Armed Forces

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, it is indeed an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord King, in this debate. Unsatisfactory though the circumstances have been that created the space for the debate, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor, for securing this topic. I am sure that there must have been some competing issues but to have secured this very important topic for a debate, which is not timed, enables those who are able to do so to contribute and is very welcome. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, to this debate too. I remember well that when the noble Baroness joined the House, defence was one of the issues that she first picked up. I look forward to working with her in the future and wish her much success.

We are in a week when the country and the nation come together to pay honour and respect and, somehow, to pay the due debt that we have to those who have fallen in the wars that our Armed Forces have taken part in. That is very much manifest in the poppy that we all, rightly, wear. It is a way of recognising the enormous price that so many of our citizens have paid. Within the various ceremonies taking place this year there are still many hundreds of war widows who, throughout the rest of their lives, have paid the price for their loved ones having fallen in defence of this country. They are joined now by young widows—widows of an age that we all hoped, as in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord King, that we would not be faced with. However, we are because of the unsafe world that we live in. Perhaps I should declare an interest: I am vice-president of the War Widows Association and very proud of the work that the association has done. They have not forgotten the debt that their loved ones are owed by the nation over the years.

We are reminded regularly in this House of the price that our Armed Forces continue to pay in defence of the realm and in carrying out the responsibilities that we give them. At home in the south-west last Friday night, we had on television the service from a tiny church in a small village in Cornwall where people came together to pay respects to Corporal David O’Connor, a young man from 40 Commando who had had three tours of duty in Afghanistan. He was 27, having been killed at the peak of his young life. We were also reminded of the increasing contribution of women to our Armed Forces because when he met his death, alongside him was Corporal Channing Day of 3rd Medical Regiment. She was out there to help and support our service personnel. As we know, our medical people do not just serve those personnel; any civilians who need their help get it. She was aged 25. It is a hell of a price that those young people are paying, day in and day out, in the service of this country.

The nation respects our Armed Forces. That is brought home continually now, not just by the remembrance services that we have but in the other interaction that the Armed Forces have. It is good that they are able to return to their home towns as a regiment in their uniforms. I welcome that. It is good that they come into Parliament in their uniforms and are welcome and respected; we can pay our thanks to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, mentioned, we also turn to them for help when civil services fail, whether that is because of foot and mouth disease, a firefighters’ strike or indeed the Olympics. I am sure that I am not alone in saying that there was an almost tangible sigh of relief nationally when we were told that the Armed Forces were going to work on security. They were not the backstop; they were the security of first choice for many people in this country, and what a proud job they did for us.

They know when they sign up that they are not going to make a fortune; they know when they take that choice that the ultimate prize could be paid. They know the ultimate sacrifice that they are going to make, but in exchange for that they are given to understand that they have security, stability, welfare support and a cohesive force—whether their regiment, their ship or, in the RAF, their group—that works together. The Armed Forces do not work as individuals but as groups. That is a topic that I shall return to later on in my contribution.

The Armed Forces also expect that when they are on operations, their families will be treated properly. It is the issue of families that I would particularly like to cover today. They also expect that, if they pay the ultimate price, their employer—the nation—will do good by their dependants who are left behind.

The service covenant, which we have had a number of debates on in this House, is a good policy commitment and has good intentions, but we are very short of delivering. I welcome very much the words that I believe were sincerely given by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Astor, today, about plans in the coming months. Our Armed Forces are pretty straightforward in their view, and I can hear them now saying in my ear, as they used to when I chaired the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body, “We’ve heard it all before. Come on, start delivering in the areas where you haven’t delivered”. And there is quite a list of those areas.

I have spoken to some personnel in preparation for this debate. The big issue now for them, and this is referred to in this year’s Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body report, is the uncertainty and the insecurity that they feel about the future—where are they going to live and what is the housing going to be like? Nearly 40% of complaints to the forces’ family federations are about housing—the quality of it, the lack of choice and where people are going to be. This issue has been ongoing for a number of years and does not lie just with the present Government, but it will be exacerbated by the fact that we have personnel returning from Germany.

I gather that we now have a situation where, although people may be in one group in one of the three services, they are not all going to be able to live in the same area. I heard of one case of three commanding officers of the same group living in entirely different areas. In such cases you lack cohesion but, more importantly for the families, it is then very difficult to give welfare support when the serving personnel are off on operations. It is difficult, for instance, to bring military wives together to enjoy life and give each other moral support while their spouses are away serving their country. Probably for the first time, this year the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body referred to low morale in some areas, which it is very concerned about. I hope that it will be following up on that in its report next year.

A two-year pay freeze does not help in any situation. When you are putting a lad or a girl on a plane to go and fight for their country in Afghanistan and possibly pay the ultimate price, as quite a number of them have done, it does not particularly help for them to be told, “By the way, we really recognise what you’re doing but you’re not going to get any pay increase for the next two years”. Our Armed Forces should be treated differently from the rest of us in this country. Why? Because we have the covenant which says that the country will look after them. They do not have the option of just walking away, as so many other people would if they found it difficult.

A small number of the redundancies which have already been referred to were very badly handled. The problem is that that poor handling radiates out through huge numbers in the Armed Forces. The 16-year rule on pensions is that if you have been there 16 years and leave, at a certain age you can then get some of your pension. To be made redundant a few weeks before 16 years and therefore not getting it is pretty cack-handed. I do not believe that it was done deliberately—well, I hope it was not—but we must be careful of it.

On housing, in the previous Budget £100 million was announced for the upgrading of housing: £100 million in, £140 million—I gather—taken out for the upgrading of housing for 2013-15. It does not make sense. They can see through this. None of it helps the cohesion that we are looking for. A family which has been overseas in the Armed Forces cannot get a credit rating when they come back. They cannot get a mortgage. They cannot go and buy a car on hire purchase like the rest of us. They cannot buy big items, because they do not have a credit rating. The banks should be called in to help in that situation. It is not that they have been off somewhere doing nothing at all. They have been working for their country, and we should address that.

Along with the changes in their pension scheme that I mentioned, all this creates uncertainty. I very much welcome what the Minister said in his opening speech, that we will have some policy announcements over the coming months. However, they must have timelines with them. It is not good enough just to say, “This is our policy”. The policies have to be delivered. They cannot give with one hand and take with the other. When the Minister replies, please can she respond to the points about morale, which is an issue?

The austerity measures in the country do not give the Government an opt-out on the responsibility that they carry for all of us to our Armed Forces. They are a special case. No Government can ask us in a debate here to take note of their contribution and then walk away from that responsibility. One or two quotes have been given around the period of remembrance we are in at the moment. One that always strikes home to me is, “Lest we forget”. We forget at our general peril if we do not face up to our responsibility to our Armed Forces and their families.