Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords]

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

It is a pleasure to speak on Third Reading. I am slightly concerned that there will be a diminution now in the regularity of what seems to be our weekly defence meetings, as this was the only Defence Bill in the Government’s Queen’s Speech for this two-year Parliament. However, it has been a good Bill and I thank the Minister for his kind words about my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and the way she has engaged with it on behalf of the SNP. He and the House know of her long association with the armed forces, of which she is rightly proud, and she better informs all of us whenever she takes part in these debates.

I wish to pick up on what the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), said about the fact that there is now no woman in the ministerial team. There are no women serving as heads of the armed forces of course, and there is unlikely to be one any time soon. Only three of the 12 senior managers who make up the senior civil servants at the MOD are women. I think I am right in saying that that makes the MOD the only all-male-run Department in terms of ministerial faces. I invite the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks or one of his esteemed colleagues to intervene on me to save a recommendation, which I fear might have the opposite effect, that I made last time for the promotion of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan). I fear my recommending her promotion is perhaps the kiss of death, so I invite the right hon. Gentleman or someone else on the Conservative Benches to redeem that recommendation, if not now, certainly behind the scenes.

I feel as though I am repeating myself—forgive me for this—but I want to pick up on some of the things the Government have not brought forward. If they do bring them forward, however, they will find 35 Members of the SNP willing to support them. One of those things is an end to the Capita contract, as mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State. It is a rip-off and it is farcical. We largely agree across the House that it is farcical and it needs to come to an end. It does a disservice to those who serve in uniform.

I mentioned the issue of housing to the Minister at the recent Defence Question Time. The housing is in a dreadful condition. Carillion receives 1,500 calls a day in complaints from people living in the CarillionAmey estate up and down the country. We can read all about that. It goes beyond broken lightbulbs. We are talking about boilers remaining broken down for weeks on end and people moving into accommodation whose kitchens have no units or cookers. They deserve so much better. Frankly, some of the standards would not pass the social housing standards of the 1970s and 1980s. If the Government were minded to resolve that issue, they would have the support of 35 SNP Members of Parliament, of many on their own Back Benches and of many, if not all, on the Labour Benches.

My last point relates to pay. I accept that there is an independent pay review body and that the 1% cap has been lifted. That is to be welcomed. However, the review body only makes recommendations to the Government and the Government can of course go much further. I understand that they could go further right now and that they do not need to wait any longer.

It is regrettable that members of the armed forces and other public sector workers across the board have had a real-terms pay cut because of the freeze and because of inflation. It would show a bit of goodwill to give those people a decent pay rise. If the Government were minded to do that, they would have our support.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

There are a lot of good things in the Bill, but one of the tests to determine whether the Government value the public services and the armed forces will be whether they award them a decent pay rise. Obviously that has to be negotiated. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a recommendation from the pay review body is simply for a minimum and that the Government could go a lot further.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. We have previously had a debate on pay. I accept that it is not the dominant issue for members of the armed forces, but we would be kidding ourselves on if we did not accept that it was a major factor in recruitment and retention, as the pay review body’s own evidence suggests.