Afghanistan (Force Protection)

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The indications are that the Afghan strategic plan is to hold the ground in the crucial areas—the major towns, the major routes of communication and the major economic areas, including the Helmand valley. The assessment of our military commanders on the ground—I have no better information than that—is that they are likely to be able to do so, with some compromises at the margins.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I can understand hon. Members wanting to bring our troops home, but does the Secretary of State agree that those who have given their lives have not done so in vain? They have protected our national security, as is their prime purpose, and enabled an entire generation to access education for the first time, giving that country the best chance of peace and prosperity. Given its history, that is in our national interest.

Defence Equipment and Support

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Harvey]

The new body will have the same relationship as the existing one with suppliers of such products. The new body will contain a greater degree of private sector expertise, so it might be able to drive a harder bargain.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

We need to make the best use of the defence budget and give our armed forces the tools they need to do the job, but we must also protect sovereign capability and have a strategy on where we invest our research and development budgets. Does the Minister agree that deciding how we organise those two things is too important to be left to dogma?

[Nick Harvey]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to maintain sovereign capabilities. I referred a moment ago to competition law, but when there are specific exemptions that enable us to protect national sovereignty for reasons of national security, we will take them. She is right on the research and technology budgets. They will remain an important part of our work. We cannot leave it entirely to the private sector to undertake primary research. It is necessary for the state to stimulate it.

Army 2020

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Well, I am afraid that they do. I remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Cabinet that was responsible for the underlying fiscal shambles that is the cause of many of the things that we are having to do. Whether or not someone is serving in a unit that is to be withdrawn will make them no more or less likely to be selected for redundancy under future tranches of the Army redundancy programme, which will deliver the manpower reductions announced in July 2011.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

During the first round of naval redundancies, an extremely good system was put in place by my right hon. Friend’s Department to flag up any undesirable anomalies, such as a husband and wife in service accommodation both being earmarked for redundancy. As these changes are rolled out to the Army, will people who are leaving it or moving role or location within it have a similarly excellent service so that such anomalies can be flagged up and dealt with?

[Mr Hammond]

One of the strengths of the regimental system in the Army is the degree of close pastoral attention to these matters that can be delivered. The Army regards that as hugely important, and I know that it will do everything it can to support members of the family whenever change is required.

Defence Reform

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my registered interest with the Royal Navy reserve.

I have mixed views about today’s debate. I am always glad when defence is discussed on the Floor of the House, but it is very important that we build a consensus between all parties on these important issues. When the Defence Committee requests time in this Chamber, it is always keen to have a motion that will not divide the House, and I have always tried to adopt that non-partisan attitude in events and campaigns that I have run for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines—for example, in asking the shadow Secretary of State to co-host last year’s Trafalgar day event with me.

I therefore approach an Opposition day debate on defence with a heavy heart, but today I have a doubly heavy heart because I have to correct a falsehood that has been running for the past few days, perpetuated by Labour’s spin operation. I do not believe that the shadow Secretary of State or his shadow Ministers would have been involved in this, but I hope that in winding up they will take the time to correct it.

Portsmouth dockyard is the home of the surface fleet. It has a wonderful natural harbour, which is being dredged to house the new carriers. New power facilities are being built, and moves are afoot to put the vacant historic dockyard to new use so that it ceases to be a drain on the defence budget. The operational stress that the carriers will be under will be considerable, so repair and support services must sit alongside the ships in their home port. There is much activity, much investment and more work for the dockyard’s partners and suppliers, most notably Rolls-Royce in my constituency.

In the face of all that activity and progress, Labour has spent the past few days telling those who work in the dockyard and their families that it will close. It has not been discussing the BAE review; it has been telling people that the Royal Navy base is toast. That is a new low. Government Members have come to expect Labour policy and its lines to take to be divorced from reality, especially where the economy is concerned, but I had thought, perhaps naively, that defence might warrant a more grown-up attitude. This sort of distortion is indefensible not just because of the unnecessary hurt and worry that is caused to people in my constituency, but because of the damage that it causes to British businesses.

We have to retain a shipbuilding capability in the UK—it is a sovereign capability. To afford the Royal Navy ships of the future, we need a slower drumbeat in our yards in building those ships. We therefore need to export more Royal Navy-designed ships. We also need to make better use of the gaps in work in our yards, rather than put the brakes on contracts, especially those that will deliver much-needed and much-missed capability, such as carrier strike force.

There is a gap between the carrier work finishing and the building of the new Type 26 combat ship starting. Rather than making the mistakes of the last Government and paying for the work to be delivered slower, we should use that time and money to do something more useful, using designs that we already have. We should build ocean patrol vessels and perhaps an ice ship, which would certainly be of use. That would be a better use of public funds, retain the capability and provide more options either to carry out operations or to generate funds for the Department. We must have no let-up in the Government activity to hook in any buyer who is looking to purchase a combat ship. I know that Ministers are considering all those options.

These are important issues, but on them, Labour is silent. It does not seem to be remotely interested in ensuring that the Government do the right thing, that we have the capability that we need or that we are getting value for money. Nor has it stated what its view is on the future of shipbuilding in the UK. Instead, over the past few days Labour’s press office has misled people in my constituency by saying that the Navy base will close. The Government could not have been clearer in their statement that all three Navy bases will be retained. The shadow ministerial team know that. I therefore hope that whichever shadow Minister responds to the debate will tell us what they think about shipbuilding in the UK. At the very least, they should state that they know that the Government are committed to the three Royal Navy bases.

The shadow Ministers should reflect on the actions of their party over the past few days. If Labour wants to have a debate about the BAE Systems review, that is fine. I will show up. In the meantime, I ask that it treats my constituents working in and with the armed forces with a greater degree of respect.

Defence Budget and Transformation

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that our defence budget in the spending review period exceeds the 2% of GDP NATO guideline. What I said on the previous occasion, and have said publicly on a number of occasions, is that while in the medium term our NATO partners must increase their contribution to collective defence, in the short term, at a time when there is extreme fiscal pressure on nearly all the European NATO countries, it is not realistic to go around wagging the finger at them about the amount that they spend. I have chosen to focus my pitch to them on the need to render the budgets that they do have more effective by making their forces more deployable and more available to the alliance. That is the thrust of the message that I was trying to deliver in Germany the week before last.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

What impact does the Secretary of State expect the measures that he has announced to have on recruitment and retention in our armed forces, not only in respect of regulars but in respect of our challenging targets for the recruitment of reserves?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that issue. Many people have asked me—and I have to say that I asked the question myself when I first entered the Ministry of Defence—why we are making service people redundant but are still recruiting. The answer, of course, is that because the armed forces are a bottom-fed organisation, we need to recruit even when we are reducing the overall size of forces. I hope that the greater confidence and clarity about the future will be an aid to recruitment, and I am sure that the greater role that the reserves will play in our overall force construction will be a great aid to recruitment in the Territorial Army and the air and naval reserves.

Carrier Strike Capability

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The SDSR in 2010 considered the possibility of cancelling the second carrier, to deal with the huge budget challenges we inherited, but the terms of business agreement was such that cancelling the carrier at that point would have cost more than delivering it.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I have long argued that if we are going to spend money on carrier strike force, we need to ensure that we have that capability all year round. Can the Secretary of State confirm that, in terms of capability, one advantage of the programme he has announced today is that it puts two operational carriers back on the table?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. I made the precise point, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), that the cost of converting the second carrier to EMALS cats and traps was likely to be prohibitive; that has emerged from the work that has been going on. Completing the two carriers in STOVL configuration gives us optionality. It means that they can both operate the STOVL aircraft; that the 2015 SDSR can decide whether to bring the second carrier out of extended readiness and deploy it during periods of refit or extended maintenance of the first carrier; and that subsequent SDSRs can decide whether finding the extra crew and meeting the maintenance cost is an appropriate use of naval resources, depending on our assessment of the threat risk.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I start by declaring my interest as a member of the reserve forces.

Are we sufficiently well defended? For an answer, we might do worse than refer to the Prime Minister’s remarks to the Liaison Committee last year. He said that if the question was whether the UK was

“a full spectrum defence power, I would answer that literally by saying yes, because I think if you look…across the piece, you take a Navy that has got hunter-killer submarines, that has a nuclear deterrent that we are renewing, that has two of the most modern and up-to-date aircraft carriers coming down the track; if you look at our Air Force, that has got the Typhoon, one of the most capable and successful aircraft that anyone has anywhere in the world”.

At that point my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, interrupted:

“Prime Minister, everyone knows what we’ve got.”

Indeed we do, and we know what we have not got, too. “Coming down the track” means “not here yet”. I am reassured by the excellent work on the Type 26 of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), who is responsible for procurement, and by the fact that the Prime Minister speaks enthusiastically about the carriers, but by his own definition of full spectrum capability Britain currently, although unavoidably and understandably, comes up short.

We inherited a catastrophic mess at the MOD when we came into government—I am sorry that we do not have many Opposition Members still in the Chamber to hear me say that. Tough decisions had to be made to clean up that mess, leading to the capability gap and the challenging task of regenerating that capability. We must succeed in doing that, but I am increasingly concerned that we risk failure.

If Britain wants to live up to her billing as a leading nation, we must perform like one. The world still looks to Britain for leadership—as in the recent action in Libya—and it is incumbent on us to be ready to meet those calls in our own national interest. The Royal Navy gives us global reach. It allows us to be present anywhere in the world within 12 miles off any coast with impunity. It keeps food in our supermarkets and the fuel flowing so we can distribute and cook it. Our island nation depends on the Navy for its very survival, an obvious point not often recognised by Departments of State or parliamentarians—present company excepted.

Recognition of that fact does not require one to hark back to the days when Britain’s carrier fleet numbered 55 ships, but it means we need to increase the size of the current surface fleet with the carrier strike and the Type 26 combat ship. It requires us also to ensure that those platforms are properly supplied, so that they can be at their most flexible.

We must stop hollowing out capability. I told the MOD permanent secretary at the Defence Committee that some ships were sent to Operation Ellamy and elsewhere with dangerously hollowed-out capacity. HMS Westminster had only 10% of her ordnance, or, to put it another way, only two shots in the barrel. In response, the permanent secretary spoke of “layered defence” and

“other capabilities that we had in terms of submarines…and …aircraft”.

She also said that it was

“absolutely an operational decision on whether it is safe”

to send Westminster.

“Layered defence” is all very well, but I wonder whether the Westminster’s 190 crew would not have felt more secure if they had the means to defend themselves rather than relying on others. It might have been an “operational decision”, but would we not put the people making such decisions in a far more comfortable position if they knew that ships had a more appropriate complement of missiles? I anticipate that the MOD would answer that missile numbers are secret, but they are not. Anyone— friend or foe—with a moderately priced pair of binoculars and the inclination to look could have discovered how many Harpoon missiles were on Westminster.

The MOD must develop a mechanism properly to plan, acquire and monitor ordnance stocks. No such mechanism exists. As I have raised that point in the Committee, with Ministers and on the Floor of the House, I would like to see evidence that it is being addressed.

I would also like greater recognition of our dependence on carrier strike. As the Foreign Secretary mentioned earlier this week with regard to HMS Argyll’s passage through the strait of Hormuz, we currently rely on our allies—in that instance in the form of the USS Abraham Lincoln. It is apparent, therefore, that when we say we do not need carrier strike for the next decade, we mean we need it but hope to use someone else’s.

That might be all very well when our interests align with those of our allies, but what about when they do not? The Prime Minister has rightly taken a robust line on Argentine pretensions over the sovereignty of the Falklands. The US Administration take quite a different view, regarding the UK administration of the islands as “de facto” and taking “no position regarding sovereignty”. We are encouraged to work things out with Argentina “through normal diplomatic channels”. If it came to it, one suspects that requests for carrier cover would fall on deaf ears.

Equally, although one must recognise that while flying sorties from Norfolk for a time was the only way to halt Gaddafi’s murderous advances in Libya, it was expensive. Had the Ark Royal not been decommissioned, it is unthinkable that she would not have been sent on Ellamy. Had we flown sorties from a carrier in the Mediterranean rather than from an airfield in East Anglia, they would have been more frequent and more responsive, and the need to return to base without dropping a bomb would have been less of a waste of time and money.

I raise those issues not to chastise the Government for the SDSR—they had to close the gap in the defence budget—but to show our dependence on carrier strike force. The Prime Minister has said that carriers are necessary for a nation to have full military capability, which means every day of every week, all year round. Accepting the need for carriers is to accept that we must have both Queen Elizabeth class ships in operation—at minimum, one on, one off.

[Mr Leigh]

Does my hon. Friend recall that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, referred recently to the Falkland Islands as “the Malvinas”, therefore implicitly giving a nod in the direction of Argentina? My hon. Friend is right that we could in no shape or form depend on the Americans if there were any threat against the Falklands. Were they taken, without a carrier, we could never take them back.

[Penny Mordaunt]

If someone had an argument about the sovereignty of an eastern state, I am quite sure we would have a much more robust response from our nearest ally.

The cost and specification of the new carriers has been much derided. One estimate is that they could be as much as £3.1 billion more expensive than planned. I have heard many an “amusing” conversation in this place about the decks being too short for aircraft to take-off and the possibility of sailors being burnt to a crisp by aircraft engines, along with other such Bird and Fortune material. We laugh, while blindly heading for a greater folly: spending such a sum, only to deny ourselves the capability that it should have brought. If we end up with just one operational carrier, we will have wasted £5 billion over the initial estimates, yet for months of every year we will be without cover. If our enemies strike during an off-period, the British people will ask what that hefty final bill has actually achieved. Thanks to the last Government, £3 billion has been needlessly spent on carrier strike force. Under this Government, let us not have £7 billion pointlessly spent.

Arctic Convoy Veterans Medal

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She mentioned the Africa star. Not only does the campaign star system allow for such a stand-alone medal—the Italy star is another example—but it permits recognition of a significant event, battle or sustained effort; for example, the one-off clasp, the 1939-1945 star, to commemorate the battle of Britain. Does she agree that there has been a worrying complacency on this matter, in that neither of those ready solutions has been proposed? Today, the Ministry of Defence’s own website does not even mention the convoys in the criteria for the Atlantic star.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and has worked extremely hard on this campaign, as we all have. There is a ready-made solution within the star framework. The complacency in relation to rewarding these extraordinary men is, in many ways, shameful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady makes a super point and underlines the strength of feeling on the subject up and down the country. It is almost impossible to understand why our brave servicemen have been rewarded by other countries and not by our own. It is not only a local issue, as she pointed out. Loch Ewe, from where the convoys were launched, has a museum and an annual service of remembrance, and the Scottish Government are even considering including the story of the Arctic convoys in their national curriculum. When I raised the matter at Prime Minister’s questions in January, the incredible outpouring of support I received came from all over the world and from as far afield as Canada and Australia. The medal has the support of people in all walks of life, young and old, and nowhere more so than among our serving servicemen and women. Next year, a new diamond jubilee medal will be awarded to anyone who has completed five years of service in the military, whether on active service or not. Many of the young people in the armed forces in my constituency have said that, if it is only a matter of money, they will happily forgo their own medal in order to afford one for the Arctic convoy veterans.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me for a second time. Is she aware that the £12.3 million estimate for an Arctic convoy medal is based on incorrect numbers of servicemen and costings? Looking at the actual costs of other medals and allowing for inflation and even design costs, which obviously would not have to be included, I am hard pushed to reach even £1.2 million.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information, which further underlines the obstacles that are being put in the way of doing the right thing. The Ministry of Defence was asked to review the medals system in July 2010, and it took 16 months to get nowhere. However, time is of the essence. It is 70 years since the first convoys, and the remaining veterans are in their 80s and 90s; of the thousands who took part in the convoys, only 200 are yet alive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robathan]

Every Member in the Chamber, pace the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) who might possibly be an exception, was born after the end of the second world war. Politicians should not revisit decisions made in the past, second-guessing those who are not around to speak for themselves and who knew the details, were much closer to them than us and would have known people who had been on the Arctic convoys, perhaps losing friends or relations on that convoy, when we do not.

The current situation is that an independent review, into which I will have no input, will investigate. However, I would like to state the facts, which are what we should deal with. The Admiralty fleet order dated October 1946 refers to

“Qualifications for the Atlantic Star”

and states:

“After qualification for the 1939-45 Star by six months’…service, in areas defined below.

(A) Six months’…service afloat as defined in Section III”,

which included time in port, and

“(B) Service in home waters, service on the convoy routes to North Russian ports, service in the South Atlantic between the longitude of Cape Horn and longitude 20° E”.

The point was that the Admiralty was trying to have one medal to cover those issues. Whether that was right or wrong, it is wrong to say that the Arctic was ignored. It was not. It was mentioned in the Admiralty fleet order, and it was recognised, but I accept that whether it should have been recognised further is a matter for debate.

The campaign suggests that the Atlantic star is not enough, and I understand the strong feeling about that. I cannot understand what it was like to be in such appalling cold. However, it was also cold in the Atlantic, and I have mentioned the 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships that went down. Most people who earned the Atlantic star must be very proud to have done so when so many died. One also reads of the deprivation on the Atlantic convoys. It was pretty tough going across the Atlantic being chased by U-boats, and many ships were sunk.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do not believe that anyone here wants to get into a competition about who suffered most, although we must recognise the appalling conditions endured by the Arctic convoy veterans. The Minister is rightly sticking to the facts, but the facts are that the Arctic convoys were a separate theatre of conflict, and a precedent was set with the Canal medal. If it was thought that an error had been made, for understandable reasons—my right hon. Friend alluded to what they might be—we could revisit a decision. I do not believe that politicians should make those judgments, but it is our job to raise the concerns of our constituents throughout the country. There is a great feeling that we should revisit the facts, and there is a precedent for change if we think an error has been made.

[Mr Robathan]

I am saying that that determination is possible if people in the past got it wrong. We are saying in this debate that those in the Admiralty who determined who would receive medals got it wrong and that in some way we who were born after the second world war know better than those who were in that war. Actually, they were people like us, who are sitting in our centrally heated Chamber. Mountbatten was not on the Admiralty Board because he was Viceroy of India at the time, but he had commanded Kelly during the war, and ended up an admiral. That was not unusual for experienced people. We are in danger of saying that we should gainsay their knowledge and disparage their decisions, which were made by good people with experience.

Oral Answers to Questions

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential effects on operations in Libya of the unavailability of an aircraft carrier.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential effects on operations in Libya of the unavailability of an aircraft carrier.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Thanks to our overseas basing rights, the unavailability of a UK aircraft carrier had no significant effect on the UK’s participation in military operations over Libya. That was clearly demonstrated by the outstanding performance of our armed forces over and off the coast of Libya, and by the civilian and military staffs that supported them.

Difficult decisions had to be made by my predecessor, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), to whom I pay tribute, in order to deal with the black hole that we inherited from the previous Government. The decisions made in relation to carrier capability were painful, but they were the right ones in Britain’s long-term interests.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The performance of British forces in Operation Ellamy precisely demonstrated that we retain such a capability and, indeed, that the aircraft deployed were capable of carrying weapons such as Storm Shadow and the dual-mode Brimstone, which allowed us to deliver a precision response in Libya. That greatly reduced collateral damage and civilian casualties.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that carrier strike force is a fundamental capability that we must regenerate as it will provide future Governments with both a powerful deterrent and the flexibility to respond to any situation in the most efficient and effective way?

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend suggests, the decision to regenerate the carrier capability at the end of the decade will give the United Kingdom a formidable capability in addition to the other capabilities it currently has to project force in areas of the world where basing and overflight rights may not be available. That will be a very welcome and important addition to our overall capability.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)]

The F-35 joint strike fighter slow-down.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

T5. There are reports that the Department’s medal review has been stopped and that an independent review will now commence. Can the Minister assure me that that will not cause further delays to veterans, such as those of the Arctic convoys, in getting a decision and that no service personnel facing redundancy will miss out on the diamond jubilee medal?

[Mr Robathan]

Two questions for the price of one. A review of medals is indeed ongoing. It has not yet been finalised. When it is finalised, it will be put before the House in the normal way. No one who is eligible for the diamond jubilee medal on the correct date, which is, I think, 6 February this coming year, will be affected by compulsory redundancy because the qualification date will be before anyone is made compulsorily redundant, although, of course, if they have not done five years on that date, they will not qualify for the medal.

Armed Forces Personnel

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Harvey]

The principle of an all-encompassing medal has been considered several times, but to date, at least, it has been ruled out because it cuts across the usual principles on which medals are issued. For the time being, that remains the situation. I understand the calls that some make for such a medal, but the principles on which medals are awarded will not allow for that, unless they are amended.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Is the Minister aware of the concern that the armed forces personnel who will be made redundant, but who otherwise would have qualified for the diamond jubilee medal, might not receive it? What is the Department’s thinking on that?

[Nick Harvey]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We will take it away and give it some serious consideration, and I shall come back to her and the House in due course. We will need to reflect on that point.

As I said, the armed forces covenant has to be an all-society and bipartisan effort, if it is to be recognised and respected, and if it is to endure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a Royal Navy reservist, and I would add, for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who is no longer in his seat, that I am a reservist who has to run 1.5 miles in a particular time each week and who, if she does not have an in-date fitness or swim test, is no longer trained, let alone deployed.

I wish to make a few brief points. The first concerns redundancies, particularly Royal Navy redundancies. As the picture becomes clearer, anomalies are emerging, as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) alluded to. I am concerned about certain ships’ companies that have been particularly hard hit. I understand that as many as 10% of one ship’s company might be made redundant.

I am also concerned about badly hit families. For instance, one person in a couple, both of whom are serving, has volunteered for redundancy and the other has been made redundant. Both will lose their job and, because they are in service accommodation, their home as well. I have been reassured about how the redundancies are being managed, but I would like the Minister to reassure us that, as those things crop up, they will be dealt with.

The second point concerns the military covenant and local government representation. I urge the Minister to work with his colleagues in local government to ensure that, when they consult on local matters, such as planning, traffic-calming measures and so on, they take into account our servicemen and women, who might not be able to go to public meetings and vote on those things. Some straightforward things can be done to ensure that they are properly consulted and included in their community life.

The third point concerns the deployment of reservists. I want to stress to the Minister that, like the regulars, reservists join to be deployed. That is why we join; that is why we train. I urge him to ensure that our reservists get sea time and flying time. It is why they do the job.

I want to make a general point about the need in the House to broaden, as well as deepen, our understanding of the armed forces. I was proud to co-host, with the shadow Secretary of State, the House’s first-ever Trafalgar night a few weeks ago. One of our colleagues, who kindly came along to the event and was keen to help and learn more, approached a Royal Marine and, bravely, asked him what the hell the Army was doing at that event and what it had done at Trafalgar. That incident shows that someone is keen to learn more about our armed forces, but it also shows that there remains much ignorance in the House about what the armed forces do, who they are, the different colour uniforms and so on. I encourage all Members with an interest in defence to ensure that we learn more about our armed forces.

We have heard this afternoon that we have too many admirals and that the admiral-to-ship ratio is not as it should be, but I would really like an admiral to be looking after our nuclear deterrent. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) referred to the fleet-ready escort, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) mentioned other ways in which we protect the UK. I can reassure them that the fleet-ready escort has, is and, I am sure, always will be a standing commitment of the Royal Navy.

Finally, I want to put on the record my thanks to all the armed forces personnel who live and work in Portsmouth. I am optimistic about the future. I smiled when my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East caricatured our defence attachés, but I am sure that our latest appointment as defence attaché to the United States has nothing in common with Basil Fawlty.