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Defence in the UK

To follow on from the point made by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), it is always a pleasure to take part in these debates, but it is a pity that there are not more Members here from constituencies that do not have a military footprint. Their presence would be one way of ensuring wider knowledge of the issues that we debate. I want to talk about some procurement and welfare issues and to conclude with some points about the naval base review. I start by noting, on a strategic level, the publication by the Cabinet Office on 27 March of its capability review of the Ministry of Defence. As well as outlining the areas where significant improvements can be made, I want to note where it recognises the many strengths and successes of the MOD. The capability review says that the MOD is highly regarded both domestically and abroad. I do not think that that will be news to many in the Chamber, but the review says that the Defence Management Board has not always clearly articulated how this links to strategy and delivery. The report recommends that the board take a"““stronger corporate role in directing strategy, developing and allocating resources.?" The review also notes that the Department has made significant progress towards the creation of an integrated MOD by joining up work among the three armed services and civilian staff and that it is very much open to change. However, it also says that the DMB needs to articulate how to link the vision of the Department with strategy and delivery. It needs to create a ““corporate narrative? that will unify Department purposes and give clarity to its missions. The report recognises that a vision has been set out in the strategic defence review and the 2003 White Paper on defence strategic guidance and the defence industrial strategy, which provide help in carrying out this vision. However, more needs to be done. Although the MOD has been very focused and successful in delivering short-term outcomes, the review says that that is sometimes at the expense of its long-term planning. While planning and resource allocation, as well as processes to inform decision making, are in place, there is a lack of clarity around roles, accountability and authority. It draws attention to the way in which approvals and decision making are often multi-layered and tend to get mired in paperwork. The Department’s intensity and focus on short-term tasks inevitably impacts on the time available to consider, and deliver on, the longer-term issues. The capability review concludes that the permanent secretary has already recognised the need to drive through a series of changes designed to achieve improved MOD efficiency, as well as effectiveness. It identifies three key areas for action that will complement his programme of reform and help to achieve the step change in departmental capability which he seeks and which he has outlined to the Defence Committee in his appearances before us. The recipe that the review lays out includes a review of leadership behaviours, governance and accountability. It says that the Defence Management Board must become a more corporate body and find ways of communicating as one voice. It needs to promote the defence agenda more effectively—an aspect that has featured in several debates in the House—and has a role to play in engaging with other Departments to promote a wider understanding of defence and the wider context in which the operations that we often debate take place. It should market its work and build upon its strengths in analytics and operational research. It also needs to build human capacity, and the report outlines how it might better do that. As a member of the Defence Committee, I look forward to seeing the fruits of the change programme in delivering better support—perhaps, in the light of the compliments paid by our report, I should say even better support—to those working in logistics, in procurement and in theatre. It is of course the role of the Committee to scrutinise delivery in all those areas. In the debate in February, I spoke about the range of inquiries in which we have been involved. We have before us several interesting areas for scrutiny, including health, defence estates and strategic lift, as well as visits and inquiries into deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hope that there will be plenty of opportunity to debate the findings of those inquiries. Although the Committee is careful to praise the Department when praise is due, it is of course looking for areas that need to be put right or improved. Media and parliamentary interest in our reports naturally tends to focus on those aspects. I want to use the time that I have today to reflect on some of the advances made in matters that have been of concern to members of the Committee and, given the importance of defence to our constituents, to many Members on both sides of the House who do not serve on the Committee. The first topic that I want to examine is that of health services. We will be carrying out an inquiry on that, but I have briefed myself on where things stand at the moment, and the latest information that I have to hand deals with some of the matters that have been raised in the debate. Personnel returning from operations for treatment in the UK usually go to University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation trust, which is one of the country’s top performers and home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. On average, the number of military in-patients—this is relevant to the question of how to achieve an all-military treatment centre for returning officers in NHS hospitals throughout the UK—totals about 60 to 75 personnel: not a very great number. Last year, the Government announced a multi-million-pound package of benefits for injured service people and their families, including community psychiatric and nursing support. That was criticised earlier. Nevertheless, the value of the contract with the Priory Group for in-patient psychiatric services is some £4 million per annum; and 15 military community mental health departments have been established across the UK so that such services can be delivered to personnel near to their home, unit or base. I hope that that has been mentioned as an important part of the support to our returning service personnel and that we will include it in our forthcoming Select Committee inquiry. Whenever practical, military patients in Birmingham are allocated to one of the 12 military consultants co-located at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, and the Government have introduced improved travel and accommodation arrangements for families who visit patients at Selly Oak. The military-managed ward was mentioned earlier, and I understand that it has reached initial operating capability. It is based in a trauma and orthopaedics ward, where a significant proportion of military patients are treated. Since August, the Government have more than doubled the number of military nurses on the military-managed ward at Selly Oak and, by the end of the month, there will be 26 military nurses and health care assistants—up from 12 last August. By the summer, the number will have increased again. That advance is reflected in the words of the Chief of the General Staff in March. He puts it better—and perhaps more credibly—than any of us might. He said:"““I spent most of yesterday at Selly Oak on a planned visit as I go fairly regularly to see the progress that we’re making. There are two bays, six bed bays substantially filled with soldiers, they are now together, they are bantering as soldiers like to do and they are getting better because they are together. Six months ago that was not the case.""I and others raised that to people’s attention, it’s been changed and quite shortly it will be going a little bit further than that and the end of the ward where most of the military patients are will be partitioned substantially off. There’ll be 14 beds predominantly available for military people. There was an issue, we have responded to it, it is getting better, and it’s really ""important that that message goes across because it affects potentially morale of the soldiers on the front line, it affects potentially morale of medical staff and critically it also potentially affects the morale of the civilian National Health staff at Selly Oak who I desperately need to do what they do to make our soldiers better.?" There is a message in that quote to us, which is that we need to be careful about the way in which we raise such issues and that we must debate them constructively. We also need to keep up to date with what is going on and progress on the matter that I have just considered is only one example of the problems that the Secretary of State and his team are effectively tackling. Looking forward to another review, I acquainted myself with the scale of the Ministry of Defence’s contribution to providing property through the Defence Estates agency. I realise that the Ministry is Britain’s largest property manager, maintaining and upgrading 49,000 houses and 150,000 single-bed living spaces, spread over dozens of sites in 16 countries from the Falklands to Germany. That presents a huge challenge. In 2005-06, the Ministry spent some £700 million on housing and other living accommodation. In some areas, it appears to be exceeding its improvement targets, as I said in an intervention. For 2006-07, I understand that good progress is being made against the target to upgrade more than 1,200 service family houses. The Ministry will spend £5 billion in the next decade on housing and other living accommodation, with plans for a further 35,000 improved bed spaces in barracks and to continue to improve approximately 1,000 service family properties a year. Defence Committee members will examine the value for money that Defence Estates provides. Armed forces personnel and their families deserve decent accommodation as well as the other decent services to which hon. Members have referred. The widely reported problems must be tackled. That is a top priority and it must continue to be one. That is why the Defence Committee has made accommodation one of its top priorities. The Government are improving our support to service personnel who wish to buy property. We heard about the difficulties of accessing education and health services. As service personnel leave the armed forces, they often experience difficulty in getting on to council housing lists. Several hon. Members and I have signed an early-day motion on that subject. However, the answer to the problem is often to assist service personnel who wish to buy their own property. There is an ongoing programme of work with the Department for Communities and Local Government and private companies to give personnel access to shared ownership and joint equity housing schemes: for example, through participation in the key worker living programme. The issue of helicopters has preoccupied the Defence Committee in a number of its inquiries. As I understand the current situation, commanders on the ground have said that they now have enough helicopters to do what they need to do. During his recent visit to theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, the Secretary of State for Defence decided to provide more helicopters and increased flexibility. Perhaps because that is good news, it has not received the heightened press coverage that some other issues have had recently. I certainly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement last month that 14 additional helicopters will be made available for military operations over the next couple of years. I understand that the MOD is buying six new Merlin helicopters, which will be available within a year, and converting the eight existing Chinook mark 3 helicopters to make them available for deployment in theatre in two years. The complete package represents an investment of about £230 million. The Chinook mark 3 helicopters were ordered under the previous Conservative Government in 1995, and delivered in 2001. Since then, they have been unavailable, due to well reported technical problems. The Secretary of State has decided that, given the high priority attached to supporting current operations, and the many representations that he has received from across the House, the best solution is to convert those helicopters to a battlefield support role and get them into theatre for use. The Defence Committee continually urges our NATO partners to do more—a subject on which the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who is just about in his place, engaged in lively debate earlier. The Committee is, of course, conducting an inquiry into NATO and its future, and sometimes—particularly when the Committee is devoting resources to the question—it is worth waiting for the outcome of such inquiries before shooting from the hip on certain issues. Vehicles have been of great concern over the past year. Again, the Secretary of State has ensured that such requirements are attended to with the urgency that they deserve. Last summer, he implemented a rapid review of our protected patrol vehicles, after concerns were expressed that they were not suitable to withstand improvised explosive devices at roadsides. In July, after only a month, he announced a range of new or accelerated vehicle programmes to meet the evolving threat. Those vehicles are now in theatre. In Iraq, the UK forces in Basra are equipped with a mix of Warrior armoured infantry fighting vehicles, the Bulldog and the Mastiff, as well as retaining some of the Snatch Land Rovers that were the subject of such controversy but remain suited to tasks due to their manoeuvrability and low profile.