Armed Forces Pay

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you preside over proceedings this afternoon, Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) on securing this debate and doing so just 24 hours after he gave his maiden speech, also on the issue of public sector pay restraint. It is obvious, given his first two outings in Parliament, that he will be a thorn in the side as far as public sector pay is concerned. He is absolutely right, so I wish him well.

Earlier this week I saw a tweet from the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). It said that he and his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South often get mixed up because people think they represent the same cities. If they carry on in this vein, following each other, that will likely continue for the life of the Parliament. If you will allow me, Mr Chairman, I also wish to put on record my thanks—I hope other Members will join me, particularly the Minister—to a former Member of this House who sadly did not hold on to her seat at the general election: Kirsten Oswald, the former SNP armed forces spokesperson, who did a tremendous amount of work on the issue we are debating this afternoon.

I am surprised to see that there is not a single Conservative Back Bencher here to defend the Government’s position. Given their defence of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on Monday, the power grab on Tuesday and the pay cap on Wednesday, I thought they would at least make it along to defend their own Government, but clearly armed forces pay restraint was just a step too far. It seems there are indeed brass necks on the Tory Benches. Is it any wonder? The Conservatives have continuously painted themselves as the sole party in this Parliament that defends and stands up for the armed forces, while continuously painting my party and lambasting the Labour party as being what they see as weak on defence. But we have heard the figures this afternoon: targets for the size of the Army have been missed; morale is low; recruitment is in crisis; and pay has been cut and cut, by over £1,000 a year, with pay restraint for the past seven years.

There are other issues surrounding the pay and conditions of members of the armed forces. One of those was highlighted by a colleague of mine in the Scottish Parliament, Gordon MacDonald, the MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands. It concerned Ministry of Defence housing where the rents go up all across the country. In Scotland the new charging system introduced by the MOD has seen 81% of service families having to pay more rent than under the old regime. Complaints about MOD housing in Scotland, outsourced to Carillion, have gone up by a massive 43%.

I do not wish to speak for long because I am keen to hear from the Minister, who is very diligent. Although we crossed swords a couple of times in the previous Parliament, and no doubt will do so again in this Parliament, I and many in my party have a great deal of respect for him. I look forward to hearing what he has to say, but I will end with this. As was adumbrated in the House yesterday by members of my party, the Scottish Government have now committed to lifting the pay cap for all public sector workers in devolved Government agencies. It is about time this Government followed suit. The utterly bizarre stunt that was pulled yesterday, when they did not even have the gumption to march through the Lobby and vote for what we all know they believe, says it all. It made this place look like a banana Parliament. I have spent my political life arguing that it is a banana Parliament, but yesterday was perhaps the best—or should I say the worst—example of that.

I commend the Scottish Government for what they do to support service personnel, service families and veterans in Scotland as far as they can. The “Renewing our Commitments” document that they published last year came with £5 million of funding to try to support service families, who are having to deal with the burdens of the pay cuts imposed on them by Whitehall.

Defending the country is of course the first duty of Government. It is increasingly difficult to know how that is to be done with hollowed-out armed forces, a recruitment crisis and forces whose morale is at an all-time low. It is not just a matter of our commitments to them—and those commitments are supreme. We must ask what effect there will be on national security, and whether the current situation allows us properly to live up to the commitments that we make to our allies, to be a strong and ready fighting force to protect the people of this country.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Portsmouth South on securing the debate. I look forward to seeing him take on the Government, on this issue and many others, as the Parliament progresses.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) on making his second maiden speech. His eloquent words show strongly that he is a stout supporter of the interests of his constituents—particularly the armed forces and the Navy. It is particularly appropriate that we are holding this Westminster Hall debate today, because tomorrow is Battle of Britain Day and today is Support Our Soldiers Day. I have seen people taking to the streets of London to raise awareness of and funds for ABF The Soldiers Charity.

There can be no doubt that today, sadly, our armed forces as a whole face a crisis of recruitment and retention. In figures from the Ministry of Defence published only this morning, we are told that there are a total of 142,100 full-time trained personnel in all the services combined. That figure represents a stark reduction: on 1 April there were 143,090. The reduction is throughout the services—the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, the Royal Air Force and the Army. Let us not forget that the Conservative manifesto of 2015 said that the Army should not fall below 82,000. Yet the figures today show it is down to 81,920, and the situation is getting worse, not better.

A few months ago there was a good report, commissioned by No. 10 Downing Street, from the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), a former Armed Forces Minister. He reported that there was a crisis. That is my word, not his, but nevertheless he noted a severe reduction in the number of personnel in the armed forces. His figures were slightly different from what the MOD said this morning, but nevertheless the trend is quite clear. He said:

“The Regular strength of the UK Armed Forces is currently 138,350, 4.8% below the required number…In the year to April 2017, 12,950 people joined the UK Regular Armed Forces but in the same period 14,970 left.”

I share the regret that has been expressed that no Conservative Back Benchers are here for this important debate.

We must ask the reason for this unfortunate trend, and, as the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford said, there are several clear reasons. He comments that

“while more personnel continue to leave each year than to join, the recruiting organisations across the Services are increasingly ‘running to stand still’ to try to fill the widening gaps in the ranks. Whilst the most serious problems remain in the Army, this is also likely to prove an increasing challenge for the Royal Navy and the RAF as their liability will increase by several hundred over the next few years”.

He hints that the problem can be put down, in part, to concerns about the future prospects that the armed forces offer, and declining standards of accommodation, with quite minimal improvements, in many areas. There is also real concern about the levels of remuneration available—or not.

The findings and recommendations in this year’s report by the Armed Forces Pay Review Body are governed by Government diktat, but it is nevertheless obliged to paint the picture that it sees, objectively. It states:

“On levels of pay generally, our visit programme made clear that 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.”

I think that that is objectively correct, and it underlines the unfairness of the Government’s policy and attitude. It is essential to provide an objective facility so that honest recommendations can be made. Unless the Government have real reasons to reject those recommendations, they should be obliged to accept them. New figures from the House of Commons Library show that, for example, the starting salary of an Army private is down 5.3% in real terms since 2010. That is a cut of more than £1,000 a year.

We all want young men and women to join the armed forces in greater numbers, but—hand on heart—how on earth can anyone be persuaded to go into something with limited career prospects, where the living conditions for them and their family would be far from good, and where they would be likely to see a continuing fall in their standard of living? It is clearly unacceptable, and we strongly urge the Government to take a comprehensive approach to lifting the 1% public sector pay cap and to allow the Armed Forces Pay Review Body to make recommendations on pay rises for the armed forces. The Government should allow it to do so without restriction.

That seems to be a perfectly reasonable request, and it is one that many in the House support, including, I suspect, many Conservative Members—that is why they are not here to support the Government this afternoon. It will be warmly welcomed by the armed forces and those proud men and women who defend our country, sometimes in the most difficult circumstances. A point was made earlier about how the armed forces do not have a trade union to speak for them and are constrained in their access to the media to get their message across.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The issue of an armed forces trade union for non-commissioned personnel featured in the Scottish National party’s manifesto. I am unsure about the hon. Gentleman’s party’s manifesto, but it sounds as though he supports the principle. Will he note that, just this month, a captain has been named as the general secretary of the trade union for non-commissioned armed forces in Denmark? Is it not about time that we followed countries such as Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands and established that here in this country?

[Wayne David]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and there is a strong argument for it, but it would be unfortunate if we allowed that issue, important as it may be, to distract us from the central issue before us this afternoon, which is our request—it is a cross-party request, I hope—for the Government to comprehensively lift their 1% pay restraint on the public sector, including the armed forces.

In conclusion, as things stand at the moment, there are few external voices to support the armed forces. The armed forces themselves are constrained in what they can say, so it is all the more up to us to put forward their case with strength, determination and, I hope, unity. Through that, the Government can clearly hear the voice of the House of the Commons. They should adopt common sense and fairness and change their policy forthwith.