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Mr. Beard: What responsibility did they have for the Americans?
Mr. Brazier: The Americans are our allies. We are working under their—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. We cannot have sedentary interventions or responses to them.
Mr. Brazier: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The truth is that our troops are imperilled by our allies' actions, as several hon. Members said.
I end with two more questions. The Minister gave a robust answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport. Is it really true that the plans for the centre for military medical excellence based in Selly Oak will go ahead despite the huge shortfalls in medical services; that there is no change of plan and the resignation made no difference?
My second question is about the largest procurement project in the history of the British Army—the Apache. The Conservative Government ordered it and every machine was delivered, but when will the first squadron be trained and up and running as an operational squadron?
The Secretary of State has placed great emphasis on the fact that technology will make up for cuts in manpower. The Minister made the same point today. However, since the dawn of time kings and Governments have tended to put more faith in technology than in those who wield it. The lessons are never learned. The Government offer our troops cuts in defence spending. Under a measure that has just left this place, they are making a mean attack on war disabilities claimants, and they are obfuscating over the issue of the Americans and prisoner abuse.
The Government owe the brave, honourable, professional members of our armed forces better than that.
5.51 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): We have had a good and interesting debate on personnel and I can assure the House that we take very seriously all the issues that have been raised.
I thank those who contributed to the debate. It is always good to see the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) in our debates on defence. There were contributions from the hon. Members for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) and for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price). Numbers were lacking on the Conservative Back Benches, so I am especially pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire), my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) and my hon. Friends the Members for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow), for
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Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Beard), for North Durham (Mr. Jones) and for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) were able to make excellent contributions.
The best contribution today came from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. In more than 50 minutes, he took more than 15 interventions and answered questions from Members on both sides of the House on all the issues of the day. It was a thoroughly open and transparent contribution, which was certainly welcomed by my hon. Friends and will be welcomed outside the House.
In this brief winding-up speech, I want to bring the House up to date on two important major legislative matters for our armed forces. The first is the tri-service Bill on which we have been working for some time and which we plan to introduce in 2005–06, subject to the availability of parliamentary time. It is especially pertinent to the personnel and discipline issues that we have been discussing today. It is a big undertaking, involving detailed discussions with and between the three services, and we are determined to get it right, as I said in a recent continuation order debate.
Nevertheless, I stress that we are taking an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, approach to reform of service law. The five-yearly armed forces Bills—I believe that the hon. Member for Gosport has served on their Standing Committees in the past—are normally remitted to a Select Committee after Second Reading, but I am keen to share our proposals with the House and to have a constructive debate on the key principles underlying them, as well as on the main proposals, in advance of the Bill's publication.
I have been considering how that might best be done, and can announce that I plan to submit a written memorandum to the Defence Select Committee outlining the progress we have made to date. Shortly, I will write to my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), the Chairman of the Committee, laying out a timetable for the provision of that evidence. That approach will enable the Committee to consider the Bill's main proposals, take evidence as required and report to the House early next year.
I look forward to the Committee's scrutiny of the work that has been undertaken so far and I am sure that it will benefit from such an open and transparent process. Clearly, such a report from the Select Committee would be available for all Members to see and comment on in due course.
Rachel Squire: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Caplin: I am afraid that time is against me, but if I can give way later I shall do so.
The second sphere of legislation is one that concerns many Members—the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) has just referred to it: our announcement in the White Paper about the review of reservists' financial assistance. Work is being undertaken as a priority to produce new regulations governing the award of both the reservist standard and hardship awards. At the same time, we also intend to revise the regulations for employer financial assistance and consider the matter that many hon. Members have raised today and during our debate on pensions and compensation last Thursday: the self-employed.
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The Reserve Forces Act 1996 requires consultation with interested parties. To that end, I plan to publish a consultation document before the commencement of the summer recess to seek the views of interested parties. I hope that the House will accept that it is not appropriate for me to state what our proposals might be in advance of that consultation. I can assure Members, however, that the concerns that have been raised—for instance, by the Defence Committee, reservists and employers—are being given great weight in devising the new scheme. Our aim is to introduce the replacement regulations in the autumn of this year.
During the opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State raised the issue of training and education, and I want to emphasise that issue in the few moments that are left to me today. Training and education are very important to the performance of our people, as was highlighted in the defence White Paper and further expanded upon in the recently published policy paper, "Training and Education in the Armed Forces." May I say how grateful I am to the many Members of both Houses who attended the seminar at the document's launch on 4 May?
The fact that the Ministry of Defence is one of the largest single providers of training and education in the UK is significant. The policy paper highlights the variety and complexity of the task, the skills agenda against which the Department operates, the realities of the operational environment and the demands that they place on the training system. Most importantly, the paper shows that the MOD is at the forefront of developing skills for the 21st century, while never forgetting the fundamental requirements for servicemen and women to deliver operational capability.
There has been some debate about Defence Medical Services this afternoon. I intervened on the hon. Member for Gosport to put an end, I hope, to the allegations he has been making. We are actively recruiting in the Defence Medical Services. About 500 more medical and dental officers are currently in the training pipeline. They range from specialist registrars—about 40 consultants will qualify in the next four years—to cadets who have just begun their training, two of whom I met when I visited St. Dunstan's recently, where they were on secondment. More than 400 nurses will also complete their training in the same period. Of those currently in training, 267 are at the Defence School of Health Care Studies in Birmingham, where we are progressively moving all our nurse training, and a further 129 are completing their training at the university of Portsmouth.
I am sorry that I cannot allow my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West to intervene, but I welcome the Defence Committee's continued work on very many issues, including the duty of care inquiry that it has just commenced. I look forward to more discussions with her and her colleagues about medical services.
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With regard to the balance of our armed forces' tours of duty, on 5 April 2004, 21 per cent. of the British Army was deployed on operations, compared with 54 per cent. in late April 2003. I hope that that will start to make a difference.
I do not have time to go into all the issues that were raised during the debate. In particular, I wanted to have time to discuss in more detail defence housing strategy—an important element raised in both the debate and the White Paper—but I fear that I do not have the time to do so today. I want to raise an issue with the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) about his meeting with the Army Families Federation. I wonder whether he apologised during that meeting for the Conservative defence policies in the 1990s—for example, cuts in defence housing, cuts in recruitment and cuts in medical services. My hon. Friends will know the type of cuts that the armed forces can expect if a Conservative Government were ever returned to power, which is very unlikely.
In conclusion, we owe a considerable debt to our people. Their courage, determination and abilities are making the difference across the world. We are working hard to provide them and their families with the right package of policies and the right support to sustain their efforts. Given their efforts on our behalf, they deserve our very best endeavours at all times. This is a time for the House to show that it always values the work done by our troops. Whether they are regulars, reservists or civilians, all that they seek is our support for their efforts, and I can assure them all that they will have this Government's full support for many years to come.
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