Armed Forces: Remuneration, Housing and Family Support

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of reductions in Ministry of Defence day-to-day spending on remuneration, housing and family support for members of the armed forces.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, we do not accept the premise of the noble Lord’s question. Defence offers substantial support to our Armed Forces, which includes freezes to daily food charges, free wraparound childcare, an effective pay rise of between 9.7% for the most junior ranks and 5.8% for officers of one-star rank, and a doubling of investment into UK service family accommodation since the middle of the last decade.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

That Answer illustrates the lack of understanding about the brave people who defend us. However, to get back to my question, the March Spring Budget confirmed that day-to-day spending in defence is set to decline by £2.1 billion. That is over 6% in real terms between 2021-22 and 2024-25, which means £2 billion less for forces’ pay, recruitment and training, despite the growing security threats. Do the Government not believe that this imbalance will have serious consequences, as revealed by the 2023 attitude survey, or are they happy to ignore them?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

It depends upon which glass we look through; clearly, the noble Lord is looking through a rather half-empty glass, and the facts rather refute his gloomy assessment. In fact, the recent pay award was the biggest percentage uplift in 20 years for service personnel, and this year’s pay award goes way beyond that level—rightly recognising the vital contribution to which the noble Lord refers. As he will be aware, spend for the MoD is likely to be above £50 billion this year, and it is interesting just to look at the detail of where that money is going. It includes significant improvements to accommodation and, as I have already described, to the conditions that surround our service personnel. Interestingly, there is anecdotal evidence from across the department that the 2023 pay award has been well received by service personnel.