Military Covenant

Gemma Doyle Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have had an excellent debate this afternoon, including the speeches that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). We called for the debate today to enable Members to hold the Government to account for the promises that they made to our service personnel. The Government said that the military covenant is shattered, but they have failed to offer a clear plan to strengthen it, and they have broken their promise to write the covenant into law.

Numerous Members paid tribute today to our armed forces and they are right to do so. None did so more movingly than my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby), who paid tribute to his father. Our servicemen and women do difficult and dangerous work all over the world and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for the sacrifices that they make to safeguard our liberty. We must not forget our armed forces families, as the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) reminded us. Theirs is a huge sacrifice too, having their husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters spend many months away from home risking their lives. That puts a great strain on families, but their support is priceless. We owe them our sincere thanks, but we also owe them fair treatment.

There was great progress on support for our armed forces under the previous Government. We delivered a cross-Government approach to forces’ welfare. The Service Personnel Command Paper set out improved access to housing schemes and health care, free access to further and higher education for service leavers with six years’ service, and extended travel concessions for veterans and for those seriously injured. We proposed strengthening the military covenant by enshrining the rights of our service personnel, their families and veterans in law through an armed forces charter. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) explained why that measure is so important.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Gemma Doyle]

I am happy to give way, but I may be able to do so only once.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady. It has been a pleasure to serve with her on the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill and now on the Bill Committee. She mentioned enshrining the covenant in law, but she heard the evidence of General Mans, who told the Committee on 8 February 2011:

“I don’t think there is a requirement to set down standards”.

In the same Committee sitting she heard the evidence of Admiral Montgomery, who said:

“I have detected no appetite for legally enforceable measures within this covenant, none whatsoever.”

Why are those gentlemen wrong and why is she right?

[Gemma Doyle]

Indeed, it has been a pleasure to serve with the hon. Gentleman on that Bill Committee. As he and I have already discussed, there has been some confusion over two separate issues. One is about a highly prescriptive covenant being written into law, and the other is about enshrining the covenant into law at all, which the Armed Forces Bill does not do, but which his own Prime Minister has said he wants to do.

That takes me neatly to the main thrust of today’s debate—the Government’s approach to our armed forces and to the military covenant. In opposition the Conservatives declared that the covenant was “shattered” and they promised to rebuild it. That does not fit with the coalition Government’s record of action since they have been in office. Last week, on 10 February, a spokesperson for the RAF Families Federation, in evidence to the Armed Forces Bill Committee, said:

“At the moment, there is a real feeling within the armed forces that they are being battered from all sides.”

The Government must pause and reflect on those comments.

The hon. and gallant Members for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) and for Newark (Patrick Mercer) spoke about their own service experiences. They both said that they do not know and they do not really care whether the armed forces covenant is enshrined in law. I entirely respect that position, and I entirely respect their service. My concern is that the Prime Minister promised that the military covenant will be enshrined in law, and that the Armed Forces Bill, as drafted, does not do that.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos made wide-ranging pledges on covenant issues, but we have heard little about how, in government, they will take those forward. The Government’s plan to link public sector pension rises to the consumer prices index, rather than the retail prices index, means that inflation will hit service personnel and war widows hard, as my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) and for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) explained. That change is fundamentally unfair on the people who serve to defend our way of life, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) noted, which is why we have suggested an alternative, fairer approach.

What action have the Government taken on the covenant? The Prime Minister established a taskforce to seek out

“low-cost, innovative policy options to help rebuild the military covenant”.

The Government have said that they will ensure that our brave soldiers will get the best, but can the Minister really look them in the eye and assure them that that will happen, given that the Government have said that they want it done on the cheap?

As I have mentioned, Labour have proposed enshrining the rights of our armed forces in law. Last summer, it looked as though the Prime Minister had adopted our idea. He visited the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and promised her sailors that

“Whether it’s the schools you send your children to, whether it’s the healthcare you expect, whether it’s the fact that there should be a decent military ward for everyone who gets injured…I want all these things refreshed and renewed and written down in a new military covenant that’s written into the law of the land.”

Fast-forward eight months and what a change we have: HMS Ark Royal has been consigned to the scrap heap and the Prime Minister’s promise has not fared much better. The Government have not enshrined a military covenant in law, and nor do they propose to do so in the Armed Forces Bill. We have had much debate on this point in the Bill Committee, with Ministry of Defence officials tying themselves in knots, frankly, arguing both that the covenant should not be laid down in law and that the Bill will in fact enshrine it in law—it was quite a sight to behold. However, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), who is responsible for veterans and is serving on the Committee, has finally admitted that the covenant will not be laid down in law.

The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) raised the concerns of the Royal British Legion. Its e-mail to MPs today stated:

“We do not understand why the Government is now claiming that the commitment to produce an ‘Armed Forces Covenant report’ is somehow the same thing as enshrining the military covenant in law. It is not the same thing at all.”

Neither the covenant, nor the principles by which we would understand it to operate, will be enshrined in law. The Government are not being honest with our armed forces. They promised a military covenant enshrined in law, but what is being offered is little more than fuzzy assurances and woolly platitudes. They should fulfil their promise, as our motion seeks to make them do, and ensure that they offer nothing less than the unshakable commitment and the cast-iron guarantee that our servicemen and women deserve.

Furthermore, like service personnel and charities, we have concerns about the annual covenant report that the Government plan to introduce. It is too narrowly defined and lacks the independence from Government required to ensure that it is an effective tool for improving the lives of members of our armed forces. It is to be welcomed that the Secretary of State will lay a report before Parliament for debate, as the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) mentioned, but as it stands, only health, education and housing are specifically cited as issues to be considered in that report. That is insufficient.

Of course those issues are vital to service personnel, their families and veterans, but there are many other concerns that affect their daily lives. I visited Colchester garrison this week, along with other members of the Bill Committee, and the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) spoke with pride today about the 16 Air Assault Brigade currently serving in Afghanistan. The concerns raised with me on Monday were about cuts to allowances, cuts to pensions and the difficulties faced by service family members seeking employment. As things stand, the Secretary of State would not be obliged to report on how those issues affect our armed forces. I think that he should at the very least report on issues that fall within his remit.

The Opposition have proposed that the scope of the covenant report should be expanded to include issues such as mental health care, pensions, benefits, employment and training. The Government have rejected our proposals in Committee in a clear indication that they want the Secretary of State to decide which issues should be reported to Parliament. I would like to address many other issues, but time does not permit me to do so.

Today’s debate has been an important opportunity to hold the Government to account on their approach to our service personnel, their families and veterans. Our brave servicemen and women would be right to expect a lot from this Government, given their pre-election rhetoric, but they are not being honest. They have U-turned on a pledge delivered personally by the Prime Minister to enshrine the military covenant in law. It is no wonder that the chairman of the Forces Pension Society has said:

“I have never seen a Government erode the morale of the armed forces so quickly.”

Our brave servicemen and women, their families and our veterans deserve better.