Oral Answers to Questions

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

We are committed to reducing—and, indeed, are reducing— the star count in the Ministry of Defence by 25%, which means those with the rank of brigadier and above. It is true that the number of colonels is higher than in 1990, but it has fallen by 80 since 1 April 2010, and some of the jobs that those officers do are specific to NATO or to defence engagements. For instance, some are defence attachés. We need all those jobs, and that is why we employ those people. However, my hon. Friend has raised a very good point.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T9. The Minister for defence personnel will know that for the past two months I have been trying to secure a meeting with him to discuss the financial losses faced by Army officers who are being made redundant shortly before their immediate pension point. To date, he has not agreed to such a meeting. Will he do so today? If not, can he tell me how members of our armed forces should raise their concerns with this Government about broken promises on their conditions of service?

[Mr Francois]

I recently wrote back to the hon. Lady on this precise subject. I hope she has received the letter—she is nodding, and says that she has. I have also written to Ms Jayne Bullock, who wrote to me originally, and to a number of other servicemen’s wives who have campaigned on the matter. I remind the hon. Lady and others who support the so-called taper model, which a number of people have argued for, that we used that model for redundancies up to 2005-06, when the previous Government abandoned it.