Mary Kelly Foy
Main Page: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)Department Debates - View all Mary Kelly Foy's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberThe way we take it seriously is not by judging the number of officials or what we are doing in that regard, but by looking at what we are actually delivering in the real world in terms of military capability and for British industry. As I just said, the US has reformed ITAR and there are thousands of jobs across the UK, boosting our Indo-Pacific capabilities. This is an extremely important project. We are making huge progress and the Government are very proud of the partnership.
Defence has introduced a range of measures to support armed forces personnel, including capping subsidised accommodation charges to 1%; freezing daily food charges; increasing travelling allowances by 7%; providing wraparound childcare to families and increasing the continuity of education allowance rates from August 2023; and implementing the biggest uplift in service pay in 21 years, which includes 9.7% for the most junior ranks.
The Government claim that service personnel are not financially burdened by domestic assignments, but a constituent of mine—a serving officer of the armed forces—finds himself thousands of pounds out of pocket, while others report turning to food banks to survive. What discussions is the Minister having with Cabinet colleagues to expand measures and address the costs incurred as a result of serving this country during the cost of living crisis?
The cost of living crisis has affected all our constituents, has it not? Covid has made life difficult for everybody, but at the Ministry of Defence we have recognised as far as we can the pressures that bear, particularly on the lowest paid. That is why we have accepted the 9.7% uplift in pay, which I think is unique across the public sector for the last year, having accepted in full the recommendations of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body.