Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, Amendment 5 repeats our amendment on pay and allowances from Grand Committee. Taken together with Amendment 6, it offers greater protection and security to our service men and women who may need to use the option of flexible or part-time working as described and set out in the Bill.

I was grateful to the Minister for his response in Grand Committee and for following it up with letters to me and to other noble Lords. In Committee, the Minister offered reassurances, saying that,

“the introduction of part-time working will not be used to lower the full-time equivalent basic rate of pay, the x-factor allowance or any other universal allowances or payments available to personnel”.—[Official Report, 12/9/17; col. GC 95.]

This commitment was very much welcomed. As we have seen on so many occasions, the views of one Minister cannot be taken as representative of the views of all future Ministers, although we on this side hope that this particular Minister stays for a long time yet. I hope that the Government will accept this and feel able to put our amendment into the Bill, thus demonstrating commitment to our hard-working service men and women.

I now turn to the existing options for flexible working and, in doing so, seek to build a bridge to demonstrate that there is a clear link in the objectives of these two amendments. In a letter that the Minister sent last month, he outlined three options for flexible working that now exist: working from home, compressed hours and variable start and finish times. His letter explained in detail how these options work and, while this information was welcome, I look for assurance that the three flexible working options will continue to be available alongside the new part-time working arrangements enshrined in the Bill. The Minister’s letter did not quite make that clear. The letter said that existing flexible working arrangements recognise that a small variation in an individual’s working arrangements can have a positive impact on their working lives, which is true. It went on to say that there will be circumstances where existing options will not be sufficient and a significant reduction in working hours over a longer period can be facilitated by a part-time working arrangement.

Those arguments might seem perfectly reasonable, but I have some concern. Many service personnel, faced with some domestic or other problem causing them to seek to change their service work commitment will, nevertheless, have great difficulties if the only option on offer involves a cut in pay and a reduction in pensions. Bearing in mind that part-time working, as set out in the Bill, will involve a cut in pay and pensions, can the Minister assure us that each application for changing service work commitment will be looked at on its merits and that using the flexible working options that he outlined will be considered alongside the part-time working arrangement?

I turn to Amendment 6, which relates to the future status of Joint Service Publication 750, which outlines the range of flexible working options that I have just spoken about. It had been a concern of all sides that the introduction of part-time working—which, as I have said, will take a proportionate amount of pay and pensions from applicants—was a drastic overreaction to a genuine need for greater flexibility. I know that the Minister will not accept that, but he is aware of the concerns on this point. We were pleased, therefore, with clarification on the provisions of JSP 750 and the anticipated take-up of the part-time offer. I believe that many of the worries expressed across the House have been addressed by the Minister’s response. However, while part-time working will have a statutory footing following the passage of this legislation, this is not true of the existing flexible working options.

This amendment seeks to ensure that the options in JSP 750 will continue to be available and that, if that document is ever withdrawn by a Secretary of State, regulations must be brought forward to make a similar provision. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, in this group I will speak to Amendment 7. We all want flexible and part-time working to be a success. Therefore it is important to monitor whether these arrangements are helpful in convincing some who may not have ordinarily thought of joining the Armed Forces so to do—I beg your Lordships’ pardon. I am very sorry, I am speaking to the wrong group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, Amendment 7, if accepted, would afford the Government the opportunity to enhance the value of the Armed Forces covenant annual report. The Government deserve credit for the full implementation of the covenant and for ensuring that there is an annual report. The report shines a light on the way this country treats those who put their lives on the line to defend our freedom. It is made even more valuable by the fact that there is an external members reference group which can pick and choose what it wants to consider and comment on. So why not go one step further and ensure that, when preparing the report, the Secretary of State for Defence must take into account the two tasks that would be placed on him by paragraphs (a) and (b) in this amendment?

We discussed this in Committee and have returned to it again on Report because, on reading the Hansard report of the Committee’s deliberations, there seemed to us to be some ambiguity in the Minister’s response. In replying to me, he said:

“I share the view of the noble Lord about the importance of measuring and reporting on the impact of the changes that will be introduced through this Bill. I want to ensure that it is done in the most appropriate and effective way for both the MoD and Parliament”.


However, he concluded:

“it is likely that a future report will include a section on the introduction of the measures included in this Bill … That would be entirely appropriate”.—[Official Report, 12/9/17; cols. GC 99-100.]

This debate is really about allowing the Minister the opportunity to state without any doubt that a report on the measures included in this Bill will be included in the annual Armed Forces covenant report. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for jumping the gun earlier.

We all want to make flexible and part-time working a success, and it is therefore important to monitor whether these arrangements are helpful in convincing some who might not ordinarily have thought of joining the Armed Forces so to do, or in persuading some existing members to remain in the Armed Forces if they were considering leaving. The Armed Forces covenant annual report is the report on the state of the armed services to the nation, so I ask the Minister not to close the door on this level of reporting. It would be helpful if he could assure the House that, in the future, the MoD would consider doing just this.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, Amendment 4 is a probing amendment. I am very grateful to the Minister and his team for the meeting that we had—it seems a very long time ago—just before we rose for the Summer Recess. We went through these issues with him. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, employment patterns are changing. The idea of joining the service man and boy—or perhaps it is girl and woman these days—seems very much a thing of the past, or at least not what is always expected. We want to understand exactly how this works and what the Government’s intentions are behind it—hence the probing nature of the amendment. We are after the what, the how, the how long and the how many.

The devil in this sort of thing is very often in the detail. We on this Bench have some concern that a lot of the detail will be in secondary legislation. I know that we will be dealing with that and I know that my noble friend Lady Smith will be dealing with those issues later. However, I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to these points—he has had the summer to look at them with his team—and then we will see how we can move forward from there.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, Amendment 6 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe relates to the powers conferred on the Defence Council by Clause 1. It is a simple but important amendment and it is one that has the full support of the House’s Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. If I may, I will echo the comments made in the Chamber last week about the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who chaired the committee when it produced its report. We all wish her well and look forward to her speedy recovery and return to Parliament.

In its report on the Bill, the committee noted:

“These powers are conferred without any detailed provisions on the face of the Bill limiting or restricting how the powers are exercised. In the circumstances we consider that the affirmative procedure should apply”.


The timing of the Bill, with the so-called repeal Bill and its many proposed delegated powers, which was approved in the other place in the early hours of this morning, is significant. We in this House always pay attention to the granting and use of delegated powers and it is only right that if additional powers are conferred on the Defence Council or on Ministers, a proper level of parliamentary scrutiny is guaranteed.

Following meetings and discussions with the Minister, it is my understanding that the Government intend to accept that view and will either agree to this amendment or table a similar one; we will wait for the Minister to tell us. The introduction of part-time working and reforms to geographically restricted service represent fundamental changes to the terms and conditions of our Armed Forces. By ensuring appropriate scrutiny of the forthcoming regulations, the House will be fulfilling its duty to our hardworking service men and women.

Perhaps I may say a brief word about Amendment 4. We certainly do not oppose the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, but much of the information it seeks is in the supporting documents that the Minister has provided. The key question that we want the Minister to answer is to assure us that this information will be put into regulations. If that is the Minister’s intention, it may not be necessary to put this provision into the Bill.

I do not know whether it is the intention of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to speak to his amendment, but I shall say a brief word about it because he and I discussed it last week. I agree with him that there are too many instances where legislation is passed and commencement never seems to occur. I certainly sympathise with him on that point. However, I believe that the Government have made it clear that they want this option to be available from 2019, and in those circumstances I wonder whether that might well suffice.

National Shipbuilding Strategy

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I think this is the Minister’s first time at the Dispatch Box representing defence and I am sure it will not be the last. I welcome her.

I am tempted to say, “Eureka!”. We have it at last—the Government’s national shipbuilding strategy. It was promised in the spring but, like so many government promises, that one did not materialise. Why is it so late in coming? Why has so much valuable time been lost? After all, it was first trailed in the SDSR 2015. Was it worth the wait? I am hoping the Minister will be able to convince us today that it was. In 2015 we were told the strategy would support innovation, allow SMEs to bid for defence and security contracts more easily, enhance and support exports and train at least 50,000 apprentices by 2020. How will this strategy paper deliver on those pledges?

In November last year, Sir John Parker produced a report to inform the drafting of the shipbuilding strategy. It was damning, to say the least. He said the MoD lacked an overriding master plan for each project, resulting in fewer and more expensive ships being ordered too late. Ageing ships were retained in service, resulting in expensive refits and maintenance costs. Not enough effort was put into exports. There was a lack of assured capital budget per ship, and this was subject to annual arbitrary change. There was a lack of empowered governance and a lack of continuity as people moved to new roles. Most crucially, he said the MoD had lost the expertise in both design and project contract management.

That last point is very important because on the “Today” programme this morning, the Defence Secretary again spoke about supporting the defence budget by finding money from “efficiency savings”. Does that mean sacking more civilian staff and replacing them with service personnel? Is that the Government’s plan to fill the black hole in the defence budget? That would have massive implications for maintaining the capability and readiness of our Armed Forces. It would be tantamount to ignoring one of Sir John’s key observations.

In 2015 the Government said they would slash staff numbers by 30% by the end of the decade. That is three years from now. In 2015 the MoD employed 58,860 civilians. Two years later, that has been reduced by 270. Are the Government having a rethink on this policy? I hope they are, because I agree with my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, who said the pre-2015 cuts in civilian roles were short-sighted.

How long will it take for the report to be implemented? Will Sir John continue to review its progress and, if so, how often? Will a Minister be put in charge of overseeing the strategy and taking it forward? We welcome the commitment to build the new frigates, but can the Minister give more details on the timescale for the development of the Type 31e? There is a stated aim of getting them into service by 2023—just six years away—in order to replace the Type 23s as they are decommissioned. In the Statement the Minister said industry needed to improve its competitiveness. Can she confirm whether the £250 million ceiling for Type 31e is achievable if productivity increases do not materialise?

We welcome the potential increased use of block building, as it can spread employment opportunities and economic gain across the regions of the United Kingdom, but with the apparent heavy reliance on exports, is the Minister confident that there is enough work for multiple shipyards? Similarly, we welcome the increased focus on the export market, but it is hugely important that the Government ensure that the shipbuilding industry is not negatively impacted by Brexit and the declining value of sterling. The Government need to work to promote British shipbuilding to secure a steady flow of orders.

The United Kingdom has the potential to be a centre of excellence for shipbuilding once again, and we certainly welcome the ambition to secure existing jobs and create new jobs across the country, not just on the Clyde, but I press the Minister to say something more about the use of British steel. Paragraph 55 of the strategy states that about 50% of the total value of steel needed for the Type 26s will be British-made, but is that not somewhat lacking in ambition? The national shipbuilding strategy should fit into a wider defence industrial strategy. Will the Government bring forward a defence industrial strategy, which could streamline our procurement policy?

Finally, remembering that more than 4,000 naval personnel were made redundant in the 2010 SDSR, from which the Royal Navy has never fully recovered, can the Minister assure us that we will have enough personnel to crew all the new ships?

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in welcoming the Minister to the Front Bench on her first defence Statement. As a general rule, we welcome the shipbuilding strategy, which is all to do with the delivery of the 2015 SDSR. We welcome the boost that it is likely to give to British engineering and the use of the distributed build model, which was so successfully used with the carriers. We welcome the opportunity that should come from this to spread enterprise and employment to shipbuilding yards across the UK, and the opportunities to export.

I should welcome some clarity from the Minister about the opportunity to open the market. I have not read the detail in the strategy, but can she indicate how this might work? As she outlined, the timescale is really tight if we are to have our first Type 31e frigate by 2023, so how long is the procurement process expected to last, and how long the build? Here, I echo concerns about efficiency savings. We clearly need to be effective and efficient, but if we start cutting corners, we will rue the day.

What gives the Government confidence that there will be men and women available to build the ships and, once built, to man them, given that unemployment is pretty much at an all-time low at the moment and the Royal Navy is not attracting recruits or retaining young men and women? Finally, what mechanism is envisaged to report to Parliament on the progress of the strategy outlined in the document?

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the entire House will join the Minister in his last remarks. We are always indebted to the Armed Forces of our country: we are free people because of their dedication and commitment.

I will be brief. When I spoke at Second Reading on February 11, I said that I had a feeling of déjà vu, having taken the 2005 Armed Forces Bill through the other place. I have to confess, as I did then, that I never saw the Act through to its completion because the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, phoned me and awarded me the DCM—“Don’t Come Monday”—and I was no longer a Minister. So in one way I feel a sense of achievement having seen this Armed Forces Bill through all its stages in your Lordships’ House. We have had some first-class debates and many powerful arguments on the Bill, with notable contributions from distinguished Members too numerous to mention.

The Government have shown throughout our deliberations that they were willing to listen to the arguments on all sides. More than that, thanks to the Minister and his excellent Bill team, the Government have been willing to engage in discussions, and for that all noble Lords are in his debt. I believe that our discussions aimed at improving it mean that the Bill leaves this House better than when it arrived with us in February. That has been achieved not by contests, votes or amendments but by frank and open exchanges on all sides, involving colleagues all around the House. The undertakings given by the Government on a range of issues, from publishing statistics on sexual assault and rape to a review of support for those who have mental health problems as a result of serving in our Armed Forces, have made a real difference to the Bill.

On this side, we would have hoped for a similar undertaking on the matter raised by my noble friend Lord Judd in relation to providing an annual report on military service by those aged between 16 and 18, but I feel sure that we will come back to that at some time in the future, and we on this side of the House wish the Bill well.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches I also want to pay tribute to our Armed Forces. It has been a small and not quite perfectly formed Bill, but a very interesting Bill on which to work and I thank the Minister and his team for being ready to talk to us and to listen to our proposals and our views. I also thank the Opposition for a certain amount of joint working and collaboration on some issues. Indeed, it has been a very good-spirited and incredibly well-informed Bill. There will be another Armed Forces Bill in five years, but in this one we looked at the usual government tidying-up, the issue of child soldiers, the issues of courts martial and justice, mental health and sexual offences. The Government resisted the amendments very effectively, but I rather feel that they will be revisited in five years’ time and I look forward to discussing them in future with the noble Earl. In the mean time, we on these Benches are more than happy to support the Bill.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, Amendments 9 and 10, covering the special provisions for sufferers of mental health conditions and the Armed Forces covenant report on mental health parity of esteem gained a degree of support in Committee and, for that reason, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and I believed it was right to come back with these matters on Report. I shall confine most of my remarks to Amendment 9 as I know that the noble Baroness will cover Amendment 10.

I am especially grateful to the BMA for the advice and case studies that it has provided to me in support of this matter. Amendment 9 would ensure that, in the event of a diagnosis of a mental health condition that had been caused by service in the Armed Forces, an immediate lump sum payment would be made to the individual affected. Amendment 10, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, with our full support, would create a specific obligation on the Government to have particular regard to parity of esteem between mental and physical health in the Armed Forces covenant. Again, we have had some very useful discussions with the Minister since Committee, and he wrote to me on 15 April setting out the Government’s thinking, for which I am most grateful. The letter refers to the Armed Forces compensation scheme and the tariff system, specifically the table of injury types. I share the BMA’s view that mental health should be further up the tariff table, in the sense of more compensation being awarded for mental health illnesses. Perhaps the Minister could respond to this point in his reply.

In his letter he also refers to late-onset illnesses but does not set out to what extent the Government believe that this is a problem. We might understand this better if the Government produced statistics demonstrating how long it takes for veterans to receive compensation after a mental health diagnosis. In my discussions with the BMA, it has persuaded me that the Armed Forces compensation scheme does not reflect that mental health is not diagnosed immediately. Again, it would help if the Government considered looking at the commencement point of mental health illness, not simply the point of diagnosis, and awarding compensation on that basis.

I understand that there is to be a further review of the Armed Forces compensation scheme. Indeed, judging by the Minister’s letter it has already started. The Minister has indicated that the review will consider the scheme’s coverage, in particular those seriously injured, including mental health cases. That is a step in the right direction and has once again demonstrated that we have found common ground on how to take this matter forward. I await the Minister’s response. I would feel more supportive if, in that response, he read out the key points from his letter and put them on the record. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, these two amendments had a slightly chequered path to the Marshalled List. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and I sat down after Committee and wondered whether we could somehow incorporate the two ideas into one. We took our resulting amendments to the Table Office, which said that it would not do. They were then split out again. Once marshalled, the two amendments were tabled in Lord Touhig’s name with my support, whereas in fact the first was in his name and the second in mine with his support. The Table Office has apologised, but I felt I should set the record straight.

The Minister has just given the House a very eloquent account of the role of the Armed Forces covenant, and in Committee he brought out the fact that there was no need to worry about parity of esteem for mental health because it all linked in with the Armed Forces covenant, which took into consideration things such as the NHS mandate, and therefore there was no concern.

I had decided that I would do a bit of work to see what the statistics showed. There is a wealth of statistics on the MoD website. I commend the MoD for increasing awareness of, and taking action on, mental health over the last few years. However, when looking at parity of esteem I needed to compare mental health with physical health, and there were no similar statistics on physical health to enable me to weigh one against the other. The Minister said in Committee that parity would not be required because parity was implied in the covenant, as in the NHS mandate, as I have just said. Clearly, however, this is not evidenced and I would like the Minister to reflect on that when we come back for Third Reading. Will the Minister also explain how physical and mental health services are commissioned, in particular where services are not delivered by service personnel, and why this might be deemed acceptable?

I certainly do not intend to push this inclusion in the amendment but fine words butter no parsnips and the evidence is not there. Parity of esteem is not transparent and for the men and women with mental health conditions, it is not good enough—I do not mean the services that they receive but the fact that they cannot be clear whether they are being treated within the same sort of timeframes or scales as for physical health. I would certainly welcome a rethink before Third Reading.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I add my congratulation to those of other noble Lords to everyone who campaigned for this so hard and for so long. It seems that these last few sufferers were almost proving elusive. I am delighted that the Government announced that they will bring them into the scheme. The British Legion has also been hugely active in this regard and deserves congratulation, too.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, showed remarkable tenacity in all this, particularly today, and in his quest for research funding. As noble Lords said, research is critical. On that point, it is worth mentioning for the Committee—and the noble Lord, Lord Alton—that the NHS does not record employment. A veteran goes to sign up the day after he or she leaves the services and the NHS takes their name, address, number and whatever. That is something else he might need to think about. It is not just in this area that the NHS recording employment would be really useful. It would help with research, treatment and, in some cases, diagnosis. There is work still to be done there.

Although I welcome this amendment, the devil is of course in the detail. Tough decisions always have to be made about the lump sum balanced against the annual income from war pensions and anything supplementary, multiplied by the life expectancy of a partner. I would like to quiz the Minister slightly on how this will be managed. Will people be given advice and support? If that comes from within the Veterans Welfare Service, which is part of MoD, how can that advice and support be seen to be independent?

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I do not intend to repeat the very important questions put by other noble Lords. I just add one brief reflection. I spent a great many years when I served in the other place helping to deal with compensation claims from former miners for illnesses they suffered as a result of working underground. For several years, I chaired a committee set up by my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen when he was Welsh Secretary and I was his deputy. We sought ways to speed up the system of payments. I had more than 500 cases in my own constituency of Islwyn and more than £50 million was paid out in compensation. We had to overcome all sorts of difficulties, but we worked at it and did it. However, that job was unfinished. Try as we did, we could not persuade the Government to compensate workers on the surface who were often exposed to more dust than those working underground.

I was moved at Second Reading when my noble friend Lord West of Spithead spoke for the small number of mesothelioma sufferers who did not meet the qualifying date to be included in the compensation scheme. It would now appear that that has been corrected, and I pay tribute to him and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for the work they have done on this. The Government have listened. That is not a bad thing. I am the first in line to congratulate them on listening and acting.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, Amendment 8 has widespread support across the House, as evidenced by the names attached to it.

The amendment stems from a discussion that I had recently with representatives of the BMA who raised concerns about the way that those with mental health problems are often overlooked when it comes to receiving proper recognition and compensation for the illness that they are enduring as a result of serving in our Armed Forces and reserves. I am sure I am not alone in knowing someone—a friend or a family member—who suffers with mental health problems. I often think that our lifestyles and the pace at which we live today contribute to our difficulties in this regard. I have no medical or scientific basis for holding that view; rather, it comes from what I observe in society as a whole.

None of us needs a medical or scientific background to know that mental illness can take a number of forms and can often be hard to diagnose, especially if the person concerned will not recognise the existence of the problem in the first place. I have come across cases like that and, again, I am sure I am not alone in that.

I was motivated to encourage colleagues to support this amendment by the case of a reservist with a medical background who waited eight years for a diagnosis, having endured PTSD after serving in several theatres of conflict in our Reserve Forces. I learned that there are many others in the same situation who find that mental health problems adversely impact their ability to work at the expected level, inevitably reducing their income and thus their family life. For those serving in our forces and reserves, the problem is serious indeed. Having waited a great length of time for a diagnosis, there would appear to be no opportunity of gaining immediate financial assistance. Contrast this with those having served in our Armed Forces who suffer a physical injury: they can claim up to £60,000 if their injuries are set at level 8 or more. However, mental health is classified below this level. Once diagnosed with a mental health problem, it can typically take 18 months to two years before it is clear whether treatment will lead to a complete or partial recovery and the level of residual deficit, if any. I understand that for a claim for financial compensation to succeed, the permanent level of disability must first be assessed. This adds a further lengthy period of time when the claimant who has served in our Armed Forces or reserves has to live on decreased earnings, in many cases supporting a family. The situation is made worse if the person concerned requires a period of sick leave.

Treating the men and women of our Armed Forces in this way does no honour to us as a Parliament or as a nation; all the more so now that we have the Armed Forces covenant in place. In the foreword to this year’s covenant report, the Defence Secretary, Mr Fallon, writes:

“In return for this loyalty and commitment, we have a duty to ensure that our Servicemen and women are treated fairly”.

This amendment gives us the opportunity to see that, as a country, we live up to that well-expressed and noble aspiration. We can make it more than an aspiration; we can make it a reality. If agreed, this amendment would provide for an immediate payment upon diagnosis and a retrospective payment upon commencement of treatment, backdated to the date of the diagnosis. I hope that the Government will feel able to respond positively to this amendment. In addition, I also fully support the amendment in this group in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 8 and 14. For reasons that will become apparent, I will talk about my amendment first and then Amendment 8. The whole thing hinges on the Armed Forces covenant. Noble Lords will know that at some stage during our lifetime, one in four of us will have a mental health issue. This is pretty much mirrored in members of the Armed Forces. Today, I want to talk about serving members of the Armed Forces and reservists while they are deployed. I am not going to talk about veterans. Veterans receive their health services from the NHS, whereas serving members and deployed reservists receive their health services from the medical system within the Armed Forces. The covenant is all about ensuring that someone in the Armed Forces is not at any disadvantage to those who are outside. I do not know whether when he saw this amendment the Minister raised his eyebrows and thought, “Oh no, not again”, because during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, a great deal of time and energy was spent debating the issue of parity of esteem. This amendment is to ensure that health issues are treated in exactly the same way—clearly not in terms of diagnosis or treatment but in general expectation—regardless of whether they are physical or mental. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for his support on this.

I put it to the Committee that if a sailor, aircraft person or soldier tears their hamstring, they visit their unit doctor or medical centre. They are then referred for treatment, may be given painkillers and are strapped up. Physio will be part of the treatment and, when it is mended, in due course they will return to work. If the injury is serious, they may have to leave the service and continue with treatment outside. Physically, they will clearly be strapped up, so people can see what is going on and their colleagues and chain of command will support them in their journey back to work. A physical injury is something with which we are all comfortable and which we understand. It can be seen: there is no problem. If the issue is anxiety, depression or even worse, the story should be similar, but that is not always the case. The services have done a huge amount of work to reduce the stigma associated with these conditions, but, as in civvy street, it has not always been successful.

Within the NHS, there has to be a great move towards parity of esteem for physical and mental health. What might that look like? It might look like waiting times being much the same for a hamstring injury as for a conversation with a psychiatrist or a psychologist about one’s mental health. It should also be about the uptake of services, which should be much the same for physical health as for mental health. Therefore, I propose that the Armed Forces covenant report should include an assessment of the aspects that I have outlined. As with Amendments 5 and 7, the collection of information and its publication enables progress to be measured.

Amendment 8 follows on from Amendment 14 in that compensation should apply equally to both physical and mental health conditions and therefore I support both of the amendments.

National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Jolly

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement. I am especially grateful to him for the very helpful briefing he afforded my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, of the Liberal Democrats, and me earlier today.

The noble Earl, for whom I have great personal respect, has a difficult job. Our country, people and way of life are again imperilled. Not only do we have to contend with the conventional challenges posed by air, naval and ground forces, but we face the threat of those who would walk down high-street Britain and shoot and kill our fellow citizens. The days when Britain might engage in a conflict and send our forces into battle while those at home were, in the main, safe are now long gone. Today any strategic defence and security review must take account of that.

When in Government, my party had a proud record in the area of defence. It was a Labour Government at the end of the last war who committed us to an independent nuclear deterrent and who helped create NATO. The then Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevan, said of the atom bomb:

“We have got to have this thing over here … we have got to have the … union jack on top of it”.

Bevan made sure that his opponents were excluded from the Cabinet committee that took the decision. That is my kind of Foreign Secretary. Under the previous Labour Government defence spending rose by an annual average of 1.8%, resulting in the modernisation of our Armed Forces. We published Britain’s first national security strategy, delivered the first cross-governmental approach to forces welfare and strengthened medical care and welfare support for those serving in Afghanistan. I judge the Prime Minister’s Statement on the SDSR against that background.

It is the second SDSR of Mr Cameron’s premiership. The first in 2010 was not strategic and not about defence or security. It was nothing more than a cost-cutting exercise run by the Treasury. The Prime Minister has since admitted that his Government took 8% out of defence spending over the past five years. Under his stewardship, defence has underspent the budget that Parliament has voted for it. Such has been the enthusiasm to put saving money at the top of defence priorities that the planned cuts in the size of the Army, announced in 2010, have been achieved two years earlier than intended.

Before the 2010 general election, Mr Cameron promised a bigger Army, Navy and Air Force. In fact, the Army of today is smaller than the one we put in the field against Napoleon. The Royal Navy has just 19 vessels. We are told in the Statement that in the long term we are to increase the size of our frigate fleet. Can the Minister tell us what is meant by “long term”? The French already have 23 service vessels, the Russians 35 and the United States 105. Naval manpower is a real problem. My noble friend Lord West said only recently that 3,500 to 4,000 people were needed to man the fleet correctly. Can the Minister say what is being done to reverse this?

As for the Royal Air Force, the number of planes is at an historic low. We have to rely on the maritime patrol aircraft of our allies to track Russian submarines close to our waters, following the scrapping of Nimrod. That massive error of judgment has to be seen against a background in which the Russians have increased submarine patrols by 50% in the past two years. We welcome the decision to acquire Boeing P-8 MPAs but will the Minister confirm that it will be seven years before Britain has a fully operational independent maritime patrol capability? Today’s announcement of the F-35s is welcome, as is any move to strengthen our high-end military capability, but why has it taken so long to make this decision?

Why is it taking 10 years to create the new strike brigades of up to 5,000 personnel for rapid deployment missions? The world could be quite different in 2025. Does this decision mean that we are abandoning our capability for sustained deployment, which was set out in the previous defence review? Can the Minister tell us for how long these new brigades will be capable of being deployed?

One of the greatest challenges we face is cybersecurity. The Prime Minister has said that due to the threats posed by Russia and ISIL, Britain will be investing in cybersecurity. The Chancellor, speaking at GCHQ, announced that spending on cybersecurity would be almost doubled to £1.9 billion over the period to 2020. He made that statement after the director of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, called on the Government to intervene in the cybersecurity industry because the free market was failing. Can the Minister say what the Government are doing about this? What projects will be part of the £1.9 billion fund? The Chancellor went on to say:

“Strong defences are necessary for our long-term security. But the capacity to attack is also a form of defence”—

I most certainly agree. He said that Britain is,

“building our own offensive cyber capability—a dedicated ability to counter-attack in cyberspace”.

Can the Minister tell us if such an offensive capacity already exists or is it just at the planning stage? If that is the case, what is the timeframe before it becomes operational? How much is being invested in the national offensive cyber programme?

I was in Paris the day before the attack; I was there again last Tuesday, and what a difference in the city in those few days. In view of the horrors of Paris, will the Minister comment on reports in the Daily Telegraph that our special forces have shrunk by 40% due to reduced numbers and restructuring, and will he comment on a senior MoD official telling that newspaper that,

“there is no point spending vast amounts of money on new kit if you don’t have the manpower to operate them”?

Still on personnel matters, noble Lords around this Chamber who have served or spent time with the Armed Forces will know that if service families are happy, the service men and women we send into conflict will have the morale they need to do the job—I am sure the Minister has found that in this time. Does he agree, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s changes to tax credits will be seen as a breach of the Armed Forces covenant? How well does he think ending annual pay rises for the forces will be received, if the Government go ahead with that? Is it any wonder that a survey by his own department shows that one-quarter of those serving in the Armed Forces plan to leave as soon as they can and one-third are dissatisfied?

The Prime Minister has committed Britain to a NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence. We welcome that but worry whether it is another of Mr Cameron’s cosmetic creations. For instance, can the Minister say how including the £800 million we spend on war pensions as defence spending will help protect and project Britain’s force and military capability?

The tradition of Governments of both main parties in this country has been to show how much we value the men and women of our Armed Forces by giving them the tools they need to defend and protect our country and ensuring proper remuneration for them and their families. That tradition, I fear, has been spectacularly badly served by this Prime Minister and this review.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for the briefing that I received, along with colleagues from the Labour Party, earlier today. I am sure that the final form of this document was a result of the events in Paris and, as with all reports, the devil is in the detail. The debate next week in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will give us all more time to analyse that very detail.

This strategy points to a more forensic and measured analysis than its predecessor, which is welcome, and it is appropriate to the times we find ourselves in. I will concentrate my remarks on the interconnection between defence and the world, our alliances, personnel and cyber. It is a complete coincidence that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, has covered much of the same detail. On Syria, my leader has made it clear that he is not a pacifist or a unilateralist, and he is concerned for security of the nation. He will be outlining the conditions under which we would support military action in the next few days.

It is pleasing that the Government see our defence and security as requiring such a strong commitment to our allies and to international efforts. There are few issues that we face that can be addressed without co-operation, from climate change to transnational terrorism to state aggression. It is the strength gained from working with our allies and like-minded states, in particular within the United Nations, NATO and, of course, the EU, that will allow us to overcome and address these issues.

Our soft power capabilities—the British Council, international aid, the BBC World Service and our diplomatic representation—are valuable assets for spreading British values. A recognition of their contribution to our security and defence is an important addition to the SDSR. Will the Minister confirm that there will be no cuts to the budgets of either the World Service or the British Council? I am sure the extension of deep country expertise to a wider span of areas that are vital to our security and prosperity will be welcomed at the FCO, but will the Minister point to how this dovetails with the possible cuts in the FCO’s budget, which officials have said may,

“imperil the UK’s diplomatic capacity”,

if they go ahead?

Moving on to personnel, today I will focus on the Royal Navy and get into the detail of the other services in next week’s debate. Last week I was delighted to visit, with parliamentary colleagues, the two carriers, “Queen Elizabeth” and “Prince of Wales”, in Rosyth. They are an awesome sight and a tribute to British engineering and co-operation between manufacturers. While I welcome their addition to the fleet over the next couple of years, they bring with them a challenge. Will the Minister confirm that there are plans to ensure that there will be sufficient personnel with the right specialities to run the carriers with the Astute-class submarines, destroyers, frigates and support ship configuration? In particular, what action is being taken to ensure that there will be engineers at all levels of seniority and speciality?

As a member of the AFPS, I have visited service personnel in their workplaces, met families in their homes and spoken to senior officers and other ranks. I have to tell your Lordships that morale is not universally high. There is concern about salaries and allowances. Will the Minister confirm the rumours that the annual increment system will change, as will overseas allowances, as a result of MoD cuts? I welcome the move to support a service woman or man to buy their own home. A supported family is critical to the well-being of a serving member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Will the Minister confirm that the covenant will continue and, more importantly, that its implementation is being monitored by the MoD?

On cyber, it is important that cyber intelligence is shared, as many of our systems are shared with our allies and our partners. I am concerned about defensive cyber. Cyber threatens systems and, by its nature, much of today’s warfare consists of systems of systems, with millions of lines of code, all interconnected and interrelated. It is great that we are working with our partners and allies on this, but adding to the connectivity is a multiplier of risk. So I welcome the joint cyber group, but there is an urgent need for recruitment and training. Will the Minister tell us how quickly we can gear up for this joint cyber group as the need is immediate?

I should not finish without a nod in the direction of how the SDSR is to be paid for. I am aware that the Chancellor will unveil the CSR on Wednesday. The Liberal Democrat Benches welcome the commitment to 2% of GDP, but that is another issue where the devil is in the detail. Will the Minister tell the House what sort of efficiencies the MoD is expected to make—apart from selling land and property—that will have no impact on the smooth running of the department? If we are to believe today’s Financial Times, it will be paid for from the welfare budget and from cuts to police and in grants to businesses.