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Armed Forces Personnel

I am very pleased to be able to take part in this debate and pay my tribute to our servicemen and women, who carry out very difficult tasks on our behalf and often suffer severe injuries. Like the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway), when I meet service personnel I am always impressed by their quality and their commitment. They are rightly held in very high regard by this nation. I represent the town of Brecon, which houses 160 Brigade Wales, headquarters of the Army in Wales, and I must say that the relationships between the local communities and the military have never been better. I should like to compliment successive brigadiers who have commanded 160 Brigade Wales, and their officers, for the work they have done to achieve that. The Army makes very heavy use of the countryside in mid-Wales, but the population understand that the Army needs to have well-trained troops ready to pursue the national needs and interests. The Minister must have heard this before, but the more Welsh land that the Army eats, the better disposed are the farmers and landowners in mid-Wales to the use that the Army makes of the facilities. Derring Lines, which is based in Brecon, is where senior NCOs and junior officers are trained in their leadership duties as company and platoon commanders. We welcome the fact that Sandhurst officer cadets now spend the last six weeks of their training in Derring Lines, being tested on the Sennybridge ranges—and they certainly are tested on the Sennybridge ranges. I remember talking to a Gurkha in Brunei, and when he heard that I had come from Sennybridge he said, ““The Arctic was cold but it was dry, the jungle was wet but it was warm, but Sennybridge was cold and wet and you needed a high degree of personal organisation to survive there.”” We have a Gurkha company based in Brecon, the Mandalay company, which acts as a demonstration company for training purposes. It is very well respected in the military and civilian communities based in Brecon, and its members have had improved terms and conditions, including extending accompanied service, so that their wives and families are with them longer. Their wives are well respected in their workplaces in Brecon and their children are made welcome in the schools. With almost every infantry soldier being either stationed or trained in Brecon at some time, I meet a lot of the infantry, and they complain about the quality of the kit issued to them. A number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), have drawn attention to concerns about high technology issues—for example, those relating to helicopters—but often soldiers complain about basics such as assault vests and other types of kit. Whenever I see them, it seems that they are trying to buy kit to replace what has been issued or to modify or enhance the kit that they have. They do that with their own money, which saps their confidence and enthusiasm for their job. I talked this through with a number of soldiers the other day. I will not go into every example they gave me, but I thought it might be interesting to set out a few of their concerns, because it is unacceptable that they have to spend their own money modifying kit that should be issued in a usable form. The pouches on the right shoulder of assault vests are properly positioned for firing from a standing position, but from a prone position it is impossible to get the butt of the weapon into the shoulder because the pouch is too high. The solution is to move the pouch down, making the vest fit for purpose, but it is bizarre that soldiers have to pay for that, rather than be issued with the kit in that form. Soldiers also complain that the ammunition pouches are too small to carry the A2 magazines for the SA80, but are perfect for the magazines for the SA81. The solution is to place the pouches further down the vest with a larger flap, once again at a cost to individual soldiers. Soldiers are even complaining about their trousers, which are sourced from China and which have to be reinforced around the knees and crotches because on deployment they wear out. What could be worse than having kit that is not fit for purpose on deployment? A lightly built soldier was issued with Osprey body armour for a 104 cm chest size. It was too big for him and the Velcro fastening was only partly engaged, so when he ran it came undone. One can understand how dangerous that was. The solution was to modify it to make it fit. I was told that the molly strips that are put on body armour to hold pouches and for carrying other equipment are too thin—19 mm rather than the 25 mm that other armies use—so equipment falls off. I was also told that soldiers would wear neck armour when they were in vehicles, but not outside them, because the pop studs that hold that neck armour on are shiny and can be easily seen. A toned-down colour would have solved that problem.