Ministry of Defence

Debate between Toby Perkins and Madeleine Moon

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Moon]

I intend to talk about the reserve bonus scheme in the next part of my speech. I am sure my hon. Friend will welcome that.

Part of the problem is that, despite the theory that employers would be willing, and even encouraged, to allow people to take their time to go to, for instance, the annual camp, it is not happening. As people are under pressure to remain in work and to retain their jobs, they are not willing to give those 27 days. They are not able to make that commitment.

Further inefficient costs to the Army reserve can be seen when we look at the “regular to reserve” bonus scheme and its failure to retain personnel. The scheme was introduced in 2013 as a way of enticing former regular soldiers to join the reserves in order to keep their expertise within the military and pass it on to the new reserves who were being recruited. We were retaining capability, and also using the former regulars to train the reserves. The incentive for ex-regulars to join the scheme is, again, financial: a £10,000 bonus is paid in four instalments, provided that they meet the requirements of training and attendance at each stage.

As of October 2017, 4,350 ex-regular soldiers have joined the reserves under the scheme. At first that looks like a good number, but the question is, how many have been retained? In 2017, only 480 of those soldiers achieved all four instalments, which indicates a dropout rate of 89%. I accept that that figure does not take into account the fact that entry into the scheme may be staggered over the preceding four years, but it none the less demonstrates that retention of ex-regular soldiers in the Army reserve is a problem.

I can give an example. An ex-regular soldier who turned up at my house to do a piece of work had signed up for the reserve bonus scheme, and had found that once he had left the military and started work, the pressures of civilian life—being back with his family and getting into the new job—meant that he could not retain the commitment that he had thought he would want to ease his transition out of the military and into the civilian world. These are men and women with vital knowledge and expertise who are used to military life. Their retention is vital, but even with that offer of £10,000, there is not enough to keep them and for them to commit to what is being asked. This further suggests that the current model of the Army reserve just is not working.

The situation looks bad on its own, but if the cost of the scheme is taken into account, it looks a lot worse. Breaking down the entrants to the scheme into their respective ranks and assuming this distribution follows through the key milestone payments, and using these elements and combining wages and bonuses, the scheme so far has cost just over £29 million, with only 480 soldiers reaching all four payments. I am sorry to bat on about this, and I know the figures are boring, but I am deeply concerned. We have a reducing capability in our Army. We have been sold a pup, with a promise that the reserves would fill a gap in the regular forces, but that is not happening.

Defence is an expensive business—there is no getting around that—but it is also a business in which we cannot afford to lose highly skilled and highly able individuals willing to give the time and effort to get through their training so that they are deployable. I know that many Members of this House, including the Minister, are eager to fulfil our commitment to them so that they retain their membership of the reserves and their employability. I honour, and express my gratitude for, the service of all those reservists, but are we getting value for money in a way that allows us as a country to have the forces that we need? It is my concern that we do not, and the MOD’s own figures suggest that the reserves model as it stands cannot provide us with the numbers we need.

The challenges and menaces we face are very real. Many of our platforms are not fit for purpose and the readiness of our forces is just not in place, and we have heard about the disastrous Capita contract. I appreciate that the Minister has apparently suggested that he will resign if the military is cut further, and I hope he does not have to resign, because he is a good Minister, whom we trust, rely on and respect, but we also need the Minister to hear the concerns that we are expressing.

None of us want our Army to be damaged. All of us know that our personnel can, when fully trained and fully committed, be some of the best in the world; that knowledge is shared across our NATO alliance. But we are getting weaker, and that is unacceptable. I call on the Minister to look at how we are spending in terms of the reserve forces.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the numbers, but does she share my concern that a huge amount of experience is being lost from our military? There are people performing roles with a few years’ experience who would have taken 10 or 15 years to reach that position in the past, and the experience of many of them—excellent soldiers and sailors though they are—might come under pressure in the fiercest of circumstances.

[Mrs Moon]

My hon. Friend is right, and this is also making them so much easier to be bought off by companies who seek the expertise and qualifications they achieve in the military. They feel dissatisfaction when they see the forces they joined—particularly the Army—being hollowed out. That is leading many more to consider leaving.

I shall make one final comment. I have spoken to a young man who was working as a full-time reservist when I first met him. He has told me that a lot of his time as a full-time reservist was spent going out and trying to recruit. He said that one of the most frightening things was that so many of the youngsters he spoke to about joining the armed forces had no understanding of military life. They had no idea of what NATO stood for, for example. This is a wider problem that we as a country need to tackle. We need to get the message out about how invaluable our armed forces are and how critical it is that our young people should seek the life, the experience, the skills, the challenge and the satisfaction of a military career, whether as a reservist or full time.

Yemen: Political and Humanitarian Situation

Debate between Toby Perkins and Madeleine Moon

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on securing the debate and on his campaign—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that I will call the Scottish National party Front-Bench spokesperson at 5.10 pm.

[Toby Perkins]

I was on target a few seconds ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth has done good work on this. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said about how we need a humanitarian and political solution to such an urgent humanitarian crisis. We also need to recognise that there will be no military solution—the Saudis themselves acknowledge that there is unlikely to be a military victory and that it will be about terms on which the peace discussions take place.

Any breaches of international humanitarian law are unforgivable. I entirely agree with the need to have an independent UN-led inquiry into them. However, I am conscious that all the discussion in this debate has been about the Saudi side. I understand what my hon. Friend said about the fact that we are supplying only one side, but we should remember that the whole conflict started because the Iran-backed Houthis came in and took over from the internationally recognised Government. If we take a one-sided approach to this, I am concerned about the message we will be sending.

The International Trade Committee supported the UN Security Council resolution to support the intervention by the Saudis in the first place. Of course the Saudis should act in line with international humanitarian law and of course people should be held to account if they have breached that, but if all our focus is on one side we will be heading towards dangerous territory.

I am also keen to hear what the Minister has to say about how we can get a political solution to back up the immediate humanitarian solution that is required that actually puts pressure on the Houthis to recognise that they were the initial perpetrators and holds other people to account.