Minister of State for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge MP, on visit to UK army base to see British, Australian and New Zealand troops training new Ukrainian recruits.
Whilst writing my article last month, Britain was subsumed in preparations for the Coronation – and arguably the people working hardest to get ready were the service personnel who make up our armed forces. Little did I know that by the time His Majesty was crowned, I would be a Minister of State for Defence, following a small changing of the guard at Cabinet level, necessitating switches further down the ranks.
So it was with particular pride and interest that I watched a highlight of the Coronation ceremony, when the hundreds of soldiers, sailors and RAF staff - who had marched in accompaniment to the Monarch’s splendid coach - stood in the gardens of Buckingham Palace to take the salute from their Commander in Chief. The Coronation was a timeless, sacred service of profound constitutional and historic significance, executed with grace and rain-splattered British brilliance, and though not fortunate enough to get a seat in the Abbey, I was more than happy watching at home in Assington with my family.
It's fair to say that my new brief is a busy one. Technically I am Minister of State for Procurement, known as ‘Min DP’ in a department of many acronyms – but this does not do justice to the depth of technical, financial and contractual work involved, alongside all of the usual political and Parliamentary dynamics. Of particular significance, the brief includes the Defence Estate, Nuclear Enterprise and both procurement and sustainment of the equipment upon which our forces depend.
With less than a month in post, at the time of writing I will have already performed at Oral Questions and taken evidence on Aviation Procurement from the Defence Select Committee; visited our crucial Defence Equipment and Support HQ in Bristol; been to RAF Brize Norton to hear from the crews of the A400M Air Transport planes that played a key role in the Sudan evacuation; and dealt with a host of Government business.
Perhaps most memorably, I had the privilege to visit the British, Australian and New Zealand troops training new Ukrainian recruits on our own UK army bases. The ‘rookie’ soldiers I met were all civilians with barely a few weeks training – company CEOs, students, construction workers and so on. The British Army is giving them the instruction to be ready to return to their homeland in a short time, so that they can join in the defensive effort that is so vital to them, but also to our wider national and strategic interest. I will never forget the bravery and intense sense of purpose in the faces of the cohort of Ukrainian trainees that I met, and it was humbling to reflect on the prospect that they face - brought about by an illegal and unprovoked invasion - and requiring us to stay totally focused on supporting their fight for freedom.
As ever, whilst moving from one Department of State to another, the fact does not change that I remain the Member of Parliament for South Suffolk, and local duties are as crucial as ever. Last Friday I was back out doing the rounds of schools, businesses and constituents - starting with Stutton Primary, which has staged a most welcome recovery in pupil numbers from its near closure in 2017; on to Therapy Gyms in Holton St Mary with its commendable focus on those who find conventional gymnasia daunting and inaccessible; and the huge pleasure of meeting Bunny at Hadleigh Nursing Home, to celebrate her 108th birthday (and discovering that her tip for longevity is a cup of tea; so there’s hope for me yet!)
I was especially inspired by my constituency visit on Coronation Bank Holiday Monday, where I joined the Wherstead Parish litter-pick to mark the ‘Big Help Out’, inspired by King Charles III’s long-standing commitment to community-based activity to protect our environment. To see such enthusiasm from volunteers on a Bank Holiday Monday, when they could have been taking a well-earned break from work, was fantastic.
It's quite simple – as a child my mother constantly rammed home the message not to drop litter. How people do it on purpose I cannot imagine, but alas, the scale of detritus we gathered on the busy offshoots of the A14 junction at Wherstead underlined the mass carelessness that still plagues our hedgerows and verges.
Motivated in the wake of the Coronation, I will be looking to join and support more litter picks in the coming months. It’s one example of how we can all ‘do our bit’ – even if it’s as a result of others not doing theirs!
Published in the Suffolk Free Press.
