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Defence in the UK

It is a great pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Defence Committee. I join others in welcoming the two new Ministers to the Front Bench, more of whom later in my contribution—all good, I can assure them. I want first briefly to cover three issues, then I want to talk about the opportunities for Shropshire, and Telford in particular, to emerge as a key defence hub in the UK. I note that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) is in his place. He will probably agree with pretty much everything that I have to say, but we shall see as we proceed. However, I know that we both want to see Telford and Shropshire flourishing as they make their contribution to UK defence. I want to begin, however, by echoing the tributes that other Members have paid to our armed forces in these difficult times. The people of our armed forces are simply remarkable, and they deserve our thanks. Shropshire people have a particular connection with 1st Battalion, the Royal Irish Regiment, which has barracks at Tern Hill. The regiment has done difficult work in all the major conflict zones around the world in recent years, and the county is paying tribute to its members as they return home at the moment. In fact, they arrived home yesterday. I understand that there is to be a march past in Shrewsbury next Thursday. Unfortunately, I shall not be able to be there, so I want to use this opportunity in the House to pay tribute to them for the work that they have been doing in Afghanistan. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in doing that. Many people from Telford are serving in conflict zones across the world, in the armed forces and in the support services, and I want to place on record my thanks to them as well. The first substantive point that I want to make is on the theme of renewing the connection between our forces and the communities that they serve. I know that the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), has been doing some work on this matter. I particularly want to make the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), smile. I did the armed forces scheme with him; we did a stint with the Royal Marines. He says that I say what I am about to say in every defence debate; I do not want to disappoint him. He knows what is coming. I really believe that people used to feel connected with the armed forces when regiments or warships bore the names of specific towns or counties. We are now losing that linkage, and we ought to look into reinstating some of those connections. It would be great, for example, if we had an HMS Shropshire or an HMS Telford. The last HMS Shropshire was launched in 1928. She served in the south Atlantic, and was passed over to the Australian Navy in 1942. She was in Tokyo bay when the Japanese surrendered. We should have another HMS Shropshire, an HMS Telford and, perhaps, an HMS Wrekin. We need to renew those connections between our forces and our communities. I should also like to call on Telford and Wrekin council to review what it is doing about offering freedom of the borough status to regiments that are present in the county. This applies not only to the regular forces but to the Territorials who are based in our towns and communities. I hope that the council will look positively at that proposal in the coming weeks. My second point is to say how much positive feedback I have had about the veterans' badges, which have not been mentioned yet today, and about the badges that recognise the contributions made by the Land Army and the Timber Corps. In Telford, the Royal British Legion and I have been promoting those badges hard, and we have held a number of presentation events at the Dawley Royal British Legion club. Albert Colley and the team there have been working with me to encourage take-up of the badges. I would also particularly like to thank Richard Overton, who works in my office, for his work in helping people with their applications. His reputation is spreading across the country; he gets calls from right across the UK because people know that my office is promoting the veterans' badges and the badges that recognise the contributions made by the Land Army and the Timber Corps. The British Legion has some excellent active branches in Telford, and it is always a pleasure to work with them. I have been having a dialogue with them for some time about the military covenant, and I welcome the comments that I have heard today from the director-general about the covenant being brought back into balance. While I am on the theme of recognition for service, I want to take up my third point, and to press the minister on the campaign, which he will know well, for an award for those who have been injured or killed on active service. I have always thought that the medal system in this country was very good, because it does not make it easy to win an award. However, I think that we need to look at the system and at how we recognise people who have been injured or killed on active service. This is not about whether people do or do not support the principles behind a particular military operation and it is nothing to do with the politics of conflict. It is about recognising sacrifice. It would be helpful if the Minister said whether, in his new role, he will pursue the issue of whether a medal can be awarded to service personnel who are injured, or indeed whether an award can be made to their families if they are killed in action. I want to move on to develop the main theme of my speech, which relates to the opportunity to create a strong and long-term defence hub in the town of Telford. We have a long tradition in the town of supporting our forces, largely focused on civilian staff working for the Ministry of Defence. In recent years, I have worked with the trade unions to protect jobs and we have had some notable successes. We campaigned to keep the Army Base Repair Organisation located at Donnington, in the Wrekin constituency, and the MOD recognised that the specialist staff there provide a flexible, responsive and cost-effective service in repairing and modifying armoured vehicles, and in developing new solutions for the protection of our front-line troops. Alongside that, I campaigned with the unions to keep defence equipment support staff based at Sapphire house in my constituency. The Government—wisely, in my view—changed their mind and decided not to move those posts down to the Bath and Bristol area. They ultimately moved to merge the operation with ABRO to create the new Defence Support Group. I acknowledge that there have been some job losses in that process—about 100 will be gone by March next year—but thankfully most of the losses have been handled through voluntary redundancy, which is better than losing the jobs altogether and their moving out of the town. With the merger of those two significant organisations, there is a genuine opportunity for us to develop an exciting defence support initiative in Shropshire. I understand that a capacity and capability review is under way in the new organisation. Here are a few suggestions for consideration as part of it. First, we should build on the recognised local skills base and develop Telford as a defence hub for the UK. Secondly, we should develop in-house skills and—I stress this point—partner with industry. We should not outsource as a matter of course through the industrial strategy. The existing teams work hard and provide the flexibility that we need to respond to the operational environment that we are encountering at the moment. There is an increased tempo as we have to repair armoured vehicles, get them back out on the road and on active service. That is important and we need to ensure that we preserve the skills that we have at ABRO. Thirdly, we must ensure that arrangements with BAE Systems and others are structured to deliver that partnership. I stress the word ““partnership””. Let us ensure that we procure the product that we need and that we are not led down routes specified by external organisations. At the start of the process, let us dictate very clearly what we want. Fourthly, we need to evaluate the added value that existing staff bring to the table and ensure that we retain that good will. Sometimes, I do not think that we evaluate carefully enough contributions that people make that are not necessarily clearly defined on a cost-benefit sheet. Sometimes, monetary value cannot be put on service and loyalty provided by civilian MOD staff. I do not want us to lose those things, and we have them now in Telford. Alongside the Defence Support Group, we have the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency—jobs that were won in a competitive environment some two and a half years ago. Cost savings have been made and the operation runs extremely effectively. I think that Ministers can see that we have a real opportunity in Telford to ensure that we have an effective defence hub looking at procurement, repair, supply and provision. It is an exciting opportunity that we should not waste. At the beginning of the debate, the hon. Member for The Wrekin rightly pressed the Minister on the defence training review. I want to conclude on this point, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me. Many of us in the west midlands did not agree with the decision to move defence training down to St. Athan. We want some clarity now on the delivery of the scheme. When the announcement was made, there was a commitment to some continuing training facilities within Shropshire. We want to know that that remains so. We also heard about the relocation of 1 Signal Brigade and 102 Logistics Brigade under the Barona programme. We understand that those units will be relocated to Cosford. The programme has been delayed around St. Athan, and we need some clarity. We do not want to be in the worst of all worlds, whereby a Government decision about Cosford is delayed, and we find out that the Barona programme does not fit with the time frame for establishing St. Athan. In that scenario, we lose defence jobs from Cosford to St. Athan, and we take so long to make the decision that units are not transferred back to the Cosford site. We must make sure that such decisions are taken quickly and effectively. I would welcome a further update from Ministers on behalf of my constituents who work at Cosford about what is happening on St. Athan. That statement might not be today, but in the coming weeks. However, it is important to nail down the programme effectively, so that Shropshire emerges as a place where we have a long-term commitment to the UK's defence.