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Armed Forces

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord King, on securing this vital debate, particularly just before the Budget and the Comprehensive Spending Review, both of which are extremely important to our Armed Forces. This is my first opportunity to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, on what has been termed his promotion. I regard it as promotion and due reward for an enormously successful period as Minister at the MoD, particularly on the defence industrial strategy. Like other noble Lords, I wish to place on record my thanks to every member of the Armed Forces. We have in this country just over 200,000 quite extraordinary men and women, predominantly young, serving their country at considerable personal risk with great courage, fortitude and determination. I must say that sometimes they feel a great deal of cynicism at the backing they receive from the public here and Parliament itself. As a former chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, I want to focus on the state of the Armed Forces from the point of view of the individual service man and woman and their families. Our Armed Forces are stretched; I shall not get into the debate about whether they are overstretched, but they are certainly stretched. That is understandable in an environment in which new threats can appear quickly and without warning. However, it is exacerbated by the continuing imbalance between resources and commitments. Indeed, the Armed Forces Pay Review Body report which has been referred to a number of times talks about the MoD’s evidence, which itself says that the commitments have outweighed the planning regime that has been introduced. Of course the Armed Forces are part of the general public, and we have seen changes that the Armed Forces consequently pick up. Changing expectations have an impact on why personnel join and why they go when they go. There are different lifestyles, and the buoyancy of our successful economy makes employment provision for personnel much easier. I support the calls for extra defence expenditure related to the current levels of commitment. I am somewhat sceptical about linking it to GDP, because that hooks you to a star that suggests that GDP will always grow. What happens if it decreases? There is an imbalance of resources, but the defence budget is £33.5 billion. The Government have increased it above inflation since the last Comprehensive Spending Review. Some noble Lords have said that they are not in the blame culture, which is quite convenient when you want to forget decisions that you have taken. I am not in the blame culture either but I am in the factual history culture, because with the Armed Forces you cannot take a decision today that does not feed through to tomorrow. I was asked to be chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body in 1997. I was met with the sale that had taken place the previous year of the defence housing stock. The right honourable James Arbuthnot, then the Defence Procurement Minister, said that a very good price for the taxpayer had been secured in a competitive auction and that service families would start to see the benefits. That statement was followed by several reports from the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, which was chaired at that time by the right honourable David Davis, who currently holds a not insignificant position in the shadow Cabinet. That committee was very concerned about the sale of Addington Homes. We are paying millions of pounds of rent for empty accommodation. It was sold off at up to £136 million less than the MoD had valued the estate at. The nation did not get a fair deal from that sale, but the Armed Forces’ married and single personnel got an awful deal from it, and it is still feeding through. I was faced with Armed Forces that were demoralised because their pay awards had been staged, not for one year but year on year, the impact of which is felt today in their pensions. That has to be accepted as a decision taken at that time that we are still facing up to. Because of the so-called peace dividend, which has been referred to, I was faced with a stop on recruitment so heavy-handed that you had a shortage of really good people coming through for promotion opportunities and a loss of personnel who had the qualities needed for the future in the Armed Forces; they went into the private sector. That is what we were faced with 10 years ago. Anyone who thinks that the problem of the Armed Forces has arrived under or been brought about by this Government is living in cloud-cuckoo-land and not facing up to the facts of where we are. This Government have put a lot of money into the Armed Forces. They need to put more, and no one will find a stronger advocate than me for a bigger defence budget for our commitments. We have seen improvements across the board: in the pension scheme, in the welfare package and, this year, in pay. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Young and his colleagues on continuing the independence of the body that it has gained its reputation for. However, we have problems of retention and recruitment, and some serious pinch points in some key skills needed in the Armed Forces. More than in the past, we need to consider the families as part of our whole commitment to the Armed Forces. That is essential. I was disturbed to read in the report that40 per cent of personnel in 2005 reported that they had had to change their leave plans, for instance. That may seem a small point, but imagine if you are a member of one of the three forces abroad and have your leave planned with your family to go on holiday but have to change it. There is nothing more demoralising for a family than that dad or mum will not be able to go on the holiday when they planned it, perhaps in school holidays. We need to plan better and to ensure that we get recruitment back to the levels in the MoD’s plans. Only 32 per cent of personnel were satisfied with their opportunities to take leave. The new housing package—the opportunity to get your foot on the housing ladder—is still only a grant of £8,500 after four years in the services, and you still have to repay it in eight years. That is not good enough. We need better for our Armed Forces. I declare that I am a vice-president of the War Widows Association, and war widows need to be part of this debate. I am concerned at some of the stories—they need examining; they may not be correct—about bodies being repatriated into Oxford and the delays that follow for a coroner’s report. That is so destructive of families’ morale. The MoD needs to do something about it. The War Widows Association provides a wonderful service. In a few weeks’ time there will be a conference of more than 400 war widows in Bristol. The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes—a friend of mine—and I will be on that weekend. We have a lot of new, young widows today. Because of data protection,the War Widows Association cannot get directly in touch with them. That is wrong. I would welcome a discussion with the Minister on how we find a way through it.