First, let me pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) who served time on the Treasury Bench for the Department. They will be greatly missed, and I thank them for their effort and passion. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham will continue to hold the Department to account on women in the armed forces. Her report is incredibly important.
I wish to announce to the House the decision to accelerate the procurement of the Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship. In the face of an illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s reckless disregard for international arrangements designed to keep world order, it is right that we prioritise delivering capabilities that safeguard our national infrastructure. It is clear that effectively to address the current and future threats, we will now invest in MROSS ships that protect sensitive defence and civil infrastructure to improve our ability to detect threats to the seabed and to cables. I have also therefore directed the termination of the national flagship competition with immediate effect to bring forward the first MROSS in its place. I shall make further announcements on our continued naval investment in the coming weeks.
Our whistleblower has alleged that staff from HM Naval Base Clyde were recently moved from building 201 in Coulport, where warheads are managed, to building 41 elsewhere, due to a serious radiation breach. Can the Minister advise me about the following? How many such events have been registered in the past three years? How many such incidents have been reported to the public? If he cannot do so, can he please set out why the people of Scotland, who are overwhelmingly opposed to weapons of mass destruction, are ignored by the Westminster parties, including his?
The hon. Member has read out a list of claims. I will be happy to write to him to answer those claims. I suspect the people of Scotland are now rather thankful they have a nuclear deterrent, in the face of a very provocative Putin.
T2. I recently met Help for Heroes, and we spoke about the routine health assessment at the point of military discharge. Is there more that can be done at this point to pick up on mental health issues? It is a defining moment.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. Help for Heroes is one of our key charities, which I visited a while back in its premises near Salisbury, and I plan to meet it again very soon. It is now mandatory for all armed forces personnel leaving the services to have a structured mental health assessment at their discharge medical examination. I am pleased to say that that will highlight any unknown mental health needs and enable signposting and referral where necessary, and my hon. Friend will of course be aware of Operation Courage within the national health service.
I welcome the Defence Secretary’s news that the vanity project of the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—the flagship—will be scrapped, and the spending switched to purposes that will help defend the country. Ahead of the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the Defence Secretary told the Select Committee last week
“I need money to protect me from inflation”,
yet in the current spending settlement, Defence is the only Department with a real-terms cut in its revenue budget. Why did he ever agree to that?
First, on that particular question, the right hon. Gentleman will know that when I got my defence review—a year earlier than everyone else in the spending review—the figure for GDP inflation used by the Treasury was different from that used now. He will be aware that inflation has gone up since the basis of that calculation was made, which is why I said at the Select Committee that I would like to be insulated from that inflation. I will have my discussions with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister this week, and then we will see where we get to.
When the Secretary of State agreed that budget, it was a £1.7 billion real-terms cut in the revenue budget. Now, he says that inflationary pressures on his budget for the next two years are about £8 billion. How much does Defence actually need from the Chancellor on the 17th to plug this budget black hole that has opened up on the Secretary of State’s watch?
First, I do not agree with the premise that I agreed to a £1.6 billion reduction of the resource departmental expenditure limit. At the time, it would have reduced in the fourth year of its profile—it was a four-year profile, if the right hon. Gentleman remembers—but after a £24 billion increase, which is nothing that the Labour party has ever committed to. It would have shown a reduction in the last year, yes, but a real-terms freeze. However, inflation is significantly higher than it was all those years ago, and that is why I am going to see the Treasury, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to see what I can get to make sure we protect our armed forces and our current plans from inflation.
T3. The recently announced defence accommodation strategy is worth £1.6 billion of investment, which will bring better facilities for our servicemen and women. Equally, it will create thousands of jobs across the United Kingdom. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, notwithstanding the budget pressures, the strategy will still be proceeded with?
I am exceptionally grateful to my hon. Friend, who takes a close interest in these matters. Having spent four decades occupying pretty shoddy accommodation across the defence estate, it gives me great pleasure to say that the new strategy will definitely improve the quality of life of our personnel. The defence accommodation strategy commits to increasing the quality of homes, plus a fairer allocation process, and that will be game-changing. A safe, comfortable home is paramount to people’s wellbeing, and these improvements will directly increase the quality of life for servicepeople.
T6. The scandal of the state of military accommodation continues with almost a third of UK military homes needing repair. Contracts worth £650 million were let six months ago to resolve that, but they have not worked. When will the Government bring these outsourced companies into line and repair the homes that our servicepeople are living in?
What is more important to servicepeople is the quality of homes that they occupy, rather than who runs them. I have to say that the value of the future defence infrastructure services contract is £2.9 billion, and that is just the core contract. That will sustain jobs across the UK and will most definitely improve the quality of the housing that members of our service community occupy. I hope that will come as some comfort to the hon. Member, because it represents a significant investment indeed.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
T4. Will the Secretary of State please join me in thanking the 3,500 NATO troops, many of them British, who took part in Exercise Iron Wolf II in Lithuania to defend our democratic freedoms against hostile foreign powers? Does he agree that the United Kingdom’s future defence is best served by our continuing partnership with our NATO allies?
The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I join him in congratulating all the UK troops and those from countries throughout NATO who participated in Exercise Iron Wolf in Lithuania. It has been fantastic to see over the past few months how much British soldiers, sailors and aviators are enjoying being part of the NATO alliance and getting to know those from other NATO countries. That alliance remains the cornerstone of UK and European security.
T7. What progress has been made to replicate the new method used by the Office for National Statistics for recording and reporting cases of suicide in the veteran community in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
I am glad the hon. Lady raised this issue. She will be aware that the ONS has worked closely with the Office for Veterans’ Affairs so that for the first time we can record the number of servicepeople who have committed suicide. Her question gives me an opportunity to say that, although we are incredibly concerned about anybody who ends up in such a tragic situation—really, we are—it would be wrong to say that the statistics we currently have available suggest that the service population is particularly at risk. There may, though, be some granularity within that, which I am keen to explore.