Draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2020

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 General Committees

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Her Majesty’s armed forces represent this country across the world, fighting to liberate civilians from the scourge of trans-national terrorist organisations, providing vital training to other nations, serving on peacekeeping missions, and stepping in to provide humanitarian relief in the wake of hurricanes and other disasters. More importantly, they stand ready to defend our country day and night. I know that we are all, across the Committee, immensely proud of and grateful to our armed forces personnel, and the Opposition will support the draft order. I am sure that that comes as no great surprise.

I wish to press the Minister for greater detail on several matters concerning our armed forces. First, I wish to touch on some operational issues. We know about the Government’s deploying 250 troops to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, following the end of the South Sudan mission. More than 40 French personnel have lost their lives since troops were deployed to Mali in 2013 on a separate French-led mission. Some 200 soldiers from the UN mission have also died over the same period; indeed, the UN mission in Mali is often referred to as the most dangerous peacekeeping mission in the world. It is important that Parliament can scrutinise the Government on those obligations. I will not ask the Minister to update the Committee this evening, but will he at least commit to a debate in the House on this issue in the near future, so that Parliament has an opportunity to scrutinise properly the Government’s decision?

With regard to the ongoing integrated review, I wish to touch on armed forces’ numbers, and the alarming downward trend in each of the services. In 2010, there were 102,000 regulars in the Army, 40,000 in the RAF, and 35,500 in the Royal Navy. Now they are all substantially smaller. The Army and the RAF have been cut by 25% each, and the Navy is down nearly 20%. The trajectory is quite worrying—every single service has fallen over the last 10 years. It is no surprise that the Government have removed the 82,000 regular Army personnel commitment from their manifesto.

Indeed, there have been reports of further cuts to the Army in the integrated review. Perhaps the Minister could outline whether the integrated review will seek to cut the Army further. He may suggest that it is too early, given that the review is expected to be published in the autumn, but the issue is of such fundamental importance, and I know he understands that. We really must know whether such cuts are planned.

I will touch briefly on retention. The steady decline in satisfaction with service life is a significant worry. The proportion of all personnel reporting satisfaction with service life in general was 60% in 2010. In 2019, it had fallen to 46%. As well as its being wrong in principle for the majority of personnel to feel unsatisfied with service life, we simply cannot afford to have servicemen and women choosing to leave the forces because of their view of service life. Will the Minister set out what plans he has to deal with that?

The Opposition have previously expressed our concern about the future accommodation model, and the possibility that it may be used to push more personnel and their families into the private rented sector, with all the associated uncertainty and added cost. Research from the Army Families Federation has highlighted a number of flaws in the information provided on the future accommodation model. Some 48% of respondents said that they have received no information about it at all, with only 2% saying that they had received a great deal. Most of the information has come from the AFF, as opposed to the Ministry of Defence or the chain of command. Uncertainty around the future accommodation model was a feature of the AFF’s comments on previous covenant reports. Will the Minister commit to doing much more to make personnel and families aware of the changes, particularly as the future accommodation model is now in the pilot stage?

We have not been updated on progress in relation to the defence estate for more than a year. It is particularly urgent given that troops will return from Afghanistan within 14 months, following the recent deal. Our troops and local communities need to be kept updated. Again, will the Minister update the Committee on progress with regard to the defence estate? As I said, we will support the draft order, but we would be grateful for some comments on the points that I have raised.