Armed Forces: Personnel

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to resolve the issues of operational tempo, pay, pensions and housing affecting Armed Forces personnel reported in the latest Armed Forces Pay Review Body report; and how they ensure that such steps are compatible with the Armed Forces covenant.

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, the opening words of the current military covenant say that,

“the whole nation has a moral obligation”,

to all those,

“who serve or have served in the Armed Forces…and their families”.

and that they deserve our

“respect and support, and fair treatment”.

That is the basis of my Question for Short Debate this evening. I ask myself whether the Government are fulfilling their obligation on the military covenant. It is an undertaking that goes back many centuries, indeed to the first great Queen Elizabeth—Elizabeth I—when an Act was passed which compelled parishes to contribute to the care of veterans. This nation has a very long history of seeking to give good support not just to our service men and women but to their families as well, both during and after their time in the services. The Armed Forces do not have the channels to speak out for themselves. They are not permitted to join a trades union, although if you look at the blogs and the chatter on the wires, you would see that many in the Armed Forces are now agitating that they should have a trades union. I make no comment on that.

They do not have the same right to speak freely in the public arena about their position as we do. However, in January this year, Catherine Spencer, speaking on behalf of the Army Families Federation, suggested that Ministers were close to breaching the military covenant. She said:

“I have to ask if the future has ever seemed more demoralising”.

I have always believed that you should look on the upside of things and not just the negatives. I have had a pretty awful weekend doing the research for this speech because I have become increasingly concerned about the state of our Armed Forces—I am talking about the personnel side, not the equipment, obviously. I recognise the need for austerity measures but my interpretation of the wording of the 2012 AFPRB report is that it expresses deep and serious concerns on the range of those austerity measures and how they are being applied to the Armed Forces.

I declare an interest as a former chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body for six years. I am currently a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association and a trustee of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme. I have been in contact with none of them for this debate; I am not speaking to any external briefing. This is based on my experience.

It is a long time since I read a report from the Armed Forces Pay Review Body which has been so direct in talking about decreasing morale in the Armed Forces. The report states that the operational tempo remains “very high”. We know that, but that is almost a blanket for a number of problem areas: people not being with their families for as long as they should, going off on operations, coming back, going on training, not having the time that we have, in the military covenant, tried to ensure for them. Indeed, chapter 2.8 states:

“The 2011 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey … indicated decreasing satisfaction … and declining morale”,

in the services.

Written and oral evidence from the services family federations highlighted uncertainty from those people about, for instance, the future of the pension scheme and the related transitional arrangements; changes to the Ministry of Defence allowances package; the impact on family life of the operational tempo; and the recurring theme of poor-quality accommodation and maintenance. These are ongoing issues that have been raised not just with the present Government but with the previous Government.

Those concerns are coupled with a pay freeze for 75 per cent of Armed Forces personnel for the past two years and a pay award for the remaining 25 per cent of just £250. In my view, the decision now to extend the pay restraint for a further two years, with no exclusions and a limit of 1 per cent, is having a cumulative and potentially damaging impact on the morale of our Armed Forces personnel and their families. We should be worried about that and we should try to address the issue.

A staunch pillar of the covenant going back generations has been the provision of housing, particularly in the Army. The Navy has a high proportion of its personnel who buy their own homes. To be in a community of forces families in similar situations—young families, often with Dad, or now sometimes Mum, absent for a lot of the time on operations—provides great mutual support. In the recent, successful television programme, “The Choir”, we saw how being there supported those young women. Just 45 per cent of Army personnel are buying or renting their own homes—two-thirds as many as the rest of us in the population. So the reasons for the drop in morale are obvious.

If this situation is to change, more help is needed. The home is at the heart of the family. It is somewhere we all retreat to when we have issues. The £8,500 from the current Long Service Advance of Pay Scheme to assist in buying a home is, in my view, insufficient; it was insufficient some years ago. I am not even sure whether it is still being applied, but the conditions for it are pretty onerous. It will not bring about the change that the Government—particularly the Minister—want. The Armed Forces Home Ownership Scheme is a good and very welcome initiative, but it hardly touches the problem. Just 93 personnel benefited from April 2010 to July 2011, so it needs a lot more resourcing. I accept that in a period of austerity that is very difficult; nevertheless, it needs more resource. With the number of personnel returning from Germany, what are their hopes for decent housing either within or without the services?

I read the review body report over the weekend, and from personal experience I know how much care goes into writing this report. The authors do not want to be negative when they write the report or cause problems by overspinning it, but the report brought home to me just how serious the concerns must be. Normally the authors would put it across very calmly and without exaggeration—and I believe there is no exaggeration in this report. So I was alarmed at the overall message in sections of it. One reference on its own would not be too concerning, but reference after reference to morale must lead to concern.

The review body deals with serving personnel, not veterans; the military covenant covers those serving and those who have served, and rightly so. The plight of some veterans is concerning and has been raised in this House over a number of years. It is not getting much better. Last year the Veterans Aid charity provided 19,700 nights of accommodation for former Armed Forces personnel. A disproportionate number of people who live on the streets come from the Armed Forces; we know that from debates that we have had in the House. The link with the poverty that those people live in must be of concern to us all.

The House has a reputation for taking a keen interest in Armed Forces personnel issues. I think that we all recognise the work and dedication that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, has applied to this. Nevertheless, there are still areas of criticism. I will bring together the list of issues of concern that contribute to a lack of morale. There has been pay restraint for two years for 75 per cent of personnel, yet they see in the Budget that people with plenty of money will get tax cuts next year. Job security is disappearing and career prospects have been cut, against a background of high operational tempo and the negative impact on family life.

Sometimes when I raise issues, for example on pensions, I am told that things cannot be changed because the consequences will bounce back on the public sector. I do not accept that as a rational argument. People in the public sector do not go off and give their lives. More than 400 of our men and women have lost their lives in Afghanistan up to March this year. It cannot be said that this is the same kind of job as working in an office or in a local authority. We need to look at this.

I am not asking for special treatment. I hope that on this occasion the Minister will not trot out the usual mantra that it is all the previous Government’s fault. I am asking that we honour the military covenant. It is our moral obligation. We are in serious danger of not meeting that obligation. Perhaps in his reply the Minister will kindly consider committing to remedy what people in the Armed Forces have lost. They face four years of pay restraint—a pay cut in anyone’s language—and a lack of job security and career prospects. We need a renewal of our commitment to the Armed Forces, and we need to carry out that renewal.