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Defence in the United Kingdom

I will respect your request for brevity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and ditch two thirds of my speech so that others may speak. It is a great honour to represent the garrison town of Colchester and I pay tribute to those troops from the Colchester garrison on deployment to Iraq and those who will go to Afghanistan in the near future. I thank the Government for concluding that Colchester should be a super-garrison and for the massive investment in the new garrison. Although I am no fan of the private finance initiative, it is the only game in town and I welcome the spending. However, the problem with the new barracks is that there will be insufficient accommodation for all the soldiers who will be based there. We have heard about recruitment today, but I shall leave that topic to others. Retention is of equal importance. I ask officials to consider the residential accommodation, including married and family quarters, in Colchester and throughout the country, and the consequences of the privatisation by the Conservative Government: the sell-off to Annington Homes. Are the Government satisfied that the efforts to reach the decent homes standard, or the MOD equivalent, are proceeding with sufficient speed? The information that I am getting suggests that there is a lot to be done, and the time scale is such that families are having to put up with conditions that are not conducive to people remaining in the Army. Another concern is schools, which are technically part of the local education authority and are not funded by the MOD. That said, the MOD has an interest and a role. In June 2003, the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills, now the Home Secretary, visited Colchester and told the Army schools that they would get more money. I followed that up with written questions and the then Minister for School Standards, who has since been promoted, said that there would be no extra Government money for the Army schools. He said:"““There is no need for specific or additional funding from central Government for such schools.””—[Official Report, 23 June 2003; Vol. 407, c. 558W.]" That is not the considered view of those dealing with children from Army families who face the turbulence of their father, and sometimes their mother, leaving the scene, perhaps for months at a time. I ask the Under-Secretary and the MOD to see what they can do to assist with the education provision, particularly as the Home Secretary promised additional resources. A previous speaker mentioned the difficulties faced by non-British citizens in the British Army who wish to become British citizens. A separate issue is those non-British citizens who are required by the Home Office to return to their country of origin when their leave to remain in the UK has expired. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary because I had a useful meeting with him last week and hope that those two difficulties will be resolved in the not-too-distant future. I endorse all the points made about the important role played by the Territorial Army in the life of the British Army today, both at home and overseas. Will the Under-Secretary confirm that there will soon be a statement about the future Army structure? Is he satisfied that if, as I believe, it is to result in a greater Territorial Army presence in many parts of the country, not least in the garrison town of Colchester, the current TA accommodation in my constituency is sufficient for the growth that I believe will be proposed and which will be warmly welcomed?