Armed Forces Recruitment: Under-18s

Mike Penning Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate—this will be my first expedition into Welsh—the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), who put forward a good case. I spoke to her before the debate, and she knows where I am coming from; my opinion is similar to that of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan). Although the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd clearly set the scene for the issues that she wishes the Minister to respond to, I will give a slightly different opinion about where we are. However, I concur with her request for an uplift in education. I have absolutely no doubt that the Minister, who has a special interest in the issue, will respond with positive steps for the way forward.

I joined the Ulster Defence Regiment at 18 and served in it for three years. I then joined the Royal Artillery in the Territorial Army, which I served in for 11 and a half years. I believe that that helped to shape and mould me as a man. Whether that is to everyone’s liking only the people can answer, but they elected me twice, so I suspect that they like what they see.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mike Penning)]

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but I think it should be clarified for others in the room that people could not join the Ulster Defence Regiment before the age of 18, because it was always on operations. We should perhaps pay tribute to it for that.

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[Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. The SNP’s position is that we recognise persons who have reached the age of 16 as old enough to leave school, marry, work and pay tax, and, despite scepticism from the other parties in Scotland before the independence referendum, we believe and have long believed that they have the right to vote as well. I am glad to say that we have won over the doubters on that particular campaign and I look forward to that example being followed down here.

Fundamentally, the SNP position on this issue reflects our ambition to empower young people—to trust them with responsibility in these areas and trust that they will take that responsibility seriously. It also reflects the legal position in Scotland under the Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991, which determines that a person has full legal capacity from the age of 16. For those reasons, my party backs the current position on recruitment age for the armed forces for those who are 16 or 17 and choose to serve their country.

The minimum age at which an individual can enlist is set down in the Armed Forces (Enlistment) Regulations 2009. In summary, the current MOD policy is that service personnel under 18 are not deployed on operations outside the UK, except where the operation does not involve personnel becoming engaged in or exposed to hostilities. Humanitarian operations, for example, might qualify. In addition, in line with current UN policy, service personnel under 18 are not deployed on UN peacekeeping operations. As has been mentioned, age restrictions also apply when it comes to Northern Ireland.

It is important that there is recognition that a special duty of care is owed to under-18s who choose to serve in the armed forces—not because they are not old enough to make that decision and take that action, but because inevitably they have less experience in the world of work and in life.

[Mike Penning]

I do not want the hon. Gentleman to mislead the House unintentionally and I may have misled him. The only unit in Northern Ireland that could not do what we are discussing—it has been disbanded now—was the Ulster Defence Regiment, because it was permanently on operations. There are recruits of 16 and over from Northern Ireland serving in the armed forces today.

[Steven Paterson]

I am grateful for that clarification—I am skipping through my speech rather quickly, because I do not have the time that I thought I would have.

As I was saying, we have a special duty of care to these young people because of their lack of experience of work and of life in general. Whenever that has been discussed in Parliament before, Ministers have been very clear that they accept that and that safeguards are in place.

I can attest to the excellence of the practice that I witnessed in this area when I visited RAF Halton last year. I was able to meet young recruits, hear about their experiences in initial recruit training and see them being put through their paces by the officers. The recruits were developing a range of practical and problem-solving skills that were no doubt essential for the career in the Royal Air Force that they hoped to pursue, but also transferable skills that could assist employers in other sectors in the future. My visit to RAF Halton and particularly the conversations with those recruits were a very positive experience. I am assured that the welfare of our youngest recruits is taken very seriously.

A number of safeguards are built into the recruitment process for 16 and 17-year-olds. First, parents and guardians are positively encouraged—in fact, required—to be part of that process, and their consent is sought. Once accepted into service, under-18s have the right of automatic discharge at any time until their 18th birthday. It is not in the interests of either the armed forces or the individuals themselves for people to be there if they do not want to be. I welcome the provisions allowing for early discharge if that is appropriate.

MOD policy is not to deploy personnel under 18 on operations. That is absolutely correct. Service personnel under 18 are not deployed on any operation outside the UK, except where the operation does not involve their becoming engaged in or exposed to hostilities. However, there is a recommendation, I think, that has not been actioned since the 2005 report of the Defence Committee, on armed guard duty. Perhaps that is something we could look at again. My understanding is that that is still allowable.

Finally, I will offer a few thoughts on the Medact report “The Recruitment of Children by the UK Armed Forces: a critique from health professionals”. For the reasons that I have outlined I do not agree with the use of the word “children”. We have taken a decision as a country—certainly in Scotland and, I think, down here too—that 16 is the age at which we consider young people to have moved from adolescence to adulthood. If that is the case, I would argue that it should apply across the board. We choose to draw that arbitrary line at 16. However, it is entirely right that we should ensure that there are safeguards for those for whom the armed forces are not the right choice, or who may not be ready at 16 or 17, and that those safeguards should be taken seriously by commanding officers. That was my experience from visiting the RAF base.

I am open, however, to considering whether more can be done to improve the duty of care for under-18s—I have already mentioned guard duty. I am also open to any review that looks at educational attainment, as has been alluded to. Where we can demonstrate that better outcomes could be achieved, we must build on what there is, and make sure that those outcomes are realised. I would also welcome further consideration of the messages that the Ministry of Defence uses in recruitment drives, so that in addition to the many positive opportunities offered by the armed forces, the reality of the danger that serving can entail is clear and understood. It is because of the danger that members of the armed forces put themselves into on our behalf that we owe them the respect and gratitude that they have from us.

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[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mike Penning)]

As usual, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I know what it feels like to get stuck within the time—we have all been there—and why the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) probably does not feel great. We are where we are, but we have all done that.

It is a pleasure to discuss this for many reasons, as I will explain, and to see the—near enough—wide support for the young servicemen and women. I understand the concerns, particularly following Deepcut, for those of us who are interested in the armed forces, as I have been for many years. Lessons had to be learned from the terrible situation out in Deepcut, but we must not in any way look at Deepcut as what is happening in 2017.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) about facts, but we cannot get away from some anecdotes, and I will use some anecdotes and some facts. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, someone can serve in the American armed forces at 17; at 17 and a day they can serve with their parents’ consent. It is not true to say that there are no young servicemen in other NATO countries—they are there.

It is also very important to look at some of the figures as to why the armed forces invest so much time and money in recruiting young adults. Probably one of the most obvious ones, which goes completely against some of the evidence given by the hon. Lady, is that of those who were under 18 on enlistment between 2007 and 2013, 60% made warrant officer level 1—senior NCO. That is 60% of those who came through. It is also not true to say that the majority, in percentage terms, are from the infantry, or even from the Army, because the numbers are different. We have to look at this in context. As of October ’16 there were 32,500 personnel in the Navy and 8% of them were former junior servicemen. In the Royal Air Force on the same date, there were 33,270 and 5%. In the Army it was 8.7%, because the Army is much larger and thus the proportion is different.

Let us have a bit of anecdote. In 1974, a young man of 16 had been told by his headmaster three or four years earlier that he was too dim to take his 11-plus. He struggled enormously at school and came from a socially and economically deprived area of London. His father and grandfather had served in the armed forces—most of my generation’s grandparents had served in the second world war—and he applied to go into the Army. He struggled educationally when he went for assessment at Sutton Coldfield, but got into the Army and went as a boy soldier to Pirbright.

At the time, there were junior leaders and apprentices, and junior guardsmen, as there were junior infantry in other units. At no time did that junior soldier do armed guard. At no time did he do anything different in military terms from when he was in the cadets. He went on the ranges and thoroughly enjoyed it and went on exercises and thoroughly enjoyed them. At 16, that young person who had been written off by society did the dispatch rider’s course and got a full motorbike licence. In civvy street, the age for a motorbike licence was 17, but at 17 he got a full car licence and was sent on a medic course—not just a first-aid course, but as a battlefield runner. He was still not available for operations, but was gathering skills.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Lady interrupted many times and she can sum up at the end of the debate.

The young man was gaining life skills. He was not a great soldier and did not make huge rank, but he fell in love and left the Army after four years, which was the term for adult service, not boy’s service. At 18, he had to sign to stay in. His parents signed for him to go in early, and at 18 he went before his Adjutant, who gave him the option to leave the Army or to sign up for three, six or nine years. After four years, he fell in love and bought himself out of the military—people can opt to leave now—but did not settle and went back into the Royal Army Medical Corps. He went on several other courses, which subsequently helped him to get into the fire service when he left the armed forces. That person went on to be the MinAF—the Minister for the Armed Forces; the person standing here now.

The Army gave me a home, a trade, aspiration and a chance to get on in life after being written off. I have been on several journeys in my career, not least as a journalist here, and in the fire service. What was interesting was my welfare. Why did I struggle when I was in the armed forces? Like my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), I am dyslexic and it is not something I hide. When I was at the Department for Work and Pensions, I outed myself as dyslexic, but at no time when I was at school did anyone pick that up and say, “We know why you have problems; you have learning difficulties.” Within weeks of me joining a boy soldier, a Royal Army Education Corps officer picked it up, got me on the relevant courses and helped me to become a journalist here, a politician and the first MinAF from the ranks, which I am enormously proud of. The earlier we can train people with apprenticeships and the skills we need throughout our armed forces, the better, without a shadow of doubt. We can utilise that time for that person to feel fulfilled, aspirational and to get the skills—

[Liz Saville Roberts]

rose—

[Mike Penning]

No, I will not give way. The hon. Lady will have three minutes at the end and she has intervened quite a lot.

No one gets things perfectly right and there have been mistakes, but I believe passionately that it is wrong to say to a young person of 16 that they cannot go into the armed forces because they will become a trained killer. Tell that to the medics who are training as I was. I am proudly wearing a 23 Parachute Field Ambulance tie, which was presented to me by the regiment only a couple of days ago. Medics are there to save lives and their training is worth while. We are also desperately short of qualified Marine and RAF engineers. We need people with those skills, and the sooner we start to train them, the better. Of course, as I said earlier, if they want to leave at the age of 18, they can. As for the leaving rate, the figure of four years has always been there—it was about four years when I was in the armed forces many years ago, and it still is today.

I went to RAF Halton only the other day. It is the shortest journey that I have done as a Minister, because it is right on the edge of my constituency. What a fantastic facility for training young people, building them up and showing them what they can do! A lot of those young people will go on to be cooks, chefs, medics or firemen. They are not being trained as killers; they are being told, “We value you in our armed forces and we are giving you skills that can be used when you leave.”

I am absolutely passionate about ensuring that we never have another Deepcut or anything like it ever again, but as the hon. Lady said, we must use facts. I am afraid that, on some of the so-called facts that she gave earlier on, I will have to write to her specifically about the points she raised.

We continue to review how we do this. Ofsted inspects all the premises, which is important. We make sure that welfare support is there for those young people at a vulnerable age. For instance, I admit that when I was a young 16-year-old soldier, I went to see the lady from the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service regularly, because I wanted the comfort of talking to a mature lady who was not my sergeant, my warrant officer or one of the other officers. Those services are still there—I was at Pirbright the other day, and the facilities are there. Nor must we forget the work that the padres do, particularly at a junior level, because no matter what faith someone belongs to or whether they have no faith at all, having that comforting facility is crucial.

I am passionate that we need, and should have, a junior entry. These are young adults whose aspirations and life skills we can build so that they can actually get on in life slightly, as I myself have done—rather than writing them off, as some people seem to want to.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I appreciate the hon. Members who have contributed today. There has been a general agreement that a duty of care is owed to our young recruits and that welfare and educational attainment is important to us all.

I am disappointed by the Minister’s response. I expected more of an answer to the specific questions I asked, although I welcome his offer to write to me. Although I was interested in his personal history, I have to bear in mind that as Minister he is also the person who is chiefly responsible for the welfare of young recruits.

I will end with the words of an early-day motion from 2005:

“That this House notes that those currently entering the army at the age of 16 years are committed for four years beyond their eighteenth birthday; welcomes the recommendation of the Defence Select Committee that the Ministry of Defence consider raising the age of recruitment into the armed forces to 18 years; further welcomes the finding of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the UK Government’s declaration on ratifying the UN Optional Protocol to the Rights of the Child is overly broad, thereby undermining the UK’s commitment not to deploy under-18s in conflict zones; and urges the Government to withdraw its declaration and to raise the age at which young recruits can be enlisted into the armed forces to 18 years and thereby set an example of good practice internationally.”

The Minister signed that early-day motion in 2005. When did he change his mind?

[Mike Penning]

They’re not on ops.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I am putting the Question, Minister.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered recruitment of under-18s into the armed forces.