Defence Personnel

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and later in my remarks I will say that a time must come when we say, “Enough is enough; no more cuts.”

I raised in a previous debate a point about the EU budget and foreign aid budgets being protected or increasing, and I was pleased when the former Defence Minister, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), said that there is an alternative

“and it is to reprioritise Government spending…we cannot justify spending ever more taxpayers’ money on overseas aid and cutting our armed forces.”—[Official Report, 18 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 521.]

My constituents and I are concerned that the planned reductions will leave us with the smallest Army since the Napoleonic wars. History shows that we rarely see the next war coming. We do not choose our wars—they choose us. Although our security is still largely protected by the Government’s plans, there must come a point when we draw a line in the sand and say to the Treasury, “No more reductions and no more cuts.”

Defence Equipment and Support is based in my constituency. Many of my constituents work there and some have told me that changes are needed in the way it is structured and operates. Those civilian personnel are vital to the future of our armed forces and carry out crucial tasks. I have visited DE and S and have seen at first hand how important procurement, logistics and back-office operations are to the effectiveness and well-being of our troops in theatre and elsewhere.

I look forward to an announcement on the proposed changes early in the new year so that the uncertainty felt by my constituents—and others who work at DE and S—is addressed. Whatever reforms the Government propose for DE and S, I ask them to seek cross-party support. The future of DE and S will have a long-term effect on the capability of our armed forces. It is in our national interest that the best kit for our troops is delivered at the right time to the right place, and of course we must also deliver the value for money to the taxpayer. Members on both Front Benches have a duty to work together to minimise the uncertainty and anxiety of DE and S personnel now and in the years to come with a reassurance that a future Government will not rip it up and start again.

The Government have said that reserves will be at the heart of an adaptable whole force and I welcome the reserves review and the Future Force 2020 report. If the reserves of the future are to play an integral part in the defence of the realm, they must be fully integrated with regular forces on operations and exercise. I welcome the Government’s commitment to an additional £1.8 billion over the next decade for new equipment and training for reserves, as well as the consultation paper on engaging employers, which is crucial.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there could be the danger of undue reliance on large employers? Communities such as mine in Salisbury have a large number of smaller micro-employers. They are keen to participate in making reserves available, but there must be appropriate support for small businesses.

[Jack Lopresti]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The attitude and support of employers is crucial for future reserves, and whether they succeed or fail largely depends on how we support smaller businesses that allow their employees to be deployed on operations and exercises for long periods of time.

I am concerned about the post-deployment and aftercare of mobilised reservists. To serve their country on operations, reservists take a break from normal civilian, family and professional life, in most cases for up to a year. It is much harder for reservists to adjust to post-deployment life than it is for regular forces, because of the added factor of trying to get back to normal day-to-day life without the kind of support that a full-time soldier would receive, surrounded by comrades and the regimental family. A person could be out on the ground in Afghanistan, but a few weeks or months later they go back to their civilian job and are surrounded by people who have no understanding of what they have been through. I hope Ministers recognise that and will ensure that adequate provision is made.

I would like the House to consider the words of Lord Healey, a former Chancellor and Secretary of State for Defence who served as Royal Engineer in the north African campaign, the allied liberation of Sicily and the Italian campaign, and who was the military landing officer for the British assault brigade at Anzio. He said:

“Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.”—[Official Report, 5 March 1969; Vol. 779, c. 551.]

Oral Answers to Questions

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

The shadow Secretary of State is well aware that under EU procurement rules any nation can direct warlike stores, such as large warships, to be built within its national boundaries. That would mean that in the very unlikely event of a Scottish independence vote leading to an independent Scotland, a new Scottish Government could place orders for Scottish warships to be built in Scottish yards, whereas the residual UK Government could direct warships to be built in their own yards, if they decided to take advantage of the EU exemption. As far as Portsmouth is concerned, the terms of business agreement entered into by the previous Government left the decisions about how the company should rationalise the ship building programme for another day. Having placed large orders that would run beyond the general election, they were not prepared to take tough decisions on what should happen to consolidate the industry.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the success of Operation Atalanta.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

Operation Atalanta is one of three multinational counter-piracy operations in the Indian ocean that have played an important role in the dramatic reduction in piracy observed over the past 12 months. Operation Atalanta assesses that there are now only five vessels and around 140 hostages held captive off the Somali coast. That compares favourably with May 2011, when there were believed to be 23 vessels and about 500 hostages being held.

[John Glen]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Deterring piracy at sea is essential, but it addresses the symptoms, not the causes, of Somali criminal activity. Will he commit the Government to tackling the deeper political causes by supporting the parallel EUCAP NESTOR mission on the ground in Somalia?

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is right that the piracy will not be resolved entirely at sea, and EUCAP NESTOR is showing early promise of delivering effect. The subject will be returned to at the next EU Foreign Affairs Council early next year. I pay tribute to the EU training mission in Somalia, which is showing early promise and already training people to ensure that we tackle this problem at its heart and do not rely simply on our undoubted success offshore.

Military Covenant

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. I have to report to the House that there has been a leak, because my speech says, “This has been an excellent example of practical co-operation between the Ministry of Defence, the national museum of the Royal Navy and the Northern Ireland Executive.” He also rightly mentioned the friends group. In all seriousness, this is one where everybody got it right. It is proper and appropriate that HMS Caroline remains in Belfast, and I hope to be able to visit her at some point in the near future. So I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words and the spirit in which they are offered.

In more recent times, the contribution of those who served alongside the Army in the former Royal Ulster Constabulary has also been remembered, most notably through the awarding of the George Cross to the RUC. I also pay tribute today to the work of the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross Foundation and the Northern Ireland Police Fund, which look after former members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and current members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland so well. In the same vein, I should like to pay tribute to the veterans of the Royal Irish Regiment and its home service battalions and the Ulster Defence Regiment. It is for them that the bespoke Royal Irish aftercare service, to which the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) rightly paid tribute, is in operation. Funded by the Ministry of Defence, that important organisation has supported a client population of up to 63,000 veterans in the delivery of psychiatry, physiotherapy and welfare casework. I will undertake to look at his suggestion as to whether that service could be extended to other members of the armed forces in Northern Ireland, but I must enter the obvious caveat that that is subject to resource constraints. So we will look at that, but standing at the Dispatch Box this evening I cannot guarantee a positive outcome.

Such proud traditions of service continue right up to the present generation. I, too, should mention the sad death of Corporal Channing Day, who grew up in Northern Ireland and joined the Army in 2005. Corporal Day, who served with 3 Medical Regiment, died alongside Corporal David O’Connor, of 40 Commando, after being injured on patrol in Helmand province on Wednesday 24 October. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) had the privilege of attending her funeral service, which was said to have been the largest that the small church had seen in some 400 years. I pay tribute to Corporal Day and Corporal O’Connor this evening, and in doing so I echo a number of the tributes that have been paid by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues tonight.

In terms of current operations, I should also like to mention the personnel of 204 field hospital, who are shortly about to deploy from Northern Ireland to Afghanistan to serve as part of the role 3 hospital at Camp Bastion and to provide other medical services to troops in theatre. I recently had the privilege of visiting Camp Bastion and the hospital, and I laid a wreath to commemorate those who had fallen in operations in Afghanistan.

I should now like to turn directly to the armed forces covenant. As the House knows, its key principles are enshrined in law in the Armed Forces Act 2011. I am proud to say that the Government published the covenant in May 2011. In essence, its principles are: that those who serve in the armed forces, whether regular or reserve, and those who have served in the past, and their families should face no disadvantage compared with other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services; and that special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most, such as the injured and the bereaved. The covenant extends to the armed forces community, which is defined as serving personnel, including members of the reserve forces; veterans; and their families. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his generous tribute to the reserves as well as to the regulars.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Will the Minister take time to consider the interaction between the MOD and the Department for Work and Pensions on benefit payments and armed forces compensation scheme payments? The compensation scheme payments invalidate claimants’ eligibility for some DWP payments, which seems very wrong. Special consideration should be given in such circumstances.

[Mr Francois]

I am aware of the issue and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his persistence on these and related matters. We had an Adjournment debate recently on a parallel issue, although not exactly the same one. I believe that we are doing what we can to try to solve the problem, but as it is quite technical, as he knows, if he wants to write to me on the specific points I would be happy to look into them and get back to him.

In common with other legislation, the provisions of the 2011 Act extend to Northern Ireland in the same way as they apply to all other parts of the United Kingdom. Those principles are important because they influence the formation of policy, but there are other sides to the covenant, too. One of those is the community covenant, which seeks to bring together local authorities and other local organisations with members of the armed forces community who live and serve in the area for which they are responsible. To date, more than 200 local authorities across the United Kingdom have signed a community covenant. I am proud to say that in Essex the other day, I signed that covenant on behalf of the Government in my own county, and some 13 local authorities signed one after the other.

We are clear that by forging such relationships the community covenant is starting to have a positive impact on the lives of the armed forces community and on the wider community. For example, in Gateshead the council is making arrangements, among many other measures, to explore opportunities for serving personnel and veterans to access leisure facilities to support their overall health and well-being needs, including their mental health needs.

In Oxfordshire, the county council, by working with the NHS and 145 (South) Brigade, has been able to help resolve problems of access to GPs and dentists for the families of serving personnel. Dental services have also been extended in some areas to address a shortfall and the referral process for primary care services has been made easier.

Also in Oxfordshire, the local authority has arranged for school places to be allocated to service families in advance of the family’s actual move, based on a letter from the relevant unit. That has been a long-standing problem when military units move from one location to another, but I understand that the Department for Education is now encouraging other local authorities to take a similar approach to try to alleviate the difficulty.

In the past, members of the armed forces could also be pushed towards the bottom of local housing waiting lists, as the need to move from base to base often meant they could not prove a local connection to the area in which they wanted to live, but, thanks again to the armed forces covenant, many local councils will now ensure that due consideration is given to service families so that they are not at a disadvantage when applying for a council home. That extends to serving people, families and, importantly, veterans.

One of the chief benefits of the community covenant is quite simply that people are now talking to one another in a way that they never did before. To some degree, we are doing that in the House this evening. Local authorities, which deliver many of the vital services at ground level, are being made aware of the needs of the armed forces community, which they might not have considered fully in the past. At the same time, it is fair to say that service personnel and their families are becoming increasingly aware of what life is like beyond the wire and how they can help their local communities.

As the House knows, the 2011 Act also places an obligation on the Secretary of State for Defence to report annually to Parliament on the state of the armed forces covenant. The first of these statutory reports will be published before Christmas and will set out in more detail what the Government are doing to deliver in the key areas that the covenant covers.

I now want to speak about extending the armed forces covenant to Northern Ireland. Hon. and right hon. Members from Northern Ireland will be aware that many of the main areas covered by the covenant, such as housing, health and education, all lie within the devolved field and that these services are provided by Northern Ireland Departments, which are answerable to Northern Ireland Ministers in the Executive, not all of whom currently support this agenda, as the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley intimated.

Northern Ireland Departments and other public authorities also need to give due regard to the statutory obligations placed on them by section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act to promote equality of opportunity in respect of all the functions they perform and the services they provide. Herein, as it were, lies the dilemma. It is not for Westminster to tell Stormont what it must do in respect of the covenant—it is for Northern Ireland Executive Ministers to debate and negotiate and agree how the armed forces covenant should apply in Northern Ireland to the extent permitted by law.

There are some who say that section 75 is a hindrance and should be amended to somehow allow the covenant to be applied. Of course we want to see the armed forces covenant principles applied right across the United Kingdom. However, if the Northern Ireland Executive decide not to proceed with the covenant, that does not justify amending section 75, which is one of the cornerstones in the architecture of the Belfast agreement that was endorsed in referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

I think it is fair to say that Northern Ireland has made great progress since the dark days of the troubles. This month we saw the Taoiseach lay a wreath at the war memorial in Enniskillen following on from the historic wreath layings—both at the garden of remembrance in Dublin and at the Irish war memorial at Islandbridge—by Her Majesty the Queen during her highly successful state visit last year. That, of course, built on the historic joint unveiling in 1998 by Her Majesty and the President of Ireland of the Messines peace tower on the site of the battle of Messines Ridge, to remember the Irish dead of the first world war—also mentioned earlier this evening—and to inaugurate the Island of Ireland peace park.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), who has reminded me of something that happened eight or nine years ago when I was fishing in Robin Hood’s bay with my son, who was about 12 at the time. We were surrounded by a gang of lads who were watching us and what we were doing. I turned to them and said, “I imagine you’re joining the Army, aren’t you?” They said, “Not just that, but the Green Howards.” It is a wonderful regiment with wonderful recruits. What a curious decision to disband it.

I pay tribute to the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) and to the service of Ulstermen and, indeed, men and women from the Republic in the armed forces. With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I should like to add some comments of my own about the application of the military covenant in my own constituency of Newark.

I will not bore the House, but I spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland. I was a fighting soldier and spent my time in difficult areas. We were not thanked by the individuals there—on the contrary, they shot at us—but when we were outside of those areas, I was struck by the people of Ulster’s warmth and their admiration for and understanding of the military culture. That is not unique, but it is rare in England. I was terribly taken with it. I think that, given the pressures of operations such as those that took place in Iraq and those that continue on the Pakistan border in Afghanistan, we forget today the sorts of pressures that not just my colleagues in the regular Army, but Territorial soldiers and officers and men in the Ulster Defence Regiment, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Royal Ulster Constabulary reserves, the RUC and now the Police Service of Northern Ireland have faced and continue to face on a day-to-day basis.

Clearly, war is difficult. War is hell. It was all very well for a regular soldier such as I to have carried out a six-month or two-year tour in Northern Ireland and to then go home to sunny England, and it is all very well to serve in Afghanistan today—which is clearly immeasurably worse than anything I experienced—but we did not have to face the same sorts of pressures as these brave men and women who often lived cheek by jowl with individuals who were sympathetic to our enemies and who were, therefore, enemies themselves. It was hellishly difficult for those individuals. It imposed a toll and it continues to impose a toll, as the previous debate showed, on those who live in dangerous and difficult circumstances. The toll is not necessarily a physical one, but it is certainly a mental one.

Let us therefore make sure that the brave men and women who have served the Crown in Northern Ireland are looked after properly when their service finishes, and I mean not just soldiers, sailors and airmen, but police officers, prison officers and the whole gamut of those who are proud to wear the Crown on their uniforms.

I am amazed and dismayed by my right hon. Friend’s comments that respite care cannot—I think I am right in saying this—be carried out in Northern Ireland at the moment. That is a terribly important point. The Minister, who understands military affairs extremely well, knows that individuals who have served wish to recover among their comrades, if at all possible. With respect, I say to the Minister that if anything can be done for those brave men and women, I would be most grateful. I utterly endorse my right hon. Friend’s comments.

I also admire the conduct of Her Majesty the Queen. I admire it in every way, but particularly admired it during her recent visit to the Republic and what she did there. She laid wreaths not just for our own men who fell as a result of the difficulties in the Republic, but for those many men who fought for His Majesty at the time, as exemplified by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers memorial in Dublin, which is hideously known as “traitors gate” by some and admired by others. Her Majesty showed no prejudice in the way that she respected those dead. I hope that the Taoiseach will accept my invitation, at some stage, to visit the graves of the Sherwood Forester soldiers, from the Sherwood Forester Brigade, who were killed in Dublin in 1916 and who now rest in their native soil of Nottinghamshire. I do not know what the reaction will be; so far, it has not been positive, but in the future I hope it will be.

Moving on to the application of the military covenant in my constituency, I hope that I can suggest one or two things that the Minister might find useful. In 2007, a young man, Lance Corporal Davis of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, lost a leg on operations in Afghanistan. I knew his family slightly, but did not know him at all. I went to see him at hospital in Selly Oak. We thought that he was going to die. Two of his colleagues in the team with which he was patrolling did die. Luckily, Lance Corporal Davis recovered.

That presented a problem in Newark, however. His father was not only having to take two children to school, but having to hold down his job as a lorry driver while his wife lived in Birmingham with their dangerously ill son, whom they thought was going to die. The road haulage company for which Mr Davis worked—which will remain nameless—was desperately unsympathetic to him. He was told that he had used his holiday and his leave, that he had no further opportunity to take time off work and that the mere loss of his son’s leg was no excuse.

In one of the very few moments as a Member of Parliament when I have known that I was 100% right and have operated in a completely uncompromising fashion, I rang the managing director of the firm and asked whether he would like some publicity. He said that he would love some. I asked whether he would like to be on the front of every national daily the following day. He said that he would love to be. I said, “Well, not for the reasons that I am about to outline.” It worked a treat. Mr Davis was helped and he got his time off. He was able to look after not only his other children but his hero son.

That case led us to establish the Newark Patriotic Fund. In the few years since, we have dealt with more than 12 amputees and a number of men and women who have presented—I think that is the word—with all sorts of mental difficulties. The earliest case with which we are dealing is a survivor from the Korean war. I am not here just to plug the Newark Patriotic Fund, although I will mention Mrs Susan Gray and Mrs Karen Grayson, who work tirelessly for it. I commend what it does to other Members. It raises large sums of money, principally to help the families.

There is a gap in the way that the Government honour the military covenant. It is a gap not of commission but of omission, and the situation is evolving. Some useful precedents were set after the first and second world wars in how we deal with such men. I hope that we will not have many more people with traumatic injuries coming back to the Newark constituency, but we might have. However, we will definitely have a wave of mental illness that presents itself over the next decade or so. We have to look after those men—they are mainly men, although there are one or two women.

I have a suggestion for the Minister, although I appreciate that it would involve expense. I believe that part of the military covenant should be that every soldier, sailor and airman, whether regular, reservist, territorial or whatever they are called in the future, should be offered medical screening on discharge. The medical services could advise on what the interval should be, but I would have thought that it should be about every three years. The individual should be looked at and given a chance to talk. Most people who are discharged are fit, but this would be an extremely useful way to monitor those who are concealing injuries, those who have injuries they do not know about and those who are in the developing stages of mental illness. It would not be cheap or easy to administer, but it might just prevent problems that could be nipped in the bud.

To give an example, I was seen by a doctor in Lincoln about five years ago because of the injuries that I received in Northern Ireland. She said that I not only had the problems with my wounds, but extensive frostbite in my right foot. She said that unless that was put right, I would develop a problem in the future. That is a simple illustration, but unless I had seen that doctor I would not have known about it. If no one had said to me, “Look Colonel Mercer, behave yourself. Own up to what has happened and we can help you.”, life would have been more difficult for me.

[John Glen]

Given my hon. Friend’s experience, is this more about somebody’s willingness to engage and open up about difficult mental health issues than the availability of screening and services? A physical injury is one thing, but is the real issue the barrier of people not wanting to own up to the fact that there might be a problem?

[Patrick Mercer]

I am grateful for that helpful intervention. My hon. Friend is absolutely right and he will probably face many cases in his constituency that are similar to those in Newark.

In another plug for the Newark Patriotic Fund—forgive me, Mr Speaker—one thing we find is that those who are without an arm or leg have probably come to terms with that. The groundswell of support and popularity—I do not quite use the word “glamour”, but I hope the House will understand what I mean—helps those individuals to come to terms with their situation. Those who are nursing, hiding or developing mental health problems find that much more difficult to talk about, but we find at our so-called drop-in centre that people are able and willing to talk in the company of other brave men and women who are empathetic and sympathetic.

Future Reserves 2020

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend will see when he reads the Green Paper, it contains a section that talks about extending the armed forces covenant appropriately to cover reserves. On supporting families, he is absolutely right, although we face a different challenge because reservist families, by definition, do not live in military communities and are dispersed, so this has to be done in a different way. Access to the regular military support apparatus, for example, the military health care, dental facilities and mental health facilities, is a crucial part of the package.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I acknowledge the broad support of the Federation of Small Businesses and the massive contribution made by large employers, but may I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on the situation of micro-businesses and businesses that have between five and 10 employees? It is crucial to develop a realistic package to provide the incentives for business owners to release their staff to participate, particularly in areas such as Salisbury, where there is great enthusiasm to do so.

[Mr Hammond]

The consultation is designed exactly to explore with different types of employer in different sectors and of different sizes how best we can work with them, recognising that different challenges are faced by different types of business.

Armed Forces Pensions

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

The purpose of calling this evening’s debate is to bring to the Minister’s attention a group of former spouses who, due to miscalculations in their pension provision by the Ministry of Defence, now face very uncertain futures. It seems that there is a group of 126 women who have been affected by the mistake. I believe it right and proper for the MOD now to take the steps necessary to ensure that this does not happen again and to compensate the individuals affected, particularly where their financial situation and life circumstances have been substantively impaired.

Three constituents came to see me in March this year. In accordance with their wishes, I shall not be disclosing their names to the House. However, their experiences are fairly representative of the group of women affected. One individual, having made the difficult decision to divorce, asked for the details of her former husband’s pension pot from the SPVA—the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency, which administers military pensions—in March 2010. Her husband’s pension was in fact already in payment. The SPVA gave details and confirmed, both on the telephone and in writing, that my constituent would be able to take her pension from the age of 55 with no actuarial reduction being applied. Therefore, in April 2010 the judge was able to finalise her divorce, relying on the information provided by the SPVA, which had been confirmed in writing.

The pension for my constituent came into payment and she undertook a number of financial obligations, feeling certain of a definite and defined monthly income payment for the rest of her life. She bought a property and undertook renovations on it, as she sought to start her new life. It has since been discovered that in November 2010 the MOD was contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions and made aware that an error had been made in the way it had interpreted DWP legislation. It meant that actuarial reductions should have been applied to those former spouses who took a pension at the age of 55. However, none of the affected spouses was informed of the error, and their pensions continued to be paid from November 2010, when the MOD was first notified that an error had occurred, to spring 2012, when the MOD communicated the error to those affected and my constituent first approached me.

On 1 March 2012, 16 months after the mistake first came to light, my constituent was notified by phone that she would receive a reduction in her pension of over 40%, which was to take effect in three months’ time. A letter confirming that arrived a few days later, on 5 March. The stress and worry must have been unimaginable. Illness followed and she lost half a stone very quickly. She sold her car, as she was so worried about the reduction in her income and felt that she had to downsize her lifestyle rapidly. Obviously she also felt under an enormous degree of strain.

Then, two months later, on 13 May 2012, my constituent received a further communication from the SPVA informing her of another mistake, which meant that she would receive more than the reduced amount but still a 16% reduction on the amount on which her divorce settlement had been based, from which she had been receiving payments for the previous 18 months.

I am sorry to say that that individual is not an isolated example. A constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who is in his place this evening, had a similar experience. She took actuarial advice based on advice from the MOD before finalising the divorce, and acting on that advice, the judge awarded a clean break settlement comprising 40% of her former husband’s pension pot. On the basis of that guaranteed income, she secured a mortgage. She now finds herself with a 20% reduction in her income due to the miscalculation and is looking at losing her house. She has been in hospital for emergency operations and has been treated for stress, and she is now on sleeping tablets.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject and for mentioning my constituent. Does he agree that although one can understand that the principles of good administration require that public authorities such as the Ministry of Defence and the SPVA do not make irregular payments, they also require public authorities to be held to their promises, especially when they have created a legitimate expectation upon which people have acted, as in this case? Does he therefore agree that the right route in these circumstances is generous compensation?

[John Glen]

Absolutely. I fully endorse what my hon. Friend says, and I will come on to some specific points to which I hope the Minister will respond.

In what is an exceedingly traumatic time for anyone—going through a divorce and facing up to a new life—it is absolutely imperative that any agency of a Government Department gets the facts right first time, particularly when dealing with issues that have painful and far-reaching implications. My constituent has told me that since the mistakes have been known, the SPVA, to its credit, has done its best to provide as much information as it can, for which she is sincerely grateful. Information is one thing, but we now need action, leading to justice.

The bottom line is that former husbands and wives, the courts, actuaries and mortgage companies all relied on the information provided to them by the MOD. They had no reason to believe it to be in any way incorrect, particularly in my constituent’s case, in which the SPVA was asked directly whether there would be an actuarial reduction if she took her pension at 55. The SPVA wrote back in black and white on 6 April 2010 to say that that would not be the case.

The mistakes have had serious repercussions for a number of divorce settlements, which were decided on the basis of erroneous information. That means that the lifestyles that the judges thought it fair for both parties to have after the divorce are now not sustainable. In most cases of a so-called clean break divorce, the court will not hear the divorce case again, so the former wife—it usually is the wife—has no legal recourse. It may be possible to go back to court under ancillary relief proceedings to re-examine the finances, but the former husband may have to agree to that. Even if a court agreed to a rehearing, which is expensive in itself, many husbands would not, quite rationally and understandably on one level.

I have figures provided by an actuary from Actuaries for Lawyers, specialising in armed forces pensions, who has estimated what my constituent’s loss will be over her expected life span. I would be happy to let the Minister see those figures, and the actuary himself would be happy to meet him and representatives of the relevant agency in the Department to explain how he arrived at them.

This evening, I would like to ask the Minister a number of questions. When exactly was the mistake made? Who notified the SPVA of the mistake? Who is accountable for it? I do not wish to have a witch hunt, but as yet I have not received a satisfactory account of why the mistake was made, and I am not yet confident that it will not happen again. I also want to know what actions the Minister and SPVA officials have taken, or will take, to ensure that there is no recurrence of the same mistake.

My most pressing question is why it took so long for the MOD to contact those affected by the error. There was a 16-month window from when the mistake was discovered to the point at which those affected were contacted. That wait was unacceptable. The strategic defence and security review has been completed and, from my recent Defence Committee experience, I know that many complex changes have taken place within the MOD, but the SPVA still had a duty of care to get things right. That is its job. The argument that it “had a lot on” cannot be used.

As I have tried to stress, this error has had a huge effect on the victims. Some have become ill, and chronic illness has ensued. Some have found it hard to cope with the paperwork involved as they try and get to the bottom of what has happened. Some are facing the risk of repossession. Many have committed themselves to expenses that they cannot now maintain, or would not have entered into had they known what was going to happen. Many face adjustments to their living arrangements that they would not have had to contemplate, had their settlements been agreed on the correct basis.

I cannot do justice tonight to the misery and upset of so many families, but I hope that the Minister will reflect fully on the circumstances of my constituent and others. I want him to give a categorical assurance that compensation will be awarded, not only to those who are able to challenge this decision, through me or other MPs, but to the whole group of women involved. My constituent was awarded the well-meant but token amount of £250 to cover the “inconvenience and uncertainty”, in a letter dated 13 September 2012. However, not everyone has been given that. Why not? Did she receive it just because she was able to pursue the MOD? Some others have not been strong enough to do so, perhaps because they have been ill or simply not as persistent. There is a principle at stake here. The MOD made a mistake and the miscalculations directly affected the choices made by this group of women and their former partners.

I am aware, from previous correspondence I have had with the MOD on this issue, that a hardship fund is available to those in need. That is welcome, but it does not address the real issue, which is one of justice. The MOD ought to honour the assumptions made by the court, which decided on what it thought to be a fair and just distribution of assets based on figures given to it by the SPVA. That decision has now been compromised through errors made not by the individuals concerned but by the MOD.

If we assume an average shortfall of £50,000 per person over their lifetime, we find that the MOD would need to find approximately £6 million in compensation. Given the lifetime of service that those spouses have given through supporting their husbands and, in some cases, forfeiting their own chances of a career through the frequent relocations necessary for many service households, I hope that the Minister will order full and complete compensation from the hardship funds. That should include all reasonable legal costs, and it would be helpful if the recoverable costs could be defined.

The Minister should also take whatever steps are necessary to establish where the error was made and to ensure those responsible are retrained to make certain that this does not happen again. This Government have taken great steps with the military covenant during their time in office, but this matter tests both the letter and the spirit of the covenant. I have the highest personal respect for the Minister. He has been in post for only just over 40 days, but he has already cultivated widespread respect among many veterans’ organisations. I now look forward to hearing his sympathetic and effective response.

Army 2020

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Many of my Salisbury constituents have expressed concern that the increased number of reservists used to mitigate the impact of today’s cuts will not prevent a loss of capability. Will the Secretary of State reiterate why he is confident that there will not be an emerging capability gap as a result of today’s announcements?

[Mr Hammond]

Because the Chief of the General Staff and the team carrying this work have presented me with a plan for the future Army, which they tell me will be able to deliver the output requirements of the strategic defence and security review. I have confidence in their professionalism.

Defence Budget and Transformation

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. The knowledge that there is a £4 billion contingency budget will be hugely reassuring for the defence industry when it looks at the overall programme and decides how to invest its own money in the technologies and skills needed to deliver it. However, I urge the company in her constituency not to think that the £4 billion is there to accommodate its cost overrun.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

In warmly welcoming today’s announcement, may I ask the Secretary of State to go further and assure the House that when he reviews the options for the organisational model that the Chief of Defence Matériel believes will be best for the future of the Defence Equipment and Support organisation, he will challenge them robustly on their capacity to deliver real, radical organisational and cultural change in that organisation so that decisions are made in the right way in the future?

[Mr Hammond]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance, but I do not underestimate the scale of the task. As DE&S is structured at the moment, we are seeking to employ project managers to manage some of the world’s largest and most complex projects and we are seeking to do it on civil service pay. That is challenging.

Carrier Strike Capability

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

A first-week midshipman could probably tell the hon. Gentleman that it is not normal to order a 65,000 tonne STOVL carrier without any cats and traps. With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s question on Rosyth, no decision has been taken on where the carriers will be maintained in future.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is widely alleged by some that the through-life costs of the F-35B could compare unfavourably with those of the F-35C. What rigorous assessment has my right hon. Friend undertaken to ensure that we achieve value for money, having made this decision, and what wider lessons on the defence budget can be drawn for similarly important and large decisions in future?

[Mr Hammond]

To answer the last question first, I am drawing some very interesting conclusions about how to manage the defence budget on an ongoing basis and hope to share them with the House shortly. It is precisely because the F-35C variant, on the face of it, has a lower purchase cost and a lower through-life maintenance cost that this option was pursued at the time of the SDSR 2010, but operating the carrier variant will of course require the installation upfront of the catapults and arrester gears, which we now know will cost in the order of £2 billion and rising. On the basis of a properly discounted cash-flow analysis over 30 years, I am clear that the STOVL variant, given the current estimate of the cost of cats and traps, will now be cheaper.

Afghanistan (Troop Levels)

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman is a real dyed-in-the-wool glass-half-empty man. I have not announced that we will commit our forces for another 32 months. The Prime Minister announced early last year that we would have them out of a combat role by the end of 2014. That is a good news story, as is the fact that in the interim, all the ISAF nations are focused on creating an ANSF that can take over our role and maintain security in Afghanistan.

In the meantime, everybody in the House ought to be extremely proud of the social and economic development in central Helmand. There are significantly more schools, hospitals, clinics, bazaars, and bridges. Over the past six months, the British Army has built the biggest bridge that it has constructed since the second world war. All those things allow ordinary people in Helmand province to resume their normal life, grow their income and make mainstream Afghan society more and more attractive to those who have previously been attracted by the insurgency.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

My concern is that the current residual threat is not a reliable indicator of what precisely will happen post-2014. What assurance can the Secretary of State give the House that the likely change or intensification of threats from without Afghanistan in 2015 are being properly examined and acknowledged in the training being received now by the ANSF?

[Mr Hammond]

The strategic threats are acknowledged in, and form a core part of, ISAF’s thinking. I do not know whether my hon. Friend had a particular aspect in mind, but it is clear to us that building a sustainable and reliable relationship with Pakistan and ensuring the security of the border with Pakistan will be fundamental to the future of Afghanistan.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

As a member of the Defence Committee, I welcome this opportunity to contribute to the debate. Defence reform is a complex matter and it is not easy, in a few minutes, to encapsulate coherently and completely in an incisive contribution how one would move things forward. I say that to mitigate the disappointment when I sit down and to reflect how difficult it is to reform a Department that has so much complexity hard-wired into its fabric. Much analysis and many reports on this issue have been undertaken over the years and I do not want to use my time now to revisit controversial decisions on whether, if or when we will have an aircraft carrier or aircraft carriers, or on the number of senior posts that will be rationalised, or on how those decisions were taken. Neither do I want to examine the different reasons armed forces personnel face a greater likelihood of compulsory redundancy than their civil service counterparts.

The three points I wish to raise today concern culture, accountability and the measurement of outcomes. Regardless of what decisions are made about programmes and the size and shape of the three services, it is in those three areas that lasting, effective and meaningful reform will be achieved. Many people will probably raise their eyebrows at the mention of culture and think it is a soft and peripheral concern. They might think that the culture of the armed forces is well defined and focused, so let me explain what I mean.

I have no doubt whatever that the sense of discipline, service and mutual dependency is fully developed within the culture of the armed services, as is that brave willingness to risk life and limb for country. However, I am increasingly of the view, through all my different interactions with the armed services in the two years I have been in the House, that although in operational terms there is no doubt about how well the different services work together, when it comes to taking decisions in the interests of UK defence at the strategic and policy level, individuals display an undue dependency on their own service, department or section and the affinities that go with them. Often, I feel that decisions on fundamental matters of reform are made on the basis of the relative political skills of the senior individuals involved. Until a culture exists that rewards and prizes fully at all levels the good of UK defence above other ingrained imperatives, lasting and successful reform will not happen. We cannot continue to pay lip service to jointery from a structural and organisational chart perspective but make no real investment in the mechanics of decision making within the MOD.

The second issue I want to address is accountability. The Defence Committee’s report of just this week says that

“the MoD could not provide adequate audit evidence for over £5.2 billion worth of certain inventory and capital spares.”

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) referred to the Secretary of State appearing like the chairman of an international company.

[Mr Gray]

A very good one.

[John Glen]

Indeed, but what would happen in a business if such inventory could not be accounted for so that for the fifth year the financial director had to qualify the accounts? My gallant Defence Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), recently told me he had once been severely reprimanded for an unaccounted rifle. That was only a generation ago, yet today £125 million-worth of Bowman radios are still unaccounted for.

Many Members will raise their eyebrows, because the issue has been highlighted so many times in different reports, but poor accountability for decisions and outcomes and for the use of public money needs to be addressed. Accountability needs to be hard-wired in the MOD, not just at the highest level but at every level, otherwise reform will not be successful.

The final issue I want to examine is measuring outcomes. As a member of the Select Committee, I draw attention to our recent report, which notes that we were told that

“88 per cent progress had been made to a stable and secure Afghanistan.”

It is a promising statistic, but when we examined it further we were told that

“the performance was not 88 per cent against a full range of indicators of what is happening in Afghanistan, for example on the quality of governance, the economy and security.”

In that case, what is the point of such a statistic in the MOD’s annual report and accounts? We can debate at length the different aspects of decision making and allocation of resources, but until we have proper accountability and measurement of outcomes we cannot have real change in future outcomes and conduct in our MOD. We need to change the culture. We need real accountability, with consequences. We need to measure outcomes so that effective decision making can be built on well into the future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—