Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords]

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan). In the role that I am privileged to hold as chair of the all-party group on the armed forces covenant, I welcome the Bill’s key measures. However, as far as I am concerned, this is the just beginning of the process, not the end. There are four issues that we need to explore further, most of which have already been touched on by Members on both Front Benches. I am talking about recruitment, retention, family life and the development of female personnel.

A challenge lies ahead: we have a 5% deficit in our armed forces personnel and this Bill, while I welcome it wholeheartedly, will require us to appoint and recruit even more people to ensure that flexible working is more than just a phrase and that it is a reality. We will simply need to recruit more people to make this policy work, which, given where we are, will provide additional challenges.

On recruitment, a third of our armed forces cite flexible working as a reason why they will stay in the forces. Of great concern is the fact that, within the Royal Navy, 46% of service personnel cite the lack of flexible working as a reason why they would consider leaving. Those are not our figures, but their figures, which gives us cause for huge concern.

Then there is the issue of family life. None of us, especially those who serve in this House, operates without the support of others to enable us to do our job. That should be no less the case for those who are serving every day to keep us safe. We need to look not just at flexible working but at other issues, including the delivery of the covenant and making sure that it is tangible for our armed forces personnel. In the last Parliament, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), who was then chair of the all-party group, introduced the Children of Armed Services Personnel (Schools Admission) Bill, which focused on how children could get school places when families were redeployed very quickly. It is issues such as that which cause retention problems and which are the bread and butter to our families and our service personnel. Unless we make some significant changes—and even some minor ones—to how the system operates, we will continue to lose our armed forces personnel.

We also have the unfortunate reality of the service family accommodation model. I am talking about the reality of trying to get accommodation to work for personnel and their families; of trying to ensure that they can get the right property in the right place at the right time and in the right school district; and of trying to ensure that properties have boilers that work, hot water and all those other things that people require. We would not put up with not having those things, so why should those people who are keeping us safe and their families do so? The reality is that the contract with CarillionAmey needs to be greatly improved, otherwise the actions that we are calling for today become irrelevant and we will continue to have a recruitment and retention challenge in our military.

[Mr Francois]

On the point about CarillionAmey, does the hon. Lady agree that, when we speak to serving personnel, it becomes clear that they are not exactly enamoured of that company? The Ministry of Defence needs to compel its contractor materially to raise its game. If the contractor does not do so, it should lose the contract.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. In fact, one thing that has proved to be both a huge honour and a heart-breaking experience is that, as chair of the all-party group, service personnel families contact me on a regular basis to detail their experiences. What goes on is simply not good enough. I have had representations from some of the service personnel charities, even as late as last week, and they are now worried about what happens next. Just as CarillionAmey seems to have woken up to the fact that it has some responsibilities, the charities are now concerned that, if things are put on a regional basis, we will have to start all over again explaining the needs and requirements of our personnel. Therefore, as bad as it is now, we are concerned about what happens next. We in this House have a responsibility to ensure that the MOD understands the concerns and the fact that it is simply not acceptable for a family to have to wait eight days for their boiler to be fixed.

The concerns that we are talking about relate not just to those experiences, but to how much people earn. Members will appreciate, from the trial of flexible working, that there were concerns about how tour bonuses were to be paid and how reduced hours would have a knock-on effect on salaries. These issues are compounded in the current climate by the mini defence review. It has been raised directly with me that serving personnel are concerned about losing their tour bonuses and what will happen to them next. Owing to a lack of communication, they are being told by senior officers that they might lose some of their core terms and conditions. That would mean that flexible working will become just words and will not help to fix the problem.

[Toby Perkins]

Flexible working would be great if it resulted in more people choosing to stay in our armed forces, but what if it makes work more flexible only for those who are already in the armed forces? The impact could be even greater demands on those who are not on flexible working contracts. Does my hon. Friend share my concern?

[Ruth Smeeth]

I could not agree more. We need to be careful about how we roll out flexible working to ensure that the whole workforce is covered from day one in 2019. We now have about a year until that date in which to recruit in order to ensure that staff are not increasingly overstretched. It has to be a whole-force approach. As with any business that implements flexible working options, a full complement will be needed to deliver flexible working, otherwise it will not work.

I will briefly mention women in the armed forces. The number of women currently serving is a key issue; 10.2% of our armed forces are women, which is a significant development from the situation 20 years ago, but it is simply not good enough. I think that many colleagues on both sides of the House—especially after debates earlier today—would suggest that more women everywhere would be a very good thing. But the reality is that there will not be senior female personnel, such as a female Chief of the Defence Staff, until women have progressed through the ranks. To do that, we need to ensure that they and their families, whether serving or not, have support around them.

The fact that only three women are at two-star rank is simply not acceptable. We need to look at the additional support they need, which is why this has to be the beginning, not the end—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) is correcting me. There are, in fact, four women at two-star rank. The right hon. Gentleman will have to tell me who has been promoted; I celebrate and welcome all promotions. There are additional strains on family life for all women who serve, but there are also clear moments where career breaks are necessary. Women should not have to leave the forces to have a family or to look after ageing relatives.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

At the heart of the Bill and at the heart of what my hon. Friend is saying is that the Government’s proposed legislative change will require a cultural change in the armed forces. Is that not what is needed for the very fine and good aspiration of this legislation to be delivered in practice?

[Ruth Smeeth]

We are talking about a cultural change and a legislative change, but it is also a financial change. In order to ensure that our armed forces can protect us when we need them to, we need to deliver for them and look after them. That is the least we owe them. To get past these challenges and deliver for our armed forces, this legislation must be the beginning of reviewing their terms and conditions, not the end.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill, but—there is always a but—we need to look at the armed forces’ overall broader package of terms and conditions, and at how much they earn. We need to look at the 1% pay cap because, as the shadow Secretary of State said, there is no trade union that can advocate for our armed forces. It is down to us in this House to ensure that they are well paid, and it is down to us to fight their corner because no one else is going to do it for them. While our service personnel are protecting our national security at home and abroad, we must ensure that we are looking after them and their families.

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[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak this evening, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), who was able to draw on his experience of the reserves and that of people he served with.

I welcome the Bill. It is important that we do everything we can to support our armed forces personnel and ensure that we attract and retain talent—an issue I will discuss in more detail shortly.

I would like to start by echoing the Secretary of State’s opening remarks that we have the best armed forces in the world. I place on record my thanks to our brave servicemen and servicewomen for their courage and professionalism, for the fact that they put their lives on the line to defend and protect our country, and, as we have spoken about this evening, for often making compromises in their work-family balance. I also pay tribute to the two reservist units based in Cannock: the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers and the Royal Military Police.

Before I come on to talk about the Bill, I would like to touch on a local issue in relation to the armed forces. Staffordshire has a proud military history. We were home to the Staffordshire Regiment, better known as the Staffords. Although it was disbanded and merged with the Mercian Regiment, our regimental mascot, Watchman V, a Staffordshire bull terrier, is now the mascot for the Staffordshire Regimental Association and was last year’s winner of the public vote at the Westminster dog of the year show. On a more serious note, Watchman V—or should I say Sergeant Watchman V—and his handler Greg Hedges regularly attend regimental events, military parades and remembrance services.

[Ruth Smeeth]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady about the wonder of Watchman V, having had the privilege of being with him at the launch of the Staffordshire poppy appeal last week in the constituency of the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). He does Staffordshire a true service and I am delighted the hon. Lady has mentioned him in the House.

[Amanda Milling]

I am grateful to one of my constituency near neighbours. I also see the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) in her place, whose dog is the new winner of the Westminster dog of the year. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) makes the important point that they are fantastic ambassadors for the Staffordshire Regimental Association, our military history and our armed forces.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I will now address the Bill, which I welcome. I understand its purpose: we need to find more ways to provide flexible working arrangements. We need to ensure that our armed forces better reflect modern life, and we need to secure a better work-life balance for service personnel and their families. As many Members have said, this is about attracting new talent to the armed forces, including women, so we can reach the 15% target by 2020, but it is also about retaining talented servicemen and servicewomen. People are leaving the forces because of the impact on their family life. I have seen this at first hand. Friends of mine have decided to leave the armed forces for family reasons: a better work-life balance and more stability in where they live. This is a massive gain for other public sector organisations and the private sector, but a huge loss to the armed forces. We are losing skills and expertise following significant investment in training throughout their career. I would like to touch on training a little more.

In the past couple of months, like many other hon. Members I have had the honour and privilege of taking part in the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I place on record my thanks to everyone involved, on a day-to-day basis, in setting up and organising the scheme. I also thank those who have hosted our visits so far. I am taking part in the Army scheme and have learnt so much in a very short space of time. It is on these visits that we have seen the importance of training in getting our servicemen and servicewomen up to speed and ensuring they have the necessary skills. The first half of the scheme between now and Christmas is focused on recruitment and training. I have visited the Army Aviation Centre in Middle Wallop, the Infantry Training Centre at Catterick—that has already been mentioned this evening—and the Land Component briefing day. Next week, a number of us will be visiting the British Army training unit out in Kenya.

We have learnt so much at each of those sessions by virtue of speaking to officers and soldiers, who have welcomed us and shared their experiences of serving. They have given us a real insight into life in the armed forces. What is evident is the investment in training. That is not surprising: we need to make sure that personnel are fully trained if they are to be deployed. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his opening remarks, we need to ensure that our servicemen and servicewomen have not only the right equipment but the right skills. Those skills need to be constantly updated.

That investment in training means that we have highly skilled and highly experienced personnel, so retention is critical. As I have said, one of the main reasons why we lose armed forces personnel is the impact on their family lives. That is why the measures in the Bill on flexible working are so important. It is equally important to continue to ensure operational capability and effectiveness in our armed forces. I recognise that the Bill contains measures to introduce flexible working, while at the same time maintaining the key principles of the armed forces, with a degree of temporary measures included.

Members have mentioned the extent of the consultation on flexible working. There have been the flexible duties trials, we have had surveys and we have had focus groups. Before I was elected to this place, I was a qualitative market researcher conducting focus groups. Thirty two groups across 16 locations is a very large-scale survey and it will help to ensure all views are incorporated into the Bill.

As I mentioned, a number of us will be visiting troops in Kenya and marking Remembrance Day with them, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all those involved in services across Cannock—there will be plenty—all the very best for their services over Remembrance weekend. I would also like to thank all the volunteers from the British Legion, such as those from the Great Wyrley Bridge branch who I joined in Sainsbury’s in Cannock on Saturday. They work tirelessly this time of the year raising money for the poppy appeal.

To sum up, I welcome the Bill, which contains measures to create more flexibility and so help to attract and retain talent.

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[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill. Having recently served on the Finance Bill Committee, one realises that there is a beauty in brevity, and the two pages of this Bill are indeed beautiful. They are beautiful in what they seek to do, which goes to prove that a Bill does not have to be large in stature to be effective.

During my time in the reserve forces, I interacted with a number of friends and colleagues in the Regular Army and the regular services who dealt on an uncomfortably regular basis with members of their service going to them as their officer to say, “Boss, I am going to have to leave because my recent service has been very intense and if I want to keep my family together, I am going to have to enter ‘First UK Civ. Div.’”. In this place, we would call that civilian employment. I know that a number of my colleagues were hugely disappointed, but they understood that these soldiers, sailors and Air Force personnel would have to put their family first, and they reluctantly let them go. That was the right thing for these people to do, but unfortunately it was a loss to the service.

It is worth remembering that the patterns of military service we are now used to were put in place at a time when a single employer for life was the norm in civilian employment, and the idea that the bloke would go off to earn all the money for the family and the wife would be happy to stay at home looking after the children was also the norm. The world of work in the civilian sphere has changed beyond recognition. It is now perfectly normal to have two working parents in a household. It is now perfectly normal for the woman in the household to have the more significant and high-earning job, and for the man in the household to be the one who bends their working life around the needs—[Interruption.] Of the wife, indeed. There are plenty of examples in the Chamber this evening of that happening, yet until this Bill is passed it will still be the norm in this area for the woman in a relationship to have to sacrifice her career for that of her husband. Surely in 2017 that should no longer necessarily be the case.

I was struck by the point made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) that we have few women in very senior roles in the armed forces. That is a shame, and it weakens us at a point in time when we now recognise that the diversity of experience and knowledge is an important element in successful planning for not just operations, but the background work in which our armed forces take part. One Opposition Member made the point—I apologise for not recalling who it was—that it is not enough just to pass this Bill, important though it is; it is also important that we drive through a cultural change in the armed forces. The hon. and gallant Members who have served will know that there is an unwritten rhythm to the perfect military career. Someone becomes a platoon commander at a certain age and a company second-in-command at another, they go to staff college at this point and then become a brigade chief of staff, before going on to command a sub-unit and then hit other markers at other points. That is the route to high command in the armed forces. It is great for completely flexible men, but it is much harder to hit those career markers if you need to take time off to have children, and that massively disadvantages women.

Hopefully the Bill will become an Act, after which the acme of its success will be that if a man needs to take time off from that career rhythm to support his family—his children, an elderly relative or whoever it might be—he still feels that he has as much chance of getting to high command, should his talent lead him there, as a woman. As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said, there must be no stigma for either a man or a woman in taking advantage of flexible working.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the cultural change we need to see is a senior officer being the first person to access flexible working? That would send the right message to the rest of the force about how the changes should be implemented and how we should operate.

[James Cleverly]

That is not something I had thought of, but it is an important point. If not someone at a very senior rank—there might be the implication that they had already cashed in their chips so were fine—I would love it and it would be interesting to see one of the potential high fliers take up flexible working. Those Members who have been involved in one of the numerous all-party groups on the armed forces all have a little shopping list of the people who could be the service chiefs of the future. Were one of those marked people, the future high fliers, to say, “I’m going to take advantage of this and send a really powerful signal that it will not carry any stigma”, that would be important.

I hope that the Bill will drive a change in attitudes towards service leavers. While I was waiting to speak, I took part in an exchange on social media in which someone reminded me that traditionally the armed forces have not been very good at dealing with people on their way out. I have always been massively frustrated by that, because those people are the recruiters of the future. It is remarkable that someone who might have had decades of happy service, whether in dark blue, light blue or green, and who could have gone on to become a fantastic recruiter for their branch of the armed forces, could get messed about so comprehensively in their last few weeks and months of service that when they finally hit civvy street the only thing they have to say is what an awful experience they had. That seems a massive waste. Perhaps, through this model of flexibility of service, the armed forces will get better at dealing with people as they move from full-time service to part-time or flexible service, from part-time service to reserve service, and from reserve service to civilian life, in such a way that those people become and remain powerful recruiters for their branch of the armed forces.

The changes in the Bill will need careful management, but this agenda should not be avoided just because of that. We will need to make sure that flexible working is not used as a way to duck out of a particularly bad potential deployment—we all know that there are good and bad deployments. We must also make sure that the availability of flexible working is well communicated throughout people’s service life, so that they have thought about it before they need to do it, rather than just afterwards. I do not want to see anyone else sacrifice either their career because of their family or their family life because of their career. The Bill is a big step forward and I commend it to the House.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Public Bill Committees

The amendment refers to the implications of the new working practices for the future of housing contracts, but I also want to mention current issues with housing. CarillionAmey won multimillion-pound contracts for maintaining about 50,000 housing units because it was the lowest bidder. We have heard complaint after complaint about the response time to repair and maintenance requests, and about the quality of repair and maintenance received.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend and the Minister know, I pay close attention to this issue. The complaints are not necessarily about response times, but about where the key performance indicators have been set and how they do not meet the needs of our armed forces. CarillionAmey is meeting its KPIs. It will turn up within 24 hours, but it takes eight days to fix the boiler, and I think that is more of a problem. I can empathise with that, given how cold it is in here today.

[Gerald Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She has highlighted one of the many concerns that we have around the work of the contracts, or the way that the contract is not working for families in our armed forces.

Last year’s National Audit Office report on service family accommodation was damning of Carillion’s performance:

“The performance of CarillionAmey has been totally unacceptable”.

Although I welcome the action that has been taken, the Government had the option to terminate the contract, yet they did not, which leaves me with some concerns about how seriously the matter is being taken. I appreciate that there have been some improvements, but reports have shown that continued dissatisfaction with the delivery of the contract is still widespread. For those in service family accommodation, satisfaction with the quality of maintenance/repair and with response to requests for maintenance/repair fell to just 28%, which is very alarming indeed.

Of course, this is all in the context of many personnel seeing increased costs for their accommodation and ongoing pay restraint. The pay review body commented on that in its latest report:

“A key consideration in people accepting the increases in charges being seen…will be a clear improvement in both the overall quality of the housing stock and the effective delivery of maintenance services.”

I would like to hear whether the Department has any specific plans to take action to improve performance and at what point we might see that happen.

Recruitment and retention issues are at the heart of the Bill, and housing is a crucial factor in that. I hope the Minister can give me some assurance and answer my questions about how the new working practices will impact on housing allocation, what the latest progress with the future accommodation model is and how the Government will deal with housing contracts if marked improvements are not shown.

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[Ruth Smeeth]

May I suggest that as the Minister is looking at those proposals, he bears it in mind that to move from where we are now to a regional model is of huge concern to the families?

[Mr Ellwood]

I know that the hon. Lady has spent a lot of time looking at these issues, and I am grateful for her input. She has done well to finesse those concerns into the Bill. She knows that that is a separate but very important subject. I hear what she says.

CarillionAmey was mentioned. That concerned the previous Secretary of State, and the company was called in to ensure that improvements were made to meet the KPIs. The contract comes up for renewal in 2020. That does not stop us making sure we provide the best accommodation we can for our armed forces personnel. We should recognise that what people choose and expect today is very different from 15 or 20 years ago, when a room this size would have been full of 20 beds. Now people expect individual accommodation, wireless networks and decent cooking facilities, and that is what we are providing, not least as we build new premises and new accommodation, with the returning of our armed forces from Germany.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney seeks to place an obligation on the MOD to commission an independent report evaluating the impact of new forms of flexible working on armed forces housing contracts. The Government have already provided assurances during the passage of the Bill that regular service personnel, when taking part-time work, will retain those entitlements currently available to full-time regulars. There will be no change there. Providing our people with service accommodation is pivotal for their work. We must ensure that their families have that guarantee and that support, particularly if circumstances change and they need to be called back at short notice.

Regular service personnel who successfully apply to undertake the new forms of flexible working following the introduction of these measures will be entitled to service accommodation commensurate with their personnel status category and other qualifying criteria, in the same way as their full-time colleagues. Individuals will take up these new arrangements for a defined period only and will retain an enduring liability for mobility. They will still be subject to the same moves associated with new assignments as others in the regular armed forces.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords]

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party welcomes the measures in the Bill that aim to address some of the issues around recruitment and retention of personnel. However, we are concerned that they do not go far enough to tackle the crisis. Unless some evaluation of these measures is carried out, we run the risk of this simply becoming a paper exercise.

The most recent figures show that there was a net outflow of 2,740 personnel from the UK regular forces in the 12 months to the end of September 2017. The MOD said that this difference has increased compared with the 12 months to the end of September 2016, when there was a net outflow of 1,930. According to the 2017 armed forces continuous attitude survey, 35% are dissatisfied with service life in general, and the impact of service on family and personal life remains the top reason for leaving.

There are a number of operational pinch points, which are areas of expertise

“where the shortfall in trained strength…is such that it has a measurable, detrimental impact on current, planned or contingent operations”.

Data on operational pinch points are published in the MOD’s annual report and accounts. The latest report shows that the total number of pinch points, as at April 2017, is 30. Broken down by service, there are four pinch points in the Army, relating to logistical roles; 15 pinch points in the Navy, in engineering and specialist warfare; and 11 pinch points in the RAF, in engineering and intelligence roles, with emerging shortfalls in aircrew.

New clause 2, which is in my name, would ensure that a review is carried out allowing Parliament to monitor and evaluate whether the provisions in the Bill are having a positive impact on recruitment and retention. It would allow Parliament to hold the Government to account, and to monitor whether the measures are addressing the underlying crisis in recruitment and retention.

According to the explanatory notes to the Bill, clause 1(4) will give a commanding officer

“the ability…to vary, suspend or terminate the arrangement in prescribed circumstances, for example: national emergency or some form of manning crisis”.

I do not believe that anyone has a problem with the suspension of the agreement during times of national emergency—we discussed this point on Second Reading and in Committee—but we know that there are long-standing shortages in key areas and that the operational pinch points are increasing. We are concerned that a large number of service personnel will not benefit from the provisions in the Bill. The SNP amendment would allow Parliament to keep a close eye on the uptake of flexible working in the armed forces.

We welcome measures that could have a positive impact on recruitment of women, but it is clear that the Government need to do more to meet their 2020 target. The 2015 strategic defence and security review stated that by 2020 at least 15% of the intake into the UK regular forces would be female. In the 12 months to 31 March 2017, only 9.4% of the total intake was female. With women making up just 10.2% of the armed forces, more effort needs to be put into attracting female applicants. What impact does the Minister think the measures in the Bill will have on recruitment of women to the armed forces? What more do the Government intend to do to meet their target for 2020, because on current statistics we are a long way off?

As I said, the SNP welcomes the measures in this Bill, but we believe that this was the opportunity to do far more for service personnel and their families. Although the Bill aims to tackle some of the issues around dissatisfaction, unless personnel are properly represented among defence policy decision makers, it runs the risk of being a paper exercise. I do not think that any of us in this place want that to be the outcome. Having an armed forces representative body on a statutory footing is the norm in many countries. Recognised representation is a key way that the UK Government could better understand the needs and requirements of our armed forces and their families. If the UK Government are serious about improving the lives of our armed forces, they should look at putting an armed forces representative body on a statutory footing.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

May I say how wonderful it is to see you back in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker?

I speak in support of the new clause and the wider provisions in the Bill. We have spoken before in this House about the challenges that we as a country face, and how vital it is that our armed forces have the capabilities that they need to tackle the threats that we are confronted with. Much of that discussion has understandably centred on funding, equipment, and having the right number of platforms. However, it really does not matter how many platforms we have and what their capabilities are if we do not have the skilled service personnel trained and retained in enough numbers to staff them.

We currently face a personnel deficit of 5%, with no fewer than 38 operational pinch points across the three services. Clearly, therefore, recruitment and retention is a real problem, and it is beginning to undermine our ability to deploy. While there are multiple issues that we need to address in this area, we know that flexible working offers the chance to begin to rectify the problem. As I have mentioned previously in this House, 46% of service personnel within the Royal Navy cite the lack of flexible working as a reason why they would consider leaving the military. Conversely, a third of all our armed forces cite flexible working as a reason why they would stay. So there is a very real and genuine demand in our military for provisions of the sort that this Bill brings forward.

However, for flexible working to succeed, it is vital that recruitment numbers increase, so that flexible working is a real option afforded to all service personnel. After all, introducing more flexible working at a time of static recruitment would risk exacerbating the problems we face, as we lack the numbers to fill the gaps, and people will not be able to take the options available. It will be important to monitor how many service personnel are working part-time, to identify and fill potential gaps in capacity, and to assess the effectiveness of this Bill’s aims. That is why I welcome my Front Benchers’ new clause requiring this information to be included in the armed forces biannual diversity statistics.

While a lack of flexible working is often cited as an obstacle to recruitment and retention, it is by no means the only one. There are challenges to be addressed in all four areas being looked at in the new employment model—pay and allowances, accommodation, terms of service, and training and education. In the case of accommodation, the recent collapse of Carillion—as everyone in this House knows, a major partner in the delivery of appalling service accommodation—means that these conversations are now even more urgent, and reassurance is a necessity.

On the matter of pay and conditions, little will change until we know what the pay review body is going to recommend this year to move us away from the appalling 1% pay cap. We also need certainty about the other terms and conditions offered to our personnel. Future pay rises cannot be funded by cutting tour bonuses or other allowances.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces covenant, I am profoundly aware of the debt we owe to the men and women of our armed forces. Their commitment to our country is unwavering every day. Our commitment to them, to their families and to their welfare should be unwavering, too. I fear that the message the Government are sending on this front remains mixed. Nevertheless, I welcome the Bill as an attempt to tackle some of the problems we face and a good start on the work of improving recruitment and retention in our armed forces.

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[Mr Jones]

I think it is a fact of life that the pool of 18-year-olds is becoming smaller. I hope the right hon. Gentleman was not suggesting that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) should be brought out of retirement; I do not know whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing for the armed forces, but it would certainly be interesting for them. However, he has raised an interesting point. When I was a Defence Minister, people who could have made a further contribution were leaving the forces in their early to mid-50s, for reasons connected with, for instance, pensions. Given that that pool of 18-year-olds is getting smaller, we should also revisit the idea of recruitment from Commonwealth countries, which has been successful in the past. It has made a tremendous contribution to our nation’s defence over the last few years.

[Ruth Smeeth]

My hon. Friend has referred to serving personnel of a slightly more mature aspect. Might not the most effective way to ensure that flexible working proceeds as the Bill proposes be to ensure that at least one one-star officer takes the opportunity to sign up for it?

[Mr Jones]

That is an interesting concept, which returns me to an important point made by the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon). We need new role models, and not just in the context of flexible working. We need, for instance, to see a senior general who is a woman. We can do all the talking we like about trying to encourage women to join the armed forces and take an active part in advancing their careers, but unless there is a career path that will help them to progress, many will assume that that will never be achievable. We need only look at our US counterparts and others, where female officers have attained the highest rank. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth): why can these provisions not be open to senior managers and others in the military and other armed forces? That would send a positive message that it is important.

I welcome the Bill, but disagree with the Minister in that I do not think it is a silver bullet, because people join our armed forces and are retained for reasons not only to do with work-life balance, but because of pay and other things such as career breaks, which other armed forces in the world offer, enabling people to leave the armed forces and then come back. That does two things: it gives the expertise that those individuals have learned in the armed forces to business, charity and other sectors, and brings a wealth of knowledge back into the armed forces, which is needed. Career breaks are not unusual in the United States and other countries. This Bill is a start in terms of flexible working, but I hope that that will develop through career breaks and other initiatives.