Armed Forces

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for ensuring that we have this debate, which is not time-limited as we normally are. That is very much appreciated. It also provided the opportunity to hear the maiden speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards of Herstmonceux. His speech was a pleasure to listen to for its clarity and its big-picture approach. I also enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, but today is not the time to be drawn or distracted by being one of the two women Peers in this debate on the issue of women in front-line operations. That is for another day and time; I am sure that on that day there will not be only two women taking part in the debate.

I need to declare an interest as a vice-president of the War Widows Association of Great Britain, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal. I very much associate myself with the words that she gave us in regard to those 4,000 widows, many of them fragile and very elderly, who feel penalised—in some cases, stigmatised would not be an exaggeration—by the Government’s present costs. If the public out there knew that, if the figure is correct, it would take £70,000 to resolve this problem and that it is highly likely to be not even that much, they would be astonished at the meanness of us as a House and, more importantly, of the Government. What would be needed is not even a drop in the ocean and I hope that the Minister, if he cannot comment positively on this, will come back to it in writing after this debate.

As the Minister said in opening this debate, this has been a year of commemorations. It reminds us, day by day, of the work of our service men and women, putting their lives on the line in our name and for our protection. We have a huge debt to pay to them, both those who have gone and those who remain. I would like to address those who remain in my short contribution because it is not just about them but also about their families. Unlike any other career that I can think of, they go where they are directed, stay as long as they are directed to be there and are separated from their families, as directed. They give up many privileges that the rest of us in our community take for granted. They do that with a commitment and courage, and a lack of self, which impresses anyone who comes into contact with them. Many acts of bravery are not even heard of; we were reminded of this by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, in his address.

All that brings a great responsibility for us, as a nation, when we look at the role of our Armed Forces on behalf of our nation. We have a military covenant, which is a commitment to go some way towards meeting that responsibility. We have the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, which is charged with looking after the overall remuneration and allowances package. We have a Service Complaints Commissioner—soon to be an ombudsman—and, indeed, we have a Defence Select Committee in another place, which constantly looks at issues affecting our Armed Forces. One would think that we are carrying out our responsibility to the Armed Forces of this nation. Yet one has only to look at social media, where individual Armed Forces personnel say what they really think. It is quite discouraging.

The Armed Forces Pay Review Body report for this year says, in paragraph 2.11, that:

“There had been notable drops in reported morale from Army personnel for the third consecutive year”.

The next paragraph refers to its visits,

“amidst continuing high tempo, with much operational commitment at the same time as the impact of the redundancy programme”.

Many questions have been asked in this House about that. The following paragraph, paragraph 2.13, says that:

“The continued erosion of the overall package, together with the impact of the redundancy process were felt to be adversely affecting morale, which was already considered to be fragile”,

Does that mean we are meeting our responsibility to our Armed Forces? I suggest that it brings that strongly into question.

The audit office report, issued a short while ago, expresses many criticisms of Army 2020. The Government cannot easily dismiss the comments in that report, although little has been made of it today. They raise serious concerns for our personnel about how the process was carried out and the impact on them. For instance, there have been a number of questions in this House over the months about the redundancies in the full-time services and their replacement by reserve personnel. We need to recruit 11,000 reserves in the next few years. The National Audit Office report says that on the model with which it was presented it will be 2025 before that 30,000 reserve personnel number is met. The NAO also says that the MoD was looking at an alternative model, but the NAO could not get a copy of it so could not revise or revisit that view. It is clear that there is a £10.6 billion cut from the Army budget between 2011-12 and 2021-22. We all know that many questions have been asked over months on this whole issue, and the Minister has gallantly tried to assure us in answering them. However, I suggest that not many of us are convinced.

The world is a dangerous place, as we see day by day and indeed increasingly over the past few weeks. Our Armed Forces are a major part of our protection and, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, said in his maiden speech, there will be a time when we need them. I certainly subscribe to that view. That gives us a national responsibility regarding both their role and how we view and look after our Armed Forces.

That brings me to my closing remark. The noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Richards, are right that a commitment was given by the Prime Minister, publicly and on the record, that there would be a real increase in the budget for the MoD from 2015 onwards. I have been at briefing meetings where it has been made clear that that was an integral part of the arrangement of the cutbacks that were agreed. If that commitment is not carried out, it will mean that we, on behalf of our nation, will not have played our part in that very painful process that the Armed Forces will have gone through. Can the Minister please confirm today whether the Prime Minister not only meant what he said but will deliver on it in 2015, before the general election?