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Armed Forces Personnel

We have had a good debate, with five contributions from the Conservatives, two from the Liberal Democrat Back Benches and two from Labour. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) referred to the unfortunate scheduling of the debate, which clashes with the Defence Committee’s visit to Selly Oak. I am sure that was unintentional. At business questions, it was cruelly suggested that the debate was scheduled to enable comrades opposite to attend Ascot. I am sure that was an unworthy slur. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), in a powerful performance, set out our belief that the armed forces are overstretched. The latest figures, released today by the Ministry of Defence, show once again that the deficit in the trained strength of the armed forces compared to the requirement has widened to 6,670, with another fall in the strength of our armed forces. We do not know how many people are serving in the Army this month because data are not available following the introduction of the new personnel administration system. I suspect that that figure has not been going in the right direction, either. There is an ongoing problem. The Ministry to Defence’s refusal to accept that there is any overstretch is incredible. A little honesty would be much more sensible. The Secretary of State for Defence, having returned from Iraq with the Chancellor, admitted that the armed forces were in danger of being significantly ““damaged”” if they continued to fight in the same numbers abroad. He also admitted that with so many troops deployed on operations, training vital to the military’s long-term effectiveness had taken a back seat. The Secretary of State admitted that if we were seeking to sustain the operational tempo that is under way, we were in danger of degrading our forces. When Ministers try to pretend that we are not overstretched, just stretched, they do not do themselves any favours. A little openness, transparency and engagement with the argument would be welcome. In his opening remarks the Minister of State suggested that recruitment was looking much better. Indeed, over the past year recruitment is up, compared with the year before. To be fair, he said only that it was an improvement on the year before. However, in recent years recruitment has been very poor. Over the past five years recruitment has fallen from 26,350 in 2003 to 23,540 in 2004, and was down to 17,590 in 2005, which was the worst year. It is only from that very low base that we see an improvement. It is true that things are starting to go in the right direction, but it is from a very low base. It is still true that the number of people leaving our armed forces considerably outstrips the number joining. In both of the past two years, the size of our armed forces has fallen by more than 5,000, which is clearly unsustainable when we are engaged on operations overseas. It is worth repeating the key point made by my hon. Friend the shadow Defence Secretary and one or two other hon. Members. As the Prime Minister has said, we spend 2.5 per cent. of GDP on defence, and it has remained constant. Common sense suggests that if one spends the same amount when one is engaged in two military conflicts as when one is not engaged in military conflict, something has to give. What is giving is the long-term sustainability of our armed forces, and training is under threat and cuts in equipment are being made. We are in great danger of damaging our armed forces for the long term if we do not address the situation. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex raised the issue of cost inflation in the armed forces. Notably, when the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan) discussed funding, he talked about it only in cash terms, but the correct way to examine it is as a share of GDP. My hon. Friend put his finger on it, when he pointed out that costs in the armed forces are rising faster than in the economy generally, which is why one must keep pace with growth in the size of the economy. On recruitment and retention, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) drew attention to the important part that Commonwealth citizens play in our armed forces, which is worth remembering. Frankly, if we were not recruiting armed forces personnel from Commonwealth countries, we would be in even greater difficulty than we are at the moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring discussed our concerns about mental health with impressive clarity, which was acknowledged on both sides of the House. There was also an excellent contribution by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) drawing on his experience. There was general acknowledgement and endorsement of Combat Stress, which is an excellent organisation. Turning to the treatment that armed forces personnel receive for physical injuries, I, too, have been fortunate enough to visit Selly Oak, and I have also visited Headley Court. Conservative Members have always been clear that the medical care at those establishments is excellent, and Front Benchers have never criticised it. Having spoken to our service personnel, some of whom have suffered severe injuries, I was struck by their attitude and continuing courage, which is humbling. They do not complain; they just get on with things. The support that injured personnel get from their home communities makes a tremendous difference. Several people whom I spoke to had featured in their local press. They had received letters from people whom they had never met before, and football teams had been very supportive—some of them had received a visit from the local football manager. Such support from the local community is incredibly helpful to them, and it also helps communities to understand a little better just what our armed forces do for us, which we should always remember. As my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring said, although the medical treatment is very good, it is important to have a dedicated military ward. Negotiations are under way for the new private finance initiative hospital in Birmingham, and it is incredibly important to include a dedicated military ward in the plans. Uncharacteristically, the Minister made rather a silly point when he challenged my hon. Friend about the exceptional circumstances. If a tragic event resulting in a requirement for medical care were to occur, one would, of course, use those facilities in the same way as a military hospital would have been used 20 years ago. In the normal scheme of things, however, a dedicated ward for our military personnel is necessary. As the new PFI is put together, it would be worth making sure that we fulfil that. On mental health services, a recent report from Health and Social Care Advisory Services, carried out with Combat Stress, drew attention to the fact that the guidance from the Department of Health spends very little time talking about the needs of veterans as a specific category. The guidance mentions other groups that need particular care, for example prisoners, but does not really talk about veterans as a social category. The Minister, with his Government colleagues, could perhaps do something about that. I do not need to dwell on the cuts in the Territorial Army because my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) gave an excellent exposé of the damage that would do. To his credit, the Minister of State agreed to look at that issue again. If he is unable to reverse the cuts completely, I hope he will go some way to putting them right. The examples that my hon. Friend gave would be tremendously damaging and the signal they would send to those serving in the Territorial Army would be unfortunate given the work that we ask them to do. The Minister mentioned the statement from the Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice yesterday about the progress on military inquests. The treatment of families who have lost their loved ones, who have paid the ultimate price, is incredibly important. I know that the Department takes it seriously, but although it has put in extra resources the brutal truth is that the rate at which we are losing service personnel is outstripping the capacity of coroners to deal with their inquests. The backlog, at 109 inquests, is only one lower than it was last October, which was the level that prompted the extra resources. I do not know whether it will require extra resources or whether the coroners involved—the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner now—need to disperse more of the inquests. Very few have been dispersed around the country. I do not know what the solution is, but the current situation is not sustainable. If the backlog is still well over 100 in a few months, that will not be acceptable to the families. Inquests are still outstanding four years after people have lost their loved ones. I know that the Minister wants to deal with that, but the current system is not working. I know that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) referred to the important military training that is performed in his constituency, but I hope he will forgive me for missing his speech. I am not sure how favourably everyone who serves in the armed forces looks upon the training that they undergo in his constituency, but the training is necessary to get our armed forces in good shape for operations abroad. A couple of Members raised the Iran hostages issue, on which we had a statement this week. I wanted to draw the attention of the House to the photograph that was printed in many national newspapers at the time, and was reprinted in the Daily Mail yesterday, of our service personnel, in their rather ill-fitting suits, waving at their captors. I thought it was interesting and I wanted to say something positive about some of those personnel. Three personnel on the right-hand side of the photograph deserve particular praise. The way they conducted themselves—by standing there rather grim-faced and failing to wave at the camera—demonstrated how, in a very difficult situation, some of our personnel were able to demonstrate clearly to those who chose to look that they were not going to play along with the propaganda exercise conducted by the Iranian regime. They should be very proud of themselves, particularly the young man third from the right, who was an example to the others. I want to raise with the Minister a subject that I mentioned in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex—the defence schools presentation team. My hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway) spoke of the lack of understanding of the armed forces and the military ethos in society as a whole. The defence schools presentation team is not a recruiting exercise. It is a tri-service team, which includes even Ministry of Defence civil servants. It visits schools and teaches them about the importance of defence and the Ministry of Defence. It plays a critical role, and its presentations fit very well into the citizenship curriculum. I went for myself to see one of those presentations at Cove school in Farnborough last week. I did so because the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, in a written answer, explained how powerful the presentations are, and said that schools frequently ask for the team to come back, and that the team does very good work, and in the second half of the written answer explained that unfortunately the team was being done away with--for cost reasons, effectively. I think that is short-sighted and I want to explain why. The team gives schools a comprehensive briefing. Schools give up about half a day. The tri-service team, including MOD civil servants, makes a presentation about the role of the armed forces in society and the constitutional position. It goes through some of the recent operations that we have been involved in. Most important, it gives the students the opportunity to do a role-play of a crisis in a fictional country, and it takes them through some of the challenges in deploying military assets, and some of the difficult challenges that Ministers and the armed forces have to grapple with. The children then present their solutions to the problems in front of their classmates. Having been there for a morning, I thought that the exercise was incredibly worth while, and that it would be very short-sighted to get rid of it. One thing amused me, though: not one of the students or staff in the room knew the name of the present Defence Secretary, so the 229 staff in the Ministry of Defence press office need to do a little more work to improve the MOD’s public relations. I want to raise three further points. The first is on war pension priority in the national health service, which is incredibly important. The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), who has held the job of Minister for Veterans and therefore should be in a position to know these things, said he did not believe that priority was being given. For Members who do not know, the NHS is told that if a war pensioner needs medical treatment they should be treated as a priority. That is a difficult promise to deliver because it sets up a conflict for clinicians, who want to deal with patients according to their clinical priority. But of course that promise is made to veterans. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I am not sure that priority is being given. There is one further issue of confusion. It was my understanding, and it is in the guidance that is given to doctors and NHS trusts, that the priority applies only to veterans in receipt of a war pension, and it applies only to the specific thing for which they receive the war pension. But in a debate in Westminster Hall, the Under-Secretary of State said he was happy to confirm that"““priority treatment applies to all disablements that have been found to be due to service, irrespective of whether they result in a pension…three groups are eligible for priority treatment from the health services for a service-related condition: those who receive a continuing war pension; those who receive a one-off gratuity; and those whose condition has been found to be caused by service, but has not attracted an award.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 12 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 262WH.]" My understanding is that that is certainly not the Department of Health advice that is given to NHS trusts. I am not sure that it would be that practical anyway, because I do not know how a doctor or NHS trust is supposed to know whether a condition has been caused by service if there is no war pension. It would be very helpful if the Minister clarified that today, or wrote to me and placed the letter in the Library, because this is very important and clear guidance needs to be given to those veterans and war pensioners. My hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) referred to the Government’s welcome statement today about changing the rules for eligibility for social housing. That change is promised for England, but the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) said that such matters are devolved, and I hope that Ministers will work hard with the devolved Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that our United Kingdom armed forces personnel, wherever they live in the UK, receive consistent and equal treatment. I know that that is slightly more challenging now that not all the Assemblies are under the control of the national governing party, but I hope that the Government will try to achieve that, because that would be better for our armed forces. The central problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) has outlined, is that our armed forces’ commitments have outstripped the resources available, and there is no sign that that will improve. Even if we see some reduction in commitments, the fact that our armed forces have been shrinking for the last two years and that there is no sign of that process going into reverse, means that we have no spare capacity—quite the opposite. That is the central point that leads to many of the issues raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and that is the central fact that the Minister needs to address when he replies.