Armed Forces Bill

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The Government are certainly considering better cross-departmental working on these issues. To be fair to the previous Government, they did begin some of this work to see how there could be better co-ordination across Whitehall. We have a number of pieces of work under way, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), looking at how we can better co-ordinate what is happening in health and social services, for example, with what the Ministry of Defence intends to do. The hon. Gentleman is proposing the same end as that which we seek, but the means by which we achieve it may be open to some debate between us.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that the Royal British Legion has written to some, if not all, Members about its concerns about the process he is putting in place. When we undertook the service personnel Command Paper, we were anxious not only to improve the relationship between the armed forces and different Government Departments, but to put in place a mechanism that made sure that that did not fall into disrepair and that the situation was independently updated. The RBL is worried that the mechanism the Secretary of State is proposing effectively takes over from that, and does away with the independent reporting mechanism brought in by the Command Paper for the reference group to report on an annual and a five-yearly basis on the need for improvements to what we might call the covenant. Will the Secretary of State respond to that, because it is of concern to the British Legion as well as to me?

[Dr Fox]

I believe the concerns set out in the letter from the British Legion that all Members will have received are unfounded. We intend to build on that independence in respect of the external reference group, and I will be happy to discuss exactly how that will feed into the new process with the British Legion throughout the passage of the legislation. We all want the same thing: we all want there to be proper scrutiny of what Government, across the whole of government, do in terms of our service personnel. I hope we can maintain that independent element, and we can discuss with the British Legion how that feeds into the report that will ultimately come to this House. I am very open-minded about how we do that, but I do want to maintain this element of independent reporting so that when the House receives the report from the Secretary of State it is able to access as much information as possible not just from the Government, but externally sourced as well. I think that any belief that seems to have come from the legion on that is misplaced. The Government intend to be as open as possible during the entire process, and will certainly be happy to discuss the matter during subsequent stages of the Bill, and to discuss with the bodies involved how we can best make this happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Murphy]

We introduced the first cross-Government strategy on the welfare of the armed forces, we doubled compensation payments for the most seriously injured, we doubled the welfare grant for those in operation and we gave better access to housing schemes and health care. If the hon. Gentleman’s point is that Governments can and should always try to do more, of course that is the case, but it is difficult for him both to demand that Labour should have done more when in power and defend the level of his Government’s cuts. Those contradictory positions cannot be achieved in one intervention.

[Mr Ainsworth]

As we have descended into being a little partisan, let me ask whether my right hon. Friend remembers that as well as doubling the up-front payment for compensation, we introduced, through the auspices of Admiral Boyce, further improvements in the compensation scheme. One of the improvements that I was most concerned to secure was an increase above the rate of inflation for soldiers who were injured early in life, and therefore before their career had developed, to compensate them for the development that they would inevitably have made. However, the change from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index will take that money back from the very people who have benefited from the improvements that Admiral Boyce brought in on our behalf.

[Mr Murphy]

My right hon. Friend, a former Secretary of State for Defence, is rightly proud of the work that he did on the review, and of the way in which an effort was made to ensure that the families of those in the armed forces on the lowest pay had the in-built protection that if the worst happened to their loved one they would not be expected to live on very meagre support for decades. He should be eternally proud of the fact that such measures were introduced. I can only hope that as the Government take forward their proposals, those measures are protected, but there is strong doubt about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Murphy]

The hon. Gentleman has got to his feet again and failed again. All I am asking today is that the Government listen to the arguments being made by the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and the families’ federations, and think again about the policy. I acknowledge that I was partisan about the other issue of scrutiny—[Interruption.] I am really making an appeal to justice and the better spirit of Government Members. They should reflect again on this issue.

[Mr Ainsworth]

Have I correctly understood the figures that my right hon. Friend has just cited? Given what he has just said, I now believe that the changes that are about to be introduced to the way in which the pension is calculated will not only remove all the improvements made by the Boyce review but go further and lead to levels of compensation for young injured soldiers that are lower than they were before the Boyce review. That is the very thing that the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) complained about in terms of the actions taken by the previous Government to keep the compensation scheme balanced. Is that right?

[Mr Murphy]

My right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Defence has paid close attention to these matters. He has looked at these issues with great care. Given the analysis available, there is a strong case for the conclusion that the changes take us back to pre-Boyce levels.