Gurkha Pensions

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the magnificent work she has done in seeking to find a just solution to this problem. She mentions that the Gurkha pension scheme was available on the completion of 15 years of service. Am I right in thinking that at the same time the British Army pension scheme was available at 20 years of service, thereby giving the Gurkha soldier a significant time advantage over the rest of the British Army?

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

Twenty-two.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) is quite right, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) says from a sedentary position, it was in fact 22 years. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire goes to the heart of this: we are comparing apples and oranges when we try to compare Gurkha pensions with British service pensions. They are separate and different, so the key is not equality but fairness. That is the spirit in which our inquiry has been undertaken.

Clearly, there can be no retrospective change to terms and conditions of employment, but I ask that the Government look carefully at the adequacy of the Gurkha pension, particularly in relation to the Indian Gurkha pension and their additional benefits and the cost of living in Nepal. We want a commitment that that will continue to be held in review.

The all-party group was more concerned, however, about those Gurkha veterans who receive no pension. There are a good number of them. Some are veterans of the second world war who left long before the introduction of the Gurkha pension, and in addition some 7,000 veterans receive nothing as they did not complete 15 years of service. We are not satisfied that all those veterans are being treated fairly and we believe that they should be afforded the dignity and honour that service in the British Army should bring.

At the moment, these people are dependent on Gurkha welfare pensions of some £40 a month, administered by the Gurkha Welfare Trust. The all-party group believes that those who were made redundant or unfairly dismissed should have a formal entitlement to a pension, as should those who were medically retired. I note that the Government are in receipt of LIBOR money that is being used to fund services for our veterans, so we would ask that the Government consider making a generous endowment to the Gurkha Welfare Trust to enable it to support those veterans more effectively. We also want them to consider whether it is appropriate that those who were made redundant and were unable to serve 15 years through no choice of their own should be given some formal entitlement to a pension.

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[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this debate. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) on the fantastic job she has done in dealing with a very sensitive, difficult and complex issue. She has carried out her duties with impeccable commitment and approached the issue with great interest and determination. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, it is important to point out that this was not in any sense an official inquiry, let alone a House of Commons inquiry or a Select Committee inquiry. It was a very ad hoc inquiry designed to try to see whether interested Members of Parliament could find a way through some of these thorny issues. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock and agree with pretty much every word she said. I am grateful to her.

I see on the Labour Front Bench the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who is a great lady. I should like to put it on record that although she is alone, we know why that is. It is because at this difficult hour for our kingdom, her colleagues are doing what they should be doing, which is going to campaign in Scotland to persuade our friends in Scotland—our kith and kin—to remain part of this great United Kingdom, whose 300-year history we share and through which we have together contributed so much to the rest of the world. Lest anybody should think that Labour Members are not interested in this issue, let me say that we know that she is the representative of many of her colleagues and their opinions.

As both my hon. Friends said, the Gurkhas are held in very high regard across the United Kingdom. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock recognised, this issue is of particular interest and great concern for people in the constituency of Aldershot, which includes Farnborough.

I join others in placing on the record our gratitude for the service given by the Gurkha soldiers and their magnificent contribution to the British Army over nearly 200 years. I am honoured to represent the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, which is based in Aldershot. There has long been a strong Gurkha presence in the garrison of Aldershot. Between 1971 and 2000, Queen Elizabeth barracks in Church Crookham—formerly in the Aldershot constituency but now, thanks to the growth in the population of the area, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot)—served as the principal UK base for Gurkhas who were stationed in the United Kingdom.

Together with my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), I had the pleasure of serving in the AFPS, which, for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the acronym, is the armed forces parliamentary scheme, not the armed forces pension scheme. We spent three days with 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles in Nanuki, Kenya, where they were conducting live firing training. It was altogether a fascinating experience. Not personally being an aficionado of curry, I found myself faced with something of a dilemma, which was that I either ate Gurkha curry or starved. In the circumstances, I decided to opt for the former rather than the latter, and I have to say that I found it very much better than I had expected. I did not take too close a look at how it was prepared, but it certainly tasted very good. When the soldiers had finished their live firing at the distant hill, they then had to go and put out the fire that they had made, which I understand they did with their bare feet. That is a message to the enemies of the United Kingdom—do not trifle with a Gurkha because they are tough.

I mentioned the long association that Aldershot has had with the Gurkhas. That has inevitably meant that a large proportion of the Nepalese who chose to reside in the United Kingdom following the recent settlement changes have overwhelmingly returned to Aldershot, the predominant place in Britain that they have memories of or an affiliation with. While that is understandable, it has placed enormous strain on local services and on the local area. The campaign launched by Joanna Lumley secured for Gurkhas who had served four years or more and had retired before 1 July 1997 the right to settle in the United Kingdom. That was granted by the previous Labour Government, entitling some 25,000 predominantly elderly ex-soldiers to enter the UK with their wives and dependants. It is important to understand that that involves upwards of 100,000 people. As a direct result, my constituency of Aldershot has seen a very significant change in its population. In 2011, Rushmoor borough council estimated that of the 90,000 citizens of Rushmoor, which is the local authority area covering Aldershot and Farnborough, up to 10,000 are Nepalese.

I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will recognise the huge challenge that that sudden and significant change has created in my constituency. The problem does not lie with the younger, recently retired ex-Gurkhas who speak good English and are very entrepreneurial; indeed, they are natural Conservatives. Many of them find work in the private security industry or start their own businesses. The problem arises with the older former Gurkhas—it is they who are presenting the challenges to my constituency. Generally unable to speak English, with virtually no job prospects, unfamiliar with our customs, and often with failing health, inevitably, because they are elderly, these new arrivals present a sad picture.

Major Tikendra Dewan, who is a good friend and chairman of the British Gurkha Welfare Society, which does a fantastic job in the constituency, has said:

“If you just take a ride around Aldershot, you can see so many Gurkhas just walking around like lost souls.”

Those words will certainly be echoed not only by my constituents but by any visitor to Aldershot. A visit to local surgeries—one GP practice has 3,000 Nepalese on its books—reveals waiting areas full of these elderly folk, as will a visit to the offices of Rushmoor borough council in Farnborough. This has been a tragic consequence of Miss Lumley’s campaign, which was based purely on emotion and not on the hard truths with which we politicians have to deal on a day-to-day basis. She and her campaign have done a major disservice to these elderly people and to the indigenous population, who have seen the character of Aldershot change massively. It is not fair on these elderly Nepalese and it is not fair on the locals, many of whom have also put their lives on the line for our country.

When I started to express concern about this matter, I received some disgusting e-mails from around the country asking how I could possibly say such things about the Gurkhas and saying how fantastic they are and how they put their lives on the line for their country. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe made the same point, but thousands of my indigenous constituents have also put their lives on the line for the country. Aldershot is the home of the British Army and they are concerned about the way in which their town has changed. I cannot accept any extension to the right to settlement, which would only exacerbate an already serious problem.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

This is an important issue and we need to make it clear to the community that people are being misled and encouraged to come to this country through false promises that they will be able to bring their families with them. Will my hon. Friend join me in condemning people such as immigration lawyers who continue to take money from these people to make appeals that will never be satisfied?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for making a very important point. Research ought to be done into the activities of some of these middlemen, who undoubtedly are in it for the money. It is they who have benefited from visiting on these people a misery they do not deserve and from which they should have been spared. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

In view of all the serious changes in my constituency, I had a meeting with the Prime Minister in 2011 to ask for further funding to enable the local authority and others to provide the badly needed additional support generated by the number of new Nepalese in the area. I managed to secure £1.5 million in total, which was provided by three Departments: the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. Of that, about £1 million went to Rushmoor borough council.

As I have mentioned before, many of these elderly Nepalese struggle with ill health. What people might not realise is that, as well as the significant increase in the number of elderly people requiring health care at local GP surgeries, there is a huge need for Nepali-to-English translators to help explain to the doctors the needs of their patients. One doctor asked me, “How can I deal with a female patient with gynaecological problems who speaks no English and whose 12-year-old son has to translate for her?” That is wrong. Of course, this has resulted in longer patient time, so the indigenous population are having to wait longer to see their general practitioner. These are practical problems that have presented themselves, and I hope the House will recognise that that is but one of a number of hidden extra costs.

Let me turn specifically to the issue of Gurkha pensions. Until 1 July 1997, the Brigade of Gurkhas was regarded as an overseas force and its home base was in the far east; prior to Hong Kong, it had been in Singapore and Malaysia. In accordance with the tripartite agreement of 1947 between the Government of Nepal, the Government of India and the British Government, commonality was provided with respect to key service conditions such as pay and pensions, irrespective of whether they were enlisted in British or Indian armies—it is, of course, important to remember that the bulk of Nepalese recruited to the flag went to the Indian army, not the British Army.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock has said, most would serve for 15 years, following which they would be paid an immediate pension designed to provide a comfortable living in Nepal, which is where they were expected to—and virtually always did—return. Furthermore, as young men they were clearly able to take up new careers upon leaving the Army. By contrast, their British counterparts had to serve 22 years before being eligible for a pension, which became payable only at the age of 60, rather than upon immediate retirement. Thus, the Gurkhas returned to Nepal often in possession of a pension more than 25 years before their British counterparts. Over the course of a retirement, most Gurkha soldiers will receive equivalent or better value than their British counterparts as a result of being paid their pensions so much earlier. Moreover, the Ministry of Defence contributes more than £1 million a year to the Gurkha Welfare Trust in Nepal, which enables the trust to use its funds to care for the needy.

Following the return of Hong Kong to China, the Brigade of Gurkhas had to leave, naturally, and, apart from those stationed in Brunei, where the Sultan himself funds the Gurkha battalion, they moved to the United Kingdom, together with their families, meaning that their children were brought up in English schools. Thus, from 2004, those with four years or more service became entitled to apply for settlement in the United Kingdom. By 2007, those serving in the British Army were paid exactly the same as their British counter- parts.

In 2009, in response to the Lumley campaign, the then Home Secretary announced a change in policy on Gurkha settlement rights for those who had retired before 1 July 1997 and had completed four years’ service. They would have the right to settle in the UK with their spouses and dependent children. However, it is important to remember that there had been an agreement among the parties to the discussions that there was no direct read-across to policy on pensions. The then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said that

“the question of equalising Gurkha pensions should not and need not be conflated with the debate about settlement”.—[Official Report, 21 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 1650.]

The then Minister for veterans, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones)—in order to embarrass him I will place on the record that we are very good friends; that should do his career some damage, and as he is not here I can freely say that—said in a written answer that the

“estimate of the capitalised cost of providing retired Gurkhas with Armed Forces Pension Scheme (AFPS) equivalent pension benefits for all pensionable service before 1 July 1997”—[Official Report, 8 July 2009; Vol. 495, c. 789W.]

was a whopping £1.5 billion.

It is important to underline that these pension arrangements have withstood no less than three major legal challenges in the past nine years. The three judicial reviews found the pension arrangements for Gurkhas to be fair and reasonable.

There has been much debate and controversy over the decision to build the changes around the date of 1 July 1997. However, given that was the date the UK became the home base for the Gurkhas, together with changes to immigration rules, which were updated to 1 July 1997, there was an increasing probability that Gurkhas would seek to retire to the UK on discharge. Up until that point, it was accepted that Gurkhas would be recruited in Nepal as Nepalese citizens, serve as Nepalese citizens and be discharged as Nepalese citizens in Nepal. However, given the change in their home base from Hong Kong to the UK, that could no longer be fairly assumed to be the case.

In his judgment of 2008, Mr Justice Ouseley said:

“A line was drawn; that was in itself reasonable, and the particular dates chosen for its drawing are reasonable too. The difference reflects not age in reality but the number of years of service based in the Far East or in the UK. If there was indirect discrimination on the grounds of age of ‘other status’, it was justified and proportionate.”

The Court of Appeal upheld the January 2010 ruling, which comprehensively rejected the argument that Gurkha pension arrangements were irrational, unfair or discriminatory. However, the legal process continues and the judgment remains the subject of an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

I have every sympathy with the British Gurkha Welfare Society. It is a vibrant organisation and is well led by my friend, Major Tikendra Dewan, but as a former Defence Minister and having considered the matter carefully, I cannot support this campaign. The guys at BGWS are doing a great job. They are entrepreneurial and have their own energy company—I hope to sign up to their energy provision—whose new office will be officially inaugurated by the new Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). They also have a radio station. They are a great organisation. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, however, I do not think that there can be a retrospective change, and I salute her for having the courage and honesty to say so. The Ministry of Defence does not have £1.5 billion to pay up. No doubt the Minister will nod.