Army: Helicopter Pilots

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I take the noble Lord’s point about common sense. At the same time, he will realise that this is public money; it cannot simply be written off in bulk. Having said that, each debt will be dealt with individually and recovered over a long period. Recovery from serving personnel commenced in January, less those that have submitted an objection to recovery, and we have not seen anyone cite this issue as the reason for leaving the Army Air Corps since that recovery process started.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, we are where we are as a result of human error. In just over a week, the new employment model commences for the Armed Forces. Why should we be confident that the transfer will be error free?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the pay system that is now in place is mature, and people have got used to using it. There is far less scope for error, although I cannot obviously give a guarantee that no errors will ever occur. More generally, running in parallel to this is a five-year tri-service review of flying retention pay, which is currently being staffed and should put in place a sustainable and more retention-positive remunerative package for the air crew of all three armed services.