Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

With permission, I will update the House on Defence support in the national covid response. As hon. Members are aware, I committed to updating Parliament on our efforts, and the Ministry of Defence has been submitting weekly updates on the work to assist our outstanding NHS and colleagues from across government as we fight back against this awful virus. We might not be on the frontline of this particular fight, but we are with them in the trenches—and, since late last year, in increasing numbers. In fact, Defence’s contribution to the covid response now represents the most significant domestic resilience operation in peacetime, with more personnel committed on UK resilience tasks today than at any time since the start of the pandemic. That is why it is important to now make a statement to the House detailing the breadth and complexity of those activities.

It is worth considering some statistics on what has been provided thus far. Since last January, Standing Joint Command has received some 485 military assistance to civilian authority requests—MACAs—some 400 of which are related to our domestic covid response. That is more than three times the average annual number. We currently have 56 ongoing tasks in support of 13 other Government Departments, with 4,670 personnel committed and almost 10,000 more held at high readiness, available to rapidly respond to any increase in demand.

As is well known, the UK armed forces have helped build Nightingale hospitals around the country and have distributed vital personal protective equipment, delivering more than 6 million items to hospitals and clocking up enough miles to circumnavigate the world 10 times. Personnel from all three services have backfilled oxygen tanker drivers, Welsh ambulance drivers and NHS hospital staff such as those deployed to Essex trusts this week. They have helped care assistants shoulder the burden in care homes and assisted testing programmes in schools and the wider community.

During Christmas, when the new variant of covid disrupted the border crossings, the military stepped up. While most of us were settling down for our festive dinner and break, the military were working with the Department for Transport to test hauliers crossing the English channel and clear the backlog. Approximately 40,000 tests have been conducted in that operation.

At all times, our people have shown themselves to be fleet of foot, switching tasks as the occasion has demanded. While relatively small in scale, they have always had a catalytic effect. Our involvement in testing is a case in point. We deployed personnel to the city of Liverpool to support the first whole-town community mass testing pilot. The lessons learned along the way are now being applied in testing across the country, from Medway in Kent to Merthyr Tydfil, Kirklees, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. Only recently, I authorised the deployment of 800 personnel in Greater Manchester. Yesterday they began focused community testing.

The country is of course eager to see the roll-out of the largest vaccination programme in British history and the NHS is delivering vaccines to those who need it them at unprecedented speed. Defence’s contribution has once again been primarily through planning support provided by Defence logisticians applying their expertise in building supply chains at speed in complex environments. As Brigadier Phil Prosser, Commander 101 Logistic Brigade, said in the No. 10 press conference last week, this operation is

“unparalleled in its scale and complexity”.

As that operation has shifted from planning to execution and is now focusing on rapidly scaling up, Defence has been preparing to adapt its support to the NHS. Not only have we sent additional military planners to assist expansion, including in the devolved Administrations, but, following a request from the Department of Health and Social Care, we have established a vaccine quick reaction force of medically trained personnel who are assigned to the seven NHS England regions. They can be deployed at short notice in the event of any disruptions to the established vaccination process and can be scaled up, if required, by any of the national health services across the United Kingdom.

Throughout the pandemic, understanding the requirement has been Defence’s priority, in order to tailor-make the most appropriate support. That is why we have sent 10 military assessment teams to each of the 10 NHS regions and devolved Administrations. They are helping to assess the situation on the ground before formulating and co-ordinating the most effective response. For example, we currently have experts working at the newly reopened NHS London Nightingale, a hospital and mass vaccination facility that will help the capital handle covid-19’s second wave.

Defence’s efforts have often been very visible, such as providing critical support to our overseas territories. Just last weekend, the Royal Air Force delivered more than 5,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to British citizens in Gibraltar. We should not neglect our armed forces that are less visible, because their contribution is no less important.

Our planners are now embedded in local authorities, working alongside the regional liaison officers, providing critical command and control and logistics support. They know how to deal with deadly diseases such as Ebola and how to stay calm under pressure. Those cool heads have been pivotal, not just in co-ordinating efforts, but in assessing how and where defence personnel can deliver the best response.

I have mentioned the personnel we have deployed or that are held at high readiness, but the real number helping the nation to combat the coronavirus is far greater. We have in excess of 5,000 armed forces personnel and civilian staff supporting the covid response from behind the scenes, as part of their routine duties. Today, I want to pay tribute to those men and women. They include the hundreds of personnel in Defence headquarters responsible for co-ordinating the covid support force. Among them are 100 staff of the MOD’s winter operations cell, a similar number working on covid planning at Standing Joint Command, and 100 more facilitating covid operations as part of their regular jobs in the joint military commands. From the Defence Medical Services, we must not forget that we have more than 1,600 consultants, clinicians, nurses and trainees fully embedded in the NHS all over the United Kingdom and, as ever, they are working alongside their civilian counterparts, some of whom are also military reservists. At our globally renowned Defence Science and Technology Laboratory—DSTL—there are 180 scientists and technicians working across 30 different covid-related projects, supporting the Government’s scientific understanding. Meanwhile, our expert analysts in Defence Intelligence have studied how covid-19 spreads, and our procurement specialists have been busily supporting the acquisition of unprecedented quantities of personal protective equipment.

This has been a truly national and whole-force response, uniting regulars and reservists, soldiers and academics, sailors and civil servants, some of whom the Prime Minister met yesterday when visiting the Ashton Gate mass vaccination centre in Bristol. Yet, even as we respond to the pandemic, we must maintain our day job of guarding the nation from dangers at home and abroad. Despite the virus, troops continue to manage wider winter tasks such as flood protection, counter-terrorism and the EU transition. We have maintained our momentum in operations critical to security, whether striking terrorists in Iraq, deterring Russian aggression in the Baltics, supporting UN peacekeeping in Mali or maintaining our continuous at-sea deterrent. It goes without saying that the safety and welfare of our people is paramount. I can reassure the House that we have rigorous and robust measures in place to protect our personnel and to reduce risk to themselves and their families while carrying out their duties.

Let me assure the House that our armed forces remain resilient and ready to support the NHS and colleagues across all Government Departments. Now as ever, come what may, they stand ready to do their duty—however, wherever and whenever they are needed. I know that some colleagues are keen to see the armed forces take a more leading role, but I should make it clear that our constitution quite rightly ensures that our military responds to civilian requests for assistance. They act in support of the civilian authorities, but are always ready to consider what more they can do to provide that support. Together, we will do our bit to beat this deadly disease and help our nation get back to normality.

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

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

“the most significant domestic operation in peacetime”,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order. We have one hour put aside for this statement, which I can extend slightly, but not by too much, so I ask colleagues to ask brief, succinct questions and to provide fairly brief answers.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that I have not always been uncritical of the test and trace process, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Yesterday, a member of my team had occasion to take a covid-19 test at the Birchington-on-Sea village centre in North Thanet. That centre was staffed by soldiers of the Gurkha regiment. Those attending report that their conduct was exemplary, they were courteous, patient and efficient, and the test results were recorded in short order. Will my right hon. Friend convey my thanks on behalf of my constituents to Brigadier Phil Prosser for all the work that these and thousands of men and women in the armed forces like them are doing in the war against the pandemic?

My right hon. Friend is very kind to say what he said about the efforts in Kent. We have 360 personnel supporting Kent County Council with lateral flow testing, and he will have seen that considerable number in the problems over Christmas. I will pass on his thanks to Brigadier Prosser, but of course, Brigadier Prosser is the lead on the vaccine. We have a number of other senior military personnel leading in different areas, including test and trace and building NHS capacity; Brigadier Lizzie Faithfull-Davies is the lady in charge of the military response on that. What is amazing is that these military personnel joined to be soldiers and to be Navy, and they do what they are doing today with the same professionalism and enthusiasm as they would do their day job. That is a tribute to the training and the quality of personnel, including, of course, the Gurkha regiment to which my right hon. Friend refers.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. It was only right that he took the time to outline all those within the defence community, whether on the frontline or not, who are working so hard and so professionally to get us through the pandemic. On behalf of my party, I thank each and every one of them for the work that they have done. Because of their professionalism and the way in which they have carried out their job, the Secretary of State comes to the House with a good story to tell today.

I want to press the Secretary of State on two issues, starting with vaccinations. Could he adumbrate exactly where those in defence who are working on covid stand in the queue for receiving vaccinations? Can he give us an idea of how many have been vaccinated so far?

My second question is much broader, and it concerns the issue of resilience, which the Secretary of State knows I am keen on. If we are to do resilience properly, it cannot just be the preserve of the Ministry of Defence; I know he understands that. Can he tell us how the pandemic and the lessons from it as far as resilience is concerned will be reflected in the integrated review? If he can go one further and tell us when that might be published, I will even buy him a dram when we are next allowed to.

I think I should go for the easy one: the current target date for the IR is the first two weeks of February, so we will go for a half on that. None of our defence personnel has received a vaccination; they are not in priority groups one to four. However, we are, as we speak, working out which key cohorts should be vaccinated in order to preserve and underline the nation’s defence. Obviously, they will get priority, but I expect it to be a small group at first, because protecting priority groups one to four is important.

In terms of resilience, one of the lessons is on reserves. The Scottish Government are empowered to create an NHS reserve if they wish to. That will be one of the lessons that we will draw in England and Wales. We use military reserves, but other Departments may start considering that as well, for those people who want to contribute to the reserve and the resilience of the nation. I am sure that the Scottish Government, under the devolved powers, are entitled to look at that, and I would definitely recommend it.

For the hon. Gentleman’s peace of mind, there are currently three personnel working in airlift—CASEVAC —in the Scottish Ambulance Service, 32 planners in the region to support community testing and vaccination deployment, and 25 planners in the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland helping work through those problems. Of course, we stand ready for more. If more is requested through the Scottish Government, we stand ready to provide that assistance, to make sure that the whole of the British Isles and the United Kingdom get through this issue.

First, let me join the Secretary of State in thanking all the military personnel involved, in every way, for all they have done in this national effort. They are always ready to step up to the mark. Will he also acknowledge the huge contribution being made by St John Ambulance, which is training up to 30,000 volunteers, to the highest standard, to be vaccinators? Will he ensure that military planners and those on the ground work hand in hand with St John Ambulance, the Red Cross and the Royal Voluntary Service to maximise the contribution they can make?

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Volunteers need managing, and although St John Ambulance is a disciplined uniform service, the huge member of people being recruited to volunteer will need managing. That is certainly one of the areas where we think the military can assist the NHS, in terms of how we manage lots of volunteers to deliver at a productive and efficient rate things such as the vaccine. That is where we will find the military working hand in hand with others. It is another example of this not being just about the frontline or the front trench; often the skill we can bring is in looking after 200,000 or 50,000 volunteers and making sure they are used correctly, in the right part of the system. St John Ambulance will be able to deliver a very efficient group of volunteers, because that is its business and we look forward to working with it.

May I, too, express my sincere thanks to our United Kingdom armed forces for all that they have done? My vast and faraway constituency presents special challenges: the remoteness of where people live; an ageing population, which is statistically rather different from that of the rest of the UK; and the distance people might have to travel from far corners of my constituency to Inverness or Wick to be vaccinated. I hope that the quick reaction teams the Secretary of State refers to will be involved in helping my constituents to be vaccinated. Will he remind the Scottish Government that they are there to help and that, working together, we can give my constituents the security they need?

The hon. Gentleman knows that I know his part of the world very well, having represented Aberdeenshire, in North East Scotland, in the Scottish Parliament with him 21 years ago. He reminded me of that the other day—I had hair then! This is why at the beginning of this we deployed helicopters up to Kinloss to make sure we look after the highlands and islands, and we stand ready to do that. Notwithstanding the fact that we have planners in the Scottish Government to help, we have not received a MACA request for the use of some of these quick reaction vaccine teams, but they are there for the taking if they are asked for; I am happy to support and sign off any such request. Obviously, some of the vaccine is coming from abroad and we need to distribute it to the fingertips of the UK.

Order. I wish to remind Members that we are halfway through the allocated time and we have got through only five people. May I therefore press colleagues to ask short, concise questions?

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his Department is working with the Department for Education to ensure that schools that must remain open, especially those in Rother Valley, have the support, guidance and materials they need to offer rapid testing to their staff and students over the coming weeks?

Yes. Although we had originally earmarked 1,500, we have scaled that down to 750 personnel ready to assist schools. Currently, we have deployed 84 to assist 52 schools and colleges, and they stand by all over Wales and England if that help is needed. If the Welsh Government request that support, we will be able to both provide support physically and help online to make sure that the staff can deliver the lateral flow testing.

It is tremendous to hear that the armed forces are playing their part in the roll-out of the vaccine across Great Britain and we thank them for that. However, the one part of the United Kingdom that seems to be proceeding without the same level of military assistance is Northern Ireland. If this continues to be the case, we will be missing the opportunity to alleviate critical pressures on hospitals, to speed up the roll-out of the vaccine and to lift the burden on GP services to both roll out the vaccine and keep general practice services functioning at the same time. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the MOD is ready and willing to accede to any request for support from the Northern Ireland Executive and whether such a request has been made by the Health Minister for Northern Ireland?