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Those sum are all beyond our financial means and are almost just a wish list, but these plans have resulted in us taking our eye off the ball. Rather than concentrating on what is needed now and for the immediate future to enable our armed forces to meet the challenges of fighting insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan—insurgents who are highly mobile and armed with cheap but deadly weaponry—we are left in a virtual vacuum. We are expecting our forces to operate Snatch 1 armoured Land Rovers from Northern Ireland, which are clapped out and always overheating and breaking down. The No. 2s are just about acceptable, with a little life left in them yet, while the No. 3s are very few on the ground.
The problem is that we are forced to use these old vehicles because there is no alternative, and because of ongoing long- term commitments the MOD is now virtually broke. We heard a little earlier in the debate that there are to be further cuts of at least £1 billion. The Chancellor has judged that there are more important things on which to spend taxpayers’ money, so is it any wonder that the strength of our armed forces is under pressure—by “strength”, I mean the number of personnel who are currently serving in the armed services? The answer that the Government have arrived at is to keep moving the establishment—the number of service personnel who are actually needed to fulfil our present commitments—downwards. By that neat mechanism of fiddling the figures, the MOD can claim that we are “nearly up to strength”.
I have still not been able to acquire the reserve forces figures, which were due to be published on 1 April this year, in spite of my tabling more than one written parliamentary question. The present figures are 15 months old, which makes one wonder what is going on in the MOD. If I may make a suggestion, it is much better to publish and be damned rather than to make people think that it is sheer administrative incompetence or that the Government are trying to keep the truth from hon. Members and from the public who have an interest in these matters. If the figures are not provided before the recess, one can only assume that they are being deliberately withheld.
Recruitment of both the Territorial Army and the regulars is now being merged, which will, in my view, be disastrous if it is not handled professionally and with a great deal of thought and planning. The recruiting teams will have to be made to understand that they are dealing with two completely different animals. The regulars operate in what might be described as a military bubble, but the TA personnel are, first and foremost, civilians and come from a totally different background and experience, although they have a considerable amount to offer the armed services.
While our armed forces are placing their lives on the line each and every day on behalf of us all, which they are now doing in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq, it is essential that the Government, through the MOD and Parliament, concentrate on providing what is necessary for the present and for the immediate future. The Prime Minister has spent too much time placing European Union integrationist policy first, rather than ensuring that present day servicemen and women have appropriate and adequate resources and equipment.
If we do not provide our forces with the best that money can buy, rather than some of the present outdated equipment, which is hardly fit for purpose, will it be any surprise if we cannot recruit or retain sufficient high calibre personnel? By spending too much time and energy on the future creation of forces which will eventually be totally integrated within the European Union rapid defence force, the Prime Minister and his Chancellor have sold the pass and limited the choices for the future.
Many commentators believe that the Army of today is being starved of resources in order to feed a fantasy army of the future. I hope that they will be proved wrong, and I trust that the MOD will provide the appropriate equipment for our armed services to allow them to perform their valuable and vital duties.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that there is a limited amount of time left for this debate. If more hon. Members are to catch my eye, brief contributions would be helpful.
4.13 pm
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) started her remarks modestly by being self-deprecating about her knowledge of defence, which she belied by the depth of knowledge and detail in her speech. Hon. Members will have been astonished to hear that someone so young could possibly be married to someone who did national service. I am glad that the cavalry arrived in time to hear the best part of her speech.
As always happens on these occasions, today’s debate consists of three main strands. First, all hon. Members—this is probably true of all hon. Members throughout history—have been unanimous in paying tribute to the courage, professionalism, discipline and dedication of our armed services, both in times of peace and in times of war, which is the case at the moment in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The job that they do is not a job that many of us sitting in this air-conditioned Chamber would willingly do, although some of us sometimes pretend otherwise, and we pay tribute to all that they do and to the support provided by their families. That is an enormously important strand in this annual personnel debate.
The
second strand that recurs in these debates concerns the kit and
equipment with which our armed forces are sent to war. There are always
discussions about whether there is enough body armour, whether there
are enough bullets, and whether the equipment could be improved in one
way or another. For my part,
I am proud that 9 Supply Regiment, the Royal Logistics Corps is based in
my constituency; it does an outstanding job of ensuring that equipment
gets to troops on the front line. However, improvements could be made
in the computer systems that enable it to get that equipment through to
the boys on the front line. During Telic 1, for example, a significant
amount of equipment, particularly body armour, was stored at Umm Qasr
but should have been issued. Nevertheless, we should be proud of the
fact that the British armed services have the highest standards of
equipment issued to any armed services anywhere in the world. Of
course, it could always be improved or used more effectively. It is
also true that soldiers will always go out and purchase their own
equipment. Before any deployment or operation, the boys will go out and
buy their own stuff, but that is not to say that the stuff that they
have is not first class. It is worth paying tribute to the quality of
the equipment supplied to
them.
I have particular concerns about the foam flame retardant that is being fitted to the wing tanks of the Hercules fleet. Having heard in this House only last week that the first plane will be completed by August, I understand that that has slipped at least to September and possibly to October. I do not want the Minister to give away any secrets that would help our enemy, but I hope that he will take on board the fact that the community around Lyneham in my constituency is desperately keen that that retardant should be fitted as soon as possible. Leaving aside such details, broadly speaking the equipment with which our troops go to war is first class.
The third strand—the one that has most preoccupied us and is perhaps the most important at a time like this—is the question of whether the things that we are asking our armed services to do are matched by the numbers of people and the quality of the equipment that they are given to do them with. In that context, I am glad that this debate follows our debate on defence policy a couple of Thursdays ago. What are our armed services for? Are we always going to support the United States in everything that it does? Are we to go around the world as a kind of world police force? Are we engaged in home defence and crisis management on our own shores? We have a whole variety of roles inthe Balkans, the Falklands, Northern Ireland and Germany—the list goes on and on. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said, we are being asked to do more and more. There seems to be a global strategic mission creep. The Government are very free about saying that we will do these things—“We must do something about it: let’s send some troops”—but less free with the supply of people to do them.
Mr. Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gray: I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, because he has only just arrived, unlike those of us who have sat through the debate for the entire afternoon. We are short of time, and I want to allow some of my hon. Friends to speak.
During
the Conservatives’ time in office, there was something called
MARILYN, which stood for manning and recruitment in the lean years of
the nineties. At that
time, it was predicted that a drop-off in population numbers would
prevent us from recruiting enough people into the armed services.
Perhaps that should now become MARTINET—manning and recruitment
in the now even more terrible years of the twenties. Some serious
manning and recruitment problems are coming our way. With 103,000 Army
personnel, we now have the smallest Army there has ever been. If that
figure falls below 100,000, we will no longer able to call it an army
in normal nomenclature. We have the smallest Army since the battle of
Waterloo, yet it is being asked to do more and more. The same applies
to the Royal Navy and the Air
Force.
I am especially concerned about the Territorial Army and the reserve forces in general because they were significantly cut in the strategic defence review. At the time, it was said to be a good thing but we have subsequently discovered that we could not have carried out operations in Iraq or Afghanistan without our reserves. I suspect that current figures for the number of reserves available to us are probably substantially misleading. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton made an interesting point about that.
When a soldier returns after serving six or eight months in Iraq, it is unlikely that any other than the unemployed Territorial Army soldier will volunteer to go a second time. The nature of the TA soldier deployed on operations has changed significantly since the day when I had the honour of serving in the TA. I suspect that several people will return from operations overseas, remain a member of their regiment for a time—especially, I am ashamed to say, to collect their annual bounty, which provides important financial help—and move on. I therefore suspect that the number of people available to the services from the TA and the other reserve forces is significantly smaller than the figures suggest. The Government must, therefore, consider carefully how we can increase the number of soldiers, sailors and airmen in our reserves and how we can prevent that number from falling further.
If a truly fundamental strategic defence review were to take place again and we were to set out our purposes and how our armed forces would carry out those tasks, the number of servicemen available—from memory, it is 185,000 in the three services—would be too small. If we are to undertake the war against terror alongside the United States, the world’s policing and the homeland defence tasks that face us now, any sensible and dispassionate observer will say, “The number is too small.” The elastic is stretched to its limit. Can it be stretched further?
One former Prime Minister of our great nation told me that, when he was Prime Minister, he went to see the teachers and they listened to him, but, after a time, they told him to get lost. He visited the doctors and nurses and they, too, listened carefully, but again, after a time, they told him to get lost. Then he went to see the generals and, time and again, they turned to the right, saluted and got on with what they were told to do. All Prime Ministers and Governments increasingly love the military because the military carries out their instructions in a way that no other public servants do. In a sense, the trouble with the British forces is that they have a can-do mentality. No matter what they are asked to do, they will get on with it—and they have been doing that in spades in recent years.
At what stage will British forces be asked to do too much? When will the elastic snap? Several of us are worried that, at this moment in our strategic outlook on life, we are very near to that point. I hate the thought that something might happen, around the world or onshore—let us suppose that, heaven forfend, three explosions take place in different town simultaneously—and our armed forces have to say, “I’m sorry, Secretary of State, but we cannot do it.” I am horrified at the thought that a point may come in the history of our nation when that happens.
The debate is, therefore, important. It is vital that the Government—no one else can do it—consider carefully what they ask our armed forces to do and the resources that they give them to do it. My instinct tells me that they will conclude that the resources are woefully inadequate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer must face up to it and spend significantly more on our defences.
4.23 pm
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab): I am grateful to be called to speak and happy to follow the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). I apologise for not being present throughout the debate.
I want to bring to hon. Members’ attention a responsibility that the Ministry of Defence has shirked for too long—the Bevin boys, who were conscripted miners between 1943 and 1948. The Ministry’s responsibility is clear. Those men were conscripts, called up to serve their country, who, through luck or lack of it, ended up underground, mining coal to keep our war effort going. Let me explain the process whereby someone ended up as a Bevin boy. Every month, as conscription proceeded, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, put in his bowler hat the numbers zero to nine and his secretary pulled out two numbers. Every conscript whose national registration number ended with those digits was posted to the mines. Those who refused to be posted were dealt with under the wartime emergency powers legislation, and often had to serve a jail sentence, as well as time down the pit on their release.
If it had not been for the process devised by Bevin, those conscripts would have served in our armed forces. The Ministry of Defence has rightly honoured armed forces veterans in recent years in an increasing number of ways, and it also has a responsibility to honour the Bevin boys.
Why was there a
need for conscripted miners? The Government had allowed experienced
coal miners to join the armed services, and to transfer from pit work
to more highly paid jobs elsewhere in industry—and, with all due
respect, who would not make that choice? It was hoped that the gaps in
mining numbers would be taken up by the unemployed. However, by
mid-1943, more than 36,000 miners had left the industry, many for
better jobs, and the move by the Government to make the industry a
reserved occupation was too little, too late. Coal production slumped
dangerously low and, by the end of 1943, it was estimated that Britain
had only three weeks’ supply in reserve. So, in December 1943,
Bevin hatched his plan, and 48,000
men ended up serving in the system until 1948—long after many of
their military counterparts had been returned to civilian life. Bevin
boys therefore assisted not only with our war effort, but in our
reconstruction
process.
The return to normality for the Bevin boys after their service was a return to nothing. Their pre-conscription employment was not protected, and there were no pensions for those injured during their service. Armed service conscripts were rightly allowed to keep their military uniform, given a demob suit and paid leave, and received war and campaign medals. They could also return to their pre-war employment. Not so the Bevin boys. So, in many ways, the Bevin boys suffered during their conscription and continued to suffer after the end of their national service. To my mind, the memory to them continues to suffer today.
Many of those young men wanted to do what they saw as their duty and fight the Nazi tyranny that was engulfing the world at that time. Many therefore felt that their status as Bevin boys was not given just recognition. Many Bevin boys were also subjected to a range of taunts, humiliating attacks and unpleasant behaviour. As they wore no uniform when off duty, they were often believed to be avoiding their military service, promoting suspicion that they were draft dodgers, deserters or even enemy agents. Many were regularly challenged by the police.
Those conscripts were not well looked after in the 1940s, and they are not well recognised 60 years later. It was not until the 50th anniversary of VE day and VJ day during May and August 1995 that they received any recognition at all. Speeches made by the Queen, the then Speaker of this House and the Prime Minister acknowledged their value in words, but now is the time for deeds, not words.
This is not a contest between those who served in our armed forces in that period—or, indeed, in any period—and the Bevin boys. It is about an overdue recognition that, without their effort, we might well not be having this debate today. I tabled early-day motion 1417 earlier this year, calling on the Government to recognise the Bevin boys officially with an award similar to that available to military veterans. I am very happy to tell the House that that motion has attracted 173 signatories, including members of all parties except, sadly, the Scottish National party, none of whose members is here today. I urge all Members who have yet to sign the motion to do so—even members of the SNP—to show their solidarity and support for those veterans of world war two.
I have already raised this matter in the House with the Prime Minister, and with the then Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), who informed the House that his predecessor had been a Bevin boy. I have written to the Prime Minister twice, but I am still waiting for a formal reply. I have also written to the Ministry of Defence and Department of Trade and Industry, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the present veterans Minister for his understanding approach. However, all the time the MOD is deliberating whether to acknowledge the Bevin boys, their numbers are falling. They are now old men, and some are very ill.
I have had support on this matter from UK Coal, Scottish Coal, NUM Scotland and a host of other mining-related organisations, in addition to letters of support from families all round the UK. Those letters display something other than support; they display hope that the MOD will have the conviction to acknowledge the service of those conscripted veterans in a personal way, and that is what I believe the MOD has a moral obligation to do.
The Bevin Boys Association exists today to keep their memory alive and to fight for their cause. I pay tribute to Warwick Taylor for his commitment to the more than 1,800 men who are members of the association, and to my constituent, Fraser Neil, who was responsible for raising the issue with me in the first place.
Some Bevin boys are household names—Jimmy Savile, Eric Morecambe and Brian Rix, to name but a few. I must take the opportunity to applaud the Sunday Express, which has worked with me in the campaign for recognition of the Bevin boys’ effort. More than 1,000 readers have returned coupons to the Sunday Express calling for the Government to do the right thing, and that is what I call on the MOD to do today. I know that I mentioned that Jimmy Savile is a former Bevin boy, but I hope that we do not have to rely on Jim to fix it. The MOD should fix it, and the sooner the better.
4.30 pm
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): I, too, pay tribute to our armed forces throughout the world.
I also want to put on record my thanks to all military and civilian staff serving our armed forces in Shropshire. I pay tribute especially to the excellent work of the Army Base Repair Organisation. Earlier this year, the Government announced that ABRO was to close. I thank the Minister of State for rethinking that decision and giving ABRO a stay of execution, certainly for the next three years. I also pay tribute to the Defence Committee and its Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), for highlighting in their Afghanistan inquiry the role that ABRO needs to play and is playing. I hope that the Minister might today throw a further lifeline to ABRO and say that, given the possible three-year deployment in Afghanistan, and the possibly longer commitment in Iraq, ABRO’s life will be extended beyond three years and into the next decade and beyond. I hope that we can be encouraged on that.
I also pay
tribute to the Defence Logistics Organisation in my constituency and to
all those who work at Sapphire house in the neighbouring constituency
of Telford. Of course, the Minister will know that an announcement was
made this week that might see 400 job losses at the DLO.
Notwithstanding the points made on both sides of the House about
whether the merger of the Defence Procurement Agency and the DLO is
right or wrong—and I question whether it is right—one
must ask whether the timing is right. The Secretary of State said
earlier that the timing of any decision to change things can never be
right. To return to the Afghanistan inquiry, one of the key reasons for
the ABRO decision being changed was the timing of the troop deployment
to Afghanistan, where vehicles suffered attrition due to rough terrain
and needed to be repaired more frequently and quickly to be redeployed
to the front line. The same logic applies to the DLO.
We have rightly paid tribute to our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, but let us not forget those in Gibraltar, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands, Congo and many other places around the world. All those forces require logistical support. I therefore hope that the Government will rethink the decision about the DLO, as it rethought the decision about ABRO, which I put on record that I welcome. There is time to do so. There is no shame in the Government saying that they have concluded during the consultation that the timing is wrong, and that the principle of whether the DPA and DLO should be merged can be discussed later.
I may be in a minority among Conservative Members on this matter, but perhaps Parliament needs to debate at some point whether privatisation of our defence sector has gone too far. Do we now just want to outsource responsibility without establishing that output will be better than it is in the public sector? The public sector contains both military personnel and civilians who have served in the forces and have a military ethos—a public service ethos. Such people are often reluctant to go into the private sector, and not just for reasons to do with pay, terms and conditions and TUPE arguments. They joined a military organisation because they wanted to be part of a military organisation.
That leads me to the defence training reviewand RAF Cosford. As I said here earlier today, unemployment in Shropshire rose by a whopping 30 per cent. between May 2005 and May 2006. With manufacturing outflow and the retail sector under threat in some of our market towns, there has never been a greater need to protect Shropshire’s defence sector, and that includes the 2,200 personnel, both military and civilian, at RAF Cosford. I hope that the review will be objective, measured and non-political, and will conclude that the experience, dedication and commitment required in defence training is best provided by the personnel at Cosford—and, indeed, throughout the west midlands technology corridor and supply chain, and in the aerospace cluster in Shropshire and surrounding counties.
I am proud that Combat Stress has a facility in my constituency. The staff at Audley court in Newport, Shropshire, do a marvellous job. I have been there several times, met staff and clients and listened to many of their stories, which are varied. The people there have been involved in different conflicts, some recent, some dating back to the Falklands, and some even dating back to the second world war. Those stories are extremely moving. It is absolutely right for the Government to consider improving mental health services for our armed forces personnel.
We know that without early intervention, post-traumatic stress becomes post-traumatic stress disorder, which is far harder and more costly to treat. I think that those who are currently in the armed forces receive the message that people with mental health problems are not being treated well, and that that lowers morale. I think it also causes people to wonder whether they should join up if our veterans are not treated properly.
That in turn leads me to the issue of the joint forces payment agency and the Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency. A number of constituents have contacted me over the last few months about late payments, lost documents and redundancy settlements that have not been given to them in time. That has caused them real financial hardship. I hope the Minister will ensure that those agencies abide by their duties and fulfil their obligations to those who have served the country and Her Majesty’s armed forces over many years. It is absolutely right for them to be treated as well when they leave as when they arrived. Perhaps if they are treated better when they leave, more will join.
It strikes me as a tragic paradox that while our armed forces are fighting for democracy overseas, when in theatre they are unable to exercise their own democratic rights and vote over here. I hope that the Minister will give us some assurance that when the next general election comes along, everyone who serves in Her Majesty’s armed forces, whether military or civilian, will be given plenty of time to register their votes so that they can exercise their democratic rights and choose the Government whom they want to serve this country.
Some months ago, I raised the issue of the haemorrhaging of special forces personnel to private security companies. The then Secretary of State for Defence said that a statement on the matter, either written or oral, would be presented to the House. It may have passed me by, but I am not aware of any statement on how the Government are dealing with the ongoing haemorrhage of special forces, such as members of the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Squadron, the close protection trained Parachute Regiment and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) mentioned earlier, the Royal Military Police. Retention of such personnel is a problem and I hope that the Minister will give us some idea of how the Government are dealing with that important matter.
Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): May I say to my hon. Friend that it does not involve only the elite groups that he mentioned? Experienced non-commissioned officers from the front-line infantry units are also leaving to join security companies. When I visited the Scots Guards in Amarah, the commanding officer told me that he was very worried that, when he returned to Germany, many of his senior NCOs would purchase their discharge and go back to Iraq to gain a massive increase in their salary, thus diminishing the regiment’s ability to train.
Mark Pritchard: My hon. Friend makes a very good point, as he always does. He is absolutely right to say that not only are members of the elite regiments attracted to the private security sector, but people from the Guards and other infantry regiments are interested as well. That is absolutely understandable given the professionalism and training of Her Majesty’s armed services— [Interruption.] Yes, senior NCOs are particularly in demand by private security companies— and understandably so. It will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about that.
Expenditure is a thorny issue in this place, but I am a Back Bencher and I can speak freely, but with caution. Are the pay levels for our armed forces personnel right? I believe that I am right to say that UK armed forces are the only service personnel who have to pay tax on their income while serving in foreign fields. I hope that the Minister will look further into that and see whether some exemption or tax relief can be made for our armed forces while they are serving in foreign countries.
The cadet forces have already been mentioned and I declare an interest as president of Telford and Wrekin air cadets and as a former, albeit junior, air cadet in the Herefordshire squadron. I welcome the Government’s commitment to expand the cadet forces, but I note that it applies specifically to the combined cadet forces. That is fine, but I appeal to the Minister not to overlook the fine work of all the civilian and military voluntary staff of the Air Training Corps and our marvellous cadets throughout the country. Please do not overlook the Army Cadet Force and certainly do not overlook the marvellous work of the sea cadet corps. Many of these groups are struggling for funds. The Government are right in what they are doing, but it would be a shame if concentrating on the CCF meant that the Air Training Corps, the Army Cadet Force and the sea cadet corps lost out.
Mr. Gray: I think I am right in pointing to a strange anomaly whereby the sea cadets are not funded by the Ministry of Defence, but entirely charitably— [Interruption.] I note that the Under-Secretary is shaking his head and he will no doubt correct me if I am wrong, but it might be an occasion for the MOD to consider whether the sea cadets should be put on the same footing as the Army and air cadets.
Mark Pritchard: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. From memory, I believe that the current position is that the sea cadets have 60 per cent. funding from the Ministry of Defence and 40 per cent. charitable funding through the excellent work of the Sea Cadet Association. It is unique in receiving less money than the other cadet forces and perhaps has less access to facilities as a result of naval bases being on the coast while sea cadet units can be far inland, as in the case of landlocked Shropshire. I hope that the Government’s move towards supporting certain youth services and cadet forces does not lead to others being overlooked.
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