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Defence Policy

I am coming to an NAO report now. MOD officials appeared before the Public Accounts Committee on 28 January 1998 and they were asked whether spending constraints under the previous Government had prevented improvements to housing stock. They said yes. Who asked the question? It was none other than the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the present shadow Home Secretary. Contrast that with the record of this Government on spending and investment in the armed forces. We are reversing the legacy that the Conservatives left. We now have more than 20,000 new or upgraded single-living accommodation spaces and 20,000 more are planned. In this financial year, the accommodation of 900 service families will be upgraded, and there is more to do. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench will take a closer look at an idea that I examined when I was a Minister. Today, many service families aspire to own their own home and we must to do all we can to help them achieve that. We could perhaps give them a grant of, say, £30,000 towards their mortgage. That cost could be offset by savings elsewhere on other benefits. Alternatively, the Department could act as a guarantor for a certain proportion of any mortgage applied for. The Americans do that with their veterans, for example. One of the major advantages of such a scheme is that the lender is protected against loss and a favourable mortgage is obtained by the service family. The issue of home ownership will become increasingly important in the coming years as we move towards super-garrisons. It also extends choice to the services and meets a legitimate aspiration. The quality of service accommodation, alongside military pay and training, has a massive impact on recruitment and retention, which are the two great challenges facing us. Recruitment is an ongoing challenge. Our strong economy increases the challenge. I entered the House in 1995 in a by-election, and I remember that almost every door that I knocked on in my campaign was answered. In the last general election, hardly any doors were answered, because the area now has a strong economy and almost full employment. The forces now have to compete for recruits and show that joining is an attractive proposition. Retention is also an issue with some 20,000-plus people leaving the services each year. The skills that our servicemen and women gain during their time in the forces are desirable to those who run business and industry in the private sector. Imagine a married serviceman who has returned from a second or third deployment in the field being greeted by his wife. She will probably say, ““Thank God you are back. I worried about you the whole time you were away. Now you have skills that you can sell outside in the private sector. The children are growing up and we are living in awful service accommodation.”” How can we retain those people in the forces? We need to do more, and the deployed welfare package does help with retention. Let us not forget that our forces were given the best public sector pay deal this year. In fact, armed forces salary growth has exceeded growth in the whole economy in all but one of the last five years. Contrast that with the record of the Conservatives who, rather than supporting our service personnel, cut the Army by 36,000 during their last five years in government. With that record, where is their commitment to our armed forces? T he hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who spoke on behalf of the Opposition, but is no longer in his place, was a little coy when pressed about what they would do on public spending if they were in power. I do not know why he was coy: he should take a lead from his leader, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), who said in a webcast interview recently:"““There is no magic pot of money we can dip into to spend…on our armed forces.””" There we have it. If the Tories were in power, there would be no more for the armed forces. As so often in the past, the Tories are long on promises, but short on delivery. The party that cut the defence budget by £0.5 billion a year between 1992 and 1997 has not changed at all. If, God forbid, they were one day elected to power, the outlook for the armed forces would be cuts, cuts and more cuts. Contrast that with the record of this Government—increasing pay, improving equipment, updating medical care and accommodation, and constantly seeking to improve the package available to veterans. The Government are committed to delivering for our servicemen and women, and long may that continue.