Defence
Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Bob Stewart(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Ellwood
This has been a far more thorough and wide-ranging debate than I imagined it would be, and I welcome that. I hope that in future years, when we come to update the House on the continuation of the armed forces, we can have the debate in the main Chamber.
I hear what the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) says about recruitment and Capita—she raised the point in Defence questions, too. The Minister for the Armed Forces is better able to respond, so I will ask him to write to her with more details. The future accommodation model is about choice, and I have touched on that.
The hon. Lady also mentioned the Defence Safety Authority and its report, which I take very seriously. I stress to the House that there have been fewer fire issues than in previous years, but the issue is about management, and every effort is being made to make sure we honour the report’s recommendations. Again, I will write to her with more details on how that will be achieved.
My good and hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) made a wide-ranging speech. She underlined the importance of the bond between US marines and the Royal Marines and their work to create a formidable relationship, which has developed over the years. She also praised the Secretary of State for jumping into the Norwegian sea—he is doing a fantastic job. She also touched on the Kessler effect, and a spiral of junk satellites bumping into each other is a huge concern. It would take us back to the 1950s, and we are working on it.
Mr Ellwood
I am afraid that I do not have time to take interventions.
The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) mentioned peacekeeping, and anyone in uniform will recognise its importance. It is not so much about defeating the enemy as enabling the local population, and nowhere is that more pertinent right now than in Iraq and Syria. Murders are happening every day, and ISIL is still active. ISIL is not in our headlines, but that is not to say it has dispersed. We need to make sure that we help with stabilisation, peacekeeping and rebuilding those nations in whatever way we can, obviously with their agreement.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) spoke about being honest in our conversation with the public. I make it clear that France is about to overtake us in defence spending. We have to make the case to the nation, because we queue up with every other Department in asking for more funds from the Treasury. If we take the nation with us in calling for it, we are more likely to get where we want to go.
I have mentioned tanks, but we had 30 RAF squadrons in Operation Ellamy, and we are now down to seven. We cannot build two new aircraft carriers without extra money and not have an impact on the rest of the surface fleet. These are important issues, which is why the Defence Secretary and Defence Ministers are all making a potent case through the defence modernisation programme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) mentioned, to say that we need to upgrade the defence budget. I am pleased with my hon. Friend’s contribution; he touched on the importance of cyber. If we think the last 10 years have seen a change in our world, wait for the next 10 years. Artificial intelligence, 5G and the internet of things will change our world fundamentally, and I am not quite sure whether we are ready.
My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) speaks with such experience. He talks about our offer—what is our offer to our armed forces?—and that is so important for us to recognise and understand. More than 20 operations are taking place around the world, and Operation Toral, the continuation in Afghanistan, is just one of them. They do not make the headlines, so they are not the recruitment sergeant that Iraq and Afghanistan have been. Because of the greater employment rate, it is a testing environment to let people recognise how the armed forces can be a fantastic career. He also touched on flexible working, which is important, and how roles have been opened up to women right across the piece.
Following this full debate, I hope the House will support the draft order and recognise its contribution to upholding the constitutional position that the armed forces may not be maintained without the consent of Parliament.
My final words are to anyone thinking of signing up. I could not encourage you more. You will learn things about yourself that you did not know, you will do things that you never thought possible, and you will visit places that you never thought you would be able to visit. When you finally march off that parade square, after you sign up, you will not only be serving your country but you will be making your mum and dad so proud of you.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 24 January, be approved.
Armed Forces: Angus
Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Bob Stewart(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing the debate and I commend her commitment, diligence and persistence in supporting both the Royal Marines and RM Condor in her constituency, which is the home of 45 Commando. I had the pleasure of visiting the base only a few months ago to see the incredible work that is being done by Lieutenant Colonel Forbes and his fantastic unit, as well as other assets based up there.
Before discussing RM Condor, I would like to acknowledge the critical and unique role that the Royal Marines play in the wider spectrum of our armed forces capability. Formed in 1664, during the reign of Charles II, they celebrate their 355th birthday this year. The Royal Marines have much to be proud of in their long history: playing a vital role in Lord Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar; securing and defending the Rock of Gibraltar in 1704; the infamous raid on Zeebrugge in 1918, which earned two Royal Marines the Victoria Cross; as well as the D-day landings at Normandy, where 17,500 Royal Marines took part in the largest amphibious operation in history. More recently, they were essential to the recapture of the Falkland Islands in 1982.
Today the Royal Marines are the UK’s specialised commando force—an elite unit held at very high readiness and trained for worldwide rapid response. They can deal with a wide spectrum of threats and security challenges, and operate in often dangerous and extremely difficult circumstances, including amphibious operations, littoral strikes and humanitarian relief as well as specialist mountain and cold weather warfare and jungle counter-insurgency. When diplomacy fails, the Royal Marines provide Government with an impressive spectrum of hard-power options with which we can respond. On behalf of a grateful nation, I thank every Royal Marine who has earned the coveted green beret.
Bob Stewart
I thank the Minister for allowing me to point out, as the secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar and as a real friend of the Royal Marines, it is the only unit in our armed forces that has a place name on its badge. It says “Gibraltar”, because that is where the unit made its name.
Mr Ellwood
While serving as a regular officer, I had the pleasure to be based in Gibraltar, and I became very familiar with the treaty of Utrecht and the role that the Royal Marines played in securing the Rock. May it forever remain British. Gibraltarians are very proud people, and we have a strong relationship with the Royal Gibraltar Regiment.
Looking to the future, the 2015 strategic defence and security review mapped out our commitment to the Royal Marines. I am pleased to say that following the modernising defence programme, the future of HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion as amphibious workhorses has been confirmed. The Royal Marines winter deployment programme in Norway will continue, as will their training with US counterparts. We will shortly see women join the ranks of the Royal Marines in ground close-combat roles for the first time.
Turning to the base, my hon. Friend the Member for Angus will be aware that the Royal Navy first forged a valuable relationship with Angus during the last war. The Fleet Air Arm occupied the base in 1940 as a training field to train aircrew in aircraft carrier deck landing operations. In 1954, the base became the home of the Royal Navy aircraft engineering training school. In 1971, as my hon. Friend mentioned, the base became the home of 45 Commando and was renamed RM Condor. Today it also houses 7 (Sphinx) Battery, which is part of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, 2 Signal Regiment, 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group, and the Royal Military Police detachment. It is also home to a number of cadet operations, so it is vital for us to encourage recognition and understanding of what our armed forces do, and perhaps to introduce the idea that a career in the armed forces—specifically the marines—is worth pursuing.
Turning to the future, colleagues will be aware of the wider need to rationalise our defence real estate. The Ministry of Defence owns 3% of land across the United Kingdom, much of which is surplus to our requirements. We have conducted a wide-ranging study into what can be utilised, what needs to be continued, what is vital for training, what is needed for the future and what we can dispense with. We are transforming the estate into one that better supports the future needs of our armed forces. We will be investing £4 billion over the next 10 years to create a smaller, more modern and more capability-focused estate.
On our military presence in Angus, I can confirm that there are no plans to dispose of RM Condor as an operational base. As part of our review, we have been investigating how best to ensure that 45 Commando continues to have access to the facilities it requires to live, work and train. We are considering whether there are opportunities to undertake more defence tasks. What more can we add to our military capability in that neck of the woods to ensure we make the most of that important facility?
The MOD is investing not just in Angus but in Scotland as a whole, as other hon. Members have said. Wider afield, we have the Clyde naval base—another location I was pleased to visit not long ago—which will soon be home to all the UK submarines in the submarine centre of specialisation. The first of nine P-8 maritime patrol aircraft will be arriving in Scotland very soon. Boeing and the UK Government are working together to build a new £100 million operational support and training base in RAF Lossiemouth. In essence, Scotland is important to the defence of the United Kingdom—not just our military capability but our procurement. The Type 26 and our offshore patrol vessels are being built in Scotland, too.
Armed Forces Covenant
Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Bob Stewart(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Ellwood
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right. He highlights the fact that there is different modelling around the country. He also touches on something that perhaps I can praise him for: he has bothered to understand what is going on in his patch. I hope that we all can be bothered to do that. All hon. Members should take an interest, because of the varying standards around the country, to go in and ask those questions. We have a role to play in upgrading the standards and maybe copying what is happening in his local authority.
To turn back to NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care, we have written, at national director and permanent secretary levels, to the chairs of all the health and wellbeing boards, reminding them of the need to update their strategic needs and assessments, and to use the latest annual population survey data, which reflects where the armed forces are based. The Local Government Association, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Social Care, collects data on all local authorities that have signed the armed forces covenant. It is critical that they do their duty as well. Based on ongoing use of nationally commissioned services, as well as evidence-based research, NHS England’s transition, intervention and liaison complex mental health treatment services are continually reviewed to ensure that both capacity and capability are in place and services are reconfigured to meet both clinical demand and changes to professional practice—that relates to the point the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) raised earlier.
The mental health complex treatment service was launched in April. It caters to the individual treatment needs of veterans at community level. This is where we need to ensure that veterans are aware of what support is available. This follows on from the introduction of the transition intervention and liaison services last year, completing the tiered approach to veterans’ mental healthcare.
In addition, there is the Veterans Trauma Network, which collects data, numbers, location and intervention types on all patients who access the service. The VTN steering group is working with the veteran patient cohort and researchers to look at the societal impacts of their injuries and interventions to inform planning and delivery reviews of the service. It is complicated to go into the weeds of the support. Sometimes people might get the impression that little is being done, but support is available, and it is so important that veterans are made aware of where that support is.
Turning to local government, I have touched on the role of the armed forces champion. Again, I encourage every single Member here to go to their local authority and ask, “Who is the armed forces champion?” Find out their name and whether their name is on the local authority’s website. Find out what they do. Are they making sure that every single guideline and rule that the council puts forward is through the prism of understanding what impact it will have on our armed forces and our armed forces community? If there is a homeless issue, what is being done, for example, to make sure that the local authority is providing for the vets who may be homeless? Typically, that is the sort of work that the armed forces champion should focus on. The more that we as Members of Parliament ask these questions, the better we will raise the bar overall.
From a housing perspective, I am pleased that earlier this year, the MOD signed a duty—a statutory requirement—with the new Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to refer individuals leaving the military to local authorities, if they are deemed by their local commanding officer to be at risk of homelessness. That is so important. It means that we should not see people who might end up becoming homeless leaving the armed forces with nowhere to go, because their plight will be flagged up as they depart.
On education, it is important to understand again that not just the armed forces, but their families, are affected by moving. If individual personnel are moved from one locality to another and they have children, this will of course have an impact on schooling and other aspects of education. This is disruptive. Any child can end up moving three or four times during their schooling, and that is not good for their education. We cannot have a situation whereby people move to a new locality and find that they do not get their school of choice. In some cases, I found, horrifically, that when special needs school support is required, individual personnel are not being given that support, and this must change.
We are providing research to understand the impact of mobility on the progression of service children. We are also looking at service children’s progression from an alliance practitioner hub perspective to bring together local partners, including schools, colleges, universities, local authorities and charities, to address the specific needs of service children in a local context. In March 2018, the alliance carried out a UK-wide consultation that identified strong common themes. These will help to improve the evidence base to inform the development of our policy, so that we make sure that we can answer these challenging questions of how we disrupt less and less the lives of children seeking education.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
What is my right hon. Friend’s position on the boarding school allowance for service children? That benefits not just officers, but non-commissioned officers and soldiers, who tend to use it increasingly frequently.
Mr Ellwood
All these questions get raised regularly with the Treasury. I know in my time how important this was—I am sure it was in my hon. Friend’s as well—and how important it continues to be as the basis for providing a single locality for individuals, particularly when NCOs and others are deployed abroad, because it provides the stability that they need. I will write to him in more detail, but we continue to debate this regularly with the Treasury. It is something that we recognise absolutely, and I am personally committed to making sure that it continues.
On funding for childcare, I am pleased to say that we have allocated £20 million in the Budget for facilities for service families in 40 locations around the country, and Cyprus is included as well. The English admissions code continues to recognise the mobility of service children and has provisions for them to apply for school places before they move into an area. I add that some individual personnel only have up to four months’ notice of when they move. That is shorter than the period that schools require, so I ask the Department for Education to recognise the unique circumstances that our armed forces face. They do not always have the luxury of giving extended notice of when they might move into an area, and therefore we need to say that these children must not be disadvantaged. Sometimes, they will receive only four months’ notice and the school admission authorities must be aware of the difficulties that they face.
In the financial year 2018-19, nearly £23 million will be allocated to state schools in England through the service pupil premium to benefit over 76,000 current and former service children in over 10,000 primary and secondary schools. I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Defence announced the extension of the education support fund in July 2018. That will be on a limited basis and will consist of £3 million in 2018-19 and £2 million in 2019-20. The educational support fund is open to publicly funded schools, academies and free schools in the UK that are attended by service children whose parents are subject to exceptional mobility or deployment. Applications for local authorities in support of these schools can be accepted.
I know that the area of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder is of concern to many in the House. Any suicide is a tragedy, especially when it is someone who has served our country. However, I make it clear—I know that this is a sensitive issue—that suicide does not occur in isolation. It is usually the most tragic symptom of many other issues, such as mental health issues, family breakdown, debt, unemployment or myriad other problems. It is inaccurate and, indeed, disrespectful and trivialising to link it solely with military service, but I will say that in some cases, military service plays a role, and we need to better understand the causes so that we can act to prevent further potential suicides in future.
We have set up a new suicide prevention working group to urgently look at cases involving such distress in service personnel. It will look at how to address the issues affecting those in such distress now and how to prevent others from feeling the same way. It will look at the triggers in service to ensure that all future veterans have the resilience that they need while serving and after they leave. For existing veterans, we now have, as hon. Members will be aware, a Minister responsible for suicide prevention—the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—who was appointed in October. She is also a member of the ministerial covenant and veterans board and is responsible for addressing this issue.
The Department of Health and Social Care has had a national suicide prevention strategy in place since 2012 that aims to address the causes of suicide for every civilian, not just veterans. However, veterans are identified in the strategy as requiring tailored approaches to meet their mental health needs. This has resulted in NHS England’s veterans’ mental health transition, intervention and liaison service, which has supported hundreds of veterans and their families since its launch in April 2017. This is complemented by the veterans’ mental health complex treatment service that I mentioned, which was launched in April this year to support those with the most complex needs and provide holistic support for the whole person and their family.
This very difficult area is something that I have shared with the “Five Eyes” nations. I brought together veterans Ministers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the UK to compare what we are doing better to improve our support for our service personnel and veterans. We still do not understand this in detail; we still do not understand what drives someone into that dark place. Indeed, in many cases—up to 50%—there is no indication whatsoever that people would actually take their own lives. That is exactly what happened in my own family circumstance: there was no indication that my uncle was going to take his life. It is indeed a complicated scenario for us to address. We must better understand what is going on. We must make sure that we improve our support for veterans, and we must make clear where that help lies.
I have touched on some of the key areas, but let me also highlight the tables at the back of the annual report, on page 118, which give the coding on how well—or not—we are doing.
This is a moving debate. It represents a graduation in our attempts to improve our support for our armed forces and for our veterans as well. When we look at what has happened in the past and the support that was there, I think we can be proud of the direction in which we are going, but I will be the first to say that there is much more to do. Of course, the more we can secure funds—as we do, and we are bidding for more in the next spending review—the more that helps, but if we want to inspire the next generation to think about putting on the uniform, we must ensure that we look after this generation who serve and the last generation who are now retired. The covenant is doing its work, but it must do more.
I look forward to the debate that we are about to have, and I look forward to responding to the issues and concerns that Members will raise. I commend the publication of the seventh armed forces covenant annual report, pursuant to section 2 of the Armed Forces Act 2011.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Bob Stewart(6 years ago)
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Mr Ellwood
When I had the pleasure of attending the Defence Committee, I was able to discuss those matters. I also had the pleasure of visiting Belfast, where the hon. Gentleman will know that I took a look at what support needs to be provided and furthered to deal with the particular situation there. I hope that that will be ongoing, and that the Secretary of State or I can visit in the near future.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
May I ask the Ministry of Defence to give more support to Care After Combat, the excellent charity that goes into prisons and helps people who have been much affected by combat?
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the importance of working with those who are in prison. COBSEO, the confederation that looks after all the armed forces charities, is bringing together clusters of support in the justice sector. I met those charities, and we are seeing what more we can do to provide support for people who are in prison.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Bob Stewart(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Will the Minister assure me that medical records of former personnel are accurately passed to general practitioners? It is a long time ago now, but mine were not, and there was no record of my being badly hurt and spending six months in hospital. My general practitioner was amazed.
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is important that we get these things right. As those who have served in the armed forces depart, we need to make sure that we provide the service that veterans deserve.