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Defence in the UK

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish that some of the Members who spoke earlier had borne that advice in mind, particularly as those of us waiting to speak have been here since the beginning of the debate. Some of them had not been in the Chamber for very long at all, yet they managed to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair. It is a shame that they did not show the rest of us the courtesy that we showed them. I join the Minister in what he had to say about the fallen soldiers—the personnel whom we have lost in the past sad month, and all the others who have gone, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Members have talked about the Falklands today, and my family and I have sad memories of that conflict. My cousin lies in a grave in the Falklands, and my brother-in-law has never really got over the effects of having the ship on which he served bombed out from under him, so, as a family, we know of the historical consequences of those actions. It is fortuitous that we are talking about the defence of the United Kingdom today, with the Falklands anniversary so close; the events took place just 25 years ago. My mind goes back to the situation in Portsmouth naval base 25 years ago. It was one of desperation, of job cuts, of Navy reductions, and of ships being laid up and scrapped. The perpetrator of those problems, the then Secretary of State, John Nott, was infamous in Portsmouth for what he had done, because a matter of months after the cuts started to be implemented, the work force were brought back, as were the ships, many of which were on their way out of service. They were reconditioned very quickly and brought back into service. It is a great tribute both to service personnel and to the work force in naval bases throughout the country that we were able to achieve what we did in the Falklands. It was through the dedication of the civilian personnel who put so much effort into the work, many of whom sailed on the ships, and left them at various points on the way down to the south Atlantic, that we were able to achieve the success that we did. It is a tribute to all of our armed forces that so many Members have spoken in this debate with great eloquence and authority about the commitment that the members of the armed forces show all the time. The nation appreciates their work, dedication and commitment, and the way in which they carry out their duties, and nobody should take that away from them. I have yet to meet anyone who has been to Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else where our armed forces work who says that there is a morale problem. There manifestly is not. When our armed forces are on active service, wherever they are, morale is not the issue. There is disappointment sometimes that equipment is late, or that other units receive equipment that they need before them, and so on, but those things are normal. No one should ever try to diminish the true fighting spirit of those men and women, and say that there is a morale problem among the country’s fighting forces. I should like to speak, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry) did, briefly about the naval base and the consequences of any proposed changes. I do not want to go over issues that have already been raised, but the future of the Royal Navy is irreversibly linked to the future of Portsmouth as the home of the Royal Navy. In an announcement this week, the First Sea Lord said how important Portsmouth was as the future home of the carriers. That led people to believe that by the end of this week—perhaps even today—the Minister might announce the signing of the contracts for the carriers. We lived in hope. Our local newspaper optimistically believed that it was about to happen, and that the signal for that was the statement by the First Sea Lord. We were glad, however, that the Navy’s serving sailors were determined that Portsmouth should be retained as a naval base. There are other issues, however, affecting the Navy. Hon. Members have discussed the future of training, and in an intervention, the Minister discussed what is going to happen at St. Athan, which will have repercussions on the demise of HMS Collingwood, HMS Salton and Whale Island and affect the Greater Portsmouth area. Four constituencies—Portsmouth, North; Portsmouth, South; Gosport; and Fareham—will be dramatically affected by those repercussions. We still have not had any indication at all, however, about what will happen to those large pieces of real estate or to the enormous number of civilian staff who work at those bases, many of whom cannot move several hundred miles to St. Athan. We are entitled to ask whether we will have answers to those questions, and whether we will have them in time for people to reorganise their lives. Many people who can move have young children, and if we care about our armed forces personnel and the civilians who support them, we must give them credit they deserve, and provide them with straight answers to those questions. Hence the fact that there is still frustration in the naval base, as the final decision seems to be further and further from being taken. In all honesty, the loyalty and dedication of those people are worthy of a straight answer as soon as possible. Many Members have discussed married quarters. Despite the best efforts of the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who made that decision—he suggested that it was one of his last decisions as the then Armed Forces Minister to sell off those houses—if we had the money that Annington has made on the sale of the land and property that it acquired from us, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) said, at rip-off prices, we would be able improve 25 per cent. more of the service accommodation than we have been able to improve so far. That is the proportion of profit and gain that Annington has made at the taxpayer’s expense. There are still many years to go before we catch up, and we must recognise that the state of our married quarters has been a disgrace. I am delighted that a great deal has happened, and I have to say that over the past five years, there has been an enormous improvement. One need only go into the single service accommodation in Portsmouth to see the amazing transformation from the ghastly mess in which young service personnel were forced to live to accommodation that is much better both in quality and the way in which it is serviced. We must recognise that transformation. I was delighted that, in response to my intervention, the Minister of State recognised that there is a need to train the trainers, and make sure that the duty of care to the young men and women who join our armed forces is addressed properly by the people who carry out those exercises. Of all the things that dismayed me in those very difficult meetings with the parents of the young people who died at Deepcut and of others who died around the country, I was most dismayed by the criticism of the trainers and the way in which that they took it upon themselves to dish out abuse in one form or another—not all them, by any means, but many of them did so. One of the criticisms that came from the Army itself was about the calibre of those trainers and the lack of training of the trainers. That goes back to the people in the recruiting offices. Once again, to his credit, the Minister of State recognised that and said that the way in which we draw people into the armed forces and take them on at the initial stage will be open to greater scrutiny. I am full of admiration for the way in which our armed forces have turned around young men and women who had hopeless lives ahead of them. Given the opportunity of joining our armed forces, they have been transformed not only into first class citizens, but into first class service personnel. The best education they ever got, they tell me when I meet them, was the one they got when they joined one of our armed forces. I am proud of that. Sadly, though, some still get into our armed forces who should never have been allowed to join. That is not a criticism of them—it is a criticism of the system that did not check thoroughly enough the medical background or the suitability of some young men and women to join our armed forces. I am delighted that more care and attention will be paid to that. I welcome the Minister’s remarks on the matter this afternoon. On retention, we have learned many lessons over the past 10 years. We have learned that certain categories of staff, such as fast jet pilots, skilled divers in the Navy and aircraft fitters in the Air Force, have skills that are readily marketable out there in civilian life and that we must prepare packages to retain them. As the Minister has said on more than one occasion, we must make the right judgments. It is not just about getting the pay scales right. We must offer breaks in service to members of our armed forces who can easily market their skills elsewhere. After the country has invested so much money in them, I want us to retain those people. I am sure we are developing the necessary techniques. Several speakers have mentioned veterans. Let us consider the plight of the Gurkhas. A few years from now, they will celebrate 200 years of service to this country, yet 22,000 Gurkhas who retired before 1997 receive inadequate pensions and have no right to settle in the UK. Whenever the subject of the treatment of the Gurkhas and their pensions is raised, there is universal support for them. As a Parliament and a nation, we should not deny them what most people believe they are morally entitled to, which is no more and no less than any of us would expect. I hope the debate today has demonstrated to Ministers and the Ministry of Defence that there is not one parliamentarian who does not hold the armed forces in high esteem. All of us believe that they do a first class job and that they need the appropriate service, such as equipment, back-up in civilian life and support for their families. The duty of care extends from the time they join to way after they leave. Many Members have spoken about the difficulties that service personnel experience when they leave. Some have housing problems, others have health problems, and some end up in prison. One thing surprises me time and again when I meet young men and women who have returned from active service. They have been in situations that they may never have expected to encounter, when they were close to or involved in the killing of other human beings in a war situation. Some do not express their fears and concerns when they are with their unit or when they are with their families, but they express them to their friends. Very few are equipped to deal with that. Sadly, local GPs cannot deal with it. Some former members of the armed forces find it extremely difficult to come to terms with what they have experienced over those months and, in some cases because of more than one tour, years on active service, when they have seen things that none of us would wish on them. We must find a way of giving those young men and women support before they go, to give them a better understanding of what to expect and the traumas they might experience, and after they come back. With all that said, I have nothing but admiration for the way in which the armed forces Minister robustly presented his case. Above all else, both sides appreciate the fact that he has never shirked his share of responsibility, and I do not think that the House should either. We should ensure that we resource our armed forces fairly and properly.