 Mae'r ydych chi'n gweithio'r cyfnod o'r ffordd a phoedd yng nghymru i siwn i'r ydydd yng nghymru, a bydd yma'r ysgrifennu hyn yn ymgyrch cyflawni'r dyfodol iawn, cyfnodol iawn, a gydweithio'r polisi tîm. Yr yddw i'n gweithio'r ysgrifennu cyffredinol i'r eich bodi'r ysgrifennu i'ch ei ddigonol i'r cyfnodol iawn. Dyna'r ysgrifennu hefyd yn teimlo'r ysgrifennu Ben Wallis a'r ddarparu Cymru, Cymru'r rhifwng honno, yn cyffredinu'r ffordd o'r cyntaf, yn gweithio yr efflu brwythfawr hwnnw, ac yn gweithio'r cyfrifwng ar y DU. Efallai, yn ystod, os ydych chi gwybodau gweithio i gyd, sy'n gweithio'r cyfrifwng arnynno ac yn gweithio'r cyfrifwng a'r gweithwng. Roedd y gallwn ni'n gweithio'r cyfrifwng. Efallai, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r cyfrifwng i'r cyfrifwng Cymru, ni'n mynd ieddu i'r relishuffle yn amlwg, ond y dyn nhw o'r amgylchau, angen oen bod ymwneud yn bwysig, ac mae'r hanesrfynig oedd fel pechau yna bod ydych yn meddwl i'r ysbyty. Mae arweiniad mewn cefnod y maen nhw efallai fan hynny ymwybr i gyhoeddwyniad o'i bain ffaith felly oeddynt o'u bysiau, felly fydd ei wneud rhywbeth gweithio'n iawn, ac mae'n hawdd am ddysgu nhw'n ei defnydd, tdweithio'r ffyrdiad yn rhywbeth Dwi'n credu'r cyffredin mor hwnnw i'r pam greu'r prifennis, i'r cyffredin ar hollwch i'r cyffredin, i ddweud i gael a phoedd cyffredin o'r lliwm yn cyfrifedig yr oedd ymddangos. Yr cif yn cyfrifenedig ar y brif yn gwir. A nid yw ymwrwch yn fan y cyfrifidg yn amlwg yn amlwg o'r cyffredin. Yn y gyrtyni, rwy'n oed a'r gyfrifredin, rwy'n oed i'r cyfyniadau Unig. byddwch yn ffrifedd o bobl a bod ydw i'n meddwl am yng ngrynu o'r gwrthod yn ffredig iawn. Fe wni i ni'n meddwl y brall hyn a pethau, yn ddaeth ei gwrthod yn Afganistan i gyda'r dwylai, a'n glwbodaeth ddwylo'r gwaith ac yn rhanosol o'r afganistan. Mae'n ffieith o bosbwyr ychydig am fwyaf ni, rwy'n gweithwyrnau, a we have got back a record number of people out of Afghanistan and are now we are resettling them into the United Kingdom. The work of 16 Air Assault Brigade and the commanders who led that amazing airlift are something that show Britain at its best. I'm really lucky that I have a team that works well together. I've been a minister at all ranks in government over the years and I know how important it is that the ministers work together to deliver for a single agenda. Government is a team exercise and if you're not interested in performing as a team you frankly should go and sit on the back benches or not be part of a team. As a result it's great that we not only get on well together but we manage to trust each other and deliver a really good outcome. I'm joined by James Heapy, the minister of the Armed Forces himself, a former veteran. Jeremy Quinn, my minister of defence procurement who has the eyes on the contracts and making sure we deliver for the equipment for the future. Leo Docherty who looks after the veterans and the personnel of our great armed forces and Annabelle Goldie up there on the screen who is the guardian of our union looks after the workforce's needs in the future and make sure that we all stick together in making sure we keep people safe and our obligations towards both our MOD civil servants and indeed the health and safety that we owe the people who work in our organisation. So what I was going to do is we have a 20 minute session. I was going to ask each of our ministers to explain what they've seen and done in the last year or two and then we'll open up to questions and do our best to answer as many of your enquiries as possible. Given that we've literally come out of pitting in Afghanistan and indeed right now as we speak as I've said we've got soldiers deployed in tankers I thought if I ask James Heapy to discuss and reflect on what the Armed Forces personnel that he's in charge of operations have done over the last 20 months and let's hear from James. Thank you James. Thanks Ben and conference. Can I start by just saying what a pleasure it is to work for Secretary of State who brings the entire team on board for instead of a speech say this is reflective of the way Ben does his business in defence and he is transforming our nation's defence because of that approach and it is respected by military and civil service and his ministers and I know from the plaudits he's won over the summer that you too have recognised what a fantastic leader he is. I've been asked to give you a rundown of everything the nation's Armed Forces have done in the last year in two minutes and that's somewhat of a challenge but I will do my best and I'm going to sort of go by continent slash region of the world. In Africa the most significant development was that we began a significant deployment to Mali where 250 members of the British Army joined an RAF detachment that had been operating in Mali for some time as we increased our commitment in that part of the world as part of the UN peacekeeping mission. Beyond that we are present elsewhere in West Africa in Nigeria, Ghana and training teams going in out of Gambia. We're increasingly committed in Kenya and Somalia. We do counter illegal wildlife trade work in Uganda and we've got a new mission starting soon in Mozambique. Meanwhile the Royal Navy is just beginning a period in the Gulf of Guinea and that will become an annual activity as we contribute to counter piracy operations in those increasingly troubled waters. In the Asia Pacific the headline thing has been the return of the UK's carrier strike capability and the deployment to the Indo-Pacific but that is not a flash in the pan. Last week I saw HMS Tamar and HMS Spay on their way towards the Panama Canal as they go to take permanent station in the Indo-Pacific over the years ahead flying the flag and reassuring our allies. We've always had a presence in Brunei and Nepal but increasingly our partnerships with India, Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are important to defending the UK interest and projecting UK power around the world. In South America and the Caribbean our work in Colombia continues to be hugely successful in interdicting drugs before they get to UK streets. We're supporting the overseas territories in the Turks and Caicos islands and the Caemans as well as our activities in Belize and Jamaica. HMS Wave Night, are it wrong? The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Ship Wave Night. A tanker has this summer been busting drugs in the Caribbean as well as working with the US off Haiti in response to the earthquake there and HMS Medway is permanently in the Caribbean on Council Narcotics missions and flying the flag for the UK amongst our allies and that's before we even get to the extraordinary work that members of all three services doing the South Atlantic in protecting the Falkland Islands. In the Gulf we continue to have ships committed to the mission to keep the Straits of Hormuz open as well as the ongoing mission in Iraq. We have troops in Saudi Arabia and we have a strong naval presence in Bahrain and of course you've seen as the Secretary of State rightly remarked until very recently we were in Afghanistan and the performance of our troops is not pitting. No matter what you think of the politics that went before or will come since that was a truly extraordinary effort by the members of 16-air assault brigade and the Royal Air Force. In the Euro Atlantic we've been busy in the Black Sea, the Beren Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean as well as up in the high north. Our troops and the Royal Air Force are in the Baltic, the Balkans and we've had air policing missions in Romania as well. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been an extraordinary effort but of course beneath all of that unnoticed and without fanfare has been the extraordinary men and women who deliver our nuclear deterrent 365 days a year the ultimate guarantor of our sovereignty. And it's not just away from home that they've been successful. We've had the most amazing year doing homeland resilience as well. You've seen the effort that our armed forces have put into the vaccination programme and the testing programme and distributing PPE before that but right now they are driving fuel tankers and back in January and December they spent their Christmas swabbing the noses and throats of truckers so we could keep the port open. Ladies and gentlemen in all corners of the earth and in all corners of the United Kingdom our armed forces have had an amazing year as the Minister of the Armed Forces I'd just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to them all. Thank you James. Now of course without the right equipment and kit we can't keep those men and women safe and we can't deploy them around the world and so Jeremy has the onious task of making sure we deliver highly complex equipment programmes that keep a strategic edge from our adversaries and so if we can hear from Jeremy what you've been doing spending the money that we've got and how we're getting there. It's an extraordinary exciting moment. I think we all got that conference from the intro we had right at the start that £24 billion of additional money that's extra investment into our armed forces. Now that's money to keep us safe it's money to meet the threat of the future but we're very conscious of how much more we can get from that money to support our country in so many different ways in supporting the skills and the jobs and the innovation that we need for the future and that's why we set out in March in our defence and security industrial strategy how we're going to work with our international partners here in the UK to make the most out of that investment and make certain it works for every bit of our country supporting jobs, supporting skills, supporting innovation and we're doing that in some traditional but still incredibly important aspects of defence in shipbuilding, Benza shipbuilding czar amongst his other commitments we have an amazing pipeline of ships coming through to the Royal Navy that most of they've had in decades in aerospace where our future combat air system is taking forward the future of air combat, massive investment from the government but backed up by investment from international partners and indeed from industry and other domains as well as touched on in the introduction domains like space so important for the future we stood up space command this summer nuclear James referred to it we're investing in our nuclear deterrent to ensure it can continue to deter for the decades to come and cyber a new and vital domain fantastic announcement this week regarding our investment in cyber and new headquarters for the future and that's more money coming into levelling up supporting the Lancashire mill towns ensuring that we have the capabilities that we need and we're investing in the skills of tomorrow underpinning it all is 6.6 billion pounds of commitment to defence, research and development an incredibly important commitment so with that extra investment and with that focus on R&D I can guarantee that we'll be doing our bit on three vital tasks strengthening our union the whole of this country benefits from defence in keeping us safe it also benefits all of it from the economic benefit that flows from defence investment making certain that we are levelling up our country I mentioned the cyber announcement there are many others levelling up all parts of our country and above all making certain that we build that science technology superpower that this country deserves to be and which we need to be to keep us safe in the years ahead great thank you very much now I'm going to segue your point on the union to Annabelle because our equipment programme our spending underpins that and I'd like to hear from Annabelle please about how she sees the procurement of ships et cetera playing in the union and the United Kingdom Annabelle is immensely important Ben and can I say what a pleasure it is to be with you all and it's an enormous pleasure to support you Ben in the terrific job that you're doing and doing it not just for the UK globally but of course right across the United Kingdom and defence is one of these embodiments to me of what the union is all about we have armed forces personnel in every part of the UK and yes what Jeremy was talking about much of our financial procurement is being done through industry partners across the United Kingdom significantly in Scotland I was there this morning I was over at Recife visiting Babcock where our Type 31 frigates are being built and going off to govern this week to see British Aerospace where our Type 26 frigates are being built and what we managed to demonstrate through defence is that we are very much at the heart of what the union is we benefit from the skills provided from all parts of the UK we involve forces personnel throughout the UK and we are major investors in many of our communities in the different nations of the UK and I think that is a vital component of our success because part of the union is that we pool resource we benefit from putting that resource and we provide mutual support and every day I see that in action with defence James was talking about what we have done to help with Covid that has been right across the United Kingdom helped to Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland so in short then to me the union working is demonstrated by what MOD and UK defence does within the union I think that is great thank you it is true we are greater together than we are separated we have got a reminder of the SNP the SNP had a chance to place a contract for a ship in Scotland only the other week they actually own a yard the Ferguson yard and they placed it in Romania so there is the SNP for you who needs enemies when you have got friends like that in the Scottish Government so there we are now of course underpinning that is our care for the people who have served this country and what they do after it and Leo has the very important task of looking after our veterans making sure that this is the best place to be a veteran Leo if you can just reflect on both the consequences of Afghanistan because that touched every single veteran here including people like James and yourself who had been in Afghanistan there was a connection there that was really important Leo thank you Secretary of State and we are continuing to strive to ensure that this is the best country in the world to be a veteran I am very proud that this Government has passed a number of very practical measures to positively impact the lives of veterans we are putting the Armed Forces Government into law we have passed the Overseas Operations Bill so that returning veterans don't face the scandal of legal pursuit we have delivered the veterans rail card guaranteed job interviews for the civil service Armed Forces champions in job centres who do brilliant work tax breaks for those employing veterans and bespoke mental health care pathway in the NHS in the form of op courage in which veterans themselves are involved so there has been terrific progress there is of course more to do and our veteran strategy update which will publish at the end of this year will lay out how we are going to drive forward that agenda and a key theme of that will be employability celebrating and recognising the terrific contribution that veterans some 15,000 service leavers every year make in terms of their amazing skills bringing into the civilian workplace and when it comes to serving personnel that theme of skills is very relevant too because everything we must do must be about ensuring those you serve have modern and relevant skills to be part of a battle winning highly innovative sophisticated military that can win wars all around the world and it's that skills agenda which we will deliver for them but it's not just about serving people it's about their families and we are putting service families at the heart of defence with things like wraparound childcare and support to spousal employment and that's because we recognise that being in the military is not just about the individual it's not just a job it's more than a career it's a way of life and service families are absolutely critical to that Thank you Leanne of course the many women of our armed forces are the only real asset at the heart of our defence and none of this is possible and without a back office team a team that supports us off an unseen the ministers wouldn't be able to do their job in Parliament and I'm delighted that we've got two new PPSs, James Sunderland and Suzanne Webb, James is a former officer in the Royal Logistics Corps and Suzanne is there to support us and Alan Mack our whip who will make sure that we all work to time which hasn't really worked today so far because we've slightly reduced a bit too much our time for questions so look I'm going to crack on with the questions and I think what I'd like to do is a question that I think we could ask everyone to answer pretty quickly which is they all come in from somebody called anonymous so I hope that's not been hacked by the Russians having hacked that one right so I think one of them is let me give a look what is your most enjoyable part of the job in the defence department so what's the most enjoyable part of your job James seeing the pride that our men and women take representing the UK interest around the world last Wednesday evening I was in Cartagena in Colombia on board HMS Spay and young men and women recruited from all corners of the UK were wearing their smartest white uniform hosting Colombian dignitaries representing the UK interest didn't matter whether they were able semen at 18 years old or the commander of the ship they all deeply believed in reflecting what the UK stands for and we should be proud of them all it's been part of a great team and I'm not just being psychophantic to my pals who are with you down there Ben I do think we're a good team and I think that means that we actually are making a difference I was delighted that we were all left to work together I think we have a synergy and James is absolutely right for me it's people it's people within our armed forces it's a tremendously talented civil service to support us and it's that sense of pride when you see our people delivering on the job James has seen it, I saw it on Saturday I was there for the 21 gun salute for the Queen at Edinburgh Castle speaking to our gunnery crew who come up from Cattrick there they were in Edinburgh Castle delivering the salute and telling me about how they responded to MACA requests in Manchester doing it with smiles on their faces doing it with pride in their faces what a privilege to be part of all of that great, thank you now I'm going to ask one question for Leo Leo, Zach Moody asked how can we bring more people into the armed forces as it almost only ever gets smaller are we still able to protect our country so I think we will bring more people into the armed forces and if we communicate the fact that it's still an amazing career and all the more relevant than ever before so I think the veterans of the future and those young people come into the armed forces they will be gaining skills that are absolutely at the heart of our national response to the huge geo strategic challenges of our time whether it be cyber or space or whatever so it's a great career it's great to serve, you leave service military service as a better person you'll get a great job afterwards and the nation will be proud of you so come and serve and join up Jeremy, last question our military does a wonderful job and are the best in the world how focused are our armed forces on cyber threats and how are we going to meet them incredibly focused there is a wide appreciation right the way across the top of our armed forces that is not just a traditional debate we need to keep an eye on look at what our adversaries are doing in cyber and in space we need to be on top of that game too so there is a huge amount of focus on it we also announced only this week billions of pounds of investment in our new national cyber HQ based up in the Lancashire Mill Towns there will be thousands of people coming into employment there skilled people who can really undertake that task and be able to not only defend the United Kingdom and our interests but look after our allies across NATO as well we are known throughout the world for our skills in cyber and we are going to invest in it and we are going to continue to make certain that we are a force for good in that incredibly important domain the best part the job for me was things like yesterday I went up to near Bolton and Burnley and we announced £5.5 billion of investment into a national cyber force that will employ over 3000 people by 2030 nestled between Blackburn and Burnley and Preston and Chawley levelling up delivering new skills for our young people we are going to the hackers of the future the computer exploiters of the future the people that will keep us safe from servers a long way away and it was a meeting with the FE colleges the HE colleges and the schools and recognising that the world changes and we are going to change with it and this government has invested in defence so it can change with the threats and that's what we are rolling out that's the best part of the job and the best part of the job is being able to do it in the here and now, right now all the team, all the ministers and the Prime Minister are right behind us in making sure that we keep Britain safe and that's something I'm proud of something that I think the whole Conservative party should be proud of because we mean what we say and we fund it we don't just talk like the Labour party about things putting on ties and I think they said they advise people to look patriotic or something in one of their recent bulletins but we know below the bonnet we actually do as we say put the money in and grow British industry and skills and invest in the men and women with the armed forces so thank you very much for coming to this session and we'll see you all soon, thank you