Defence secretary John Healey tells MPs warships, helicopters and drones being decommissioned to save up to £500m
John Healey, the defence secretary, has told MPs that two Royal Navy flagships are included in a list of equipment being decomissioned to save up to £500m over five years.
In a statement to MPs, he said that “outdated military capabilities” were being taken out of service. He told MPs:
These decisions are set to save the MoD £150m over the next two years and up to £500m over five years, savings that will be retained in full in defence.
As PA Media reports, Healey said he was decommissioning HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark which he described “landing ships both effectively retired by previous ministers but superficially kept on the books at a cost of £9m a year”.
He said he would retire HMS Northumberland “a frigate with structural damage that makes her simply uneconomical to repair”, 46 Watchkeeper Mark I uncrewed aircraft systems, and a 14-year-old army drone “which technology has overtaken”.
He said 14 Chinook helicopters “some over 35 years old [will be] accelerated out of service”.
And he said two wave-class tankers “neither of which have been to sea for years” were in the decommissioning process, along with 17 Puma helicopters “some with over 50 years’ flying [which] will not be extended”.
Healey said there would be no redundancies as a result of these decisions. He went on:
These are common sense decisions which previous governments failed to take, decisions that will secure better value for money for the taxpayer and better outcomes for the military.
Decisions which are all backed by the chiefs and taken in consultation with SDR [strategic defence review] reviewers. Allies have been informed, and we have constant dialogue with Nato.
These will not be the last difficult decisions I will have to make to fix the defence inheritance that we were left with, but they will help get a grip of finances now, and they will give greater scope to renew our forces for the future as we look towards the strategic defence review and to 2.5% [of GDP spent on defence].
Key events
Healey announces new retention payments to encourage members of armed forces to stay longer
In his Commons statement John Healey, the defence secretary, also announced new retention payments to encourage members of the armed forces to stay longer. He explained:
I can announce today that I am introducing, from April, a new £30,000 retention payment for a cohort of tri-service aircraft engineers who sign up for [an] additional three years of service. This will affect and be open to around 5,000 personnel in total.
And from January, a new £8,000 retention payment for army personnel who served four years, supporting 4,000 personnel each year for three years. So 12,000 troops in total.
Defence secretary John Healey tells MPs warships, helicopters and drones being decommissioned to save up to £500m
John Healey, the defence secretary, has told MPs that two Royal Navy flagships are included in a list of equipment being decomissioned to save up to £500m over five years.
In a statement to MPs, he said that “outdated military capabilities” were being taken out of service. He told MPs:
These decisions are set to save the MoD £150m over the next two years and up to £500m over five years, savings that will be retained in full in defence.
As PA Media reports, Healey said he was decommissioning HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark which he described “landing ships both effectively retired by previous ministers but superficially kept on the books at a cost of £9m a year”.
He said he would retire HMS Northumberland “a frigate with structural damage that makes her simply uneconomical to repair”, 46 Watchkeeper Mark I uncrewed aircraft systems, and a 14-year-old army drone “which technology has overtaken”.
He said 14 Chinook helicopters “some over 35 years old [will be] accelerated out of service”.
And he said two wave-class tankers “neither of which have been to sea for years” were in the decommissioning process, along with 17 Puma helicopters “some with over 50 years’ flying [which] will not be extended”.
Healey said there would be no redundancies as a result of these decisions. He went on:
These are common sense decisions which previous governments failed to take, decisions that will secure better value for money for the taxpayer and better outcomes for the military.
Decisions which are all backed by the chiefs and taken in consultation with SDR [strategic defence review] reviewers. Allies have been informed, and we have constant dialogue with Nato.
These will not be the last difficult decisions I will have to make to fix the defence inheritance that we were left with, but they will help get a grip of finances now, and they will give greater scope to renew our forces for the future as we look towards the strategic defence review and to 2.5% [of GDP spent on defence].
Government should close loophole allowing sale of human remains, MP says at PMQs
Instagram, Etsy and Gumtree users could exploit a legal loophole to buy and sell colonial-era human remains, MPs were told at PMQs. PA Media has filed this story based on what the question from Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy. (See 12.04pm.) PA says:
Ribeiri-Addy told the Commons she had heard cases of body parts sold online and in auction houses, including a human thigh bone turned into a cane, a human jawbone necklace and the varnished skull of a six-year-old.
The Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill asked Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, whether the government would look at ending these sales, which she described as “depraved”.
Rayner agreed the practice was “abhorrent” and committed to meetings with ministers about “troubling cases”.
Opening PMQs, Ribeiro-Addy said: “I recently met with members of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) who highlighted a loophole in the Human Tissues Act which allows human remains to be auctioned, frequently disguised as modified items or replicas.
“This is including a foetal skeleton posed under a glass dome, a human thigh bone turned into a cane, a human jawbone necklace and the varnished skull of a six-year-old, often from indigenous communities in Africa and Asia stolen during colonial expeditions.”
The Human Tissues Act 2004 features a ban on buying and selling human material, but there are some exceptions and suppliers can be reimbursed for expenses connected with transporting, preparing, preserving or storing remains.
Ribeiro-Addy asked: “Does the deputy prime minister agree that it is abhorrent for human remains regardless of their origin or age to be sold by auction houses and on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, eBay, Etsy and Gumtree? And will the government take action to end this depraved practice?”
Rayner replied: “It’s absolutely horrifying to hear the account of what [Ribeiro-Addy] mentions and I absolutely agree that that’s abhorrent. And while the Human Tissue Authority strictly regulates the public display of human remains, with fines or imprisonment for breaches, it does not cover sales or purchases. However, I will ensure that a meeting is made with the appropriate minister to discuss the troubling cases that she raises.”
UK’s longest-serving MPs, Diane Abbott and Edward Leigh, issue joint plea for Commons to reject assisted dying bill
Britain’s longest-serving MPs, Labour’s Diane Abbott and the Conservative Sir Edward Leigh, have issued a joint call urging the Commons to reject the assisted dying bill, arguing it is being rushed through and puts vulnerable people at risk, Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar report.
My colleague Peter Walker has posted this on Bluesky about PMQs.
Starmer-era #PMQS are definitely more obsequious that the Tory ones – there is inevitably a mass of Labour backbenchers asking soft-soap, underarm questions about whether the PM/DPM agrees with them that the new government has done brilliantly on basically everything. Amazingly, they do agree.
Rayner accuses critics of ‘scaremongering’ about impact of inheritance tax extension for farmers
In her reply at PMQs to Daisy Cooper, the deputy Lib Dem leader, Angela Rayner claimed there has been “scaremongering” about Labour’s plans to extend inheritance tax to cover some farms.
Cooper asked:
Somebody else who was very worried about the budget is Cathy. Cathy is a farmer in my constituency of St Albans, and she told me yesterday that she thinks the government changes simply do not make sense.
The changes mean that her family may have to pay a bill which will force them to sell land, which makes food production unviable. At the same time, the government has not closed the land buying tax loophole that can be exploited by equity firms and the super wealthy.
And Rayner replied:
I’m sorry to hear that Cathy is distressed by the – what I would say is scaremongering – around what the Labour party is doing.
The budget delivered £5bn for farming over the next two years, a record amount. The last government failed to spend £300 million on farmers, and our plan is sensible, fair and proportionate, and protects the smaller estate while fixing public services that they rely on.
At a post-PMQs briefing, asked who Rayner was referring to when she talked about scaremongering, a No 10 spokesperson said:
You have the deputy prime minister’s own words.
I think obviously the prime minister in his press conference yesterday recognises that there are concerns amongst farmers about the policy and that is why the government has a job to do to communicate the policy and our expectation, which is that the vast majority of farmers will be unaffected by the change.
PMQs – snap verdict
That was very missable. Alex Burghart, who was standing in for Kemi Badenoch, started well, with a very short, direct question, but after that it rapidly got worse.
He used his first three questions to focus on inflation, trying to make an argument about Labour letting price rises get out of control, but inflation at 2.3% is hardly the Weimar Republic and Angela Rayner quite easily knocked him back with a reminder of his ministerial job title under Liz Truss and a reference to the inflation rate under the Tories.
Burghart was on stronger ground talking about farmers, but at that point he started shouting furiously, conveying strong “madman on the bus” vibes to anyone watching on TV. (He was shouting because in the chamber the background noise is so loud that rookie speakers feel they have to shout to be heard; the experienced ones know that the microphones will do the work for them.)
On farmers, Rayner’s comments did not go beyond anything said by ministers yesterday, and it still does not feel as if the governement is winning the argument with the farming sector. But Burghart’s hyperbole was just playing to the base, and wasn’t persuasive either.
He was also one of several MPs to have a go at Rachel Reeves over her minor CV embellishment (“this morning we had City economists, real economists, saying that next year inflation would hit 3%”) but this just smacked of desperation. Reeves is a real economist.
At least, from Kemi Badenoch’s point of view, Burghart did not upstage his party leader. For that reason alone, he might even get invited back.
Helen Morgan (Lib Dem) asks about a constituent with cancer, whose diagnosis was delayed. When will diagnosis times improve?
Rayner says people are waiting far too long. That is why the government is investing more in the NHS.
Graham Stuart (Con) says in June a chief constable was sacked for misrepresenting her CV. And a nurse was jailed for something similar. Does Rayner agree that these punishments are right?
Rayner says she knows where Stuart is going with this. She says the chancellor has shown more competence in the last four months than all four of her Tory predecessors.
Paula Barker (Lab) says the Tories promised an employment rights bill, but never delivered. Does Rayner agree her employment rights bill is the biggest upgrade for workers in a generation?
Rayner says she and Barker used to be Unison convenors. She says the government is delivering on its promise to make work pay.
Lincoln Jupp (Con) asks about Spelthorne litterpickers, who do great work in his constituency. They have won an award for their service. Will Rayner congratulate them for what they do?
Rayner says she agrees absolutely. Volunteers play a very important role, she says.
Edward Leigh (Con) says it is red Wednesday, when people persecuted for their beliefs are remembered. Will the PM appoint a new envoy on religious belief, so the UK can defend religious belief minorities?
Rayner says the government is committed to defending freedom of religious belief.
She says envoy roles are still being considered.
Yuan Yang (Lab) says thousands of families in her constituency have move into developments with unfair property charges. How will the leasehold reform bill address this?
Rayner says the leasehold and freehold reform bill will being in more transparency over these charges.
Jonathan Hinder (Lab) asks about neighbourhood policing.
Rayner says the government wants to ensure every community gets a named local officer.
Lewis Cocking (Con) asks Rayner if she will support efforts to get a banking hub for Broxbourne.
Rayner says the government has committed to more banking hubs.
Fred Thomas (Lab) asks how Plymouth will benefit from government investment in health.
Rayner says every corner of the UK will see benefits. She offers Thomas a meeting with a minister to discuss Plymouth.
Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, says care providers in her constituency have said the national insurance increase poses a threat to them worse than Covid.
Rayner says she values the work care providers do. Extra support has been put in place. She says tax benefts for charities are among the best in the world. And there is more support for the health sector, she says.
Simon Opher (Lab) asks what the government will do to improve maternity services.
Rayner says the Darzi report said the NHS was broken under the previous government. All mothers and babies should receive safe and compassionate care, she says.
Saqib Bhatti (Con) asks why the government has declared war on farmers.
Rayner says she does not accept that.
