Armed Forces Personnel

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

I have listened with interest, amusement and, often, respect to the words of the shadow Minister. I hope that he will have a stiff word with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who interrupted him, in the middle of a perfectly good argument, to talk about something that has absolutely nothing to do with this debate. He was a troublesome member of the Select Committee on Defence, but an extremely effective one, just as he was an effective Minister. So, too, is my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, whose words I also listened to with interest and respect.

I wish to thank the Government for holding this debate on armed forces personnel and for its timing. I have been looking through my records and it seems that this is the first debate on personnel since January 2009. Can that really be the case? I say that because it is our armed forces personnel and the training that they receive which make our armed forces the envy of the world. I have to say that the arrangements for having these debates on armed forces matters or on defence equipment are simply not working. I am relieved and pleased that the Leader of the House is having discussions on how to change things. One matter that I would point out to the Backbench Business Committee—I cannot immediately see any of its members in the Chamber—is that the pressure of time in this debate is such that there is a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, on a day when there is no vote at the end. There is no shortage of interest in this matter and I hope that the Committee’s members will take that point away with them if ever we go back to ask for further time.

It is not surprising that there is no shortage of interest in this issue, given what the armed forces are going through. There is turmoil in the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces because of the degree of change that is having to be forced through. There are redundancies, restrictions on money for exercising and training, and changes to the allowances, not to mention the fighting that they are doing at the same time. The Defence Committee has been doing work on all those things, as the House would expect.

Sometimes people believe that it is the job and the role of the Defence Committee to speak for the armed forces, but strictly speaking that is not true. We are not a lobbying organisation for the armed forces or for the defence industry. Our role is to ensure that the MOD does its work as well as it can in the circumstances. Our lobbying role is to lobby for the country; we are not lobbyists for the armed forces. Lobbying for the country, we realise, as people and as a Committee interested in defence, that the country wants certain things. It wants its armed forces to be treated fairly and properly. It also wants its armed forces treated with respect and honour, and the Royal Wootton Bassett phenomenon is a demonstration of that.

There has been a discussion in the newspapers over the past few days about the issue of wearing a poppy and about the question of whether people feel compelled to wear one. There was even an article in The Independent by Robert Fisk entitled, “Do those who flaunt the poppy on their lapels know that they mock the war dead?” I read that article not with anger, but actually with a degree of sympathy. However, I concluded that it had got entirely the wrong end of the stick. He talked about his father, who had fought in the first world war, stopping wearing his poppy because he did not want to see so many damn fools wearing it. His father felt that those who wore the poppy had no idea what the trenches of France were like, and what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers, wives, lovers or parents. Of course, to a large extent that is true; those of us who have not been in the armed forces cannot imagine quite the horror that is involved. We may think we can but we cannot. Few of us in this House—there are honourable exceptions, and I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) in his place—have had that experience.

As Wilfred Owen pointed out,

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”—

it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one’s country—is actually a lie. Horace, who wrote those words, did not follow his own advice. Interestingly, he did fight at the battle of Philippi, but he later claimed that he survived that battle only by running away, having thrown his shield away. I do not blame him for that. But we who have not fought do not wear the poppy because we claim to understand what war is truly like—as I say, we cannot do that. We wear a poppy for other reasons.

Robert Fisk’s article says that he declined to lay a wreath at the Menin gate because it was something of which he was not worthy. I think that that is a shame because, in those terms, which of us is worthy? I do lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday, and I do not do so because I am worthy—I am not. I do so for many of the constituents I represent: the incredibly brave Chinook pilots who rescue our wounded under fire; the former Gurkhas who have done so much for our country; the families who bear so much of the brunt of death and injury; and the pensioners who survived the second world war and who fought in the Korean war. Those are the people who are worthy and I do it for them.

I also wear a poppy. That is partly because of my grandfather, who, like Robert Fisk’s father, fought in the first world war but who died at the second battle of Ypres. But wearing a poppy is also a public acknowledgement of debt, a public reminder of continuing need in the armed forces community, a public display of respect and a public expression of thanks. It is really not a public announcement, “Look I’ve given the Royal British Legion a bit of money.” Although it is true that sometimes politicians and others may feel obliged to wear a poppy because if they fail to do so they will be subject to public disapproval, one really should not get hung up on that sort of thing. The vast majority of people wear a poppy out of pleasure, and they wear it because they want to, rather than because they must—at least, that is my reading of the situation.

[Mr Brazier]

Like my right hon. Friend, I have never fought, but is there not one further argument, in addition to the powerful ones that he puts forward for wearing a poppy? The men and women who went off to fight in the two world wars were a huge cross-section of ordinary people, many of whom had no military experience at the time, yet on the eve of the battle of the Somme, not one single man was reported absent without leave.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My hon. Friend has got military experience, even if he has not fought. He highlights a point that my hon. Friend the Minister made about the current shortage of experience—within a cross-section of the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) said—in what the armed forces do. I think that is, as my hon. Friend says, a reason for wearing the poppy.

Our constituents also wear a poppy with pride, and it is not pride in themselves. It is pride in their country and pride in what our young men and women, who are prepared to sacrifice everything they have and all that they are, do. In the end there are times when it is right to go to war. If diplomacy fails and if people are determined to behave as Hitler and Gaddafi did, they must be stopped, and we should give respect, honour and thanks to those who are prepared to do it for us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I am not a regular contributor to such debates—not least because I am usually outranked and certainly outpensioned by half the people who speak—although they are very important. I was in the Combined Cadet Force in the 1970s and my main contribution was trying to avoid carrying the Bren gun over the Brecon Beacons whenever we were on exercises.

My constituency has some very proud associations with the military—for example, with the Rifles in the Army and with HMS Cattistock, which is one of our minesweepers; its skills are admired by all, including the US navy. Indeed, we have a Royal Marines base in Poole, where the Special Boat Service is based. That service includes some of the most professional and admired specialists in the world.

Like many hon. Members here, I will be attending a Remembrance day ceremony in Poole park. I have done so more times than I care to remember. In my early years as a Member of Parliament, it was clear that the vast majority of people at the ceremony were world war two veterans, although some people had done national service and there was the odd person who had served in Northern Ireland.

What has changed is the number of young families turning up with photographs of fathers or mothers who have been killed in action. That has been the biggest change during my time in Parliament and it makes me think very carefully about the decisions we, as politicians, make about war and peace, and life and death, because people have to deal with the consequences of the United Kingdom’s policy. Given longevity, some of the youngsters who have lost fathers may well be around for another 70, 80 or 90 years—long after we have gone. Our legacy must be not only to support the military covenant, but to ensure that we look after those families who have lost a loved one. We must provide the best possible support we can to our armed services, which we all value so much.

Service accommodation is a very important issue. Over the past few years, there has been a great effort to improve the standard of all housing in the United Kingdom. A lot of money was spent on council housing to bring homes up to the decent homes standard. Yet much service accommodation remains not that good. I have had many conversations with the wives of Royal Marines in Poole, some of whom work as nurses or health visitors. They often say that when they visit people on benefits in Poole, their housing conditions are substantially better than those of some of the people in the Special Boat Service. Many have often said that they are a little ashamed to ask people back to their home because the standard is not very good.

I understand, as I think we all do, the economic situation that our country is in and the fact we have to make economies. However, as soon as money becomes available, we need to invest in providing decent housing standards for the families of people in the armed services. When we commit people, as we have done in the past, to 12 months in Afghanistan, we want them to be able to leave their families in a home we would all be proud of. Therefore, much work needs to be done on that matter.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

One of the problems that my hon. Friend highlights is that the armed forces are the only people who have to compete for funding in terms of their housing and the provision of weapons to keep them alive. It is not easy to work out how to resolve that dilemma.

[Mr Syms]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point; of course, he is very experienced in this area. That raises the question of whether another organisation should be supplying the housing instead of the Ministry of Defence. Having looked at the resources made available to Poole Housing Partnership, which deals with the several thousand council houses that we have in Poole, it is clear that it could easily maintain and upgrade the hundreds of MOD houses if there were some kind of tie-up or support. We need to think rather more creatively about how we can channel the resources that are available. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) made a powerful point about a case in his constituency of homes on two sides of the road, some of which are being done up with public money and some of which are not, because their funding happens to come out of different pockets. It should not be beyond the wit and wisdom of our country to find a way through this.

It is terribly important that we understand the angst of service families who leave the service having been unable to buy a home because they have been serving in different areas, and so have to go on the social housing list and then find that they cannot be allocated housing. I hope that changes made at the end of the time of the previous Government and under this Government will make that somewhat easier. Most ex-military people should be at the top of the housing queue, not at the bottom. My general view of what has been happening with my constituents suggests that there is now a much better understanding of that, and that housing authorities are much more willing to find accommodation for them.

We all know about the difficulties there have been with people who are in combat one minute and getting on a jet to fly back to the United Kingdom the next. Within a day or two of being in combat, they have to adjust to being home. I am pleased that this country has done a lot more as regards the military hospitals and mental health back-up needed for the people in our armed services. I was also pleased to hear what has been said about resources to help service families and their children in relation to education.

We seem to be finding our way to a far more holistic approach towards support for the various aspects of the lives of those in the military. Certainly, there is a much better understanding of the importance of our military. Like many Members, I am sure that when I am in Poole park on Sunday for our usual parade, many more people than we saw years ago will turn out to commemorate service personnel. There is much more public support for the military. We must maintain that support for, and investment in, these very brave and exceptional people. As has been said, the United Kingdom armed forces are second to none; they do our country proud. We must invest in them and their families, and I hope that this debate plays some small part in progressing that.