Armed Forces Bill

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Murphy]

I think that the hon. Gentleman called me the Secretary of State; of course, I am the shadow Secretary of State, but I am sure that will be corrected by Hansard. There are measures that we welcome, some of which I have alluded to already; I shall discuss some of the others later and will give the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to intervene at that point if he wishes.

The Conservative manifesto pledged to ensure that our armed forces, their families and our veterans are properly taken care of, but the taskforce was tasked with finding

“innovative, low-cost policy ideas.”

It is difficult for any Government to find the right support for our armed forces on the cheap, without necessary and adequate funding. They have not yet responded to the work of the taskforce.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the efforts and changes to maximise rest and recuperation for deployed personnel should be greatly welcomed? That issue has arisen in the past and the new Ministry has made great efforts to make improvements.

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[Mr Murphy]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes a typically fair point in his own careful way. He is right to say that the constant challenge for politicians of all parties is how we support our armed forces and maintain their morale. My contention is that the Government have missed opportunities, and in Committee we will table amendments seeking further improvements to a Bill that makes sensible but modest improvements to our armed forces.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does the shadow Secretary of State make the following connection, as I do? Perhaps only 32% of those in the armed forces felt valued because only 35%, as I understand it, felt that they had the right equipment in the field. Is it not important to ensure that our armed forces have appropriate equipment in the field?

[Mr Murphy]

There were record levels of investment and support provided, with regard to the kit and equipment of our armed forces in the field and in theatre. I say again that it is a constant challenge to get that equipment to them as quickly as we can, on cost and on budget. However, there is a wider issue that, if he was being fair, the hon. Gentleman would also have sought to address: the wider disconnect between the public and the military. Our nation is remarkably generous, particularly around Remembrance Sunday—in the weeks before it, and for some time after. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not take this as a partisan point, because it is not intended as such. We all have to reflect, as individuals, law makers and citizens, on how we ensure that that act of remembrance is not a Remembrance Sunday event, but an all-year-round event.

There is a wider issue about the level of connection and affiliation between our armed forces and our citizens at large. We are all in awe of our armed forces; if one asks any man or woman, or any young teenager in the street, one realises that they are in awe of the action that our armed forces take, but we can learn lessons from other nations, particularly now that our armed forces, after the horrors of the greater violence in Northern Ireland, are able more regularly to wear their uniform in public. That is one important change that will increase awareness of our armed forces. There is an issue about the armed forces’ morale, but there is also a wider issue about public sentiment that we have to address.

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[Chris Bryant]

I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point. I do not think that the Bill will do much directly for the cadets, except in so far as putting the military covenant in statute will make us focus on these issues more keenly. If there was one niggly point that I tried to make to the Labour Government when we were in power and would still make to this Government, it is that the sea cadets do not receive the amount of support that other cadet forces get directly from the relevant armed forces. That is a problem, especially because at the moment the sea cadets in the Rhondda spend almost all the money that they receive in support on just paying their insurance bill every year. I wonder whether we could ensure that the Ministry of Defence provides insurance support for all cadet operations. We could thereby release the sea cadets and other such forces to get on with their important work without having to spend all their time fundraising.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I could not agree more strongly with the hon. Gentleman on that point. The sea cadets are often the Cinderella of the cadets. Dover sea cadets are trying to buy the shed in which they train from the MOD but are having some difficulty. There is not the help that one would hope to see, so I echo and support his comments on the sea cadets.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for those comments and I will pass them on to Minerva in the Rhondda.

My other reason for wanting to take part in this debate is that Wales has a particular tradition of its own in relation to the armed forces, not only in successive wars but in producing a much higher quantity of young men and, increasingly, of young women to go into our armed forces than would be proportionate to its population. It is difficult, as the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) said, to get accurate statistics, but roughly 9% of the armed forces come from Welsh constituencies. That compares with just 5% of the UK population coming from Wales. There is, therefore, over-representation. That may in part be to do with the fact that we have higher levels of deprivation—multiple levels of deprivation —in certain parts of the country.

One of the ironies is that little of the time that Welsh personnel spend in the armed forces will be spent in Wales. They might have to go to Sennybridge. They might spend a very cold, wet, hideous, horrible time on the mountain tops in training, but the likelihood is that the vast majority of their time will be spent, even when they are in the UK, not in Wales but elsewhere.

I make a plea to the MOD and the Minister. I hope that he will be able to answer this later. When we are considering future bases in the UK, of course, as the Secretary of State said, the most important thing is ensuring the security of the realm. Every member of the armed forces would agree with that, but I argue that part of the military covenant is saying that deployment when at home, rather than when in theatre, should allow for a wider spread than is currently the case.

We have not mentioned the armed forces parliamentary scheme, but it is an important element of the way parliamentarians obtain information from those who have served or are reservists and from others from other backgrounds, and ensure that that informs our debate. In my time in the scheme, nearly everyone I met in the armed forces—this is not a partisan point—came from a Labour constituency, but all the sites we visited were in Conservative constituencies. That is not because anyone has decided to put them in Conservative constituencies; it is just because of a series of historical flukes. I urge the Government, as they consider what to do about the redeployment from Germany, to think about whether there is a base, for example, at St Athan, that might be used to base Welsh troops in Wales. I say that not as someone who supports a separation of Welsh armed forces from British armed forces but as someone who wants to reinforce the Welsh armed forces.

I believe that there are several elements to the covenant that are not mentioned in clause 2 but are equally important. We have debated one—equipment—at some length in the past few years, in particular because our troops are in theatre in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes North said that he felt that the equipment he was given when he was last deployed was far more suitable and up to date than previously. He is right, but there is going to be a constant process of change.

Likewise, ensuring that our troops have the most up to date, effective training possible is important. Several hon. Members have referred to whether it is possible to unify posts between the three services in relation to the military police. I argue that we need to go much further and extend that combination of training. Those who have had an opportunity to visit Shrivenham will know that bringing the training of officers in the Army, Air Force and Navy together in one place, which was at one point thought unthinkable—the idea that the Royal Navy would leave Greenwich was believed to be unthinkable—has brought enormous dividends to all three services. Notwithstanding the decision that seems to have been made in relation to St Athan and defence training, we need to be able to do more of our training on a shared forces basis because there is more that each of the services can learn from each other.

The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd has a long record of campaigning on veterans issues, for which I pay tribute to him. All too often, people think of veterans as people who served in the first or second world wars, but many of the veterans in my constituency are 25, 26 or 27 years of age and their service will not just be for the few years that they spent being paid by the armed forces; in terms of the psychological and physical issues that they have to deal with, their service will be for the whole of their lives. Not only will they be serving in that way, but their families will, too. He is right to point to the need for continuity of care beyond—in many cases far beyond—the day when someone goes into civvy street.

I caution the hon. Gentleman, however, as I tried to do earlier—this crops up quite regularly in our debates—about the difference between correlation and causation. For example, it is often argued that couples who co-habit and have children are far more likely to split up than those who marry and have children. It is factually true. The question is: is that because they got married, or because they are the kind of people who felt differently about the institution of marriage in the first place? In other words, is there correlation between these statistics, or is there causation?

That is where we need to be precise in relation to the ongoing care of those in the armed forces. Many of the young people who join the armed forces from the Rhondda go in with many of the problems that they will leave with. They go in, as we know, with lower levels of literacy, which is why the armed forces in recent years have had to do much more to ensure that our troops have a high level of literacy. Some of them will have difficulties with other educational issues that need to be addressed.

The point is that it is not necessarily because those people were in the armed forces that some of the problems follow. Where the problem is because they were in the armed forces—perhaps because their training was so effective that they do not realise the lethal nature of the punch that they could deliver compared with someone else—it is all the more important that the MOD and the whole of society take action to ensure that young people, as they go into the armed forces and see through their years in service, and when they leave, have the full support and training that they need.

I know that many others want to take part in the debate and I do not want to delay others from speaking any further, but I hope that the Minister will respond on the issue of Welsh troops being based in Wales because it is one of the ways that we can ensure that there is continuity for young people who are removed from the Rhondda to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan, or who spend all their service career living in Wiltshire. When they are finished, they come back to the Rhondda—

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[Charlie Elphicke]

There is not only a £38 billion hole in the defence budget, but a £40 billion hole in respect of cuts that were not allocated and a structural deficit of £109 billion. Every single household in this country is effectively borrowing £4,000 this year as a result. Is that not an outrageous state of affairs?

[Jack Lopresti]

Yes, it is. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that point to the debate.

If Labour Members have any uncertainty about the extent of the neglect that they caused, the evidence in the results of the May 2010 armed forces continuous attitudes survey may offer some clarification. It showed that just 32% of serving personnel said that they felt valued. Let today’s debate be one of the first crucial steps that we take to restore the moral commitment that was broken—the crucial step that will ensure that our armed forces have the support that they need and that their families and former service personnel are treated with the dignity that they deserve.

It was a great encouragement that on 11 June last year, not even a month into the new Parliament, the Prime Minister announced that the operational allowance for the armed forces would be doubled and backdated from 6 May. From the very start, the Government have ensured that the welfare of our service personnel is at the very top of their agenda.

In the programme for government, the coalition set out its policies for rebuilding the military covenant, all of which are aimed at improving the welfare of service personnel, veterans and their families. That is more than just words on a page; the Government have acted swiftly to ensure that the military covenant will be enshrined in law so that never again will our promise to the servicemen and women of our country be broken. The informal understanding of the state’s duty of care to its armed forces will cease to be regarded as an obligation; it will be a firm rule that all future Governments will have to adhere to. As the Prime Minister said, the time has come for our commitment to be

“refreshed and renewed and written down in a new military covenant that’s written into the law of the land.”

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I represent Dover and Deal, which today still feels like they are at the front line of the nation in its dealings with the continent, not all of which have been happy in the past. Not so long ago, in the second world war, we were the front line and responsible for helping ensure the success of Dunkirk. Before that, in the 18th century, the channel fleet was stationed off the coast of Deal and we retain a strong link with the Royal Marines. I was privileged to be at the installation of the captain general of the Royal Marines as the captain of Deal castle. We also have the lord warden of the cinque ports in Walmer castle, Admiral Boyce, and a brigadier in Dover castle.

The constituency feels strongly about the military covenant. It has a strong cadet movement. It is a privilege for me to be the honorary president of the Deal Air Training Corps, 2235 squadron. It is a considerable privilege for us to have so many Gurkhas living in Dover and Deal, who go on active service and do great things for our nation. I am therefore proud of what our constituency has achieved in the service of this nation and of our military links. The constituency takes a strong and passionate view of the military covenant.

As someone who deeply respects all those who put their bodies and minds in danger on our behalf, I want to stress how pleased I am that we are finally putting the military covenant on to a statutory footing in clause 2. It is absolutely right that the Bill will give the military covenant the increased recognition that it should have had long ago. By enacting the measure, we will give legislative force to the “Army Doctrine Publication”, particularly chapter 1.

However, it is not a no-cost option to back the military covenant in statute. With it comes responsibility, which, in recent years, has been lacking. We must ensure that service personnel and their families are properly cared for, not only in health but when they are hurt, particularly when that hurt happens on active service. What has been going on is not good enough. However, each small measure brings us closer to what we mean by the term “military covenant”.

I can do little better than quote from chapter 1 of the “Army Doctrine Publication”, which states:

“Soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices—including the ultimate sacrifice—in the service of the Nation. In putting the needs of the nation and the Army before their own, they forgo some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the Armed Forces. In return, British soldiers must always be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service… This mutual obligation forms the Military Covenant”.

Chapter 3 states:

“The system’s loyalty to the individual—its obligation in the Military Covenant—is manifested in justice, fair rewards, and life-long support to all who have soldiered”.

The reason for the national debate on the military covenant is the sense that that lifelong support had wavered, that the nation was not completely on the side of the military, as it should have been, and that the military did not have the backing and support that it should have had.

Recently, senior officers such as Lord Guthrie, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, said:

“There is now a feeling—probably stronger than I can ever recall—that the Government are not keeping their side of the bargain and honouring the Military Covenant”.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, said in his Chief of General Staff’s briefing team report in June 2007:

“My firm aim is to restore the balance of the Military Covenant—it is clearly out of kilter at the moment”.

The Royal British Legion raised its concerns in its general election manifesto, “It’s time to do your bit”. It called for Government action to ensure three key matters: that families of service personnel were properly looked after; that bereaved families were given the support that they need, and that veterans were properly looked after, with health care and poverty fighting prioritised. These points were hammered home to me by my own excellent and active British Legion in Deal, which time and again has raised this issue and pressed for action. Wider concerns have also been raised about mental health, forces accommodation—we often hear about that—armed forces equipment and personal kit, compensation, and even voter registration. As a result of these concerns, morale in our armed forces is not as high as it should be.

The latest armed forces survey found that only 35% of personnel were satisfied with equipment and only 32% felt valued at a basic level, while 37% said morale was too low and 36% said accommodation was not good enough. Such statistics should concern all Members, and they highlight why it is right that in bringing forward clause 2 we hammer home that we are on the side of our armed forces, so that they know that when we put them in harm’s way and they are under fire, our hearts and minds are with them and they have our full support and backing.

The clause’s requirement that the Secretary of State must make a report every year is welcome because it will focus minds that bit more. It is right that health, education and housing should be specifically listed, and I hope that the Secretary of State will also consider including priority health care. I look forward to seeing the new tri-service covenant. Priority health care matters a lot because survey after survey has shown that most GPs have not got a clue about that principle and most hospitals do not know much about it either. We must hammer home the message that our armed forces and veterans should have that priority.

[Bob Russell]

The House of Commons Library has produced an excellent research paper briefing, and I suggest that Ministers should take into account what it says. It observes that the Bill does not explicitly state what welfare provisions must be provided for under the military covenant, such as priority health care, or any minimum standards of care. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the sort of detail that we will want in the Bill when we get it into Committee?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am not certain that just chucking that in the Bill is the most important thing, but I hope very much that the Secretary of State will pick up on my hon. Friend’s comments, and also on the other issues mentioned, and that he will make sure that they are given a proper hearing and are properly understood. I hope he will make sure he puts them in his report.

We should enable the Secretary of State to have that kind of flexibility because other issues that our armed forces are very concerned about, and that will need to be addressed, will arise. The three issues I have mentioned are included in the Bill, but I hope that priority health care will be as well. It is important that when people who serve in our nation’s cause return home, they are properly looked after, because they are much more likely to have serious health issues, mental as well as physical. It is right that we as a country honour that covenant and ensure that they get priority treatment because of their service.

It is right that we should have had Professor Strachan’s report. I do not agree with the Opposition that it is just a damp squib that is a bit wishy-washy and not very interesting. It is important that there is the armed forces community covenant. It is important that the accommodation scheme, which is there to thank people who give their support through the armed forces, is in place, because it will engender a sense of direction and the message that it is right to be on the side of our boys and girls out in the field and that we should support our armed forces.

It is also right that the Government give further, and more detailed, consideration to the other measures that were in the report. That is why the Opposition are wrong to write off this report. It encourages greater help in respect of military housing and greater home ownership. It also proposes that there should be a champion for veterans and better training.

We have also discussed the issue of medals this evening. Some want to hand them out like confetti at a wedding, while others want to be more parsimonious. Whatever happens in that respect, it is important that the MOD makes the following change: the citations for medals should be public from the beginning. I have a constituency case involving a Mr Pile who has written to me saying that he wants to tell his children about his father’s heroic activities. What could be better than for someone to balance their kids on their knee and say, “Do you know what your grandfather did? He served heroically, he got a medal and here is the citation”? But he cannot get his own father’s citation, because he fell out with his stepmother and his father is dead, so the MOD has said, “Sorry, data protection! You can’t know the citation.” So he cannot tell his own children.

[Bob Stewart]

Actually, he can get his citation, if it is a gallantry award, because it will be in the London Gazette, unless there are special circumstances. If my hon. Friend is saying that there should be citations for campaign medals, that is extremely difficult, because everyone who serves for 28 days—or whatever the qualifying period is—gets the medal. The only way someone could get a citation for that is to understand what the campaign was about. Citations for gallantry medals are obtainable via the London Gazette.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend. This issue was raised with me, and the MOD wrote to me saying, “Data protection means that we cannot tell you.” The position is ludicrous. All medal citations should be automatically public and transparent.

Finally, the doubling of the operational allowance and the Government’s efforts to increase the rest and recuperation for military personal have been positive steps. However, there needs to be an improvement on kit and operational duties. That is vital. We have started to see that, which I welcome, and I also welcome the Bill and the military covenant finally being enshrined in law.

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[Gemma Doyle]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the gap between Government rhetoric and action. The cuts mean that we will not necessarily see action living up to what is being promised. The hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said that we need some indication of what the outcome of the covenant report will be. It would be appreciated if the Minister said whether there will be any tangible measure of whether the Government have made progress on armed forces welfare.

As I have said, we are awaiting specific proposals from the Government on what the new covenant will include and when it will be written into law as promised. We do not yet know what welfare provisions will be included, or what minimum standards of care there should be under the military covenant. Some existing problems were raised by the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd). The Government commissioned a taskforce to make recommendations, and it has now reported. They have accepted two of the taskforce’s recommendations, but we are still waiting for the full response.

When the Government do make their full response, they should pay due attention to the taskforce’s view that

“Meeting obligations to the military community should not impose significant costs on local government”.

I would be grateful for a guarantee that any measures that are implemented as part of the military covenant will be fully costed and funded, and that the costs will not merely be passed on to local authorities or the NHS.

I raise with the Minister, as I did at Defence questions last month, the issue of the veterans card, which the taskforce specifically recommended. The previous Government proposed introducing a veterans card, which would help service providers to identify former members of the armed forces to enable them to get better treatment and better access to treatment. At that time, the plans were welcomed by the Royal British Legion, but since coming into power the Government have scrapped those plans, and the veterans Minister, in letters to hon. Members, ruled out an ID card for veterans. Given that the taskforce has recommended that, will the Minister now give a specific commitment, which he did not do last month, to reconsider that matter and the Government’s position on the veterans card?

The taskforce report appears to encourage home ownership to reduce the cost of upgrading existing service accommodation. Measures that assist service personnel to gain better access to the housing market are welcome, but can the Minister give a guarantee that the policy of merely encouraging greater home ownership among the armed forces will not be adopted instead of upgrading service accommodation? The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife rightly acknowledged that we have some way to go on that.

The taskforce report suggests that service personnel should be shown special treatment where individuals have been seriously injured, and we obviously support that view, but the taskforce report also states that it

“has assumed that it is not the role of the government to provide special privileges for Service personnel across the board.”

The idea behind the military covenant is surely that the unique nature of military service should be recognised in the provision that the Government make for their servicemen and women. Can the Minister say whether the taskforce was correct to make that assumption, and does he agree that the Government should not provide special privileges for service personnel across the board? That would somewhat change the expected nature of the covenant and the legislative entitlements that have been promised.

Much of the report focuses on suggested measures to be taken at local level. Indeed, one of the two accepted recommendations, which has already been implemented, is on the armed forces community covenant. That is a welcome step. The Government must, however, be careful about being over-reliant on local measures to reinforce the military covenant. Indeed, the report highlights problems with the application of a 50% council tax discount for those serving overseas. That highlights the postcode lottery that can result when decisions are taken locally. A heavy reliance on local and voluntary measures would contradict the Government’s stated intention to enshrine the military covenant in law.

Parties on both sides of the House have pledged to support the memorial to the 55,573 airmen of Bomber Command who died in world war two. The Bomber Command Association raised the £5 million necessary to pay for the memorial in Green park, but the Government scheme that exempts memorials from VAT expired on 4 January. The association is now faced with raising another £250,000. What discussions has the Minister had with the Chancellor and has he requested that the Treasury waives the VAT to allow the memorial to go ahead?

I have covered some of the specific questions about the content of the taskforce’s report, but let me return to some of the more general issues. I want to know what more we can expect from the Government. In opposition, they said that the covenant was shattered, but in government they have failed to match their bold promises to rebuild the covenant with sufficiently tough action. The Conservative manifesto states:

“Our brave men and women, their families, and our veterans deserve the best for putting their lives on the line to protect our liberties. We will ensure they get the best.”

No one would disagree with that, but it does not fit with the Government’s actions now that they are in office. The Prime Minister established a taskforce and asked it to come up with low-cost, innovative policy options. Can the Minister look our brave armed forces in the eye and say that they will get the best when his Prime Minister has asked for policy options, but only on the cheap?

Since taking office, the Government have appointed a taskforce to suggest some low-cost measures. There is no doubt that many of the measures included in the report, such as the veterans card scheme, could make a difference, but the overall content of the report was labelled “incredibly wet and feeble” by the chairman of the Forces Pension Society, as was mentioned earlier. Essentially, the Government will need to do a lot better and improve drastically on their record so far. They have failed to bring forward a comprehensive package of proposals to back up the rhetoric that they will rebuild the covenant. The action they have taken has completely undermined those discussions.

[Charlie Elphicke]

In fairness to those on the Front Bench, Rome was not built in a day, particularly when it had been destroyed over 13 years.