Defence: Military Covenant

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the military covenant will be covered by the strategic defence and security review.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity to introduce this Question for Short Debate. Well before the strategic defence and security review, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, was published, the Church of England already wanted to contribute to the wider debate on our national concern for global security. That was when I was asked, as someone with a background in foreign affairs—albeit mainly in ecclesiastical settings—to be a spokesperson for the church on defence and global security issues. We are also keen to reflect on the nature of the military covenant, whereby we underpin our commitment as a nation to those who risk their lives on our behalf. The impetus for this debate predates both the review and the Strachan report on the military covenant.

The response to the SDSR, when it was published, produced at least as much heat as it did light and, if it is not mixing metaphors too much, it was easy for that to cloud serious reflections on the issues at hand. In my own contribution to the debate on the review, I drew attention to what I believed to be a lack of any full narrative about the global role that we might expect Britain to play and the corresponding resources that might be needed to sustain this. I remain convinced that we should urgently return to that. Of course, the national security strategy has provided some of that narrative in terms of what we ought to be doing as a nation. It is still not clear, however, whether that yet dovetails with the answers that the SDSR gave about what is possible for us to do as a nation, given our finite resources.

We are all sharply aware of the financial restraints placed upon us following a serious global recession. That made the publication of the review a matter of urgency. Indeed, I noted in my reflections that the review had an interim feel to it. There is no time to be lost in making a realistic assessment of the resources available in this next decade and deciding how we might most profitably deploy them so as to make an effective and strategic contribution to global security. I hope that we shall return to a principled debate on strategy in the near future in this House and in the other place.

In preparing for this debate I have consulted a number of people who, from their experience as senior military personnel, have a better reservoir of knowledge than I could ever have. They have generously commented as well on aspects of the military covenant. I shall focus more immediately on the covenant itself, and I begin with a brief local vignette. Six months ago I presided at the service at Halifax Minster for the laying up of the colours of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. The regiment has now become a battalion within the Yorkshire Regiment. It was a very moving occasion, provoking not only powerful feelings among the military personnel present, and there were plenty of them, but equally powerful responses from the citizens of Halifax, both young and old. The Duke’s regiment had been their regiment and often the soldiers had been their soldiers, so the memories—some black and sorrowful, some heroic and inspiring—were their memories. It was an instructive and very personal indication of the significance of the relationship of mutuality, trust and respect between a community and its military personnel. In other words, here was the military covenant earthed in a local community.

The stream of funerals at Wakefield Cathedral of service personnel from Afghanistan has been another sharp reminder of the cost of war and of what we expect of those who offer their lives for military service. There is no other role within society where the reality of giving one’s life is so sharply within focus, or where the expectations of the role—that is, the covenant with servicepeople and their families—has quite the same edge. Death is one reality that cannot be ruled out, and the rawness of our emotions cannot be downplayed.

This short debate gives us an opportunity to look afresh at the military covenant and how it was covered by the SDSR. I shall focus on the welfare issues within the covenant, allowing others to focus elsewhere if they wish. We can do so, of course, alongside the recommendations of the Strachan report, on which I believe the Government should be duly congratulated. That task force has stimulated fresh ways of thinking about how the Government and society as a whole can fulfil their obligations to develop further the military covenant which, rather like our constitution, is unwritten and is perhaps best left in that form.

All in this House would doubtless agree that ensuring that the covenant is in robust health is as much a moral imperative as it is a strategic one. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who have served and continue to serve in our Armed Forces. I have already alluded to the potential costs to individuals and families. I shall use this occasion also to pay particular tribute to the dedicated and loyal service provided by those who support them, including our military chaplains past and present. I also pay tribute to reservists, now numbering some 20,000 recently serving. I should say that that includes two clergy from our own diocese, who have been on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan in these past years.

That moves me on to ask some practical questions. First, what steps have been taken to update the existing package on terms and conditions of service, and what is the envisaged timeframe for the development of a new employment model? Alongside this, I am prompted to ask for some indicators in education. The Strachan report points to education throughout the service career as a priority and the SDSR highlights support to ex-service personnel to study at university. I have commented on the Browne report’s impact in another debate in the Chamber and would welcome assurance that the changes in higher education funding will not delay the SDSR’s recommendations in this area.

I revert to the excellent work of the Strachan task force. As I have hinted, the avoidance of semi-legal language is much to be welcomed. Those noble Lords who have sight of the more scurrilous of the tabloids will know that the Anglican Communion is itself struggling to put together a covenant. Similar issues of legalism or non-legalism have arisen there. I am sure that legalism is best avoided all round. Interestingly, the Old Testament is riven with a number of different models of covenant. The most attractive feature of all of them is an avoidance of a language which legislates. Instead, the model is one of gift. Each partner willingly gifts to the other. Here, we begin with a gift of military service and a paired gift is offered by the nation to all in military service. That gift is shared by government and the wider community. It is eloquently set out in the task force’s document.

Within all that, however, we need confidence that such gifting is assured, especially from government. Here there are lacunae. In neither Strachan nor the SDSR is there an analysis of the welfare needs of serving personnel and veterans. Any research into that has been ad hoc and piecemeal. There are real questions about the ability of regiments and corps individually to look after families. There are also specific issues about the adequacy of support for reservists as they return to their normal work following the pressured extremes of military service. These issues argue for a permanent mechanism through which we can review the situation in the future. I realise that the question of how we assess the treatment of Armed Forces personnel has been raised in another place within the context of the Armed Forces Bill. As I understand it, the independent external reference group, which assesses annual progress against the service personnel Command Paper, is due to be phased out or brought in-house to the Ministry of Defence, where its independence is less assured. Could the Minister shed some light on the logic of that decision?

Finally, I accept that this time of financial stringency is hardly one in which to encourage the setting up of new posts and appointments, but ought there not to be someone who effectively acts as the reviewer of armed services welfare? That might be combined with other work while remaining a distinctive function. The reviewer would report to the Secretary of State for Defence perhaps once every four years. Such a statutory measure might help depoliticise our discussions on the military covenant and ensure that the sacrifices that I mentioned earlier are responded to by a proper sense of giftedness from the nation’s side of the covenant. Without a clear assurance here, one cannot guarantee the relationship essential in a military covenant. Field Marshal Montgomery commented:

“Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence”.

This confidence must be rooted in a mutually assured covenant which has clarity about both its purpose and its commitment. Again, Montgomery noted—and I conclude—that:

“Theological virtues amount to this: get your major purpose clear, take off your plate all which hinders that purpose and hold hard to all which helps it, and then go ahead with a clear conscience, courage, sincerity and selflessness”.