Schools: Cadet Expansion Programme

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Lingfield for bringing this debate to the House. At a time when, more than ever, young people need positive activities in their lives, the cadet forces provide opportunities for them. As he said, research on the social impact of cadet forces, most recently from the universities of Northampton and Southampton, clearly records that they deliver a number of positive outcomes for the young people concerned. First, there is belief in their abilities. Young people nowadays do not always believe that they are able. There is improved motivation, leading to improved school attendance, behaviour and attitudes. There is a reduced likelihood of becoming a NEET—not in education, employment or training. Involvement in cadet forces can lead to greater academic achievement, which in turn can contribute to increased social mobility. Importantly, it builds character in our young people and gives them self-confidence in so many ways, including teaching them to be good team workers. As normal cadet force involvement can last for up to five years, those interventions have proved much more likely to be effective than some other, very short-term interventions.

However, there is still resistance from schools, particularly state schools, to participation. Interest remains high but financial constraints, in particular—the lack of available funding from the Cadet Expansion Programme and the cost of establishing such units—can mean that schools, although interested, do not proceed. Quite rightly, the Cadet Expansion Programme is targeted at schools in the most deprived areas but that means that others miss out.

I come from a military county—Wiltshire. Even so, sadly, we have only one state school with a Combined Cadet Force. It was originally partnered with a private school in the area but has now successfully become independent through CEP funding. However, we must not forget that a lack of school opportunity is often provided by community cadet forces. In Wiltshire, these have been very successful. We have three Sea Cadet units, even though we are a landlocked county, 15 Air Force training corps and 23 Army cadet detachments. I look forward to seeing many of those young cadets in Salisbury on National Armed Forces Day at the end of this month.

I have talked to many cadets over the years. They speak positively about the experience of being part of the military cadet force and their opportunities for personal development and skills acquisition. Importantly, they also talk about the opportunities for excitement and having fun. We should also remember that they often say, “It looks very good on my university CV”. Some, but by no means all, of these young people will contemplate a career in the military, but all of them recognise the wider benefits.

However, the Government could do more. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, more funding for CCF programmes now that Libor funding has ended could go some way to addressing the Army’s concerns that it is dominated by people who went to private schools. The Government could do more to encourage independent schools to partner state schools in establishing their own CCFs. Interestingly, the Sea Cadets are partnered with the National Citizen Service; is there scope to use NCS funding more creatively to support sustained, long-term cadet expansion? The DfE is a relatively new supporter of the Cadet Expansion Programme. Can that support be continued and encouraged? Can some DfE funding be ring-fenced to match MoD funding? It is also important that those schools which remove their support for CCFs at some point, due to a culture change, understand from the DfE and the MoD that their funding may have to be withdrawn to protect MoD investment in other schools.

Finally, the Combined Cadet Force has demonstrated great success stories over many years, providing role models for young people and instilling good behaviour, values and standards. The emphasis is on creating good citizens, not recruiting people for our Armed Forces. Evidence shows that schools and communities benefit from CCFs. Arguably, it is pupils from the state sector, particularly those who have grown up in disadvantaged circumstances, who have most to gain from the Cadet Expansion Programme. The Combined Cadet Force can act as a force for good.

Armed Forces Covenant

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, our country is rightly proud of and grateful to our Armed Forces, both those serving and those retired, as well as their families, and I thank the right reverend Prelate for bringing this debate to the House. First, it is not enough for us just to be proud and grateful; we need to give the covenant the attention that it deserves, and we have a moral obligation, at both a national and local level, to support these men and women and their families, to ensure that they are treated fairly and are not disadvantaged from serving their country. The covenant is there to do just that, yet it must not be seen as just an event, but rather an embedded way of how we do things.

In Wiltshire, we have a large military presence. I declare my interest as leader of the local authority. By 2020, there will be 19,000 Army personnel in the county, so it is perhaps easier for Wiltshire, as opposed to some other areas, to ensure their importance in our communities. For this reason, I believe that it is vital that all our policies as a local authority take account of the particular needs of the military community. For example, there are policies on areas such as: housing allocation; school admissions; the council’s human resources policies to encourage and support reservists; targeted fostering campaigns to encourage military families to consider fostering; working with the Army and local employers to support transition into work, ensuring that service leavers are well equipped with the skills necessary for civilian life when they leave the military. However, there is much more that we can do, even in a place such as Wiltshire. Interestingly, the biggest challenge is always the continued communication to ensure that the public, private and voluntary sectors understand the needs of the military community and that the military community understands what is available to it.

My concern is that in those areas with little clear military presence, it is often more difficult to identify veterans and families so that they get the same consideration. In such circumstances, this relies on the local authority community and the Local Government Association to have a really strong role in ensuring that there is an understanding across all local authorities of their role to deliver the promises stated in the military covenant and a dissemination of good practice in local authorities.

Part of the problem is data, particularly on the veterans; those data are very difficult to collect. In Wiltshire, we understand that 12% of our population are veterans, but I think that it could be higher. What are the Government’s latest views on the Royal British Legion’s campaign, Count Them In, a campaign to ask for a question in the 2021 national census about veterans’ status? This would be of enormous help to local authorities in understanding their communities better.

The covenant is working well in many places, but we must not be complacent. This document must not just be signed; there must be a challenge to ensure it is embedded in policy at both national and local level for our service men and women.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome and support this Bill and I also warmly congratulate my noble friends Lady Pidding and Lord Shinkwin and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, on their excellent, very different and very personal maiden speeches. I enjoyed all three, and I thank them.

If you look after the families, you look after the soldiers—these are not my words but those of the noble Lord, Lord Richards, who knows much more about the military than I do. Although this Bill focuses on disciplinary and other matters, I urge the Minister to continue to look at the wider context of the military and their families as a whole. Earlier this week I was pleased to attend the launch of the Homes for Heroes foundation, which is looking to break down the barriers faced by forces personnel and their families in owning secure, accessible homes, if that is what they aspire to do. It is also looking at and challenging the rented sector, when our soldiers leave the military. There are still a number of local authorities inadvertently not following the covenant in determining their housing allocation policies. I urge the Government to ensure that the covenant is adhered to, across all government departments and across local government. These are early days for the foundation; I wish it well and look forward to seeing the results of its work.

I have now had time to see the strategy for forces families, as mentioned in the strategic defence and security review. While I am a little disappointed that the strategy did not consult more widely with forces families, or with public services as part of the delivery network, the important matter now is the creation of a strong action plan and the delivery of the aims of that review.

Alongside secure housing, good education and health provision for the military and their families is soldiers’ transition into civilian employment. It is extremely important for the stability of forces families that they receive the necessary training and support as they leave the Army to ensure that they can get into secure employment.

In Wiltshire, we have 15,000 troops—the number will rise by another 4,000 by 2020—and the employment of these soldiers as they leave the Army is of high importance to our county. It is also important to the economy of the county. The Swindon and Wiltshire city deal and the Higher Futures programme, will broker higher education training courses, created with a number of local businesses, to convert the military training already received by our forces to qualifications required by the private sector, thus enabling our military leavers to reach their full potential in civilian life. The enterprise network provides sensitive, supportive advice to forces spouses or military leavers who wish to start their own businesses, and our university technical college in Salisbury utilises great support from the local 1st Artillery Brigade and Headquarters South West to help our young people to develop their leadership skills. We run transition fairs annually with the Army, bringing together the businesses, the soldiers, and our support services.

I know that this does not fit entirely with the Bill, but I wish to reiterate: if you look after the families, you look after the soldiers. I believe that our Army is a better Army when our soldiers know that their families are secure and that they have a secure future.