Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to encourage other Government Departments to support the armed forces covenant.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

As stated in December in the first formal annual report on the armed forces covenant, by enshrining the principles of the covenant in law and establishing a Cabinet-level Committee to oversee progress, we are embedding the covenant across Whitehall. The Cabinet Sub-Committee on the Armed Forces Covenant, led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy, was formed in February 2012 to oversee the covenant programme of work and ensure that momentum is maintained. It provides a forum where Ministers can discuss the commitments owned by their Departments. It met four times in 2012 and has already met this year, a meeting that I attended.

[Mr Buckland]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. What further work is being done to reinforce at local level the need to address veterans’ issues, for example through work with housing associations, many of which have tenants who are veterans, some of whom are in a vulnerable position?

[Mr Francois]

More than 250 local authorities have now signed community covenants, and housing is one issue that is often covered in them; it is covered, I believe, under section 4 of the Swindon community covenant. If veterans have particular problems with housing, as well as contacting their local council and housing associations they can contact the Ministry of Defence’s veterans welfare service, which is part of the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency and can assist them with their inquiries.

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Government have been tested on how seriously they take the armed forces covenant by the issue of the bedroom tax, and they have failed that test. The right hon. Gentleman has finally admitted, in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), that some armed forces families, including those of reservists, could be affected by the bedroom tax, but he does not know how many. Now that we know that some armed forces families will be punished by the bedroom tax, why does he think the families of prisoners and of students should have a year’s exemption, but not armed forces families?

[Mr Francois]

It is believed that very few, if any, full-time service personnel will be affected by the new policy of the Department for Work and Pensions as the overwhelming majority will be living in service accommodation provided by the Ministry of Defence. I have met Lord Freud at the DWP to discuss the issue in detail, and we believe that the number of service personnel who will be affected, either regular or reserve, will be really quite small.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to help families of service personnel find work.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

We recognise that the mobile lifestyles of service personnel can create a particular difficulty for working partners who may have to give up their own jobs. The Government are committed to addressing such disadvantages, including through Jobcentre Plus armed forces champions to assist service families in finding employment, and through easier access to several Jobcentre Plus benefits and services, such as early access to the Work programme of the Department for Work and Pensions. However, we would like to do more. The new employment model that we are currently developing is intended to create a more stable family life, which in turn should help family members find work.

[Andrew Selous]

I spoke to a service wife this morning who told me that she and other wives at their base believe that they are at a real disadvantage when looking for work. They worry about saying what their husbands do, and even about giving their address. These are special people to whom we owe a debt of care. What more can we do to help them?

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and the armed forces covenant report 2012 points out that for spouses and partners

“despite the generally difficult economic situation, we have seen increased levels of full time employment—from 34% in 2011 to 38% in 2012—and the number of partners reporting difficulty finding a job because of employment history has decreased from 25% in 2010 to 16% in 2012.”

In addition, the Government plan to make an announcement shortly on regular Army basing, which should help to provide greater stability in future for service families.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Has the Minister considered having a Jobcentre Plus at each service accommodation site to ensure that service families are not disconnected from the services they require to help them get back into work?

[Mr Francois]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s question, but we already have a network of armed forces champions in DWP districts and a number of jobcentres. We attempt to meet the requirement by doing things that way round, and we believe that it works.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

6. What plans he has for the non-equipment defence budget.

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[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

12. What support his Department provides to gay people serving in the armed forces.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

A wide range of support is available to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the armed forces, including LGBT forums and an employee network site, Proud2Serve, which provides them with a key communication tool. In addition, all members of the armed forces are supported by a network of equality and diversity advisers, who are trained to provide support on a range of equality and diversity issues.

[Steve Rotheram]

At the turn of the millennium, the previous Labour Government ended the ban on homosexual men, lesbians and transgender personnel serving in our armed forces. Given that only one of the Minister’s Defence colleagues voted in favour of equal marriage, can he explain what message he thinks that sends about this Government’s commitment to equality in our armed forces?

[Mr Francois]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that that was a free vote. With regard to the other issue he raised, we intend to introduce an option for members of the armed forces to record their sexual orientation on our joint personnel administration system if they so wish. I take it that that is a change he would welcome. In the meantime, we have expanded our recruit trainee survey to give personnel the option of providing their sexual orientation if they wish to do so.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to improve defence procurement.

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[Andy Sawford]

Why do the Government think it right that the pension age for firefighters in the defence fire and rescue service is to be aligned with the civil service pension age, rather than with the age for civilian firefighters, given that the job done by those serving in our defence services is no less dangerous, and certainly no less physically challenging, than that done by other firefighters?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

Lord Newby has been leading negotiations on behalf of the Treasury as the Public Service Pensions Bill has gone through another place. We are now working with our colleagues in the Cabinet Office and the Treasury to understand the implications of the amendment made to the Bill in the House of Lords, which I believe is at the heart of the hon. Gentleman’s question. We are currently considering how to respond.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

T3. My hon. Friend will be aware of recent problems caused by former military personnel accessing the MOD estate. Will he tell the House what measures he is going to implement to deal with this matter?

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[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T8. Bearing in mind what the Minister said about the military covenant and the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 campaign for a fair deal for our troops, will he now publish the impact assessment—which I am sure he undertook—of the effect of the bedroom tax on the armed forces, and the actual numbers affected?

[Mr Francois]

I have to say to the hon. Lady that I believe that she and some of her parliamentary colleagues are becoming over-excited about this. We have discussed it with the Department for Work and Pensions, and we believe that a very small number of service personnel will be affected, but we will continue to keep the matter under review.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T5. Since 1990, the Army has been reduced by about 40%, but officer numbers are down by less than 30%. Indeed, there are more colonels now than there were then. Is there more that we can do to ensure that the cuts are proportionate?

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T9. The Minister for defence personnel will know that for the past two months I have been trying to secure a meeting with him to discuss the financial losses faced by Army officers who are being made redundant shortly before their immediate pension point. To date, he has not agreed to such a meeting. Will he do so today? If not, can he tell me how members of our armed forces should raise their concerns with this Government about broken promises on their conditions of service?

[Mr Francois]

I recently wrote back to the hon. Lady on this precise subject. I hope she has received the letter—she is nodding, and says that she has. I have also written to Ms Jayne Bullock, who wrote to me originally, and to a number of other servicemen’s wives who have campaigned on the matter. I remind the hon. Lady and others who support the so-called taper model, which a number of people have argued for, that we used that model for redundancies up to 2005-06, when the previous Government abandoned it.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T6. Last year, with colleagues, I visited the British peace support team in Nairobi. Does the Secretary of State agree that the valuable work it does at the international mine action training centre and in training peacekeepers from the east African armed forces plays a vital role in helping to bring about the stability that is essential to economic, social and political development?

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[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

T7. Constituents of mine, including Councillor Jenny Purcell, have raised with me the worrying case of soldier Harry Killick, who suffers from post-traumatic stress and has received recent press coverage. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to provide support for personnel with post-traumatic stress disorder, such as Harry?

[Mr Francois]

The case of Corporal Killick is still before the court, with sentencing deferred pending advice on his mental health. I hope that the House will appreciate that it would therefore not be appropriate for me to comment further today. However, in general terms, when on operational deployment members of the reserve forces, such as Corporal Killick, have access to the same extensive range of mental health counselling and treatment as their regular colleagues, including access to mental health professionals in theatre and treatment in military-run departments of community mental health, if necessary. This issue is a priority for the Government, who have invested £7.2 million in it.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the Secretary of State said that he had “right-sized” the Army in line with the defence budget. How would he rebut the suggestion that that sounds like the strategic defence review was not strategic but budget-driven?

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[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has worked hard on the award of the Arctic Convoy Star medal to veterans of the second world war Artic convoys. He will appreciate that time is of the essence, so will he pledge to complete the necessary processes as soon as possible so that the remaining Arctic convoy veterans can receive their hard and bravely earned recognition?

[Mr Francois]

I thank my hon. Friend for that pertinent question. I am pleased to tell the House that since the Prime Minister’s announcement, considerable progress has been made on the introduction of the Arctic star. I hope to make an announcement very shortly on the design, eligibility criteria and application process for the new award. Similarly, I hope to make an announcement about the Bomber Command class at the same time. Both categories of men served their country with great distinction and it is right that we recognise them.

Armed Forces Independence Payment

Mark Francois Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

In July 2012, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would introduce a new benefit that would provide additional financial support to seriously injured service and ex-service personnel. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are working together to introduce the armed forces independence payment (AFIP) on 8 April 2013. The respective Secretaries of State agreed that MOD will legislate to create AFIP and DWP would administer and pay AFIP.

AFIP is designed to support the most seriously injured. It will be payable to service and ex-service personnel who have an armed forces compensation scheme award that includes a guaranteed income payment of 50% or higher. The payment will be £134.40 per week, which is the equivalent of the enhanced rates of the daily living and mobility components of personal independence payment (PIP). Those receiving AFIP will have access to other benefits in a similar way to those receiving disability living allowance (DLA) now or PIP in the future. In addition, they will not be subject to reassessment and their payments will continue if their circumstances change, for example if they enter hospital or a care home. Those receiving AFIP cannot claim other DWP disability benefits such as DLA or PIP.

AFIP is an example of the Government delivering on their commitment to uphold the armed forces covenant. MOD and DWP will track the progress of AFIP and will report on its implementation in the armed forces covenant report 2013.

Army Career Offices (Wales)

Mark Francois Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bayley, not least because you yourself come from a constituency with strong military connections. I am sure that you have some empathy with some of the points that we are debating this afternoon from both sides of the argument.

I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing the debate. I assure him that the Government place a high value on the quality and dedication of Welsh recruits who join our armed forces. I want to pay tribute to members of the armed forces from Wales who have made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting the security of the United Kingdom—a sacrifice that we will never forget.

I am delighted to be joined in the Chamber by the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). I know that he takes a keen interest in the matter, and he has discussed the issue with me before the debate.

[Wayne David]

He is a Whip, too.

[Mr Francois]

The Whips Office, in which I, too, have had the privilege of serving, is a noble estate. Remember our corporate motto: “We are from the Whips Office, and we are here to help.”

Wales and the Welsh people play a large and important part in our armed forces. From a population that represents just under 5% of the total UK population, Wales has consistently provided between 6% and 7% of total recruits to the British Army each year, so it is fair to say that Wales punches above its weight. Additionally, 10 of the 22 local authorities in Wales have already shown their support for the armed forces and veterans by signing up to community covenants, and the remainder are expected to sign up this year. I am sure you would welcome that as much as the rest of the House, Mr Bayley.

We ask a great deal of the men and women who join our armed forces, and we need the right young men and women to join up. Although the regular armed forces are reducing, they are still very much open for business. The Army, for example, continues to require 7,500 new recruits a year, yet over the past decade the Army has missed the recruiting targets necessary to meet its operational requirements. To address that, the Army has entered a partnering arrangement, known as the recruiting partnering project, with Capita, which seeks to improve Army recruiting by exploiting the expertise of the private sector while retaining a strong military interface with potential recruits at key stages. The contract covers the entire recruiting and selection process for both the Regular Army and the Territorial Army and will transform the way the Army recruits officers and soldiers. In doing so—this is an important point to stress—the contract will release more than 1,000 military recruiters back to the front line, where they are needed, and deliver some £300 million in benefits over 10 years.

The recruiting partnering project will also provide a centralised recruiting operation delivered through a five-region structure using 73 Army careers centres, of which 38 are embedded within tri-service armed forces careers offices. The five current selection centres, including the Army Officer Selection Board, will be retained. To co-ordinate all recruiting activities, a national recruiting centre will be set up in the headquarters Army recruiting and training division, which is based in Upavon, Wiltshire. The centre will provide an initial point of telephone and on-line contact for early inquirers and will provide recruiting teams to co-ordinate and control recruiting activity and liaise with regional recruiters. Importantly, the centre will take on back-office administration tasks, such as reference and security checks and arranging medical screenings, thereby removing the burden of much of the administrative activity from front-line military recruiters in the regions, leaving them free to concentrate on face-to-face liaison with potential recruits.

Over the years, the Army has continually reviewed the location of its recruiting offices, and the number of offices has ebbed and flowed to meet the changing demands of the recruiting environment and the needs of the armed forces. However, the approach that is now being introduced marks a major change in our marketing methods. Following extensive consultation with the Army, the number of recruiting offices will reduce by about half to 73, which reflects that times have changed since the hon. Member for Islwyn and I left school and began looking for work. Experience tells us that today’s young people are much more likely to look online for careers guidance and advice using the many electronic devices available to them.

The UK Government have provided the Welsh Government with almost £57 million to help bring broadband to everyone and super-fast speeds to 90% of homes and businesses. The figure is more than double the amount Wales would have received had the measure been a Barnett consequential. Considerable resource has been invested to try to increase broadband capability in Wales.

[Wayne David]

That is an important point, but a tremendous number of people in Wales are still not connected to the internet. In the Caerphilly borough, for example, 37% of households have no access to the internet, which is a real problem in some of the most deprived communities, and it will not be solved overnight.

[Mr Francois]

I listen to what the hon. Gentleman says, but the programme is due to accelerate in 2013, and we will continue to work closely with the Welsh Government through the Wales Office and Broadband Delivery UK so that sufficient and appropriate measures are in place to ensure the funding is ring-fenced and monitored in order to try to achieve the objective. Further progress is needed, and I hope by referencing those points I have demonstrated that we are determined to make progress where needed.

The alternative ways in which potential recruits may now gain information about joining the Army, coupled with the national recruiting centre, will to some degree reduce the reliance on a high street presence. Capita will introduce a wide selection of contact channels to Army careers centres, including access to digital communication through social media, to meet that need.

Of course, at times there is no substitute for a face-to-face discussion, particularly for a life event as significant as choosing a military career in the service of one’s country, which is why the 73 Army careers centres will be retained. The centres will be spread across the United Kingdom to ensure that more than 90% of the population is within reasonable travelling distance, which is assessed to be less than an hour by car.

The hon. Member for Islwyn asked how we will address particularly rural locations, which is a fair point, but each of the Army’s regional brigades will have its own mobile recruiting unit to provide additional cover for rural locations in situ if there is assessed to be a particular need. So we are not relying purely on modern IT and the fixed Army careers centres. As part of the package there will be mobile teams that can take advice out to potential recruits, rather than asking them to go online or physically go to a centre. I hope he accepts that we have thought about that in some detail.

Army careers centres will be used for walk-ins off the street, for nurturing and supporting personnel as they proceed through the recruiting process and for formal interviews for both Regular Army and Territorial Army candidates.

[Nick Smith]

I hear what the Minister is saying about recruitment via the internet. Blaenau Gwent in the heads of the valleys is a good recruiter for the Army in particular, and it is about an hour’s drive down to Cardiff, depending on the route, I seek assurance that there will be a sustained campaign from the mobile units to ensure that young people in the heads of the valleys get a good chance to join the services.

[Mr Francois]

I believe we will still be able to give people a good chance to join the services, which, after all, is what we want. We will have what one might call modern IT methods for gaining information and registering interest. There will still be fixed Army careers centres where people can go to talk about recruitment face-to-face, and there will also be the mobile teams. Where those mobile teams are deployed will be partly down to the experience of recruiters, but the capability is available to go out to people where we believe that that would benefit both them and the Army. If we did not have that capability, the hon. Gentleman might rightly criticise us for not having it, but the fact is that we have it and we intend to deploy it to good use.

The fixed Army careers centres will be manned by a mix of military and civilian staff, whose combined roles will include visits to education establishments and other local liaison activities. That will allow military personnel to spend most of their time face-to-face with potential recruits, rather than on administrative tasks that can be best managed on a centralised basis. Service personnel will continue to be at the front end of the recruiting process. It is less an outsourcing of recruiting, as some have characterised it, and more of a partnership between the Army and Capita. The Army will still be an integral part of the process.

We have heard during this debate that offices in Abergavenny, Pontypridd, Bridgend, Carmarthen, Haverfordwest, Aberystwyth and Rhyl will all be closed by the end of next month. Indeed, some of them have already closed, although not all the closures were due to the recruit partnering project per se. Army careers centres will continue to exist in Bangor, Wrexham, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport to provide guidance and advice as required.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that all the closures have been managed properly and in accordance with best practice. About 300 civilian staff employed in the old offices across the United Kingdom had the opportunity to transfer to Capita, and many chose to do so. Others chose to apply for the Ministry of Defence’s voluntary early release scheme. Full and proper trade union consultation took place throughout the process. As I know that he has a background as a trade union official, I am happy to assure him, before he asks, that TUPE applied.

Members will know of the Army’s intent to raise the trained strength of the Territorial Army to 30,000 by 2018 as part of the Army 2020 transformation. I have a particular interest in the process as the Minister who will effectively be in charge of it on a day-to-day basis and because I served in the Territorial Army in the 1980s as a young infantry officer. We trained for a different war in those days—really for one scenario, world war three—so I was never mobilised for active service, I was never shot at other than in training and I have no medals, but I have the Queen’s commission on my wall at home, I have worn the uniform and I understand the ethos. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that it is personally important to me.

The recruit partnering project is key to success, and I assure hon. Members that I have been taking a personal interest in how the Army are gearing up to meet the challenge. I am keen to ensure that all measures are taken to create the right conditions to grow the Army’s reserve. On Monday, I met with the Adjutant-General and his team at Pirbright as well as with senior officials at Capita, including Shaun King, its business director, to be briefed on how the process will operate. I spent some hours going in detail through how it is intended to work, so that we can meet our objectives, including having 30,000 trained members of the Territorial Army by the target date of 2018.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I fully support the reform programme that the Minister is describing. It was good to have him in my constituency at Pirbright for that meeting the other day. It is important not only to get money to the front line but keep it in top-notch training. Can he reassure me that the Army training camp at Pirbright will continue to train young soldiers from across the country?

[Mr Francois]

As my hon. Friend knows, a basing review is under way at the moment; that might underlie part of his question. We hope to make the conclusions of that review available soon, but speaking personally, I was very impressed by what I saw at Pirbright. It is a good facility delivering high-quality training to members of our armed forces, and as the local MP, he has a right to be proud of it.

I recognise the concerns of the hon. Gentleman, but I assure him that although the changes that we are making will deliver efficiencies, they are also appropriate to how society is changing and how young people communicate and access services. I am sure that many young people of Wales will continue to choose a career in the armed forces and will serve with the same bravery and distinction that generations from Wales have shown before them.

Question put and agreed to.

Defence

Mark Francois Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Ministerial Corrections

[Jonathan Ashworth]

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many (a) staff and (b) special advisers in his Department have use of a Government Procurement Card.

[Official Report, 17 January 2013, Vol. 556, c. 891-2W.]

Letter of correction from Mark Francois:

An error has been identified in the written answer given on 17 January 2013 to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth).

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Francois]

Currently, 11,614 Government Procurement Cards (GPC) are in issue with the Ministry of Defence. This is a reduction of over 25% compared to the figure of 16,009 GPC cards in issue in 2009. Not all cards are issued individually to staff on a one to one basis. The special advisers have not been issued with a GPC.

The correct answer should have been:

[Mr Francois]

Currently, 11,848 Government Procurement Cards (GPC) are in issue with the Ministry of Defence. This is a reduction of over 25% compared to the figure of 16,244 GPC cards in issue in 2009. Not all cards are issued individually to staff on a one to one basis. The special advisers have not been issued with a GPC.

Military Low Flying (2011-12)

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

I have today placed in the Library of the House a document providing detailed statistics of the low-flying training that has taken place in the UK low-flying system for the training year 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012. This statistical appendix may be read in conjunction with the master document “Military Low Flying in the United Kingdom” that is already available in the Library of the House.

The amount of low-flying training carried out in the UK low-flying system (UKLFS) during the training year 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012 was the minimum required for aircrew to reach and maintain their ability to fly at low level. A total of 48,270 hours of low-flying training were conducted across all low-flying areas. In comparative terms, there was a decrease of 881 hours, or approximately 1.8% on the previous training year due to the operational deployment of fixed wing aircraft in Afghanistan and Libya. The amount of operational low flying (between 250 feet and 100 feet) by fixed wing aircraft was 134 hours, accounting for 0.3% of all low- flying activity.

Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill

Mark Francois Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words earlier and also for his reference to the book, which was written by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who is sitting on the Front Bench next to me. I am delighted to reassure the hon. Gentleman that I was present at my hon. Friend’s book launch and purchased a copy of the book from my own perhaps not quite so deep pockets. It is a very good read.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful for that, and I am reassured that the right hon. Gentleman used his own money to purchase the book and did not borrow the £15 from his ministerial colleague.

As the book sets out, there have been some ridiculous examples, such as the one, when somebody in their uniform who had been at a Remembrance day service was refused service by Harrods. The Under-Secretary subsequently visited the store after a bit of a campaign in which he had been involved, and thankfully Harrods has changed its policy. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, that in your own constituency and others you are aware of incidents where, regrettably, members of the armed forces have been refused service on rare occasions.

The report contains allegations that banks and building societies have turned down mortgage applications from armed forces personnel, and they have been unable to get mobile phones. I am conscious of hon. Members’ comments on previous occasions about narrowly defining Bills, so on this occasion I have not put such incidents into the Bill, but when the Minister responds I hope he will consider how widespread the problem is. The Ministry of Defence may wish to use a report mechanism to provide greater clarity on it.

I want to focus on the even more abhorrent incidents, which, thankfully, are relatively rare, but do occur, of verbal and physical abuse of members of our armed forces. No one present today and no one watching our proceedings would not condemn unequivocally the actions of a mindless tiny minority who when, for example, the coffins returned from theatre felt the need to hurl abuse and intimidate those who had gathered to pay their respects. I know that the Minister takes that very seriously.

The report also contains accounts of an RAF recruiter who reported that she had regularly faced verbal abuse. People had apparently called her a baby killer, which I am sure the House would find utterly despicable. It is such incidents that the Bill seeks to address, as well as physical assaults. I am clear, as I am sure is the House, that we are not talking about where soldiers, sailors or RAF personnel get into a fight as any other person might, but where they have been subject to an assault because of the fact that they are either in or out of uniform.

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[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) and I commend the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for bringing this Bill before the House and giving us the opportunity to discuss what we all instinctively agree is an important subject. I also pay tribute to his knowledgeable service on the Defence Committee. He mentioned the important work of the Armed Forces Bill Committee. That led to the Armed Forces Act 2011—to which I shall refer in a few minutes—which enshrined the key principles of the armed forces covenant in law. I believe that we all did the right thing in that Act, and as I shall outline in my speech, it provides us with additional powers that may come in handy in responding to this Bill.

In a debate of this kind, which is rightfully conducted in a non-partisan spirit, it is important to make clear at the outset where we agree, as well as where we might differ. I think I speak for the whole House in saying that we all hold the same view about discrimination against members of the armed forces: it is a completely unacceptable form of behaviour towards the men and women who have committed themselves to defending this country, its people and its way of life—to defending us and our families. In doing so they make sacrifices and give up freedoms that their fellow citizens perhaps sometimes take for granted. Those who discriminate against service personnel, or against other members of the wider armed forces community, succeed only in diminishing themselves. In this House we can debate the best way of combating discrimination, but there is no dispute about the objective.

Discrimination can take many forms. Some of it is thoughtless or uninformed, for example, when public services fail to take account of the special circumstances in which armed forces personnel find themselves. Some of it is based on myth and prejudice—a view that soldiers create trouble or are unreliable customers. Like the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, I do not believe that that is normally the case, but we have to accept that some people have that misperception and we must challenge it. Some discrimination or abuse stems from genuine hostility to members of the armed forces, motivated by politics or perhaps by some unfortunate personal experience. It is on that very narrow part of the spectrum that the Bill principally focuses.

The Bill would have the effect of amending section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which lays down circumstances in which the criminal courts must treat an offence as aggravated, for the purpose of deciding on the appropriate sentence. The aggravating factors currently set out in section 146 are that the offender either demonstrates, or is motivated by, a hostility towards the victim which is based on the victim’s disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity. Section 145 of that Act is also relevant, as it allows for an offence to be “racially or religiously aggravated” when a sentence is decided.

This Bill would add a further characteristic, so that the offence is aggravated if the offender’s hostility is based on the victim “being a service person”. The subsection on the meaning of a “service person” refers across to section 343B of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which was added by the Armed Forces Act 2011 and relates to the armed forces covenant. The definition in subsection (1) of section 343B is pertinent. It states:

“service people means—

(a) members of the regular forces and the reserve forces;

(b) members of British overseas territory forces who are subject to service law;

(c) former members of any of Her Majesty’s forces who are ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom; and

(d) relevant family members.”

[Mr Nuttall]

My right hon. Friend did not mention cadets in that list. I am not sure if any guidance has been given on whether cadets would be covered by that definition, but does he think they would be?

[Mr Francois]

That is a good question. My understanding is that cadets would not ordinarily be covered per se, but they might be covered if they were a family member of a service person. We could be making law here, so it is important to understand the technicalities of the drafting. I hope that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife will understand that we have taken his Bill seriously and we have looked very carefully at the legal effect of what he proposes.

[James Duddridge]

I apologise if my right hon. Friend has already covered this issue, but I would like to ask about the many uniformed armed personnel who are not British citizens; I think of American soldiers and service personnel based in this country. They are used to wearing service uniform and being easily identified as servicemen in America, but they may also wish to receive the same protections in the UK as this Bill proposes for our own servicemen. Are they also covered?

[Mr Francois]

I must confess that in preparing for this debate I had not looked at that question. My instinctive answer is that they would not be, because the Bill relates mainly to UK service personnel.

[Thomas Docherty]

indicated assent.

[Mr Francois]

I see that the hon. Gentleman is nodding, so I hope I have that right.

Further on in section 343B, subsection (4) gives the meaning of the term “relevant family member”, but effectively allows the Secretary of State to interpret it as best fits the context. The Bill, however, replaces that discretion, for this purpose, by specifying that it should cover “any relative”. If I have understood the hon. Gentleman’s intentions correctly—I hope I have—he wishes the new provision to cover a large group of people, including all former members of the armed forces and all relatives of current or former service personnel. Offences against them would be treated more seriously, if motivated by hostility to service people.

[Thomas Docherty]

Perhaps I can assist the Minister. He will be aware, from the examples cited, that the types of occasions concerned are those such as remembrance services and funerals. That is why the Bill is so framed. He was right to highlight it, but there have been regrettable incidents at such occasions.

[Mr Francois]

Again, I can follow the hon. Gentleman’s thinking, but as I will explain it could present practical difficulties, if the Bill was passed, including for the courts. If he will allow me, I shall explain—clearly, I hope—why they might be.

We need to be clear about what the Bill will not do. Over the years, there have been reports of incidents in which hostility has been directed against service personnel because of their membership of the armed forces. Some of the actions of anti-war demonstrators, for example, fall into this category and have been widely and rightly condemned. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a protest at the homecoming parade of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment. As that was my old regiment, I feel that particularly strongly, as he can imagine.

Those incidents should not be confused, however, with situations such as a refusal to admit members of the armed forces to a hotel or bar. These, too, have led to widespread public indignation, but it is important to recognise that the Bill does not address those situations, because they generally do not involve a criminal offence.

[Thomas Docherty]

indicated assent.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman nods in assent.

I recognise what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do, and I have no difficulty in principle with the signal he wants Parliament to send—that offences motivated by hostility to the armed forces are serious offences—but I have considerable practical difficulty with how he proposes to send that signal. In effect, I believe that the law of unintended consequences would apply, and I will explain why in a moment.

As a general rule, before we go down the route of new legislation, we must consider whether there is a need for it. The answer in this case is, on balance, no. The courts already have a wide power in sentencing to take into account factors that make conduct more serious. Criminal acts based on an irrational hostility to a person because he or she is in the armed forces will, if anything, often lead to a higher sentence anyway.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that we need to send a clear message to people that such acts will be treated very severely?

[Mr Francois]

As I said, I can understand the signal that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife is trying to send, but if we are talking about changing the law of the land, we need to look at the practical effect, including on the courts. I am trying to walk the House through what might be the practical effect in the courtroom. If the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) will bear with me, I shall attempt to develop that point.

I am aware of no evidence of courts finding that they have insufficient powers to give an appropriate sentence to an offender in this regard. I am not aware that we have received representations from the courts asking us to amend the law in this way.

In contrast, converting the flexibility that the courts currently exercise into a mandatory requirement—which is what the Bill says—would present them with practical difficulties. For example, in demonstrating to a court that the aggravating factor was present and should apply, the prosecution would need to show that the hostility was present. Perhaps that would be relatively straightforward in the case of a soldier in uniform, but the Bill as drafted extends the same protection to those not in uniform, which might be more difficult to prove. As we have seen, this provision also includes the families of service personnel and our veteran community—all 4.6 million of them, or about one in 10 of the adult population of this country.

Under the Bill as drafted, the court would presumably have to decide whether the offender was aware of that fact and whether it motivated the effect. The court might need to establish whether a victim was a relative—“any relative”—of a member of the armed forces. How are the courts to deal with a situation where an offence is motivated by excessive rivalry between different sections of the armed forces or, perhaps, a domestic dispute? A mandatory requirement for a higher sentence reduces the courts’ ability to take a sensible, common-sense approach to what is really going on in the circumstances they are examining.

[Thomas Docherty]

I regret that the Minister and I are slightly diverging in our perspectives. My concern is that some of these arguments could well have been used by civil servants who were sceptical about the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 dealing with relatives and how someone knows that someone else is gay. The Minister is a wise individual with a great deal of common sense. He knows what we are talking about, even if his civil servants do not necessarily know, and I am confident that if he was on a jury, he would know what he was looking at.

[Mr Francois]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s vote of confidence in that respect. It is kind of him. The point I am making is that his Bill would mandate the courts. My argument is that the courts already have sufficient power to increase sentences if they believe that such sentiments are an aggravating factor, but can make that choice at their own discretion. It is not as though the courts could not do that without the Bill. They already can; it is just that the Bill would mandate them to do so, which might lead to some practical difficulties.

It is also worth pointing out that there is a fundamental difference between offences provoked by hostility to the work of the victim and offences motivated by prejudice against the inherent characteristics of the victim, such as homophobic crime. Section 146 of the 2003 Act is designed to help to change deep-rooted prejudices. It would be quite wrong to suggest that such provisions were necessary in relation to the armed forces, because I do not believe that such deep-seated prejudices necessarily apply.

I have not yet mentioned what I regard as the most telling argument against the Bill: the views of the intended beneficiaries. I am not aware of any general desire in the armed forces community for legislation of this type and it has certainly never been proposed to me by any of the chiefs of staff. The servicemen and women who wear their uniforms with pride want to be respected in their communities and to be considered part of those communities, and rightly so. We should not necessarily put them in a position where they are forced to explain why they require protection in law in a way that is not enjoyed by, for example, firemen or ambulance staff. It is a firm principle of the armed forces covenant that special provision for service people may be appropriate in some cases, but I am not necessarily convinced at this stage that the way the hon. Gentleman has drafted his Bill would achieve the desired effect.

Finally, we have to recognise that the criminal law is a devolved matter. The hon. Gentleman is aware that this is a difficult area—in fairness to him, the Bill clearly states that, as drafted, it extends to England and Wales only, so he is definitely cognisant of that—but the Bill opens the way to a situation where offences against members of the armed services could be handled differently across the UK. We have no interest in creating further anomalies of this kind. I have no doubt that the Scottish Parliament would be as firm as Westminster in its views on discrimination, but we also need to acknowledge and recognise that the question is perhaps not as straightforward when seen from the perspective of Belfast. The introduction of a provision similar to the one we are discussing today could, practically, be quite problematic in Northern Ireland under certain circumstances.

In pointing out the problems with the Bill, I would not wish the House to draw the conclusion that the Government are complacent or that we are doing nothing to counter discrimination against service personnel—quite the opposite. The armed forces covenant and the principles that we enshrined in statute in 2011 have a high profile across the whole of Whitehall and beyond. The first principle, that members of the armed forces community should not suffer disadvantage as a result of that membership, has given rise to many initiatives that are making a real, practical difference.

In the first statutory annual report on the armed forces covenant, published in December 2012, we described what we were doing to make those principles a reality. Let me give the House some examples. We are working to remove the disadvantage that the children of service personnel can face in the schools system as a result of their mobility, through the admissions code and through the service pupil premium. We have been consulting on the disadvantages faced by reservists in the workplace. We are ensuring that service personnel and leavers encounter a level playing field in access to social housing or Government-funded home ownership schemes.

At the same time, we are working to build the links between the armed forces community and the wider community, to improve the knowledge and understanding that must be at the centre of that relationship. From knowledge flows the esteem for our servicemen and women that is ultimately the most powerful way to counter discrimination. The community covenant has now been signed in over 230 local authority areas from Cornwall to the north of Scotland, signifying a real determination to strengthen ties with the armed forces. I am confident that, during the year, it will continue to gain further support. The grant scheme linked to the community covenant has allowed us to back a range of schemes that will help to put those declarations into practice. To that, we can now add the £35 million fund created as a result of the LIBOR fines, which will support charities with projects to help the armed forces and their families.

In giving the Bill careful consideration, I hope that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife will not mind me pointing out that it is not an entirely new proposal. That fact was highlighted earlier by my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). It is always good to see him in his place in the House of Commons. Something very similar was proposed by the then Member for Grantham and Stamford, now Lord Davies of Stamford, in his “Report of Inquiry into National Recognition of the Armed Forces” in 2008. The hon. Member for Wrexham said that he could not quite remember the details of the report, so I shall refresh his memory. On page 6, in the chapter on “Increasing Visibility”, the then Member for Grantham and Stamford said:

“We further recommend that the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service and Ministry of Justice consider issuing guidance respectively to the Police, Prosecutors and Judiciary to the effect that where victims of violence or threats of violence are persons in military uniform, those offences should be considered aggravated by that fact.”

The Labour Government of the day responded to that report a few months later, in the name of the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth). By then, of course, the author of the report had become a Defence Minister. Nevertheless, the Government’s response to the recommendation I have just referred to was very clear. It stated:

“We are confident…that Service personnel are properly protected against criminal offences by the criminal law as it stands.”

It went on to state that

“we do not think that a change in the law is necessary or appropriate.”

Given that robust response, I had expected the Opposition to take the same view of the Bill as we do.

[James Duddridge]

I had previously held the noble Lord Davies of Stamford in high regard, but I reassessed that because I felt that he had moved from this side of the House to the other side for reasons of naked opportunism. Is my right hon. Friend correcting me, and saying that it was not naked opportunism but related to his services to—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Lord Davies might have changed parties, but I will leave it to others to decide whether he has changed his mind.

Across the country, attitudes to our armed forces are positive and healthy. That is not only a good thing in itself; it is also an important contributor to morale. We should not underestimate the strength that our servicemen and women draw in doing their very difficult job from the knowledge that they have the respect and backing of their fellow citizens. They deserve it, and they earn it; we do not need to enlist the help of the criminal courts in order to engender respect for our armed forces.

[Thomas Docherty]

Will the Minister give way again?

[Mr Francois]

I am about to conclude, but I will give way briefly if the hon. Gentleman wants me to.

[Thomas Docherty]

Very briefly, is this an issue that the Minister will look at in the coming armed forces covenant report, and will he consider reporting back to the House on it?

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts me. I was about to say that as a result of the Armed Forces Act 2011, we have a new vehicle at our disposal in the form of an annual report to Parliament—effectively a report on the state of the armed forces covenant. As I have already mentioned, we produced the first report in December last year. I acknowledge that it does not refer in detail to the issues we have been debating this afternoon. Given the concerns expressed, however, I can see the case for monitoring developments in this area, and for including any findings in the next report at the end of 2013. The focus of the annual report on the removal of disadvantage as one of the key covenant principles gives us sufficient latitude to do so. I sense no will in the House to object to our being able to achieve that.

On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that my caution about the law of unintended consequences does not diminish in any way my respect for what he is trying to achieve. On the understanding that we will most definitely look at this issue in the context of the armed forces covenant report, I hope he will consider withdrawing his Bill.

Military Justice System

Mark Francois Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Dobbin. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on securing this important debate. It is testimony to her determination to raise the profile of the issues under examination today, and I know that she takes these matters seriously. She kindly said that I do as well, and I hope that in my remarks over the next few minutes, I will be able to persuade her and the rest of the Chamber that I intend to continue taking this issue seriously.

Our armed forces can be asked to deploy anywhere in the world, often in unstable areas. That kind of agility and reach, coupled with the professionalism that is their hallmark, requires the highest standards of discipline. In order to enforce those standards, they are subject to a justice system that, although encompassing the key tenets of the UK criminal justice system, is, to some extent, separate and distinct from it. That point was made clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who brings to bear in this debate his personal experience as the commanding officer of a regular infantry battalion—and a very good battalion at that.

The system that we have in place reflects both the unique role of the armed forces and the environment in which they live and work. It recognises offences specific to the armed forces and calls to account those who are found, after a proper investigation, to have fallen short of the high standards that we rightfully expect. The Armed Forces Act 2006 drew together the disciplinary systems of the three services, so that all service personnel are dealt with under a common system. Acknowledging that our armed forces train and operate in some countries with legal systems unlike our own, the service justice system applies a single code, based on our own criminal laws, transportable anywhere in the world.

Separate from the service justice system, but acting in parallel with it, is the distinct service complaints process. That has been a matter of considerable discussion this afternoon, and was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), the hon. Members for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) as well as the hon. Member for Bridgend. The Service Complaints Commissioner, Dr Susan Atkins, and her staff act as an independent starting point for personnel who want to make a complaint but are concerned about how their chain of command might deal with it. In addition, they provide independent oversight of how the complaints system is working and report back to Ministers and Parliament. In cases of bullying, harassment or discrimination, the MOD is obliged by law to update the commissioner on progress with allegations that she has referred to the chain of command for investigation.

I have great respect for the role of the commissioner and recognise the enormous benefits that we have derived from Dr Atkins’s unique, independent position. I met Dr Atkins before Christmas and will do so again in March. We are actively engaging with her to determine what further resources, including staff, we can offer to assist her in carrying out her important work. One thing that we will discuss in March is the expected benefits of the changes that we have just made this month to speed up the administration of the complaints system—changes that I believe will have a real effect in 2013. For instance, we are encouraging greater use of informal means of resolution, and stressing to commanding officers the importance of getting to grips with complaints early to maintain unit cohesion and, ultimately, operational effectiveness.

In addition, we have also provided a formalised avenue for the Service Complaints Commissioner to approach commanding officers directly, so that if she feels that a complaint has not been dealt with with sufficient alacrity, she can now formally approach the relevant commanding officer and raise that personally with that CO, in order to allow that to progress. To some degree—to be as complete as possible—that already happened in some cases informally, but we wanted to formalise it to make it clearer that the SCC had that right in just about all cases. She—and she can be quite a feisty lady, I have to say—can now go to a CO directly, bang the table and say, “You’ve not dealt with this in the way you should have done”, or “You’ve not dealt with it quickly enough.” By that method, she can accelerate the process.

As I say, we have just brought in those reforms. They have literally just begun, but we believe that they will help to speed up the process. Where there have been delays, we hope that the changes will help to reduce them significantly in 2013.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Francois]

I gladly give way to Sub-Lieutenant Mordaunt.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the Minister for giving way. That is excellent news, and from the cases that I have been dealing with, I know that it will help greatly, so that is a good thing. Will the SCC also have similar powers if she spots trends with less serious complaints, such as admin, or something that can easily be rectified? Can she speak directly to someone who could rectify that situation?

[Mr Francois]

My understanding is that the SCC can go directly to a commanding officer about any complaint. She can use her discretion. Whether she would want to go to the CO about every single matter is an issue of balance, and a judgment for the commissioner herself, but she has the formal right to do so if she wishes. If, for some reason, a relatively minor complaint has been—to use a colloquialism—gummed up in the system for some time, she would have the option to go straight to the CO in the unit and say, “Do what you can to speed it up, please.” In our discussions in March, I am hoping to review those matters and take stock of how the new system has been operating in the first three months or so. We believe that it will help to speed up the process materially.

The hon. Member for Bridgend kindly acknowledged that she and I met in early January to discuss sexual offences involving service personnel. I trust that she left that meeting in the MOD with no doubts whatever about how seriously I take her concerns.

[Mrs Moon]

indicated assent.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Lady is kind enough to nod her assent. Sexual offences of any kind are not to be tolerated anywhere in the Ministry of Defence. When reported, they are dealt with by specially trained investigators conversant with modern techniques in identifying offences, evidence gathering, forensics, and crime scene management. To support victims of such crimes, service police are able to draw on specialist civilian facilities such as sexual assault referral centres when they believe that may be appropriate. A number of safeguards are in place to ensure that investigations are handled properly and professionally. Allegations of serious sexual offences must be reported to the service police, who act independently of the chain of command, as we have heard, and answer to their service provost marshal.

If sufficient evidence is found to charge an individual with one of those offences, the case must be referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions, currently a civilian QC, who carries out his functions under the general superintendence of the Attorney-General rather than the Ministry of Defence. He decides whether charges should be brought, which is a process that mirrors the relationship between the civilian police and the Crown Prosecution Service. In essence, it is the same principle.

In the United Kingdom, members of the armed forces are subject to both service and civilian criminal jurisdiction. Broadly—I make the point broadly—offences that have a civilian context are dealt with in the civilian jurisdiction. Service police would generally lead an investigation only if both suspect and victim are serving members of the armed forces. Servicemen and women are entitled to report offences either to service or civilian police.

As the hon. Lady is aware—we have discussed this at some length, I think it is fair to say—there is therefore no single, consolidated set of statistics relating to sexual offences involving members of the armed forces, and there are considerable practical obstacles to producing such a comprehensive overall report. Let me give an example of why that is. A service man or woman who suffered a sexual assault might have suffered it while on leave in their home town and reported it to their local, Home Office police force, rather than to the service police, particularly if the alleged perpetrator was a civilian, not a member of the armed forces. The point that I am making is that it is difficult, with the data that we have available, to provide an overall and comprehensive report.

However, against the background that I have set out, I have been pressing my Department hard to produce the most accurate information possible. That work is still in hand. It is complex, and given the seriousness of the subject, we must be thorough, but the initial trends suggest that incidents of sexual offences in the armed forces are declining. That work needs time to mature; it will not be finished tomorrow night. I therefore say in all seriousness to the hon. Lady, before she beats her well trodden path to the Table Office, that it would be helpful if she could allow us to evolve that work. In return, I give her a sincere assurance that as the work matures, I will write to her to update her on its progress, and of course, in accordance with convention, I will then place a copy of that letter in the Library of the House.

If hon. Members consult the annual reports published by the Service Complaints Commissioner, they will see that the total number of complaints about sexual harassment has fallen year on year since 2008. That is reflected in the most recent armed forces continuous attitude survey, which shows a recent decrease in the number of respondents who believe that they have been subject to discrimination, harassment or bullying.

For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that of course even one occurrence is too many, but it is vital that the reputations of the massive majority of our outstanding servicemen and women are not tarnished by the actions of a few. None the less, my Department will continue to be proactive in raising awareness of the standards of behaviour that we expect and in tackling offences across the whole spectrum. I am pleased to report that positive steps are being taken across the services. I shall choose one example from each.

The Army’s Speak Out campaign informs Army personnel of the bullying, harassment and discrimination helpline. The Army has established that confidential helpline to allow service personnel who believe that they may be victims of that to report it. The Army also has a poster campaign that targets sexual offenders and reassures victims. We have consulted local authorities that are leaders in that field, and the hon. Member for Bridgend was shown some examples of that work when she came to visit me in the Ministry of Defence.

The RAF has in place mandatory equality and diversity training, designed with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and is planning to conduct a sexual harassment survey in mid-2013. The Royal Navy police have conducted an internal communications campaign aimed at raising awareness of sexual offending. Reducing sexual offending also features as an area of priority in the RNP’s annual strategic assessment.

Further to impress on the Department the importance that I attach to this issue, I have convened a meeting of the provost marshals of the three single services to discuss how best we can continue to ensure that these offences are recorded, investigated and then thoroughly pursued. In essence, I will speak to the head of each of the three service police forces so that we can discuss this in detail.

In addition, I spoke yesterday on precisely this issue to the principal personnel officers for the three services: the Second Sea Lord, in the case of the Royal Navy; the Adjutant-General, in the case of the Army; and the Air Member for Personnel, in the case of the Royal Air Force. It is very clear that we are all of the same mind—that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable and must be challenged head-on. I will be discussing this issue further with the three principal personnel officers in the near future.

As I said at the outset, I believe that the hon. Lady and, I hope, other hon. Members who have participated in this debate accept that my Department takes the issues under discussion very seriously. The hon. Lady should be in no doubt: we are not complacent and we are taking steps to expose and eradicate behaviour that has no place in an institution with such an outstanding heritage and reputation.

The right hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire—sorry, I mean the hon. Lady; it is only a matter of time—asked whether we had considered the possibility of empowering a body such as the Independent Police Complaints Commission, or an equivalent, to take a role in overseeing the work of the service police. As she may be aware, there is already a protocol, which has been signed by the three provost marshals, which says that if one of those police services needs to be investigated, in the first instance one of the other service police forces will conduct that investigation, in the way that one civilian Home Office police force might be asked to investigate another if there is a serious matter to be looked into. That protocol, as I understand it, is already in existence and in operation.

The hon. Lady’s question was whether we would go further and ask the IPCC to have an overall role. That is a slightly complex question, and I will explain why. Let us say that it was to be given that responsibility. As I understand it, under current legislation the IPCC has no remit in Germany, so if, for instance, it was asked to investigate the work of one of the service police forces there, it would not, at the moment, have the power to do that. The point I am making is that it is not an absolutely straightforward choice. However, I can tell the hon. Lady that work is under way to consider that possibility. No decisions have yet been taken, but giving the IPCC such a role is something that we are in the middle of considering at the moment, although we have not yet reached a conclusion, partly for some of the reasons that I have just given. I hope that that deals with her question.

As I have said, changes will be made this month—in fact, they have already been made—to give the Service Complaints Commissioner better oversight of delays in handling complaints and their causes. That will also give those who approach her, I hope, even greater confidence that she can have a positive impact. The single services have put in place a number of measures both to deter potential offenders and to encourage victims to speak out. I will get the chance to judge the impact of that for myself as I talk to our servicemen and women up and down the country and overseas. In my role as the Minister for defence personnel, welfare and veterans, I try to travel as much as I can, practically, to visit our servicemen and women, and that will be something that I will have my ears open for.

Specifically on sexual offences, we will continue to provide the right training and resources to those who investigate and prosecute these abhorrent crimes and best support those who have been subjected to them. We ask an awful lot of our servicemen and women. We expect them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct and operational effectiveness. In return, whether they are in Aldershot or Afghanistan, they are entitled to a service justice system that provides consistent and fair access to justice for both offender and victim and a complaints process that is fast, effective and efficient. They deserve nothing less, and we are doing our best to deliver it.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Before I call the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) to wind up the debate, I point out that the debate must finish at 5.14 pm.

War Pension Scheme Uprating 2013

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

The new rates of war pensions and allowances proposed from April 2013 are set out in the tables below. The annual uprating of war pensions and allowances for 2013 will take place from the week beginning 8 April. Rates for 2013 are increasing by 2.2% in line with the September 2012 consumer prices index.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to make an urgent statement on today’s news on Army redundancies.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

As the House will be aware, the Government announced the process and outline timetable for the armed forces redundancy programme on 1 March 2011—the need for the programme being born out of the strategic defence and security review and subsequent activity to balance the books in the Ministry of Defence. Although in an ideal world we would not need to run a redundancy programme, the Ministry of Defence—like all areas of Government—must live within its means.

Today’s announcement represents the start of the third tranche of that programme and affects only Army personnel. Announcements about who has been selected will be made on 18 June 2013. Applicants will be given six months’ notice, and non-applicants 12 months’ notice, before they leave the service. Although we need to make up to 5,300 Army personnel redundant, the programme will not adversely affect operations in Afghanistan. As with previous tranches there are a number of important exclusions from the programme. Critically, those preparing for, deployed on or recovering from operations on 18 June will be exempt from this tranche. Similarly, personnel who are below the necessary medical standard for continued service will be ineligible for redundancy and will be handled, if necessary, through the standard medical process already in place.

The House will wish to note that because of the draw-down in Afghanistan already announced, a final decision on those who will deploy there in autumn this year will not be made until April 2013. As a result, the final decision on personnel who are excluded as a result of the “preparing for operations” category will not be made until then. We expect at that stage that there will be a further tranche of redundancies in 2014. That is likely to affect Army personnel and a small number of medical and dental officers from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

Throughout the process, the Army will seek to maximise the number of applicants for redundancy. At the same time, we have cut back on recruiting as far as is safe to do so, but as the House will recognise, the services recruit from the bottom up, and therefore a steady inflow of Army recruits will continue to be required.

It is worth highlighting that the majority of those leaving the services as a result of tranches 1 and 2 have already enjoyed success in moving to civilian jobs. All those being made redundant, whether applicants or non-applicants, will enjoy the benefits of the career transition programme. The CTP includes career transition workshops, up to 35 days of paid resettlement, and training and financial support for education and training for up to 10 years after leaving. The programme has historically proved successful in assisting service leavers to find work outside the armed forces, and 93% of those who look for work via the CTP are in full-time employment within six months of leaving the services, rising to 97% after 12 months. To that end, 91% of tranche 1 applicants—more than 1,500 in total—have already found employment. That is testament to, and a reflection of, the training and quality that we, as a nation, continue to find in our service personnel.

[Mr Murphy]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, and the Minister for his reply in the absence of the Secretary of State from the Chamber. It is important to say at the beginning that, on issues of national security and respect for our forces, there should always be bipartisanship.

On the human impact of today’s announcement, will any of those who apply for redundancy as a consequence be refused it? Will any of those who have no intention of leaving be forced to leave? What is the total number of people in the pool who are liable for redundancy? It seems that, as a consequence of what the Minister has said today, those currently serving in Afghanistan will not be exempt from the next round of Army redundancies.

All that has created enormous uncertainty for those who are forced to look for other work or who face mortgage problems. In opposition, Labour has convinced many large private sector employers to guarantee job interviews to unemployed veterans. Will the Ministry of Defence now finally agree to try to do the same with public sector employers? Will the Minister work with mortgage providers to support those who are losing their jobs?

The gaps in the regular Army capability are to be filled by a doubling of the reserves, yet progress is concerning. A recent survey by the Federation of Small Businesses worryingly showed that one in three employers said that nothing would encourage them to employ a reservist, while nine out of 10 said that they had never heard of the MOD’s employer awareness events. Will the Minister therefore confirm how the Territorial Army has performed against its 2012 recruitment target, and, in the light of the enormous increase in demands on the hoped-for thousands of new reservists, will he agree to consider legislation to protect reservists’ employment rights so that they do not face discrimination in the workplace?

The Government’s defence review committed the UK to an Army of 95,000, but it did not mention Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Nigeria or even Libya. The threats have increased, and yet the Army is being cut to just 82,000, which is well below the previous promise. Will the Minister therefore finally agree to reopen the defence review, which once again has had its flaws exposed by world events?

The Prime Minister rightly spoke yesterday of the urgency concerning the Islamist terror threat to the UK from north Africa, but in a “carry on regardless” strategy, the very next day the MOD has announced 5,000 Army redundancies. Unless Ministers have answers, there will be a growing sense in the country that they are unprepared for the emerging threats in north Africa and beyond.

[Mr Francois]

The shadow Secretary of State asks a number of questions. I will do my best to take them in turn—I might not stick to the precise order, but I will try to get to them.

First, the right hon. Gentleman says that this should not be a subject for partisan argument—the whole House realises that this is an important matter. I will try to respect that spirit, but I cannot escape from pointing out that, although I hear what he says, the reason we are having to conduct a redundancy programme is, ultimately, the size of the defence deficit that this Government inherited. The scale of downsizing required in the Army is a consequence of that. Nothing he can say today can hide that.

That said, let me see whether I can take the right hon. Gentleman’s questions in turn—he asked quite a lot. He asked me to define the size of the pool in tranche 3. The pool is up to 5,300 personnel; it will be limited in tranche 3 to personnel drawn from the Army. It might not reach 5,300. That, in a sense, is the upper number.

The right hon. Gentleman asks whether we would make redundant people who did not want to be made redundant. We will do everything we can to maximise the number of applicants for redundancy. From memory, in tranche 1—when, effectively, exactly the same process and rules were applied—just over 60% of those made redundant were applicants for redundancy. Again from memory, in tranche 2, just over 70% were applicants for redundancy. We will do everything we practically can to maximise the number of applicants in tranche 3. I cannot, in all honesty, give him a guarantee at the Dispatch Box today that we will achieve 100%, but I hope he will understand that, in spirit, we will try to make that number as high as we can.

On exclusions, I set out my reply a few minutes ago. They are effectively the same as for tranches 1 and 2, and details are provided in the written ministerial statement. I have said that there will be a further tranche, tranche 4, at some point later next year. The exclusions that would apply on that date in 2014 should, in principle, be exactly the same exclusions that apply at the moment for this tranche.

On reserves, the right hon. Gentleman expressed scepticism on whether we would be able to meet the target. I believe that on the radio this morning he said:

“I think over time, reducing the size of the armed forces, as long as you put something in its place with a professional reservist force, then there’s a logic to it.”

I agree with him. The question is: can we get to that number? I hope I am in a position to give a reasonably authoritative comment on this, as I served in the reserve forces as an infantry officer in the 1980s. In those days, the Territorial Army, which, as he knows, may be renamed the Army Reserve, had a trained strength of 75,000 men. [Interruption.] He asked me a question; he must let me answer it. We are now aiming to get to 30,000 by 2018. I have to believe that if we got to 75,000 at that time, we can get to 30,000 now.

Our consultation on this matter closed last week. We have had more than 2,500 responses, many from reservists themselves, which is very encouraging. We will publish a White Paper announcing the way forward in spring. As I said in Defence questions last week, we will publish the White Paper, which in military terminology is our plan of attack. We will then cross the start line and get on with it. We are going to succeed.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I, sadly, had to make four officers on operations redundant. Two of them were volunteers, and two were not. It is very sad that we are now having to force people to take redundancy who might otherwise not be made redundant, because other people on operations cannot be made redundant. Will people who volunteer for redundancy, despite being on operations, be allowed to take it?

[Mr Francois]

In answering my hon. Friend’s question, I pay tribute to his considerable experience in these matters, as the whole House knows. The exclusions apply to people if they do not wish to apply for redundancy and would not be made redundant. If they wish to apply for redundancy voluntarily from within those fields, they are allowed to do so. In essence, they are excluded if they do not want to apply, but allowed to apply voluntarily should they wish to do so. I hope that answers his question.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I think we will come to regret the cuts to our capability. My question relates specifically to medical staff. Can the Minister say exactly how many medics will be made redundant as a result of the plans he has announced today? What impact will they have on medics cross-service, particularly on operations and in places such as the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, and on the expertise and experience in the medical division of our armed forces?

[Mr Francois]

Mr Speaker, I know you have asked for brevity, but as the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the military-managed ward at the Queen Elizabeth hospital it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the wonderful people who work there and the marvellous service they provide to our wounded and injured personnel. Bless you, Mr Speaker.

There may be some small reductions to the number of Army medics in this tranche, and some small reductions in naval and RAF medics and dentists in tranche 4. The details are still being worked through, but the hon. Gentleman, who has done this job, will understand that if we are downsizing the regular forces, it makes sense to downsize concomitantly the size of the medical division—but no more than that.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Minister for his blessing, which is considerably more than either of us offered the other when first we met in September 1983.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

Can we have an assurance that those selected for redundancy will not include any of those who have specialist skills, such as intelligence gathering, that would assist in the achievement of the ambitious agenda announced by the Prime Minister yesterday?

[Mr Francois]

I would say to my right hon. and learned Friend that in rebalancing the regular Army for its new, smaller size, we need to ensure that we have the correct balance of skills in our armed forces, and we will attempt to do that, including for intelligence personnel.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

Service personnel numbers in Scotland are at a record low of 11,000. Will the Minister confirm whether that will go down yet further? Only last year the Ministry of Defence said that between 6,500 and 7,000 troops would return from Germany, that a new barracks would be built at Kirknewton and that there would be new training areas in the borders. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are going back on all those commitments?

[Mr Francois]

For the purposes of this process, Scottish personnel will be treated in much the same way as personnel throughout the rest of the United Kingdom. I believe the House thinks that is right; so do I.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Some of us who have served question the wisdom of cutting regular battalions before knowing for sure that the reservists can fill the large gap that will be left behind. We live in an uncertain world. What objective measures exist for Parliament to gauge progress on this issue?

[Mr Francois]

As my hon. Friend may recall, he raised this matter with me at Defence questions last week. At the risk of being repetitious, I pointed out to him that we are delighted that recent tri-service and Army recruiting campaigns have already produced a 25% increase in TA inquiries, while regular Army engagements are up 3% against a three-year rolling average. I have taken a close personal interest in the plan to increase the size of the reserves. I understand what lies behind his question, but I genuinely believe that we can do it.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), may I ask the Minister whether he will be accepting voluntary applications for redundancy from pinch-point trades? If so, what assessment has been made of the cost of replacing that essential operational capability?

[Mr Francois]

I understand the question and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s service in the regular armed forces. We have to wait and see exactly who does and does not apply. We will not know until March who exactly is in the pool of applicants, so it is difficult for me to answer his question now. However, we need to achieve a fully balanced Army at the end of this process, and that will clearly be an important factor in our thinking when looking at individuals.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that we are actively seeking to take the people who are accepting redundancy —or being forced to take it—into the reserve forces? Obviously we need to maintain expertise and experience wherever possible, so if we are doing that, will he also ensure that the transitional period is as efficient and speedy as possible, which, as he and I know, has not always been the case?

[Mr Francois]

The in-principle answer to my hon. Friend’s question is yes, of course we are trying to encourage members leaving the regular forces to join the reserves. He is right that there have been some blockages in the recruiting pipeline in the reserves. I have paid close attention to that. I believe that we have cleared those blockages—I know exactly what he is talking about—and, because of that, that we can make the system of joining the reserves much more smooth and effective in future.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

What advice did the Minister take on the impact of his statement on morale and, therefore, the effectiveness of the Army?

[Mr Francois]

As I have already said, I do not believe that this will affect current operations in Afghanistan. We have of course consulted the service chiefs and—particularly on this tranche—members from the Army personnel branch. I am very conscious that behind every person who may be affected there is not just a service number, but a serviceman or woman and potentially a family. We realise that, which is why we are trying to do this as fairly and practically as possible, given that we understand that it is a difficult process.

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

Will the Minister confirm that the painful decisions taken in and since the strategic defence and security review aim to balance savings across manpower, equipment and support? Is it not incumbent on anyone opposing this round of redundancies to say where else they would make the savings in defence or come up with an additional defence budget?

[Mr Francois]

Yes and yes.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I remind the Minister that he is responsible for the double-dip recession—he should not blame the previous Government. More importantly, how many civilian jobs will go as a result of today’s decision?

[Mr Francois]

I should say that this process not only affects our regular armed forces. Civilians in the Ministry of Defence are affected by a parallel programme—I think that by 2015 we will have reduced our number of civilians by approximately 33%. It would be unfair to say that our regular forces are bearing the brunt of the process while our civil service work force are not, because they are being affected in parallel.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In conducting this wretchedly painful exercise—for reasons that we all understand—which is often heartbreaking at unit level, will the Minister confirm that his duty is to the future shape of the armed forces, that they have the best possible collection of experience and ability to shape manpower and that this will mean making people redundant who do not apply for it? That is a necessary difficulty that, if he is to exercise his duty, we have to face up to.

[Mr Francois]

I thank my hon. Friend for the spirit of his question. In the Ministry of Defence we are ultimately responsible for the defence of the realm, but as I hope he and the House will accept, I fully appreciate as someone who has served in uniform the difficult side of what we are having to do today. We completely understand that. We are therefore doing our best to proceed as sympathetically and fairly as possible; but we must configure our armed forces for the defence of our country and achieve the target set out in Future Force 2020.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Darlington has a long and proud history of service in the armed forces, particularly the TA. I commend the Minister for his prior service, but as he will have picked up, there is a lot of concern in the House about levels of recruitment to the TA. Will he help us by identifying exactly what level of recruitment to the TA is required and how far we are from achieving it?

[Mr Francois]

The target is for the Territorial Army—probably to be renamed the Army Reserve—to have 30,000 trained reservists by 2018. By the way, we also want to increase the maritime reserve and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, but they are already nearer their targets. We have looked carefully at the recruiting process. The White Paper, which we will publish in the spring, will lay out our plan of action. We will then move forward rapidly to execute that plan of action. I assure the hon. Lady and the House that I am keeping a laser-like focus on this, because I served in the reserves and I want to see them do well.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the defence of our country is a Government’s top priority? If he does agree, how are we to meet all our commitments, with threats growing almost daily, if we continue to cut our armed services?

[Mr Francois]

I should also acknowledge my hon. Friend’s service in the Household Division. The defence of the realm is our priority in the Ministry of Defence. It is a priority for any Government, but we are reconfiguring our armed forces to comply with the SDSR. As I hope I have made plain to the House, although we are reducing the number of regulars over time, we are increasing the number of reservists, and I believe we can achieve that new balance in good time.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me tell the Minister that I have never served in the armed forces, but I come from a family of soldiers and I think I have every right to comment today and ask him this. Does he not realise that what he has said today—yet more cuts to our capacity to defend this country—and what the Prime Minister will probably say about Europe tomorrow really means that we will look back on these few days in our history as the end of our country as a significant player in the world peace movement?

[Mr Francois]

I do not agree with that last assertion. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will not comment on the Prime Minister’s speech tomorrow; there will be no shortage of comments on that anyway. Coming back to the hon. Gentleman’s earlier question of whether we understood that this was a difficult process: yes, of course we do. Do we believe that it is necessary for the reasons that we have outlined? Yes, we do. Will we do it as fairly and equitably as possible? Yes, we will.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I support this announcement, painful as it is for many individuals and their families who have given so much service. My right hon. Friend has shown commendable support for building the reserves, but will he confirm that our target for reserves is proportionately the smallest of any country in the English-speaking world?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend is probably the greatest living expert in the House on the reserve forces, so I shall not contradict him here and now. I pay tribute to his work on the reserves commission and to all the preparatory work that he and others, including the vice-chief of the defence staff, undertook in order to put us in the position of having £1.8 billion of resources over 10 years to grow our reserves and to make that a practical reality. I thank him for all that he has done on that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his reassurance about retraining for those who have life after military service. This is not just about the value of military redundancies and the reallocation of housing, however; it is also about mortgages for new houses and how best those people should use their redundancy packages. What monetary advice will the Minister give to those who receive redundancy packages?

[Mr Francois]

We provide financial advice to members of the armed forces at various stages of their careers. When applicants—and non-applicants—go through the redundancy process, the career transition partnership provides them with considerable assistance. I believe that discussions on their financial situation, and on what jobs they might apply for, form part of that process.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State said on Radio 5 Live that there was a logic to making these painful cuts to our armed forces, but does my right hon. Friend agree that there is no logic to the Opposition’s assertion that the SDSR should be reopened and rewritten?

[Mr Francois]

The Opposition cannot will the reopening of the SDSR unless they are prepared to will the additional means to do so. My understanding of their current position is that they wish to will it in spirit but admit that they do not have the money.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

In 2012, did the TA hit or miss its recruitment target, and if it missed it, by how much?

[Mr Francois]

I have already accepted that there were some blockages in the recruitment pipeline. I was aware that there had been difficulties, but I can assure the House that I investigated the problem at close range, as some generals can testify. I believe that those blockages have now been cleared, and that our recruitment and retention—which is also critical—will now improve.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I do not support cutting the British Army to its smallest size since the battle of Waterloo. The Minister is aware of the two-faced approach taken by the Ministry of Defence to those with broken service who volunteered for redundancy in the last tranche. Will he give the House an assurance that no soldier will be treated so shabbily this time?

[Mr Francois]

I know that my hon. Friend takes a close interest in all matters military, not least because of Colchester garrison in his constituency, but I do not believe that we have been “two-faced”, as he put it. I do not accept that assertion, but if he wants to write to me with details of any particular case, I will of course look into them.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I am sure that, like me, the Minister is delighted by the safe return to our nation of His Royal Highness Prince Harry and his colleagues. Our nation is of course grateful for their service.

With regard to the Minister’s answers today, will he provide a briefing to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on this issue? The Committee has opened an investigation into how the military covenant and redundancies will impact on service personnel in Ulster.

[Mr Francois]

I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the service of His Royal Highness in theatre in Afghanistan. Captain Wales, as I understand he prefers to be known in the Army, has done well for his country and his service, and we commend him for that.

On the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, I am aware of the military contribution that has come from Northern Ireland down the years, and I hope to visit Northern Ireland in the next few months. With regard to my appearing before the Select Committee, I shall take advice on the matter but, in principle, if it asks me to come, I will be there.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

If I understood my right hon. Friend correctly, there will be not much more than a month’s gap between the announcement later this year on who is to be deployed to Afghanistan and the date on which the redundancies will be announced. How will that affect those who might or might not be deployed, including the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, the Staffords?

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend has listened carefully to what has been said, and he is right to suggest that, because of the draw-down of our forces profile in Afghanistan, it will be only in April 2013 that we decide exactly which units will be going there. Clearly, it will then be a priority to look at anyone who might no longer be excluded from redundancy, but in effect, most of those who are in fields that are eligible for redundancy at the moment will have been notified by the chain of command this morning, in parallel with the process of notifying the House.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Hull has always been a strong recruiting ground for the armed forces, but alongside these redundancies, pay and pensions are being cut and many will be affected by the strivers’ tax and the bedroom tax. As I understand it, the cuts that have already been announced will mean that the entire British Army will fit into Wembley stadium by 2020. Will the Minister tell me whether the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday about being able to fight a decades-long campaign against global terrorism was realistic?

[Mr Francois]

I understand it, once we have our reserves at full strength, the British Army will not be able to fit inside Wembley stadium.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this announcement will not have an impact on the Royal Navy or the Royal Marines, which have already seen a reduction in their numbers? Will he also keep me in touch with the impact that the redundancies will have on the Army units attached to 3 Commando Brigade, and especially to 29 Commando, based at the Royal Citadel in Plymouth?

[Mr Francois]

Yes, I will attempt to keep my hon. Friend in touch, as he requests. The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were affected in tranches 1 and 2. Tranche 3 relates solely to the Army.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

How many additional special forces does the Minister foresee being needed in the light of yesterday’s statement by the Prime Minister?

[Mr Francois]

We are normally slightly circumspect about commenting in the House of Commons on special forces, and particularly on special forces operations, for reasons that the House will understand very well. In principle, however, as we look to rebalance the size of the armed forces—both regular and reserve—we will clearly look at our special forces requirements in the light of that exercise.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Last week’s Bury Times reported on the final closure of the town’s Army careers office, and quoted the commander for regional recruiting, Lieutenant Colonel Leanda Pitt, as saying:

“The Army is still recruiting in Bury and there are jobs available now”.

Will the Minister confirm that, if the planned disbandment of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers proceeds, any Fusiliers likely to be made redundant will, as far as possible, be retrained to fill any vacancies?

[Mr Francois]

That was, in a sense, several questions in one. With regard to recruitment offices, the armed forces, like many other organisations, have had to be aware of the way in which the world has changed. Many people who apply to join the armed forces now do so initially online, rather than walking into a recruiting office in the traditional way. Nevertheless, a number of people still use recruiting offices, so we have rearranged the profile of our offices around the country to try to adjust to life in the 21st century. My hon. Friend also asked about people in the regular armed forces who might be made redundant. Of course, one opportunity would be for them to rejoin as a member of the reserve forces, and we would encourage them to do that wherever possible.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

On 31 December, I wrote to the Minister on behalf of a cross-party group of Members to request a meeting with him about the significant financial losses faced by Army officers who are made redundant shortly before their immediate pension point. Given the responsibility shouldered by those officers during their careers, will the Minister now agree to have that meeting?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I will consider that request very carefully. I have discussed the matter with representatives of the Army Families Federation and I can assure the hon. Lady that I have looked at the question extremely carefully. I have spent quite a bit of time with officials—[Interruption.] If hon. Members will allow me, I will continue. I have spent quite a bit of time looking at this with officials; it is a very difficult issue. Wherever we draw the line, there will always be some people who are just on the other side of it, and therefore there are always likely to be some people who will miss out. However, if someone leaves the service close to their pension point but not at it, we increase the compensation payment they receive in order to take account of that. Having checked, I found that those payments are, on average, in the order of £70,000 tax-free, and for some higher ranks they could be as much as £100,000 or more—again, untaxed. We have tried to look at the issue sympathetically.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

From my experience as a private sector employer, I know that ex-service personnel can make excellent and productive employees. Will my right hon. Friend give to the House information held by the MOD about the employability and job prospects of those who previously served in our armed forces?

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Ex-armed forces personnel are inherently highly employable, as testified by the fact, as I said earlier, that over 90% of those who go through the career transition partnership have found a job within six months. People often want to employ ex-members of the armed forces because they are a quality product. We will do everything we can through the CTP to support applicants or non-applicants who leave the forces to ensure that as many of them as possible find new careers.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Historically, many areas with the highest recruitment and employment in the armed forces are also those areas with the highest levels of joblessness, such as the south Wales valleys. On the basis that many of those facing redundancy will return to communities with high levels of joblessness, what additional support will be focused on those areas that have also traditionally had the highest levels of recruitment?

[Mr Francois]

I completely understand the hon. Gentleman’s question on behalf of his constituents. As I understand it, however, the figures I was given on what might be called re-employability apply across the UK, so they also apply to Wales. I believe we are doing well in getting new jobs for people in Wales. It is a UK average, but if there is a particular issue regarding Wales, I will look into it and come back to him.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

At a time when all the headlines are concerned with reductions in the strength of our armed forces, how will the Minister convey the message to potential recruits that the Army is still recruiting?

[Mr Francois]

It is. Some suggestions have been made that because of the redundancy programme we should end recruiting—[Interruption.] Hang on. Past experience shows that if we turn off the recruiting pipeline for a few years, we end up with a black hole in our armed forces structure some years on, which will subsequently be difficult to fill. As I have said, we have reduced the recruitment of regulars as far as we think we practically can, but there comes a point beyond which it is not safe to reduce recruiting efforts for the regulars. We have been mindful of that in going forward. We still want people to join the regular Army.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his thoughtful response to the question asked by the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) about those service personnel made redundant, who are calling themselves the “unpensionables”. Given his concerns about the difficulty of setting a cut-off point for those payments, will he consider a gradually accrued entitlement approach to the issue?

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend has obviously looked at this. If he is referring to what some call the taper model, then we have looked at it, but we do not think it works practically. There is then the further difficult problem about the legacy issue of what to do about tranches 1 and 2. It is not as straightforward as it sometimes looks. I can assure the House that I have tried to look at the issue very carefully, but I am not sure, for some of the reasons I have outlined, that we can change the position. We know it is a difficult subject, but wherever we draw the line, there will always be someone just on the other side of it.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend reassure us that armed personnel who have suffered significant injuries will not be subject to these redundancies?

[Mr Francois]

They will not. We have special provisions and procedures in place for dealing with people who have been seriously wounded in the service of their country. In essence, the policy is that they do not leave the service until it is in their interest and in the interest of the service for them to do so. If anyone is in any doubt about the dedication we provide to our seriously wounded, I would advise them to visit Headley Court, as they would be massively impressed by what they saw.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is very encouraging and not surprising that, because of their professionalism, skills, training and tremendous work ethic, 97% of armed forces personnel who are made redundant find alternative employment within 12 months. Because of the individual example they can set for our young people, we need more ex-service personnel in our schools. What discussions is the Minister having with the Department for Education to make sure that we get large numbers of our former troops changing into teachers?

[Mr Francois]

Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s service, particularly in respect of the reserve forces. He may know of the troops to teachers programme, which is run in accordance with the Department for Education to encourage ex-servicemen to go into a teaching career, as they often provide experienced authority figures, particularly in areas where some children come from difficult and disadvantaged backgrounds. We also have a programme to expand cadet units in schools, particularly in state schools. We have a target of 100 new cadet units in state schools by 2015. So far, we have had expressions of interest from some 70 schools, and some new cadet units have already opened. The programme is well on track.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that these redundancies will take place pro rata across all ranks, and that nothing in the statement will cause a drift towards a top-heavy Army?

[Mr Francois]

We had a separate review of senior posts in the Ministry of Defence. We have already reduced the rank, as it were, of some appointments, so it would be unfair to say that senior officers are being completely excluded from changes in the structure of our armed forces. They are not. We are mindful of trying to deliver this in as balanced a way as possible. I hope that, if nothing else, I have managed to convince the House that we have thought about this matter. While this is a very difficult process, we are attempting to do it as sympathetically and fairly as practically possible. We are not magicians, but we are genuinely doing our best.

Armed Forces Redundancy Programme (Tranche 3)

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

The Government announced in the outcome of the strategic defence and security review in October 2010 that, as part of moving to Future Force 2020, we would reduce the size of the Regular Army by 7,000 personnel, and both the naval service and Royal Air Force by 5,000 personnel. In addition, in order to balance the British Army’s regular and reserve forces, further reductions were subsequently identified to deliver a Regular Army of around 82,000 by 2020. We also made it clear that, in order to maintain balanced force structures for the future, an element of these reductions would need to be made through a redundancy programme.

Our statement of 1 March 2011, Official Report, column 21-22WS, set out the process and timetable for the armed forces redundancy programme. Consequently, in September 2011, 2,860 service personnel were notified of their redundancy in the first tranche (1,020 service personnel from the naval service, 920 from the Army and 920 from the Royal Air Force), 62% of whom had applied for selection. On 12 June 2012, 3,760 service personnel were notified of their selection for redundancy in the second tranche (160 service personnel from the naval service, 2,880 from the Army and 720 from the Royal Air Force), 72% of whom had applied for selection.

Today the Army is announcing the fields from which they will select personnel to be made redundant in the third tranche of the programme; this will comprise up to 5,300 Army personnel. There is likely to be a need for a further tranche for Army personnel and medical and dental personnel from the Royal Navy and RAF in due course.

The same selection principles as used in the last two tranches will be applied. The Army will seek to maximise the number of applicants from all personnel that meet the published criteria. The redundancy programme will not impact adversely on current operations in Afghanistan, and no one who is serving on specified operations on the day the redundancy notices are issued on 18 June 2013 will be made redundant unless they are applicants. Similarly, those preparing for, or recovering from such operations on the day the redundancy notices are issued will not be made redundant unless they have applied. Those personnel who are liable to deploy with their units to Afghanistan in autumn 2013 on the day the redundancy notices are issued will be exempt from tranche 3 unless they are an applicant; as a result of the drawdown plans already announced, those units liable to deployment will not be confirmed until April 2013. Any applicant who is selected for redundancy and whose unit is subsequently deployed will be able to choose whether to deploy with the unit, or not. Personnel who are assessed as being permanently below the level of fitness required to remain in the forces will not be considered for redundancy, and will instead leave through the medical discharge route at the appropriate stage in their recovery.

Throughout the redundancy process, we will ensure that we retain the capabilities that our armed forces require in order to meet the challenges of the future.