the defence community, and I pay tribute to him.

I also pay tribute to the rest of the Committee, and to the amazingly dedicated and talented staff and advisers who support it. Under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart)—and I must say that I am delighted with my successor—it has continued to pursue the matter of the need for an ombudsman, and has produced a most thought-provoking and useful report on the Bill.

I agree with some of the Committee’s recommendations. I listened to the passionate and thorough argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Minister about the ombudsman’s ability to investigate thematic issues, and, on balance, I think that I still disagree with her, although she slightly destabilised my views. I think that she is wrong to rely too much on the idea that the ombudsman would be doing someone else’s job. Given all her expertise and access, the ombudsman might be able to add something helpful by producing a report. From time to time, such a report might be a cause of some discomfort in the Ministry of Defence, but an ombudsman is not there to be comfortable; an ombudsman is there to right injustice, and to be a catalyst for improvement.

However, I am not sure that I agree with all the Committee’s recommendations. I say that with complete diffidence, not having sat in on its evidence sessions. I do not entirely share its view that the ombudsman’s recommendations should be binding on the Defence Council. That position would differ from the position relating to the local government ombudsman, in an area that is even more sensitive because of concerns about the chain of command. On the whole, I agree with the Service Complaints Commissioner, who says that the Bill contains several “reasonable compromises”.

The big picture, I think, is this. For more than a decade, the Defence Committee has been pressing for the replacement of the commissioner by an ombudsman, and, over time, it has won both the argument and the battle. I congratulate it on that, but I also congratulate Ministers on listening to the Committee. I especially congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister. Last year, she took the unusual step of delaying the appointment of a successor to the excellent Dr Atkins, because, among other things, she wanted to be sure that we were all getting the right person. She and other Ministers have taken the matter truly seriously. They have taken the Defence Committee seriously, and they have overcome resistance in the chain of command.

Talking of the chain of command, I well remember Dr Atkins telling the Committee:

“Some of the Service Chiefs said they didn’t quite understand what an ombudsman did, but they were sure they didn’t want one.”

It was because of the quality of Dr Atkins’s work that she was able to persuade the service chiefs that an ombudsman would in the long run be beneficial. All I can say about her replacement, whom I have not met, is that they have my sympathy because Dr Atkins will be a hard act to follow.

[Rory Stewart]

On a point of clarification, the courts have ruled that the findings of the ombudsman in a case of maladministration and particular injustice will be binding on the Defence Council. The disagreement is simply about whether that should be in the Bill. I am interested in whether my right hon. Friend is opposed to the idea that the findings be binding, or should that be in the Bill?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I spoke earlier of my diffidence. I think I should move into full retreat and just carry on with my speech because my hon. Friend already knows far more about that than I do, and I pay tribute to him again.

I want to change the subject slightly. I have only a page and a half left of my notes. I hope that I can have a little indulgence. Dr Susan Atkins stood up for the men and women of our armed forces as they came under real strain. They have fought overseas, in conflicts not really understood or supported by their countrymen back home, when warfare is changing, technology is evolving, stability is crumbling and new threats are arising on a monthly basis. Against that background, at the NATO summit, which the UK hosted, we set out to persuade other European countries of the imperative of doing what NATO agreed only in 2006—that each country should spend at least 2% of its GDP on defence. How right we were to argue that. How important it is that, as the world becomes less safe, we do what we can to increase our security and reduce our reliance on others, particularly the United States. So it comes as a real shock that this country appears to be drifting towards an election with not one single party committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence. As the economy recovers, defence must share in that recovery.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

My right hon. Friend, being as long in the tooth as I am, will recall that during the cold war years this country spent between 4% and 5% on defence. Therefore, is not 2% a pretty modest aim for us to have in the present international climate?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My hon. Friend is right, if ambitious, but who could argue that the world is a safer place now than in the cold war years? I think it is far less safe because we live in a multi-polar world. Mutually assured destruction brought us, curiously, some stability.

[Richard Drax]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reports in The Sunday Telegraph that after the election the Royal Marines will be next in line for the target is one step too far?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Out of enormous respect to the right hon. Gentleman and bearing in mind that he is standing down at the next election, I have been a little generous on those points, but I hope that his one and a half pages of notes do not stretch to engaging in a full discussion, tempted by his hon. Friend’s question.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

In order to reassure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I can say that it is one and a half sentences, and my one and a half sentences relate to the 0.7% statutory commitment that we seem to be moving towards on international development. I approve of international development—I think it does us good, as well as the countries that benefit from improved education—but to have a statutory percentage to be spent on aid and not even a manifesto commitment on defence beggars belief, and we must put that right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Moon]

I will give way as many times as the Minister wants if she brings me such good news every time. I am absolutely delighted that justice will finally be done.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I cannot remember hearing a victory such as that announced in the Chamber, so I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) who has been pursuing this matter for many years. I should also point out the value of having a lawyer in a ministerial role.

[Mrs Moon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his compliment: he is very kind, as always.

I am delighted by that change of heart. I was especially concerned because there had actually been service complaints on this issue, but they had been stayed so that people could not proceed with them. The complainants were told that until the Department decided what it would do, their complaints could not proceed. A service complaints process in which complaints can be stayed for four years is unacceptable. That is why one of the amendments that the Defence Committee was eager to ensure was in place was that a person’s knowledge that they had suffered an injustice was not a reason for saying that a complaint was out of time. The Committee also wanted to ensure that delays, such as the staying of complaints, would not be acceptable and could be seen as maladministration even during the process of the investigation. I am delighted to hear the statement that the Minister has just made.

I shall turn now to the changes proposed in the Bill. The introduction of the ombudsman is a landmark reform and it is most welcome, as are the powers to overturn the rejection of complaints applications and appeal applications. The rationalisation of the complaints process, including placing a limit on the number of appeals, is a common-sense approach.

The Bill has many positive aspects, but the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I think it could go further. The ombudsman’s new powers to investigate allegations of maladministration are welcome. These are significant new powers which, if implemented properly, could allow the ombudsman to root out bad practice, inefficiencies and injustice in the complaints process, to everyone’s benefit. However, during the Defence Committee’s scrutiny of the Bill, we revealed possible confusion surrounding the extent and nature of the power, and I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify that in her closing remarks, if not now.

There seems to be disagreement between what the Minister understood and what the commissioner felt was a real step-change for service personnel. The commissioner told the Committee that proposed new section 340H did not match the policy that had been agreed with the Ministry, and that it risked undermining what the Minister hoped to achieve from the provision. Proposed new section 340H(4) states:

“The purpose of an investigation is to decide…whether the alleged maladministration has occurred”.

The commissioner and the Defence Select Committee are concerned that the wording, “whether the alleged maladministration has occurred”, is too restrictive.

The commissioner suggested, and the Committee agrees, that the Bill should be amended to make it explicit that the ombudsman could investigate and report on any maladministration in the handling of a service complaint, and we have suggested amendments to that end, listed in amendment group D in the annex of our report. In their response to the Committee report the Government dismissed this on the ground that it:

“would require the Ombudsman to look for any maladministration in every case”.

I thought that that was the whole point. The Minister is looking at me quizzically. Are we on the same ground here, or is there disagreement?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

We are considering all the recommendations in Lord Ashcroft’s report. On balance, it was a positive report, and it shows what many of us know—that when our personnel transit out of service, they do so extremely well. They are more likely to find a job than other members of society, because of the remarkable skills that they have, often as a result of the experience that they gained as members of our military. On balance, things are working well, but that does not mean that we cannot do more. We are looking at that report and at improving things, and much of the work I am doing leads to that.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

On Thursday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced that the Service Complaints Commissioner would become an ombudsman, for which the existing commissioner, the excellent Dr Susan Atkins, and the Defence Committee have been calling for years. Does the Under-Secretary agree that this very welcome move will mean that the complaints system will be both quicker and fairer, and will help to bring in more aspects of the armed forces covenant?

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. I completely agree with my right hon. Friend in his assessment of the benefits of this new system. As he says, Dr Susan Atkins has welcomed this greatly, and may I use this opportunity to pay tribute to the great work she has done? I notice that the Royal British Legion also welcomed these changes. The new system will do exactly as he says: it will help to speed things up, and where there has been maladministration the service complaints ombudsman will not shirk from making recommendations to the Defence Council, and we will see huge improvements.

Nuclear Submarines

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and by and large we agree on the importance of these matters, but I am afraid I must start by saying that I am not particularly minded to take lectures on transparency from someone who was a member of the previous Government. The decisions we have made throughout this process from January 2012 have been carefully balanced. I have, of course, considered throughout whether it would be appropriate, sensible or helpful to make a public statement, and I remind him that the advice we have received throughout from the regulators and experts is that no safety issues are arising, and that this incident scores as a level zero event on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s scale—an event that requires no action and presents no risk.

We have kept the independent military nuclear safety regulator and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency informed of matters, as is proper, and I have no doubt that there will be people who say that the Scottish Government should have been informed. We will see when we hear from the representative of the Scottish National party in a moment whether it will approach this matter from a responsible and sensible point of view. Key Ministers within the Government were, of course, aware of these issues throughout.

The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) asked why we decided to restart the reactor. Once it was clear that there was no safety risk and that a safety case for restarting it had been built and approved by the regulators, we continued with the operation of the test reactor to fulfil its intended purpose: to have delivered the same amount of core burn, and some more, as the most aged operational reactor will have achieved by the end of its service life.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the reactors being built for the Astute submarines, which are also core H reactors. I confirm that after this issue arose, all reactors in-build were re-examined with the best equipment available, to look for signs of anything that might give any further clue as to what has happened with the core H reactor at Dounreay.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the decision not to have a test reactor for the successor series—the PWR3 reactor. There are several technical reasons for this. The reactor is being built to an entirely different design specification. Because of the way in which technology has evolved, the engineering tolerances will be much less challenging in the PWR3 reactor and we have access to far more advanced computer modelling techniques, which can provide an adequate substitute for prototyping. However, in view of the concerns that have been expressed about this decision, I have asked the chief scientific adviser to review again the evidence on which the decision not to operate a test reactor was based, and to report back to me on the appropriateness of that decision. I will inform the House in due course of the result of that review.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether CASD is affected. It will not be, and that is the point of taking this decision today. Refuelling Vanguard during an existing planned deep-maintenance period means that the operational rotation of the Vanguard-class submarines will not be affected. That is the reason we have taken that decision. It is not a safety-related decision; it is a submarine availability-related decision.

On the question of cost and as I have said already, we expect the total cost of the measures I have announced today to be about £270 million, all of which will come from contingency provision within the submarine programme that is currently unused. We do not expect it to have any impact on the wider defence programme. The contingency within the submarine programme is more than adequate—this amount is substantially less than 10% of the total contingency in the programme.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether I intended to make further statements. Clearly, I will of course notify the House if anything of significance happens; if we make a decision to decommission the reactor at Dounreay early; or if there are any further significant developments in respect of the reactor while it is running. I stress that we have reacted properly throughout, in consultation with the regulatory authorities, and we have dealt with this matter in the same way that any minor incident in a reactor, whether military or civil, would routinely be dealt with.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said that the consequences of this announcement for the Astute fleet would be the subject of further review. We all understand that the levels of radioactivity that he has announced are low, but what monitoring will be done of the cooling system in our operational Astutes to reassure the crews and all those involved that they are not in any way at risk?

[Mr Hammond]

We carry out daily sampling and analysis of the coolant water in all our nuclear submarines.

Defence and Cyber-security

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

Given how long I have been in this House, I really ought to know whether I should be thanking the Backbench Business Committee, the Government, the Chair of the Liaison Committee or you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for my securing the debate. Just to be on the safe side, I will thank them all, and especially you.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I apologise for interrupting my right hon. Friend so early in his speech, but he makes a good point. In the old days, we had regular, sensible defence debates throughout the year, but they are now at the discretion of the Backbench Business Committee, which is a retrograde step.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but it rebounds slightly on the Defence Committee because we have been told that we are responsible for applying for such debates and, I have to confess, we have not done so in recent months, so perhaps we ought to revisit that.

The Defence Committee launched an inquiry into defence and cyber-security in January 2012, as part of a series of debates and inquiries looking into emerging threats. It was the first time the Committee had investigated cyber-security as a discrete topic, although in 2009 we had looked at Georgia and Estonia, and visited Talinn, as part of another inquiry. The UK Government had identified cyber-threats as one of four tier 1 risks to national security, and in November 2013 published a UK cyber-security strategy, updating their 2009 strategy and setting out four objectives: first, to make the UK one of the most secure places in the world to do business in cyberspace; secondly, to make the UK more resilient to cyber-attack and better able to protect our interests in cyberspace; thirdly, to help to shape an open, vibrant and stable cyberspace that supports open societies; and fourthly, to build the UK’s cyber-security knowledge, skills and capability.

The programme is to be implemented via a four-year national cyber-security programme costing £650 million, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £210 million investment after the 2013 spending review. The funding is shared between the security and intelligence agencies, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but most will be spent by the security and intelligence agencies.

During our inquiry, the Committee investigated whether the high profile given to the cyber-threat in the UK was matched by a coherent plan and a chain of command in the event of a major cyber-attack on our national infrastructure or our national interests. The complexity of the threat must be matched by an agile, many-layered response; accordingly, many different agencies are involved in the cyber-security effort, ranging across cybercrime, cyber-espionage and cyber-commerce. Cyber-security is therefore to some extent everybody’s responsibility, but we must avoid its ending up being nobody’s responsibility as a consequence. Someone has to be in charge.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

It is good to see so many colleagues here to take part in the debate. If we contrast the approach taken in the United States, where there is a unified structure under CYBERCOM, with the disparate approach taken in the United Kingdom, does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that we seem to have a number of lessons still to learn?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Well, there are pluses and minuses to having a unified structure, and there are risks in having a siloed approach. I said this is the responsibility of everyone, and so it is. I shall explain how wide that responsibility extends.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Further to that, although a number of Departments have an interest, was my right hon. Friend assured by the MOD—within his sphere of responsibility—that there is a single individual in charge? I understood from reading his Committee’s report that the Joint Forces Commander is currently responsible, but the intention is to have the Chief of Defence Intelligence involved as well, and perhaps to appoint a three-star Defence Chief Information Officer. The report did not make it clear to me where we intend to go. The Americans have a four-star in charge. Is my right hon. Friend convinced that there will be an individual clearly responsible for the MOD’s part of the spectrum?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Things have moved on since our Committee reported. There is somebody in overall command and that is my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, who will, I have no doubt, set out precisely how things have moved on when he responds to the debate. That is the purpose of Select Committee reports, and I am pleased about that.

The Committee was particularly concerned that the armed forces are now very dependent on information and communications technology and if those systems suffered a sustained cyber-attack, their ability to operate might be fatally compromised.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

We are talking about cyber-technology, but may I use an old-fashioned phrase in warning of the danger of having all our eggs in one basket?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Yes, and I entirely agree. I have discovered a new organisation being set up in Cambridge called the centre for the study of existential risk, which is right up my street. Being a gloomy sort of person, that is precisely the sort of thing I am worried about, and the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I am already in deep contact with the centre.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I have heard of that work at the university of Cambridge, too, and I am in favour of it, but may I take my right hon. Friend back to his point on co-ordination? Surely the bottom line of the response to any major threat to this country, whether it is flooding or rioting and so on, is the armed forces. Does he share my concern that there seems to be no mechanism for referring problems in other sectors through to the MOD and, crucially, that there are no rehearsals taking place?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I do, and I hope that in answering the debate my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will take that point straight on the chin, because in many respects the armed forces are the resource of last resort, and cyber-security may be an area where the armed forces do not accept that responsibility.

There is a necessary focus within the defence world on securing the systems and networks needed by the MOD and the armed forces from cyber-threats. It is not only contemporary civil society that is utterly dependent on network technology; our armed forces are increasingly reliant on such technology for the tools of warfare, and the next step must be to ensure that the supply chain for those systems and their components is secure. That will require a trusting, transparent relationship between Government and their suppliers, with full disclosure of attacks and possible vulnerabilities, which runs all the way down the supply chain. The UK has world-class expertise and facilities on which to draw, but will the Government be able, in competition with the private sector, to keep enough of that expertise and experience in the service of the state? Are there enough such people to serve both and how should we prioritise?

The announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence in September 2013 about the establishment of a joint cyber reserve unit is a significant development, but that will rely on FTSE companies and other, smaller companies releasing key personnel to participate. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces tell us what progress has been made? According to the Government, the number of ICT and cyber-security professionals in the UK has not increased in line with the growth of the internet. Are there enough experts in industry willing to join a cyber reserve? Will technology experts—the geeks of our world—fit well within highly regimented military structures, or will a more flexible structure be required to facilitate their work?

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

The right hon. Gentleman is rightly raising just some of the myriad questions about the future in cyberspace. Does he agree that these questions are so wide-ranging and fluid, given the incredible acceleration in technology, as to pose the question whether in future we should have vari-speed defence and security reviews? On larger items we should look beyond the 10-year horizon, but in cyber, five years is far too long for what is happening.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), the hon. Gentleman contributes effectively to the Defence Committee and makes an interesting point—one I had not heard before. That is the value of these debates. We will all have to think about that issue.

We must seek to defend ourselves, but we must also, as has been suggested, expect to develop a capability to respond to threats in cyberspace. When doing that, we face some of the same considerations as when developing conventional military capabilities. Where does the balance lie between international collaboration and sovereign capability, for example? What sort of international arrangements will best suit our aims?

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State also talked about how the UK was developing a full spectrum military cyber-capability, including strike capability. This is an interesting and novel declaration. Everybody knows it has happened but nobody has been prepared before now to announce it. Will this declaration act as a deterrent or will it make the UK a more likely target for hacktivists and foreign states? What about the legal implications of establishing a strike capability for the personnel involved? The necessary rules of engagement for cyber-attack need to be put in place, although of course we will not be told about them.

Some maintain that cyber is just another military domain and that we can expect to do everything in cyberspace that we do in the air, on land or at sea to prevent, deter coerce or intervene. But has the distinctiveness of the cyber domain been fully grasped? It is not clear, for example, that deterrence is a concept that can apply to a domain where there are real difficulties in discovering quickly who has perpetrated an attack and for what purpose, or even that an attack has taken place. Neither is it clear that everyone has grasped how important it is to avoid a silo approach to the cyberworld. It is essential to break down the dividing lines between civilian and military, among Government Departments, between Government and the private sector, and between our country and other countries, and therefore to approach the issue in an holistic way. Paul Dwyer of Mandiant came to brief the Defence Committee and told us that it takes a network to defeat a network.

Perhaps because the threat cannot be neatly categorised, it may be unrealistic to expect a neat categorisation of the responses. Everything we have been told in the UK emphasises that the armed forces have a very limited role, protecting their own systems and developing military cyber-capabilities. For other areas of activity, those in the lead are likely to be based elsewhere, particularly in the intelligence services. That is where the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury comes in.

[Mr Gray]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point about the threat being so diverse as to be difficult to counter. None the less, the briefing we were given by Mandiant was very interesting: there are a large number of extremely serious attacks, not by a lot of people but by one or two groups. He even named Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army as one of the main culprits. In other words, it would be reasonably easy for the British Government and the MOD to counter a specific attack such as that.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right in saying that the Government are well aware of where some of these attacks are coming from. I do not agree that it would be relatively easy to counter them, because these threats are developing at a frightening speed, as the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said. The diversity and development of these threats is changing on a second-by-second basis.

I am pleased to say that the Government are taking action to make the UK more resilient to cyber-attacks. It has established a new computer emergency response team in early 2014, CERT-UK, to improve the co-ordination of national cyber-incidents and to share technical information among countries. The Government set up a new cyber-incident response scheme in GCHQ to help organisations recover from a cyber-security attack. They have extended the remit of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure—the CPNI—to work with all organisations that may have a role in protecting the UK’s critical systems and intellectual property. They have agreed with regulators in essential services a set of actions to make sure that important data and systems in our critical national infrastructure continue to be safe and resilient. As I have said, responsibility for cyber-security rests principally with companies and organisations themselves. Government agencies’ roles will be limited by available resources and national priorities.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a difficulty in making cyber-security just a defence issue and saying that the issue lies with companies? There is a network of things that need to combine, and we have not yet developed a system to create resilience across the spectrum; there are only chimneys of responsibility.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

The hon. Lady is quite right. We are groping towards it, but we are not quite there. One of the benefits of this debate, of our report and of the Government’s response is to help us move to a better place.

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend makes an important connection between the business community and state operations. I am concerned that state operations do not have the funds to attract the necessary expertise—geeks, my right hon. Friend called them—when they are in demand in the civilian sector. Banks and so forth pay huge sums of money to make sure they are able to fight off any cyber-security issue. Does he agree with a stance that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) might take—that there is a need to make sure that those in the reserve forces who actually have such skill sets through working in businesses can work in the MOD as well?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I would have entirely agreed, but the problem may be whether there are enough reserves and enough people with those skills in the country at all. Let us move on towards that.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

To deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), that was one of the key factors in the strategic defence and security review of 2010. The then Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), said that we needed to see “up arrows” and “down arrows”. Heavy armour was a down arrow but cyber was an up arrow. Some £500 million was set aside specifically for this purpose, so it has been identified as a serious and important area for investment.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Interestingly, the Prime Minister, in giving evidence to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, pointed out that some of the areas had cuts but that this area was one of growth. His regret was that it had not been one of greater growth, and that that change had not been more exaggerated than it was.

I ought to bring my remarks to a close, as others want to speak. Paul Dwyer told the Committee that the willingness of companies to share information about cyber attacks with one another and with the Government is critical to allowing an effective response to be developed and implemented but, while critical, it is far from easy to achieve.

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

I am a little concerned that my right hon. Friend is bringing his arguments to a close, because he touched on one point that I was rather hoping he would develop. He said that the Committee visited Estonia. For people who, like me, were not part of the Committee’s study, it would be extremely helpful to know in concrete terms a little more about what it discovered on that visit about what a cyber-attack by a hostile neighbour can really mean.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

The Committee visited Estonia in 2009. It has still not been conclusively established who precisely was responsible for the attacks that took down much of that country’s banking system, although we have our suspicions—they may have been marching around in unmarked uniforms. We discovered that the attack had been comparatively easy to achieve. It was a distributed denial-of-service attack that did real damage. We also discovered the international centre of excellence in Estonia, which at that stage the Government were not contributing towards in dealing with cyber-attacks. I am delighted that they have since decided, perhaps as a result of our incredibly effective report, to contribute to the centre.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I was biding my time, but the intervention from the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has prompted me to intervene. Has any evidence yet come forward to suggest that what is going on in Crimea has involved cyber-security breaches either way?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

If there is evidence of that, I do not yet know of it. All I can say is that before the invasion of Georgia there was an extensive cyber-attack on its computer network that was very similar to the one on Estonia. I suspect that it is now a new method of fighting wars that we must all get used to.

The need to share information is critical, as I have said, and important mechanisms for that exist, such as the cyber-security information sharing partnership, which is now open to companies beyond critical national infrastructure sectors, including small and medium-sized businesses. CISP analysts will be expected to feed into CERT once it is fully operational.

The Committee produced many recommendations, but our final conclusion was that the cyber-threat, like other emerging threats, has the capacity to evolve with almost unimaginable speed and with serious consequences for the nation’s security. The Government need to put in place—they have not yet done so—mechanisms, people, education, skills, thinking and policies that take into account both the opportunities and the vulnerabilities that cyber presents. It is time the Government approached the subject with vigour. I am pleased to see the actions that they have taken since we issued our report. Clearly there is much more to be done—in the cyber world it is a matter of constantly playing catch-up—but I personally have the impression that the Government are, at the very least, joining in the game.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Afghanistan

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support on this matter, on which—to the great credit of this Parliament—there has been and remains a bipartisan approach.

I of course share the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments on the Kabul attack, the purpose of which is to undermine the international support on which Afghanistan will depend for many years to come if it is to continue to make progress. I am sure that all Government Members will wish to be associated with his expression of sympathy to the families and friends of the British victims of the attack.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the future security of British civilians in Kabul. Obviously, we are monitoring the situation closely, and we will make appropriate arrangements to support British civilians in Kabul, particularly those on Crown service. He would not expect me to go into the detail of those arrangements at the Dispatch Box, but there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that Kabul will remain a dangerous place for foreigners for the foreseeable future. We will rely primarily on the ANSF to maintain security in that city.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the recent rise in the civilian death rate. That is of course deeply regrettable, but I am sure that he would want to focus attention on the fact that more than 74% of all civilian deaths are directly attributable to the insurgency. In fact, the number of civilian deaths attributable to ISAF action has gone down over time, and the number of those attributable to ISAF air strikes—they were once the cause of considerable concern—has gone down by 80%. That is something that we will continue to pursue.

The hon. Gentleman asked about election security and what action ISAF will take. Clearly, ISAF will support the ANSF in every way it can, particularly in the provision of intelligence and surveillance capabilities, but the ANSF must take the lead. The message around this election is that the Afghans have taken lead responsibility for their security. The ANSF is capable, and it is very determined to be seen to lead this operation and to deliver the security that Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy requires.

There will be threats to the elections. We have already seen a concerted campaign of targeted assassinations. I am afraid that the realists among us expect that to continue and probably to accelerate as we move towards the election date. It is greatly to the credit of the leaders of Afghanistan’s democracy that it has not yet in any way undermined their enthusiasm for the democratic process.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the talks going on between the Pakistan Government and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan in relation to the situation in North Waziristan. We of course hope that there is the possibility of a solution between the two sides, but it remains the case that the Pakistan Government have to be willing to take firm action against the TTP in North Waziristan if a settlement is not possible.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the reports of joint patrolling in Sangin. It is very difficult to get to the bottom of these reports, but I have personally been able to establish at the very highest levels that there is no mandate from the higher levels of the Afghan system for any such activity. Indeed, action has been taken to ensure that nothing that could be interpreted as joint patrolling or any kind of compromise with the insurgency can happen again.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the UK footprint. As he knows, our position is that we expect to have a continuing footprint at the Afghan national army officer academy at Qargha, just outside Kabul. That footprint will be within a much larger complex, which will have a US and ANSF-controlled perimeter. I cannot give him the precise number of UK personnel at the moment, but it will probably be between 150 and 250, depending on our precise assessment of the force protection needs at the time. He asked what percentage of training at the ANAOA is being done by Afghans. I cannot give a precise figure. If I can get a useful figure, I will write to him. It uses a “train the trainer” model, so we expect the Afghans increasingly to take responsibility for direct training.

The hon. Gentleman asked about media reports on remotely piloted air systems and about US aircraft backfilling for the unavailability of UK remotely piloted aircraft. We operate a combined fleet with the US and there is ISAF tasking. UK and US aircraft therefore fly ISAF mission tasks and they may be piloted by UK or US pilots. However, UK pilots always operate to UK rules of engagement. The rules of engagement for remotely piloted aircraft are exactly the same as those for our Tornado aircraft and those that will apply to our Apache rotary-wing aircraft when they are in action.

The hon. Gentleman asked for an assurance—with tongue in cheek, I hope—that any volunteers for redundancy who are currently serving in Afghanistan will be accepted. I cannot give him that assurance. They will certainly be considered. The criteria for voluntary redundancy relate to the future shape of the force and whether the skills that individuals hold are needed for its sustainment.

The repatriation of equipment is slightly ahead of plan. We have repatriated about half the equipment that we have to repatriate. Originally, we estimated that the cost would be up to £300 million. We are confident that the repatriation will be completed within that cost envelope.

The hon. Gentleman asked about locally employed civilians. He will know that we have two offers for locally employed civilians. The first is a redundancy scheme for eligible individuals who have served on the front line as interpreters, which allows them to accept a financial and resettlement package in Afghanistan or to come to the UK. So far, most of those who are eligible have opted to come to the UK. The second is an intimidation package for those who are not eligible for resettlement in the UK under the redundancy scheme, but who have experienced intimidation in Afghanistan.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman talked about our future aid budget. We are committed to providing £170 million per annum of ongoing Department for International Development support to Afghanistan until at least 2017. Some of that aid is targeted at projects that seek to protect the legacy of our achievement in the crucial area of the rights of women and girls. The Afghans made specific commitments on that area in Tokyo, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development addressed President Karzai on the subject personally during her most recent visit to Kabul.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

May I welcome and agree with what the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State have said on this important subject? Does my right hon. Friend agree that one cannot sensibly discuss Afghanistan without also discussing Pakistan? That region is and will continue to be of supreme importance to this country. Does he agree that as we draw down in Afghanistan, we should consider increasing our attention on and assistance to Pakistan in order to preserve that importance?

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Pakistan is crucial to the security of the United Kingdom. A significant proportion of the potential terrorist threats to the United Kingdom comes from the tribal areas of Pakistan, and we target a commensurate proportion of our aid effort into Pakistan. That includes a programme of military support for counter-IED training, which is greatly appreciated by the Pakistanis because it addresses a very real threat to their civilian population.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

On the specific naval point, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Commander Sarah West is now the commanding officer of the Type 23 frigate HMS Portland and Commander Catherine Jordan is the commanding officer of the Type 23 frigate HMS St Albans. We have female officers in command of Royal Navy warships, protecting our waters around the coast and serving further in great waters. We are proud of them. I do not want to be curmudgeonly either, but an air vice-marshal is the equivalent of an admiral.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) asked about a military ombudsman, and my right hon. Friend talked about making a decision soon, but the excellent Dr Susan Atkins’ term of office is expiring soon. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last month told us that he was taking a personal interest in whether we moved to a military ombudsman. May we know the time scale for this decision as soon as possible?

[Mr Francois]

My right hon. Friend is a former Defence Minister and knows that phrases such as “relatively soon” are by definition not precise; nevertheless discussions with Dr Atkins have been proceeding well. I do not want to misinform the House and give the impression that every issue has been settled—it has not—but we have made genuinely good progress with Dr Atkins. I feel, therefore, that we are not that far from making an announcement, but I cannot give a firm timing until all those issues have been resolved.

Armed Forces Restructuring

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Dear oh dear! Let us start from the beginning. The hon. Gentleman trotted out some well-known lines that he has used before, and I shall respond to them as I have done before.

The hon. Gentleman began by asking when the Government had changed their aspiration to have larger armed forces. Perhaps some of my hon. Friends can help me with that, but I would guess that it was at about the time when Labour was wrecking our economy, and we were recognising that we would have to recalibrate our ambitions in all sorts of areas in order to govern the country responsibly. We understand, above all else, that a strong defence of this country can be built only on a strong economy. We must first repair the damage that Labour has done to our economy and then repair the damage that it has done to our society, after which, hopefully, we shall in due course be able to afford to put more money into our armed forces as our economy and our public finances recover.

The hon. Gentleman said that we had let the armed forces down. I say that it is Labour, through its wrecking of our economy, that has let our armed forces down, as it has let the rest of the country down. As for the hon. Gentleman’s comments on this particular tranche of redundancies, what I hear from him is total confusion. He accepts the need for downsizing and restructuring of the Army, but says that we have not made the case for using the redundancy process to do that. He is talking nonsense. We have set out a structure for our armed forces in “Future Force 2020”. They will be smaller than they have been previously, but, crucially, they will have a different structure, relying on reserves, on civilian support and on contractors in some specialist areas. As a consequence, the redundancy process needs to address the structural imbalance in the Army, taking out areas of capability that we no longer need in our regular forces.

As the hon. Gentleman will understand if he listened to my statement, I cannot tell him in advance what percentage of the redundancies will be compulsory; that will depend on how many people volunteer. However, I have been very upfront with the House. As there will be a significant number of Gurkha redundancies and Gurkhas traditionally do not volunteer for redundancy, and as the fact that 100% of the numbers in some fields of redundancy will be made redundant, giving little incentive to volunteer, we expect the overall percentage of volunteers to be lower in this final round of redundancies than it has been in the past.

The hon. Gentleman made two points about fairness. First, he asked whether I thought it was fair that people approaching their immediate pension point—the point at which they can leave the Army and draw an immediate annual cash pension—should be eligible for redundancy. We have thought very carefully about this over the period of the redundancy programme. The truth is that wherever we draw the line there will be somebody just on the other side of it who feels hard done by, and understandably so, but we concluded that it would be unfair to take into account length of service—proximity to immediate pension point—as a criterion for redundancy and we have stuck to that position throughout all four tranches of redundancy. Given the nature of the fields we are looking at in this tranche, we expect the number of people potentially at risk of redundancy who are within a year of their immediate pension point to be very small compared with previous tranches.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the Gurkhas and raised again the question of fairness. He asked explicitly whether the increased cost of Gurkha service was driving these redundancies. The answer is no, but it is the change in their terms and conditions. Previously Gurkhas served under different terms and conditions. The size and level of recruitment to the Brigade of Gurkhas was designed around 15 years of service. We now have to deal with the bulge caused by a change in the terms and conditions so that Gurkhas serve for 22 years. That is a structural challenge in the Brigade of Gurkhas. We have also seen a change to the terms and conditions of service, which no longer provide for Gurkhas to take long periods of leave to return home to Nepal. That was previously covered through an over-manning by about 370 individuals in the Brigade of Gurkhas, which allowed for those periods of extended leave at home that are no longer available now that the terms and conditions of service are standardised across the Army. So what we are seeing here is not an unfairness; we are seeing the consequences of a decision to apply fairly the terms and conditions of service to the Brigade of Gurkhas as they are applied to the rest of the Army.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has said this is the final tranche; well, thank God for that. What commitment can he give that this is the very last of these unwelcome statements for many years to come?

[Mr Hammond]

I can tell my right hon. Friend that the resizing of the Army announced as an outcome of the strategic defence and security review 2010 will be achieved by the redundancies that have been announced over the last three tranches and the redundancies that will be announced in this tranche. This will deliver us the size of the armed forces we need for Future Force 2020. I cannot predict or predetermine the outcome of the next SDSR, which will take place after the general election in 2015.

Defence Procurement

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I will come to the hon. Lady in a minute.

We have to deal with the situation as it exists and we have to find solutions. What I have outlined today is the solution to the challenge facing DE&S in the real world.

The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions. He asked me when the decision was taken. He says that we knew three weeks ago that we had received only one bid, and later asked me what the role of the Treasury had been. Since we received notification that we would not get a bid from the alternative consortium, we have been engaged in discussions with the Cabinet Office team, the Treasury team and my own senior officials to look not only at the risks inherent in trying to continue a contracting process with a single bidder, but how we can reinforce the DE&S plus proposition and the best way to go forward. I am sorry if he would have liked a decision more quickly, but I have to tell him that three weeks was the period it took to arrive at a robust conclusion on where we are and where we need to go. We have learned from the process. Talking to bidders and potential bidders has identified some of the challenges and issues we will be able to address to construct the DE&S plus process that I have set out today and, crucially, import private sector skills.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Lord Levene’s report, but omitted to tell the House that the report gives the Department an excellent result overall for the delivery of the transformation process. He will know—I am sure he has studied this diligently—that Lord Levene explicitly had no remit to address DE&S plus, because it was being dealt with through a separate process driven from the Gray report. It is no secret, however, that Lord Levene, who once ran defence procurement, has always been a sceptic of the GoCo process. It is no secret that Lord Levene believes that only if DE&S plus has total freedom to hire, fire and remunerate on a fully private sector model can it succeed inside the public sector. As the hon. Gentleman and other Members with experience of Government will know, however, there are all sorts of public accountability reasons, relating to managing public money, why that is simply not possible to deliver in its purest form.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about GoCo as a potential future solution. All the evidence from this competition tells us that GoCo can deliver a value for money proposition for the taxpayer. To make it contractible, we will have to develop the DE&S proposition significantly so that it has a better and stronger baseline against which potential contractors can measure their return, and so the Department can be confident that we are not giving away public money in any contract we enter into. It remains a possibility for the MOD, once DE&S-plus is match fit, to consider running the GoCo competition again to test the proposition, in the interests of the armed forces and taxpayers, and to challenge the private sector to come forward with a proposal that will deliver value for money against the match-fit DE&S.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about part 1 of the Defence Reform Bill. Our intention is that it should continue as it stands. It will provide the legislative framework for testing the GoCo proposition, should a future Government wish to do so.

I anticipated that the hon. Gentleman would ask me, quite properly, about the costs involved in pursuing the GoCo competition. The calculation I have is that just under £7.4 million has been expended on the process.

The hon. Gentleman asked me what discussions had been held with Bechtel. He will appreciate that until the formal announcement was made to the House a few moments ago, what I could have said to, and discussed with, Bechtel was heavily constrained. In the interests of propriety, I have had no direct communication with Bechtel, but my officials have been in contact. The indication we have is that it is interested in being considered for the provision of support to the public sector DE&S plus entity through one of the support contracts that we will be letting. The invitation to negotiate that we issued for this competition made it clear that the Government could terminate the process at any point and that bidders would not be entitled to compensation or reimbursement of bid costs. The legal advice I have had is that if any such claim was received, we would be in a very strong position to resist it, and I would intend to do so.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked, quite properly, about the impact on staff at DE&S, not just in Abbey Wood —they are spread all across the world—but particularly in Abbey Wood. As I speak, Bernard Gray, the Chief of Defence Matériel, is, I understand, holding a town hall meeting for staff at Abbey Wood to explain to them the position and the plans for the future.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has just said that these changes would

“permit the recruitment into DE&S of key commercial and technical staff at market rates and with minimum bureaucracy”.

What exactly does that mean? Does it mean that the civil service terms and conditions of service have been abandoned, and only for DE&S?

[Mr Hammond]

It means that the Treasury and the Cabinet Office have agreed that we will have a bespoke regime for this central Government trading entity, recognising that it faces one of the most commercial sectors of the marketplace. We will be able to employ people with technical and high-level management skills at market-reflective salaries and to recruit them through an accelerated process that does not require us to go through the usual nine to 12-month process required to recruit senior civil servants.

Defence Reform Bill

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend will just have to accept that we are suggesting a brief pause. Why should Parliament not be able to ask for a brief pause in a process that is clearly not going to plan, with recruitment targets being missed, an ever-widening capability gap and rising costs? If we all accept that defence is the first duty of Government, which I know we do, it is incumbent on Parliament to ask these questions.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some perfectly sensible points, many of which I agree with, and I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) that his campaign has been conducted in an extremely measured way. My difficulty with his new clause is that I think it addresses a point he is not that interested in. I think he wants to reduce or stop the running down of the regulars, yet, so far as I can see, his new clause would stop the beneficial changes to the reserves that all of us—including him, I suspect—want to see.

[Mr Ellwood]

It is too late; the redundancy notices have already gone out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ainsworth]

I totally accept that. I like to study history and I know that after conflicts, the services—generally the Army more than the other services, but those, too—have generally been decimated in times of peace, only to have to be regenerated in times of danger thereafter. So I am not trying to fight the last war. I am saying that as we struggle with these enormous economic challenges and the cuts that are almost inevitable, we have to do everything we can to maintain the quality of our personnel. That applies to the regular forces as it applies to the reserves. Even at a time of downsizing, we can surely do that—we have to try to do it because of the reputational damage that inevitably flows from our failure to do so. There is nothing “yesterday” or “last war” about that approach; this is about the kind of operations we could be involved in tomorrow, of whatever scale, and the need for quality personnel.

New clause 3 calls for a level of scrutiny that is wholly justified by the importance of the decisions, and the changes of direction and structure, that we are implementing and that the hon. Member for Canterbury has fought for so valiantly and successfully for so long. That is why I support it, even if he does not.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

As I have said before, my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) has made some sensible points that need to be taken seriously. I recall my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) telling the House that the regulars would not be reduced until the reserves had been built up to take their place. He said:

“of course, the rate at which we are able to build up the reserves will determine the rate at which we are able to change the ratio with the regulars.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 9.]

That was a good thing for him to say.

[Mr Ellwood]

Was that before or after a decision was taken to downsize fundamentally our contribution to the international security assistance force in Afghanistan?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

From memory, I believe it came after that decision, but I cannot be certain. It was a good thing for the then Secretary of State to say. Quite apart from that, it is a good thing for Governments to keep their promises. However, I thought I should briefly tell the House why I shall be voting with the Government tonight. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) said, although new clause 3 highlights the problem, it does not provide the answer. I think that what my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay really wants to achieve is not the halting of changes to the reserves, but the halting of changes to the regulars, which his proposal does not mention.

[Mr Baron]

My proposal does not mention the regulars because the Bill is about the reservists. A couple of hon. Members have suggested motives for these proposals which I cannot agree with. The bottom line is that most of those regulars—this is my understanding and I am willing to stand corrected—have been disbanded in any case. Let me be clear about what my proposal says, because motives that I do not take kindly to are being attributed to it. The proposal is about saying that these plans are not working and we should take time, if only a brief amount of it, to scrutinise them properly to check for their viability and cost-effectiveness. That is the right thing to do—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has now made his point several times in one intervention, so I call James Arbuthnot.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

As I am coming on to discuss the reserves and why I think they are so important, I should perhaps declare an interest, in that my daughter is a second lieutenant in the Territorial Army. I think it is essential that we should change the reserves, boosting them, their numbers, their training and the equipment available to them. As a Defence Minister in the previous Conservative Government, I thought that that Government went too far in reducing the reserves, and I think that the previous Labour Government made the situation worse. It is high time that we begin again to build up and properly resource the reserves. I wish to pay particular tribute to two people, the first of whom is my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). When he was Minister of State for the Armed Forces, he valiantly championed the Territorials and found himself fighting rather a losing battle.

Even more, I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, who, as a Back Bencher—the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) made the point—has achieved more in supporting and championing the reserves than I or my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex did, when we were Ministers. My hon. Friend’s contribution to the reserves debate deserves an immediate dukedom. [Interruption.] Yes, a dukedom.

The reserves bring incredible value to this country. They bring vital specialist skills which are made contemporary by their civilian lives and they bring those skills to a changing world where they are essential. Crucially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury said, the reserves also tie the civilian world into the military world in a way that is becoming increasingly needed day by day. May I aim a shaft at my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State by saying that his clampdown on informal discussion between the military and politicians rather flies in the face of that need?

My second reason for supporting the Government is that wars are changing. We are increasingly less likely to see tank battles in Germany and increasingly more likely to be facing the emerging threats of cyber-attack, piracy and the covert destruction of our critical national infrastructure—the sort of things to which extra battalions of any particular regiment would not be the answer.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point about cyber-security capability. Is not one of the strong arguments for reserve forces that a lot of skills reside in the private sector, in things such as cyber-security and dealing with cyber-attack, which need to be brought into the armed forces? That is a strong argument for continuing to develop reserve forces.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My hon. Friend is right about that. The new cyber-command that has recently been brought on stream will achieve precisely what he describes. It will not be possible to achieve that expertise within a purely military environment; we have to rely on those who have civilian expertise, too. Because of all this, we will need new investment, in satellites and in software—in the sort of things that will not be visible to the man in the street—all at the same time as we are trying to sell to the public increased spending on defence. That will be difficult to achieve while we are reducing in Afghanistan.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend also agree that reservists who come from a commercial background will bring different working practices. That will be incredibly important as we begin to get ourselves ready for this expansion.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Indeed. My hon. Friend’s constituency experience is very important in this.

The money for the investment to deal with emerging threats and emerging skills has to come from somewhere. I make no secret of the fact that I would like to see increased spending on defence. However, it is wholly unrealistic to expect that when every extra pound going on defence has to be added to an already increasing national debt. The Government are bringing down not the national debt but the rate at which it is going up. We cannot expect to have increased spending on defence, so money has to come from within the defence budget. That means reducing both waste and people. I hate saying that, but it is real life. I do not want any pause in the boosting of reserves. I want the building up of both them and their proper resources.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend does not recognise a peroration when he hears it. I am just bringing my remarks to an end, but I will give way.

[Mr Binley]

My right hon. Friend is very kind. I have heard a lot about the Army and reservists, but little about small and medium-sized enterprises. We need to look at that particular aspect. I know little about defence, but a lot about SMEs, and I know about the damage that can be caused if we take one man out of a five-man team in an SME. I do not believe that the Minister has thought enough about that particular impact. One reason for a pause is so that the Secretary of State, through you, Madam Speaker, can relook at his whole connection with small and medium-sized businesses. He should look at the incentives that are given, because they are simply nowhere near enough.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I must apologise to my hon. Friend for having entirely failed to cover in my few remarks about why I am supporting the Government the issue of SMEs, which are of less relevance to this reservist issue than larger companies. None the less, my hon. Friend makes a perfectly sensible point, and I hope that he will be able to make it again later during the course of the debate.

[Mr Baron]

May I briefly suggest that we would not have to make cuts to the defence budget if the Government were to put a higher priority on defence, as they do with other budgets and Government Departments?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I said that there were a number of things that my hon. Friend had said and would be saying with which I entirely agree, and that is one of them. That was a peroration, so I had better sit down.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I hesitate to follow the peroration of the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Defence Committee, but as always, we were informed by his remarks. I know that whatever his view on the amendments before us, his suggestion of a national debate and conversation about how to change the culture with respect to the reserves and to drive it forward in a national effort is one well made, and I think the whole House agrees with him.

I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), the former Secretary of State for Defence, for his contribution. He had all of us listening. Bringing his knowledge to the debate was worth while. He managed to lay to rest some of the Aunt Sallies that are being held up with respect to new clause 3.

I have heard people talk about the involvement of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) with the reserves. He has achieved something that very few of us have managed to do, even with our own Governments—he has brought forward and had accepted an amendment to a Government Bill, and I congratulate him on that. He will disagree with my remarks on new clause 3, but we all recognise that new clause 1 will be an improvement. [Interruption.] He has heard what my hon. Friends on the Front Bench have said about his previous voting record, but his conversion on this matter is welcome. The fact that the Government have accepted his new clause is a good thing and will improve the Bill.

Let me explain to the House why we will support new clause 3 and the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), why we have tabled some similar amendments, such as new clause 4, and why we have supported similar motions before. As the Secretary of State will realise from the tone of the debate, this House, including Her Majesty’s Opposition, will always put Britain’s security and national interest first. One of the first things I said when I was appointed shadow Defence Secretary was that when I thought the Government were doing the right thing on defence, I would work with them in a constructive and reasonable manner, and that is what the shadow Front-Bench team and I have done throughout the passage of this Bill. To be fair, the tone of the debate, notwithstanding the disagreements that exist between Members on both sides of the House, is one of reasonableness and constructiveness. We have been debating the best way forward with respect to these reforms and the proper defence of our country.

I am sorry to have to say to the Secretary of State that he should not try to turn the debate into a party political row. It is disappointing and unnecessary. Contrary to what he said, we have raised this issue in parliamentary questions, in Committee and, as recently as last month, on the Floor of the House, when we passed a vote to approve a motion almost identical to the new clause. Importantly, the Secretary of State knows that we are not calling for the reforms to be reversed. He knows that we are not saying the reforms should be shelved. Like Members on both sides of the House, we want to see an enlarged reserve force with an enhanced and more heavily integrated role alongside regular forces.

Let me once again praise and pledge my support, and that of the House, for our armed forces and the work they do. What we need is evidence that the reforms are progressing as planned and promised, and we are trying to get the Defence Secretary to take more responsibility for that. There is clearly an issue about viability. All signs coming from the MOD suggest that the plan has, to some extent, fallen off course. Members of the armed forces and of this House have justifiably and sincerely held concerns, and the Secretary of State has exacerbated those by his response to some of the concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Arbuthnot]

The focus of debate today has been on the reserves, but the issue of the withdrawal of one of the only two remaining bidding consortia from the competition to run the equipment procurement for the Minister of Defence is central to the defence procurement of this country, and I would like to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) to explain.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intervened on the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) to say that the private sector bid will be weighed against the DE&S-plus bid, but I thought the review that my right hon. Friend announced yesterday was precisely into the question of whether that weighing-up would take place. I am not entirely sure that my right hon. Friend has got the Treasury and the Cabinet Office on his side on that point.

[Mr Dunne]

I will happily try to clarify the position to my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee. There are two processes happening, one as a result of the single GoCo bidder. As was made very clear in the statement that my right hon. Friend laid before the House yesterday, that would require a further review across Government as to the validity of the competition. Secondly, we at the Ministry of Defence will be assessing the bid that we have on the table for a GoCo with the DE&S-plus proposal, when we have it, to see which provides the best solution for defence.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I am grateful for that clarification. So when will my hon. Friend receive the DE&S-plus bid? It would be good if he knew exactly what that DE&S-plus bid was. Will it be days, weeks or months? It is an initiative forming within his own Department and it might be better that we all discover what it is sooner rather than later.

The Defence Committee has to take evidence on this fundamental shift in the circumstances surrounding the central plank of our country’s defence procurement. We need a clear time scale to know when we should take evidence, as Ministers need to realise. Scrutiny of what they do will be determined by the Select Committee and not by them.

Finally, to what do my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend attribute the fact that they started with three private sector bidders and they are now down to one? What caused that?