Military Covenant

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

I greatly welcome the opportunity to open this important debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. It is a particular pleasure to respond to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson). As he knows, I have taken an interest in Northern Ireland matters down the years. In fact, some years ago I visited Northern Ireland as his guest. We are debating a serious subject, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not mind my telling the House that I also bumped into him in 2009, when I was in Northern Ireland during the European elections. We were each separately with our respective campaign teams when we came around the same corner. As politicians do on these occasions, we exchanged some banter, and one of the right hon. Gentleman’s fellow campaigners described me as a “communist.” I have been called a number of things down the years, but that was a personal first for me. I have happy memories of that trip, and I was determined when I saw this debate coming up to get that quote into Hansard.

Let me begin by saying that we greatly value the contribution that all our armed forces make, and in particular that made by the Irish regiments over the years. The right hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues rightly touched on that. As evidence of this contribution, one statistic stands out. Some 173 Victoria Crosses have been awarded to members of the armed forces who were Irish. That is more than one in eight of all such awards, including the first ever Victoria Cross, which was awarded to Charles Lucas from Scarva—in the constituency of the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson)—which he earned while serving as a mate on HMS Hecla in 1854. Following a swift promotion to captain, Charles Lucas eventually retired at the rank of rear-admiral. So that is a not a bad start for the VC.

Continuing this naval theme, I should like to mention HMS Caroline, about which there has been good news following our decision to gift the vessel to the National Museum of the Royal Navy. It has agreed to keep the vessel in Belfast, where it has been berthed since 1924.

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

HMS Caroline was built in the Devonport dockyard and it is the last surviving ship from the battle of Jutland, at which my grandfather was a gunnery officer on HMS Valiant. This is incredibly good news, therefore, and I will make sure everybody in Plymouth rejoices.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate the Democratic Unionist party on having the foresight to secure this debate on the military covenant. It was perhaps sad that we were unable to discuss the matter immediately before Remembrance Sunday, as it would have been particularly pertinent at that time. The debate nevertheless gives me an opportunity to talk about some of the issues that affect the military in my constituency.

I also want to thank the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) for his announcement about HMS Caroline. That was brilliant news. I would like to ask the DUP and the Executive in Northern Ireland to ensure that representatives from Devonport are invited to see it in Belfast, because it started life in Devonport; that is where it was built. It was one of the last ships to be built there, in 1914.

I pay tribute to those Northern Irish and Irish soldiers, sailors and airmen who have served in our armed forces. I also want to pay tribute to those members of 3 Commando Brigade who died during the troubles in Northern Ireland. We need to recognise them. All too often that has not happened because people were more interested in what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I welcome this opportunity to talk about the military covenant. A number of things need to be done, and I welcome the fact that the Government will be publishing their first report before Christmas. The issues affect not only the regulars but the reservists. I want to say a little about the reservists, because it is their families who end up bearing an awful lot of the brunt when their husbands or partners—or even their wives—go abroad to serve on operations. I hope that we can have a debate about what we are trying to do for reservists’ families.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

The families do not lack support when the reservists are away; the support received from the regiment is second to none. It is when a reservist is demobilised and returns to civilian life that they feel the most isolated and in need of support. When a regiment comes back from theatre, the individual soldiers have the support mechanism of their comrades and the family of the regiment itself, but the reservists go back to being civilians. They lack having comrades around them who understand what they have been through and the readjustments that they are having to make.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. That is certainly the line from the Army, but those in the Royal Navy—or, for that matter, the Royal Marines or the Royal Air Force—do not necessarily live on base in the same way, and therefore both regulars and reservists can feel isolated during that process. Those serving in the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines do not normally live on base. They are encouraged to buy their own homes. The Government need to look at how we can encourage such people to get on to the property ladder.

The reservist families need a significant amount of support. When I was on Woodbury Common last year on the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I came across a Royal Marine—I do not know whether he was a reservist, but I suspect he was—who lived in Aylesbury. He said that when he went home, he experienced some real difficulties. He wanted to talk to his friends about what had happened during his time in Afghanistan, but he found that it was not easy to do so. When he went back to his wife and said, “I have had an interesting time”, she said, “Don’t talk to me about what kind of day you’ve had; I’ve ended up having to answer 300 e-mails.” Perhaps she was working for a Member of Parliament and replying to constituents. He had been under mortar fire for seven or eight hours during the day and found it difficult to talk to her about that, so he went off to find his mates, but they had not been through that experience either, and they also had difficulty understanding what he was talking about. He thus had to go and find his fellow Royal Marines to talk to, as they understood his experiences.

We need to ensure that we set up a chat room for those reservist families so that they are able to talk to each other while their husbands or family members are away. I very much welcome the comments made about TRiM—trauma risk management. We recently had a breakfast here with the Royal Marines, and they talked enormously about it. In Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, we have signed the community covenant, too, which is working incredibly well. Last Friday, we talked quite extensively about how to ensure that people are looked after in respect of housing, for example.

[Mr Francois]

I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend, but to give all due credit to the Royal Marines, my understanding is that they initially helped to develop the TRiM programme. It was such a success within the brigade and its commandos that it was exported to the rest of the armed forces. It is quite right to pay tribute to the Royal Marines as basically they came up with the programme.

[Oliver Colvile]

I suspect, if I may say so, that the programme is very good because the Royal Marines is a small unit able to deliver it, but there are many lessons to be learned.

Finally, the Royal Navy in Plymouth and Devonport, with the help of the Prime Minister, is doing an enormous amount of work on dementia, because it understands the impact on a family when personnel are abroad. We have a lot to do, and I would be interested to know when we are going to have the debate.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, especially when he is close to finishing his speech. The issue of the particular needs of servicemen also relates to the provision of sheltered housing for homeless ex-servicemen. Will my hon. Friend reflect on whether we should follow the model, already pioneered in Catterick, of specialist provision for homeless ex-servicemen so that they can relate to each other in a way that might not be possible in other forms of sheltered housing?

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend is quite right. One organisation he may wish to talk to is Alabaré, which does a lot of work on homes for ex-servicemen and is very well regarded by the Minister for the Armed Forces, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan). We have a lot of work to do, and I look forward to the report on the armed forces covenant.

Future Reserves 2020

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

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

May I use this opportunity to pay tribute to those reservists—and more regulars, especially those from 3 Commando Brigade—who have lost their lives while defending our country? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the armed forces covenant will certainly cover those people, that we will ensure that we have a structure in place to look after service families when reservists go off on operations and that we share information on the reservists with organisations such as the Royal British Legion, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, and Combat Stress, so that they are in a position to deal with those people as and when they come back and need help?

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend will see when he reads the Green Paper, it contains a section that talks about extending the armed forces covenant appropriately to cover reserves. On supporting families, he is absolutely right, although we face a different challenge because reservist families, by definition, do not live in military communities and are dispersed, so this has to be done in a different way. Access to the regular military support apparatus, for example, the military health care, dental facilities and mental health facilities, is a crucial part of the package.

Army 2020

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

In some cases, yes. The cohort from which the infantry recruits—typically they are men aged between 18 and 24—is set to decline across the UK as a whole by 12% over the next decade. There are specific issues in some specific regional geographies, and there is also a projected change in the composition of that population cohort, including a relative increase in groups in which the Army is not very successful at recruiting at the moment. There are therefore some very big challenges ahead.

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

What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with other Government Departments to ensure that they will be able to release reservists in order to defend our country?

[Mr Hammond]

Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the civil service, is leading on that issue. We will ensure, when we publish our consultation paper in the autumn, that we clearly set out the Government’s offer to our employees in support of the reserve forces.

Defence Reform

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you very much for calling me in this debate, Mr Speaker.

I agree with the comments that my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces made about how important this weekend is going to be, as it is national armed forces weekend. Not unnaturally, I am delighted to have this opportunity, because my constituency of Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, more affectionately known as “Guz”, is going to be the national focus for the armed forces weekend. Plymouth is the home of 3 Commando Brigade, the Royal Marines and flag officer sea training, and it has an enormously big heritage, of which we are incredibly proud. I pay tribute to Commander Crichton for all his hard work in putting together the national armed forces weekend.

During this debate we have heard a great deal about how we need to make an assessment of where we are going. In my submission to the strategic defence and security review, I made it clear that Britain is a maritime nation, and we need to protect our sea routes. That means that we have to ensure that we are not sea blind. The Royal Navy’s role is to ensure not only soft diplomacy but that we can engage as and when Parliament decides where to go. It is a tool of foreign policy; indeed, some people would say that it could be a provisional tool in foreign policy, too.

I welcome the building of the aircraft carriers, but we need to ensure that when we move on to the next tranche of the SDSR we look long and hard at how to ensure that the supporting frigates are included.

Plymouth has a good story to tell about its harbour, which is the finest natural harbour in the world. It sits on the western approaches and is the one place in the United Kingdom that can deliver the refuelling and refitting of our nuclear submarines. That is our stake in the ground. I believe it is important that we retain our nuclear deterrent, because it is important not only strategically for our country but for my local economy, as 25,000 people are dependent on the defence industry.

Our dockyard was consistently under threat for the time that the Labour party was in power and I am delighted by the hard work my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench have been able to do in government to ensure that we can secure its future. The Government have been successful in ensuring not only that we will retain our Type 23s but that the £350 million refit of HMS Vengeance will take place in Devonport. The Government have been rebuilding confidence in Plymouth and Devonport, ensuring that we can do the very important job of engineering research, too, and making us one of the global leaders in maritime activity.

I am surprised by the Labour party’s approach and ask them to reconsider it. We need to ensure that those involved in our armed services have support in education, that they have decent housing and that they have provision to deal with mental health issues. We must work hard on that. This has been an important debate and we must ensure that we continue with the armed services covenant. I will welcome the opportunity to listen to the next debate on the subject, which will be important.

Armed Forces Day

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure, Mr Gray, to serve under your chairmanship in this debate and on the all-party group on the armed forces, of which I am delighted to say that I am a vice-chairman with responsibility for the Royal Marines. I have always taken a keen interest in this issue, because I come from a service family. I did not serve in the armed forces, but my father joined the Navy at the age of 14 and went to Dartmouth, and my grandfather was first lieutenant of the naval barracks in Plymouth and gunnery officer on HMS Valiant at the battle of Jutland. My great-uncle was killed in the first world war at Ypres. I followed the issue very closely during my childhood, and I remember two brothers—the Goldney brothers—who lived up the road from us who had been responsible for keeping the Panzer division at bay during the battle of Dunkirk and then spent the next four or five years in a prisoner of war camp.

This is an important debate at an apt time, because next week is national Armed Forces week, with a commemoration day, which will culminate on Plymouth Hoe, when the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) will also be present as a fellow Member of Parliament for Plymouth. We have worked hard during the past two years to encourage my right hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that Plymouth is the centre and focus for the national Armed Forces commemoration. I thank him for listening to our wishes and desires, but if I have nagged him a little too much, I am sorry.

I pay tribute to the people in Plymouth who are putting together an effective week of commemorations, especially Commander Crichton, who has sometimes found it difficult to get people to work together, but is working incredibly hard on the matter. I just hope that the weather will not be as bad as it was when 3 Commando Brigade returned to Plymouth for its welcome home, when rivers of water were running past, and some of us had to step out of the large river that was running down the Hoe at the same time. I was reminded of that just the other day.

Last Thursday, I spoke in the excellent debate on mental health. One issue that I looked at in a big way was combat stress and the mental health of our armed services. I have spoken regularly about that in the House, and I hope that a difference is being made and that there will be better co-ordination between Departments’ policy making on such issues. The debate coincided with the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war. Last Sunday, I joined the Royal Marines and 3 Commando Brigade on the Hoe to lay a wreath on behalf of the 32 or 33 members of the brigade who were killed during the Falklands war.

In preparing for the debate last week, I had quite a long conversation with Combat Stress, which his based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). That excellent charity told me that, of the 4,800 veterans on their books, 221 served in the Falklands. The youngest is now 46, and the oldest is 74.

This year, the charity has been contacted for the first time by no fewer than 10 Falkland veterans, 30 years after the conflict. Evidently, such contact is not something that happens today or tomorrow, and people may suddenly experience recall and flashes that refer back 30 years. Three of those who contacted the charity have waited for more than 25 years between being discharged and making that first contact, and a further three have waited for more than 16 years.

Last year, 18 Falkland veterans contacted Combat Stress for the first time, one of whom had waited for more than 28 years to deal with the issue. That trend was confirmed the other day when I visited the Glenborne unit—the mental health unit at Derriford hospital—and I was told that it has seen a significant rise in the number of veterans who suffer from mental health illnesses.

Last week, I congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) on his paper on combat stress, which has formed the basis for the Government’s approach to much of this issue. I also congratulate the House on enshrining the armed forces covenant in law. That was important.

This issue, however, concerns not only mental health; we must also consider other factors such as the quality of housing that we deliver and how we can ensure that service families and service children have access to good schools. I pay tribute to HMS Heroes in Plymouth, which looks after some of the children whose parents serve in the armed forces. It does an incredibly good job.

Service families who move from one garrison to another sometimes find it difficult to access schools, and we must ensure a much more level playing field. If a family arrives in Portsmouth in July, having previously been in Plymouth, and try to enrol their children into one of the local schools, they may find real difficulty because all the school places have already been allocated. It is important to do something for those families, as well as for Territorial Army reservists, because if there is a reduction in the number of regular troops, the slack will be taken up by the reservists. Indeed, I urge the Minister to ensure that we have a strategy that looks after the health—in particular, the mental health—of those reservists. At the moment, they seem to fall through the net, and we must ensure that a box is included in their application form to allow information to be shared with charities such as the Royal British Legion, which does an excellent job, and Combat Stress.

Recently, I heard that children of parents who have been killed in active service could lose their pupil premium after 12 months. We must address that important issue—perhaps it is something that the all-party group on the armed forces might consider. We must also consider the accommodation in which our service troops and their families must live. I pay tribute to Alabaré, which is based in my constituency, and an organisation called Riverside that does an enormous amount of work to ensure that armed forces families are looked after in a big way.

Another issue on which I feel strongly concerns those people who leave the armed forces. We must ensure that they have employment opportunities and can take the qualifications and experiences that they gained while serving into other jobs. My father left the Navy at the age of 45 as a two and a half—a lieutenant commander—and he ended up as the head of outside broadcasting at Rediffusion Television, which demonstrates how long ago that was. Having been a signalman, he was able to use his experience in communication. I have spoken to a number of people who feel that it is difficult for members of the armed forces to use their experiences in such a way, because they are not necessarily recognised in NVQs or other qualifications. I urge the Ministry of Defence to look at that issue.

Over the past month or so, I have been in discussions with the Minister because Plymouth university is looking at a way to create something similar to the Royal hospital in Chelsea and provide accommodation and a home for some of our veterans. The idea is to ensure that students at the medical school can buddy up with some of those veterans who have to live without accommodation, and it is a very good thing to do. Plymouth is also the home of the Haslar unit, which deals in prosthetics and similar matters.

Finally, in my opinion, the contribution that Plymouth has made and will make during the great commemoration for national Armed Forces day is exemplary, and I pay great tribute to everybody’s hard work and effort. We have a great story to tell as a great naval city and the home of Sir Francis Drake.

Nuclear-powered Submarines

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

No, not at all, and I am happy to reassure the hon. Lady that the Ministry of Defence now operates a rigorous business case analysis and investment approvals process. When the project gets to main gate, its affordability and the reliability of the estimates will have to be demonstrated for it to pass that hurdle.

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

I thank my right hon. Friend for his announcement. Is he willing to confirm that this decision takes us one step further on the road towards ensuring that jobs at Devonport dockyard, the only part of the United Kingdom that still has a nuclear licence, will be safeguarded?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is well aware of the plans for Devonport dockyard, and nothing that I have said today changes the previously announced policy of relocating our submarine capability to the naval base at the Clyde.

Defence Budget and Transformation

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance, but I do not underestimate the scale of the task. As DE&S is structured at the moment, we are seeking to employ project managers to manage some of the world’s largest and most complex projects and we are seeking to do it on civil service pay. That is challenging.

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

I thank my right hon. Friend for what he has said and I hope that it will produce greater confidence in his negotiations with the Treasury, as it will understand exactly where the MOD budget is going. May I ask for an assurance that the nuclear deterrent will not be up for negotiation with any of the other political parties in this House?

[Mr Hammond]

Let me assure my hon. Friend that relationships with the Treasury have improved dramatically at a working level. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and I have complete transparency on these matters and have worked together very closely to achieve this outcome. The Government are fully committed to the replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Carrier Strike Capability

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I have answered a number of parliamentary questions on the information that the Department holds on meetings held by, and contacts made with, Mr Werritty. As far as I am aware, I have disclosed in parliamentary questions the full extent of the Department’s knowledge.

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

Amphibious capability is a key part of our defence strategy. I thank my right hon. Friend for making sure that we clarify the timetable, but will he explain what impact the decision will have on amphibious capability, so that we can ensure that our Royal Marines are protected when they go on to land?

[Mr Hammond]

The STOVL configuration of the carrier in the carrier-enabled power projection model means that the carrier will embark both fast jets and helicopters—Chinook, Lynx and Merlin. It will also be able to embark Marines. It is a very large ship, as we have mentioned this morning. It will have the capability to carry troops and embark helicopters and fast jets in a way that will facilitate amphibious warfare.

Afghanistan (Troop Levels)

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I should say first of all that nobody who is on operations in Afghanistan nor anyone who is recuperating in the six-month period after returning from Afghanistan is eligible for redundancy, but my hon. Friend is right. As we balance the MOD budget and reduce the size of the Army to around 82,000, there will be a series of redundancies. Many of the people being made redundant will fortunately have skills that are of value in the civilian economy. I am not sure I agree with him on the need to create a social enterprise, but I can assure him that very robust arrangements are in place to ensure that local jobcentres are alerted in advance to the availability of the skills that those people have.

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

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his announcement, which I am sure will go down well in my constituency, where, as hon. Members may know, 3 Commando Brigade, which served so valiantly last year out in Afghanistan, is based. What impact will today’s statement have on the reservists? Will he also explain what support his Department is giving to reservists’ families, who can on occasion feel somewhat isolated from the support given to their regular counterparts?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A significant number of reservists contribute to the campaign in Afghanistan. They tend to serve as individual augmentees—people with specific skills who are called up to reinforce other units—and as such, their families do not benefit from the group support that tends to help the families of personnel in Regular Army units. As we move forward with our plans to strengthen the reserves, we hope there will be more opportunity to deploy reserve units as formed units, which will in itself help to address the problem my hon. Friend highlights.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this debate. I congratulate the Chairman of the Defence Committee on getting the debate going successfully.

This debate feels a little like déjà vu for me, because my maiden speech was about the future of the strategic defence and security review. I fully understand the budgetary constraints that the Ministry of Defence faces. Although I said in my maiden speech that we needed to control public expenditure, I also argued that we needed to ensure that there was enough money in the defence budget to deliver the requirements that we had. I remind the House that if that does not happen, we could find ourselves in the same position as the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when it suddenly ran out of money and was unable to deliver the defence capability that it espoused.

As we heard in the last debate, 50% of our trade is with the EU. I remind hon. Members that the EU is not doing incredibly well at the moment as far as growth is concerned. I therefore think that we need to look to other countries, such as China, Russia and India, where there are potential markets. To do that, we have to ensure that we have decent trade routes and that they remain open.

As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, I am delighted to be able to speak up for the Royal Navy and 3 Commando Brigade, both of which are based in my constituency. I thank Ministers for committing the Government to ensuring that Plymouth remains a principal naval strategic port. That is very important.

Keeping our trade routes open is important for the import and export of goods and will be fundamental for growth. As an island nation, we are dependent on sea routes. It is incredibly important to have a strong Navy with good frigates and submarines, and aircraft carriers when they come forward. I pay tribute to the Royal Navy and 3 Commando Brigade in my constituency. They have worked incredibly hard to ensure that we have that security. We must only look at the piracy situation to see how well that is going.

Plymouth is a global centre for marine science, engineering and research. The Royal Navy is a key part of that. It is important that Plymouth maintains its global reputation for that. As many of my hon. Friends will know, this year we are commemorating the death of Captain Scott in the Antarctic, which took place 100 years ago. I am grateful that there has been a great deal of interest in that subject. We need to ensure that Plymouth remains the home of the Type 23 frigates and that when the decision is eventually made, we have our fair share of the Type 26s when they become available.

We have heard suggestions that there may be problems north of the border up in Scotland. It would be helpful if the Minister spent a little time telling us what alternatives we would have should the Scottish Executive and the Scottish people seek independence. He can rest assured that should the Scots be in the process of thinking that they may not want the nuclear deterrent or nuclear submarines, we in Plymouth are ready to pick up the baton and would be happy to open negotiations to try to ensure that we have them.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

I do not have the opportunity of winding up today, but I can say that we welcome my hon. Friend’s offer.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank the Minister.

I was somewhat dismayed earlier this week when I heard the news about the Defence Committee’s report and found out how many people had left the military and the civil service. Somewhere along the line, we have to ensure that people who have served in the military and picked up good and worthwhile skills are able to use them in employment elsewhere. When my father, who served in the Navy as a professional sailor, having gone to Dartmouth at the age of 14, left as a signalman, he was able to go and get a job as head of outside broadcasting at Rediffusion Television. He was member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and he did not have to take exams, or anything like that, in order to prove himself. In those days, it was possible to transfer and use such skills. If our military are to get the best jobs that they possibly can, they will need to use their training and backgrounds. If we are able to deliver on that and to make them feel valued because of the work that they have done, we will be in a much stronger position.

I am keen to ensure that we in Plymouth are in a position to look after the defence of our country so that when Drake’s drum eventually begins to beat—although I hope it never happens—we can answer the call.