Armed Forces Pay

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the pay of Armed Forces personnel has been capped at 1 per cent in 2017-18 and that this represents another below inflation pay settlement; further notes that the size of the Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy and Royal Marines is below stated targets; notes that dissatisfaction with pay has been identified by service personnel as a reason for leaving their respective force; and calls on the Government to end the public sector pay cap for the Armed Forces and give Armed Forces personnel a fair pay rise.

Our armed forces represent the very best of what this country stands for. Across the House, we recognise their dedication and their professionalism and, especially at this time of year, we honour the sacrifices that they make on our behalf. Yet when it comes to their pay, our armed forces personnel have not been treated with the fairness and decency that their service deserves. In every year since 2010, the Conservative party in government has made a conscious decision to give our brave men and women a real-terms pay cut. As a result, regardless of rising rents in service accommodation and cuts to tax credits, the pay that service personnel receive has lagged way behind inflation in each of the past seven years. This sorry state of affairs means that the starting salary of an Army private has been cut by over £1,000 in real terms since Labour left office. Is it any wonder that the Government are presiding over a crisis in recruitment and retention?

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Of course, pay is very important. However, does the hon. Lady accept that in a survey conducted among 12,000 members of the armed forces this year, pay did not feature in any of the top five categories, and that in fact the Government are doing a huge amount to ensure that terms of employment are right and that the armed forces have a good service model?

[Nia Griffith]

I am not quite sure where the hon. and learned Lady has been, because that is not evident in the materials that I have been reading. For example, AFCAS—the armed forces continuous attitude survey—clearly states that two thirds of personnel do not find levels of pay satisfactory. That is one of the main reasons why people consider leaving the armed forces.

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I do not want to drone on about it, but I was in the Army for 14 years, and not once has someone spoken to me about their pay. Looking incrementally at how we are paid compared with our NATO allies or those in the US, the British armed forces have a respectable pay deal that goes up each year in pay bands with the X factor. It is simply disingenuous to say that there is a military out there that is deeply disaffected by how much it is paid.

[Nia Griffith]

It surprises me to hear the hon. Gentleman say that, because not only do we have the evidence in the AFCAS report, but the pay review body itself has talked about frustration with levels of pay and identified that as a real source of concern within the armed forces. I think we must be living on different planets.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Perhaps it depends on where you come from, because certainly in Wales plenty of people are complaining to me about pay issues in the armed forces, and people are struggling to cope with their bills. People have rung me this morning concerned about press reports on the cutting of the £29-a-day allowance for service in Iraq, which they see as a further cut to their capacity to cope while remaining in the armed forces. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this debate forward today. It is an issue and I am glad we are here to discuss it.

[Nia Griffith]

I thank my hon. Friend. She very much lives in the real world and is very aware of the cuts that have affected our armed forces, particularly the cuts to pay.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Nia Griffith]

I will take one more intervention and then make some progress.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I represent Chetwynd barracks and am very proud of the great service of the Royal Engineers there, and I am a former Minister in the Ministry of Defence, with responsibility for welfare. I have to say that pay was not, and is not, on the list of concerns of those constituents who serve so well in our armed forces. Accommodation is another matter, but it is not about pay. With great respect to the hon. Lady, perhaps those listening to this are not being done a great service. There are other issues about our armed forces that we should be debating, but not this one.

[Nia Griffith]

I agree that pay is not the only factor that makes it difficult to recruit and retain staff, but it is certainly a significant one when both AFCAS and the pay review body list it as such.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I find the comments of Conservative Members quite astonishing, because I remember as a Defence Minister being harangued by Conservative Members in opposition arguing that we did a bad deal for the armed forces, even though we accepted the pay review body’s recommendation. With regard to the X factor, in 2013 the pay review body chairman was sacked because the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, did not want to recommend an increase in the X factor.

[Nia Griffith]

My hon. Friend refers to an absolutely shocking situation. It is very disappointing that Conservative Members are starting this debate on such a negative note.

More and more personnel are choosing to leave the armed forces, and every one of the services is shrinking in size. A recent Government-commissioned report by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) found that recruitment to the services was “running to stand still”, leading to the “hollowing out” of our armed forces. Yet rather than getting to grips with this problem, the Conservatives’ record is a litany of missed targets and broken promises. Their 2015 manifesto pledged to keep the size of the Army above 82,000. That was hardly an ambitious target, considering it was well over 100,000 when Labour left government, but miss the target they did, and the trade-trained strength of the Army is now just 77,600.

The figure of 82,000 had mysteriously disappeared by the time of the Conservatives’ 2017 manifesto. That fateful document simply promised to

“maintain the overall size of the armed forces”.

We can add that pledge to the rubbish pile along with the rest of the Tory manifesto, because since June’s election we have seen a reduction in the size of the Army, a reduction in the size of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and a reduction in the size of the Royal Air Force. Now we are in the shameful position where the Defence Secretary cannot rule out cuts to our Royal Marines, or even promise that the Army will not shrink further.

The Government may be complacent about the diminishing size of our armed forces, but we are not. At a time of immense global uncertainty—

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I was for 15 years chair of the defence unions and responsible for our membership of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in north-west Europe, where 80% of our war dead are buried. I saw at first hand their heroism and their history. Does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when our country faces an ever more serious threat to our national security, it is absolutely wrong to cut tens of thousands from the armed forces and to say that those who remain will suffer a pay cut?

[Nia Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes the point very eloquently. We live in a world of immense insecurity.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does that mean that the hon. Lady is prepared to commit to having more than 82,000 personnel in our Army if Labour ever gets into power? I would totally support that.

[Nia Griffith]

The hon. Gentleman needs to take cognisance of the fact that in every year we were in office, we spent considerably more on defence than the 2% of GDP commitment. In fact, in our last year in office, we spent 2.5% of GDP on defence—a figure that this Government have never matched.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am a former soldier and not a mathematician, but I suggest that the hon. Lady studies the figures that the Ministry of Defence has released, which show that in 2015 its annual budget was £34.3 billion, and that in 2020-21 it will be £39.7 billion. That number is clearly going up, so overall the budget is increasing. To characterise the situation as a landscape of cuts is, frankly, erroneous.

[Nia Griffith]

Indeed, the number needs to go up, because costs are escalating. We have said clearly that we would match that increase, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that costs are escalating far higher than that figure will accommodate.

At this time of immense global uncertainty, we cannot allow numbers to continue to slide, month after month, while all we get from the Government is warm words and crippling complacency. The Government’s chosen recruitment partner, Capita, is completely unfit for the job at hand. We have had warning after warning that Capita has not fulfilled its basic obligations, but as the number of personnel recruited continues to fall, the amount paid to Capita has grown and grown.

We propose to take real action to begin to address that state of affairs, by lifting the public sector pay cap and giving our forces a fair pay rise. I recognise that that alone would not be a silver bullet for the crisis in recruitment and retention, but we know from personnel that pay is one of the main reasons why they choose to leave our armed forces. Satisfaction with basic rates of pay and pension benefits is at the lowest level ever recorded. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has found that there is an

“over-riding sense of uncertainty and an increasing view that the offer will only get worse”.

Barely a third of service personnel are satisfied with their basic pay, and 42% have said that pay was a push factor for them in choosing to leave the forces. Is that any wonder, when our servicemen and women have had to shoulder real-terms pay cuts that have left them badly worse off? Between 2010 and 2016, the starting salary of a corporal fell by nearly £2,000 in real terms, whereas for a flight lieutenant that figure was £2,800.

At the same time as they have been hit by real-terms pay cuts, our servicemen and women have faced rising costs in forces housing because changes to charges for service family accommodation mean rent increases for nearly three quarters of occupants. The Government’s future accommodation model risks adding to that pressure because it fractures forces communities by forcing service families into the private rented sector, with all the additional costs that that brings to them and the taxpayer. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has warned of a “perfect storm” for personnel who face increases in rent and national insurance contributions, at the same time as their pay is cut in real terms.

Let us be in no doubt that the responsibility for the below-inflation rises lies firmly with the Government. Since the Government lost their majority at the general election, Ministers have made great play of the supposed independence of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. They would have us believe that the pay review body sets the rates and Ministers merely implement them, as if it were some coincidence that the body had not recommended an above-inflation rise since 2010. But that is little more than a cynical attempt by Ministers to shirk responsibility, because of course they instruct the pay review body to work within the context of the cap. Despite all the warm words from the Secretary of State and Ministers, the Treasury has said that it will not fund increases above and beyond the 1% cap; that is a fact.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation is worse than that? The idea is that the pay review body should be independent and able to make recommendations for Ministers and the Government to look at, but in 2013 the then Prime Minister sacked Alasdair Smith, the chair of the pay review body, because he made recommendations that the Treasury and the Government did not like. Does she agree that that is outrageous?

[Nia Griffith]

As my hon. Friend says, that is absolutely outrageous, and it betrays an appalling attitude on the part of the Government.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the points that the hon. Lady makes, and as a current reservist I have every sympathy with the idea that pay should rise. However, does she appreciate that within ranks in the armed forces there is pay progression? It is right to talk about starting salaries, but one also has to appreciate that pay will progress within particular ranks.

Has the hon. Lady taken into account the non-contributory pension that applies to the armed forces? Despite the fact that the 2015 changes represented a deterioration in terms and conditions, the pension still represents a wonderful gold standard that is the envy of both the public and private sectors.

[Nia Griffith]

In any career, one would hope to have career progression. The hon. Gentleman also refers to the fact that the pension offer is not as generous as it once was. The problem is that people still face a perfect storm of rising costs and pay that is not keeping up with those costs.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that our Conservative colleagues seem to be confused about the difference between a pay rise and a pay increment? Those are two very different things; one of them is an entitlement and the other is in the gift of the Government.

[Nia Griffith]

My hon. Friend expresses that perfectly.

Of course, the pay review body can recommend a higher award for a specific group of personnel, but if it did so, it would have to reduce increases for others. In other words, it would be robbing Petra to pay Paula. Even when increased pressure on recruitment and retention has been raised with the pay review body, it has been unable to recommend a pay rise to deal with the problem, given the Treasury’s insistence that it will not provide the funds.

Rather than passing the buck, is it not time for the Government to do the right thing and lift the public sector pay cap across the board so that our armed forces and, indeed, all public sector workers—firefighters, nurses and ambulance workers—get the pay award that they deserve? That is a popular policy that commands support across the country. More than three quarters of voters, including 68% of Conservative voters, want to give public sector workers a pay rise. I hope that that straightforward proposal will command support in the House this afternoon.

Let us remember that while other public sector workers have unions to work on their behalf, our armed forces do not, so it is all the more important that we in this House speak up on their behalf. I say to Conservative Members that there is no point in saying that they back our forces personnel if they refuse to stand up for them when it counts. There is no point Conservative Members pretending that they want forces’ pay to improve if they are not prepared to vote for it. Members should listen to what our service personnel are telling us. The pay review body has found:

“Service personnel are becoming increasingly frustrated with public sector pay policy. They feel their pay is being unfairly constrained in a period when costs are rising, private sector earnings are starting to recover, and the high tempo demands on the Armed Forces have not diminished.”

Those men and women work tirelessly to keep us safe. Surely the very least they deserve is fair pay for their service.

The fact is that we cannot do security on the cheap. Whether we are talking about moving the goalposts so that we barely scrape over the line to meet NATO’s 2% spending target, cutting corners with short-sighted defence cuts that have weakened our defence capabilities or imposing a public sector pay cap on our brave armed forces personnel, the Government simply will not stump up the cash to invest in our national security. I make this challenge to Conservative Members: they have talked the talk, but are they prepared to walk the walk into the Lobby with us this afternoon and show the courage of their convictions in their vote?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lancaster]

So we have a crucial marketing budget. Would that be scrapped? I am going to Catterick in two weeks to be the passing-off officer for the latest group of Gurkhas to pass off. That is a fully recruited course; not all courses are, but I am delighted to say that the last Sandhurst course was also fully recruited.

[Nia Griffith]

rose—

[Mark Lancaster]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, but then I must make progress.

[Nia Griffith]

As the Minister knows well, newspapers do not always report things the right way round. The point we are making about the marketing costs is that they have rocketed. The question is, what value for money are those costs providing? What value for money is the contract with Capita providing? What evaluation have the Government done of whether the money spent on Capita—spent on marketing—is providing value for money in view of the returns they are getting? That is what we want to see.

[Mark Lancaster]

I am not sure whether we have seen a U-turn in Labour party policy—[Interruption.] So we have not seen a U-turn. Would Labour still scrap the marketing budget? Can we have some clarity? Is Labour proposing to scrap the marketing budget or not?

[Nia Griffith]

The point that I was making is that there has been a massive increase in the marketing budget for zero returns in additional recruitment. That is the point—is it value for money? The Government are running the contract. They are employing Capita. They need to answer as to exactly what value they think they are getting out of Capita.

[Mark Lancaster]

I am going to do the House a favour and move on.

As alluded to earlier, for those joining our armed forces, pay is not the be all and end all. People sign up to challenge themselves, experience adventure and learn new skills. The most frequently cited reason for leaving, according to the 2017 armed forces continuous attitude survey, is the impact of service on family and personal life. That is why we are keen to do all we can to improve life for our personnel. Some 70% of our people told a recent MOD survey that they wanted more flexible working opportunities, so we are introducing a flexible working Bill. It will enable regular service personnel temporarily to change the nature of their service, enabling part-time working or protection from deployment to support an individual’s personal circumstances “where business need allows”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

I shall make some progress before I give way.

A few years ago, the Leader of the Opposition said:

“I would like us to live in a world where we spend a lot less on defence.”

In 2015, he said:

“Why do we have to be able to have planes, transport aircraft, aircraft carriers and everything else to get anywhere in the world?”

Shortly after that, he said:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world, instead of taking pride in the size of their armed forces, did what the people of Costa Rica have done and abolished their army”.

What a disgraceful indictment of the Leader of the Opposition’s attitude.

[Nia Griffith]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to do what the Leader of the Opposition is going to do today and vote for the motion to show his unequivocal support for our armed forces.

[Leo Docherty]

I look forward to every single opportunity in this place to demonstrate my commitment to the armed forces, but playing the games of the Opposition will not be included in my repertoire.

I was pleased during Prime Minister’s questions to extend a warm invitation to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to visit my constituency, Aldershot, the home of the British Army, and the Aldershot garrison. In the spirit of public service and the national interest, I extend that invitation to the Leader of the Opposition. If he made time in his diary to spend time with some of the regiments we have in the garrison—including the 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards, the 1st Battalion the Scots Guards, the 4 Rifles and the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment—that would not only improve his turnout, but generate a greater degree of sympathy for the armed forces that he would do well to express in future.

On a slightly more serious note, the message that we send to our young men and women who are considering a career in the armed forces must be positive and upbeat. We live in a time of unparalleled global instability: the middle east is in flames; NATO is being challenged by Russia; and there is a potential nuclear conflagration in North Korea. We have huge global threats and challenges. I am very pleased that the British armed forces will be able to deliver on a global scale both hard and soft power over the coming years. We should make it very clear to the young men and women who are considering serving in the armed forces that the future is very bright. If there are any young people who are watching this debate, they should know that there are tremendous careers available in the armed forces. If they do join up, they will be doing their country proud.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

With respect, that argument has been made with tedious regularity. It betrays a complete lack of understanding of the public finances. This country borrows £58 billion every single year. The nation spends £803 billion a year. Yet, Labour wants to borrow £500 billion, which in turn would increase our annual payment by something in the order of £12 billion. That would be monstrous and disastrous for the UK economy and future generations. There is an issue of generational justice, and that is a message that Labour has not learned.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the hon. Gentleman tell us whether he thinks it is better to get this country’s deficit down by asking the wealthy and the big corporations to pay a little bit more, or does he want it to come off the backs of our hard-working armed forces?

[Alex Chalk]

With respect, that is complete financial illiteracy. The top 1% in this country are paying 28% of total spending. That is a higher figure than ever. The hon. Lady fails to mention that people started to pay tax at earnings of a little more than £6,000 under the last Labour Government. We do not require the lowest paid to pay tax after £6,000 now; the threshold is up at £11,500. That means more money in the pockets of low-paid people. We have increased the national living wage, which also puts more money in the pockets of ordinary people. It is the complete inability to engage with the figures that, with respect, undermines Labour’s position.

It is important, of course, that we do everything that we possibly can to support our brave men and women. It is also important that we increase flexibility where there are shortages, which is why it is important to observe that there may be extenuating circumstances—for example, in GCHQ, where there is sometimes difficulty getting and retaining the brightest and the best. We want brilliant armed forces today, tomorrow and in the years to come, and that is why I will not support the Labour motion.