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Compassionate Leave (Service Personnel)

I am grateful for the granting of this Adjournment debate. Although there have been many debates and many questions have been asked relating to defence and the armed forces in recent years, Parliament has only touched on the subject of compassionate leave for service personnel. As such, I hope that the Minister will take on board the points raised, especially at a time when we are demanding so much from our service personnel. As well as some long-standing commitments, since 1997 the Government have taken our armed forces into a series of new conflicts across the globe. Aside from the 8,500 troops stationed in Northern Ireland, there are about 13,400 British troops on operational duties abroad. There are 5,000 operational troops in Afghanistan, 900 in the Balkans, 300 on UN missions and 7,200 in Iraq. Each one of those troops does their duty tirelessly. Day in and day out, often in the face of intolerable dangers, our troops are out there on the front line in some of the most inhospitable and dangerous conditions imaginable. We are all no doubt aware of the dangers that they face, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they are challenged by suicide bombings and other horrendous acts while trying to bring peace and stability to those countries. We are all grateful for their courage and bravery. The Government have sent those young men and women into those theatres of danger and they have a responsibility to do what they practically can to safeguard not only the safety of our troops, but their welfare and morale, and that of their families. On tours of duty lasting six months, our troops are separated from their family and friends. Being so far apart from loved ones can have an impact on morale. Troops can miss birthdays and weddings, and even births and deaths. That absence is part of their job, and troops and their families understand that. However, it can still create emotional and physical burdens on military families. That is why we have a system to allow service personnel to take compassionate leave in certain circumstances. I draw the attention of the House to my constituent, Mrs. Beryl Miles, whose medically trained daughter, Corporal Bronwen Pickup, is currently serving in Iraq. Mrs. Miles was an active and sporting individual until recently, when she had to have surgery for a serious spinal condition. She is currently in a state of disability in her home, while she recovers from her operation. Her home has had to be adapted and transformed with new facilities, such as a stair lift, to make her life a little easier for her. Despite the help that she is currently receiving, like most other people at a traumatic time, what Mrs. Miles really wanted at her time of need, both emotionally and physically, was her daughter. Being medically trained, Corporal Pickup was an ideal person to offer her mother the vital help that she needed to recover. Back in August, when it first became clear that Mrs. Miles would need an operation, an application for compassionate leave was made to the Army welfare service. That application was rejected on the basis that Mrs. Miles was receiving treatment in hospital. I am not criticising that decision, given the circumstances at the time and the criteria for compassionate leave. The problem with regard to compassionate leave in this case arose when Mrs. Miles left hospital in September and Corporal Pickup requested leave to be with her mother. At that time, Mrs. Miles did not have access to the 24-hour care afforded to her in hospital, which was the basis for the earlier rejection. Nevertheless, Corporal Pickup’s request was again rejected by the Army welfare service and Mrs. Miles was left to go home. The Army’s criteria for compassionate leave state that it can be granted to personnel"““For urgent reasons, of an exceptional or personal nature, when the presence of the individual is considered essential to lessen domestic hardship.””" Furthermore, the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), when he was a Defence Minister, stated:"““The purpose of compassionate leave is to allow Service personnel an authorised period of absence to enable them to attend to a personal crisis. There is no definitive list of occasions when it is appropriate to allow compassionate leave to be taken as each case requires individual, objective and sensitive assessment.””—[Official Report, 22 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 1060W.]" That is a common-sense definition that allows our soldiers to have confidence that, when things are going wrong, they will be allowed to go home for a short time to deal with the crisis. Mrs. Miles was clear that, when she left hospital, she was in need of urgent support from her daughter, whose experience and medical training would have been helpful to Mrs. Miles. More significant than Mrs. Miles’s opinion of what was best for herself, was the opinion of her daughter. She, too, wanted to go home and felt that this was exactly the sort of family situation that warranted compassionate leave. This case was exceptional and the decision of the AWS added to the physical and emotional burdens on Mrs. Miles, as well as to the emotions of her daughter. Part of the problem in this case was the inconsistency of the AWS. It denied compassionate leave because Mrs. Miles was in hospital, which gave rise to the implied expectation that it would be granted when she left. However, when Mrs. Miles actually left hospital, Corporal Pickup’s request was again rejected. Although I appreciate that we cannot predict in advance every possible family circumstance, we evidently need clearer guidelines in place so that service personnel will have a greater understanding of when their circumstances qualify for compassionate leave. As far as my constituent was concerned, her circumstances seemed to fit the criteria, so she thought that her daughter would be able to spend some time with her to help with her recuperation, especially considering that her spine had been operated on. I mentioned earlier that the Government have a responsibility for the morale of our troops. In that context, it is not good for troop morale when hard-working and brave soldiers are denied the chance to spend a few days at home with their ill parents. We need our soldiers to be 100 per cent. focused on their task to get the very best out of them. Although the nature of our service personnel’s work means that they cannot be afforded the flexibility to respond to family responsibilities that they would get in alternative professions, the Government must be considerate and compassionate to those who put their lives on the line for their country. The Government need to show that they care about our troops and their families. That was why I was disappointed by the Government’s response. I am worried that we will lose Corporal Pickup because of the handling of the case, despite the fact that trained and skilled soldiers such as her are needed so badly at this time that they cannot be given compassionate leave. The way in which the case has been handled has been a disgrace. I am reluctant to interfere with the workings of the Ministry of Defence at a time when it is under great pressure in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, retaining troops and maintaining morale are aspects of the way in which we can support our armed forces, and one would expect the Government to welcome such support. I took the trouble of writing to the Secretary of State. The timetable for granting the compassionate leave was about two weeks for the reason that there was no point in sending Corporal Pickup home while her mother was still in hospital. We eventually received a date on which the operation would take place and then a date when Mrs. Miles would leave hospital. I sent that information to the Secretary of State by fax and post. I understand why the Secretary of State did not reply, but he clearly got the message because, to my amazement, Corporal Pickup found herself being moved from her base in Iraq to a new location where communication was much harder, if not impossible. I do not think that that helped her to recognise her vital role in the effort that we are putting into Iraq. It simply confirmed that no one cared about her or her mother, or about what happened to either of them. Indeed, if she had doubts about remaining in the Army, such an extraordinary and perhaps vindictive approach will have confirmed her worst fears. Although I appreciate that our presence in Iraq is important, my constituent has been left with the impression that the Army’s need for Corporal Pickup was far greater than her need for her daughter, Bronwen. The evidence seems to show that our need for fully trained medics is greater than the media lead us to believe and greater than the reported casualty figures suggest. If the situation is so bad that one corporal cannot go home to help her mother to recover from a spinal injury, perhaps that is why people are questioning exactly what is going on out there. When the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he will be able to reassure us that the AWS is not being put under any political pressure to find excuses not to grant compassionate leave because of a shortfall in troop numbers. I took the trouble to telephone the person at AWS who was responsible for the case. He told me that he had checked with the person at the hospital and had had it confirmed that Mrs. Miles would be ““all right””. I do not think that that person was a doctor, although Mrs. Miles has lived to tell this sorry tale, so she is ““all right”” to some extent. The person then assured me that if things got worse, the Red Cross could pop in. I have nothing against the Red Cross or any of the people involved, but any sane person would agree that, good though it is, the Red Cross cannot provide the same moral and mental comfort that Mrs. Miles needed and that her daughter wanted to provide. I fear that there could be more Corporal Pickups in our armed forces, some of whom may be too cynical about the compassionate leave system to apply or who may have been put off after hearing of the rejections of their applications that others have received. I also fear that there could be more Mrs. Mileses in our constituencies, in urgent need of support from a family member serving abroad. I am further concerned that this may have a detrimental impact on morale, recruitment and retention. In the past year, some 14,000 troops left the Army. Although we do not know what proportion of those were feeling the strain of being apart from their family, rejecting applications for compassionate leave such as Corporal Pickup’s will not help to encourage our soldiers to spend more time in our military. Supporting our troops means more than letting them go home. The handling of this case was a disgrace and must not happen again. If a soldier has a family crisis, moving them to an area out of communication is brutal. It is well known that good leadership means looking after the finest asset in our armed forces—the people. The treatment of Corporal Pickup and her mother is extremely disappointing. The attitude of the Ministers involved is worse. The letter that I finally received in response to my initial fax and letter arrived on Monday, two weeks after the operation. Worse still, it said nothing. It was clear that the Minister had no understanding of the problem and the minion who wrote the letter had no information. When we are trying so hard to support our soldiers abroad, it is a shame that their own leaders in government should ignore their simple requests. I do not think the Minister can correct the wrongs that have been done to Corporal Pickup and her mother, but he can try to prevent such weak and short-sighted handling of a delicate and important problem. I look forward to hearing his views on compassionate leave and whether he has any plans to offer more assistance to people like my constituent, Mrs. Miles, and her daughter.