Armed Forces: Redundancy

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I join the Minister in offering condolences to the families and friends of Private Dean Hutchinson and Private Robert Wood. It is right that the Minister draws attention to the wounded, some of whom will carry the price of their bravery for the rest of their lives.

I thank the Minister for repeating the Secretary of State’s response in another place as a Statement in this House and I thank him for giving me an early view of the Statement. This Statement, together with the Written Ministerial Statement yesterday, is about cuts in manpower and how they are to be achieved. It is extremely precise: it talks of 344 pilots who will continue training, another 170 who will not and so on. Sadly, we learn that even more precise details were supplied to the press yesterday at a conference at 2 pm—which was before this House received details, before we had details in the Written Ministerial Statement and before the details that came out today in the other place. Can the Minister tell me whether in fact such a detailed briefing did take place yesterday at the Ministry of Defence? I am sure that it did. I will not comment on whether that is a good thing—the House must comment on that. However, I am sure that Members of the House would wish that details had come here or to the other place first.

The Statement has to be taken together with yesterday’s Written Ministerial Statement. The essence of the two documents is that there is some detailed grand plan of what we are trying to achieve. It refers to Future Force 2020 and the SDSR as the basis for this. It speaks with such precision that you would think there was a precise description of where we are trying to get to with this grand plan. I can only assume that, within the Ministry of Defence, there is a clear view of what the force strength will be in 2015 and what the force strength will be in 2020. I can assure the Minister there are no figures in the SDSR to enlighten us and there are no figures I know of in the public domain. The Royal Air Force and the fast jets in particular are in the top of our minds and the Statement is principally about redundancies in the Royal Air Force. Can he give us some statement or indication of what front-line force these manpower adjustments are designed to yield in 2015 and what front-line force we are looking for in 2020? Can he also assure us that this Government, if elected, will provide funding from 2015 to 2020 to deliver the so far undefined Future Force 2020 promise?

I am sorry that these days one has to read the press to keep up to speed with the Government’s thinking on defence. In today’s Times, it is suggested that a further £1 billion of cuts will be needed between now and April. Is that true? Is it likely that he will be coming back to the House to tell us about more cuts, and will those cuts involve additional manpower losses or additional losses of capability?

I turn to what may be one of the most crucial elements of this Statement on redundancies: what I call the Afghanistan promise, which was made in the other place by Dr Fox on 8 November 2010. He said:

“It would not be possible for the Government to say that no one who had ever served in Afghanistan in any way, shape or form since 2001 would not be made redundant”.

At the end of the day, one accepts that there has to be a little more flexibility than something as extreme as that. But he went on to say:

“I reiterate what I have said: that because we need to maintain the Afghan rotation, no one currently serving in Afghanistan, or on notice to deploy, will face compulsory redundancy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/11/10; col. 13.]

Can the Minister confirm that anybody serving in Afghanistan on 8 November 2010 will not be made redundant under this? I believe that would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation of that promise. Unfortunately, yesterday’s Written Ministerial Statement was much softer. It said it would be those who had “recently” served in Afghanistan. Can the Minister confirm that “recently” means 8 November 2010 and if not, and he is actually resiling on the promise made on that date, can he define what “recently” now means?

What of those who are made redundant? The Written Ministerial Statement, at the bottom of page 2, starts to talk about what we will do for them. It starts off with good words about how we have a duty to these people and about how they have served us bravely, and now that they are made redundant they must face a future. It ends up by saying:

“A comprehensive package of support and advice on housing, finance and finding a job will be made available”.

That is starting to sound like something tangible. But it goes on to say:

“Over the coming months, Ministers will scrutinise those plans in detail, working closely with domestic departments, to ensure they are as good as can be achieved”—[Official Report, 1/3/11; col. WS 108.]

What does,

“as good as can be achieved”,

mean?

Surely, this is the moment to meet a promise that I thought I heard the Prime Minister make, to put the military covenant in law so that these assurances are tangible and can be delivered. The Minister has an opportunity, when he brings the forthcoming Bill to this House, to bring forward proposals to give a real, tangible base to the military covenant and I encourage him to do that. Will the Minister give us clarity on what sort of forces we are planning for, will he give us clarity on the Afghanistan promise and will he give us clarity on the military covenant? If he cannot, how does he expect to maintain the morale of our brave men and women?