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Defence in the UK

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is never a good thing to put all the eggs in one basket. On Operation Borona and troops coming home from Germany, the Government's emerging thinking about the so-called super-garrison, at least in the west midlands area, is not to try to shoehorn thousands of extra troops into one base, but to provide a range of places within a locality. In the west midlands, for example, the potential sites for those soldiers include MOD Stafford, Cosford and Shrewsbury. As will become clear a little later, the base in Stafford is not remote and is part of the town. One reason why soldiers have found the civilian population so welcoming is that soldiers and civilians live cheek by jowl in the town. Will the Minister say a little about the emerging thinking on venues in the west midlands for troops returning from Germany under Operation Borona and about the present thinking on Cosford, Shrewsbury and Stafford? My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith), who represents St. Athan, discussed the location there of much of the defence training college work on engineering and technical services. I understand that that includes moving training from Cosford to St. Athan and that, at one time, the thinking was that Cosford would therefore become available to provide some of the accommodation. I am unsure whether the plan has completely changed or whether the process of moving people from Cosford to St. Athan is taking longer than anticipated, but I understand that it is no longer possible to place troops coming home from Germany in Cosford as swiftly as was suggested just 12 months ago, in our last debate on this subject in the House. I therefore ask the Minister to say something about what that means for Stafford. At what pace might we expect more soldiers to return from Germany and be based at Stafford, rather than somewhere else? Let me say a little about Stafford and its welcome for the military. There are now Gurkhas among the soldiers of 22 Signal Regiment who are with us. It has been a delight to see how the people of Stafford have taken to their hearts Gurkha soldiers and their children, who are now in our schools—some of them needing and receiving some support with English as an additional language—and how warm and welcoming the people of Stafford have been to Gurkhas' wives, who have joined us and want to work in our local community. Some of them have needed support with English as a second language, too, and it was a joy to me to hear the principal of Stafford college say that, whether or not he got funding, they were going to get that help for free at his college. That was a great contribution by that college to the warmth of the welcome to our armed forces and their families in Stafford. Many of the Gurkhas' wives have now been helped into work in the local community by Jobcentre Plus. The new forces have been integrated into Stafford very well. As Members would expect, however, there is a growing challenge in accommodation. The accommodation provided for service personnel on the base is full, and there is a question about how we provide more accommodation, especially if more troops are coming to Stafford. Accommodation off the base is also an issue. Some soldiers and their families will want to buy homes locally, and people who want to stay in the area after they retire from the Stafford base will also want homes in Stafford. Clearly, whatever else happens in terms of population growth in the west midlands, we are going to need more homes for soldiers and their families in the Stafford area. Now is a crucial time in Stafford. We are at the point when the local authority, Stafford borough council, is consulting on its local development framework, which includes where to put more houses. As all Members know, whenever there is talk of putting more houses anywhere, existing communities have great concerns about where those houses might go. That is an important message for the planners of Stafford to remember, but so too is the fact that there will have to be more homes because of the growth of the base at Stafford. Defence Estates must engage now with the planners at Stafford borough council. I am pleased to say that the news that comes to me suggests that that is happening, but it is important that they keep at it. That is the main point I wanted to make in the debate, so I shall now finish where I started, by stressing the warmth of the welcome for the military in places such as Stafford. Later this year, we will have the first armed forces and veterans day. The month after that, there will be an open day at MOD Stafford. I am certain that the warmth we saw from the public towards our military in Stafford town centre on 28 February will be repeated on that day in June, and repeated again on that day in July, and long may that be so.