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Defence Policy

That is not what I am saying—and the hon. Gentleman knows it. I served on the Committee, too, and the total package of remuneration, pension and compensation embodied in the Bill was cash limited. It took no account of the fact that there would be fewer pensions in future because the armed forces are getting smaller, but it did take account of the fact that people were living longer. The overall value across all service personnel was actually lower. However, I am not going any further with the actuarial calculations at the moment. The second example on the covenant issue, much discussed in our debates and touched on again today, is the overwhelming feeling in the military that we should have a military designated ward—not just a military managed one—at Birmingham Selly Oak. No one would suggest that, in a massive accident or a crisis, those beds should always be refused to civilians, but it cannot be right for a young Royal Marine with fearful injuries from Afghanistan who has been moved back there from the field hospital to wake up and find himself between two elderly ladies, who ask him, ““What has happened to you, lad?””, and for him to end up saying that he has had an accident at work. That is just one example. The wider issue of the military covenant, floated by Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, should be thought about hard, and I welcome, as have other Members, the Royal British Legion’s campaign to focus on it. We have to ask ourselves why we do not have homecoming parades in very many places when our soldiers return from Iraq or Afghanistan. Although it is a factor that action in those theatres does not command overwhelming public support—indeed, in the case of Iraq, it is positively unpopular—that is not the only factor. In Canterbury, we are proud of being garrison city for the 5th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland—the Argylls, as we still think of them—and of being the headquarters of the 3rd Battalion the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. We are unusual, however. The Army is getting smaller, and it is increasingly concentrating on a few so-called super-bases. Just last month, I visited Catterick. It has an enormous military contingent, with very few civilians living in the immediate area. The Air Force has bases such as Lossiemouth and Kinloss, whose local civilian community is again extremely small. For the vast majority of people living in Britain, immediate contact with the regular forces is absolutely minimal. I can, however, provide an excellent example of a homecoming parade, as reported in The Daily Telegraph yesterday:"““After six months of combat in Afghanistan, Somme Company, of the London Regiment, paraded through the City of London…Major Giles Morgan, an officer with the London Regiment said, ‘The parade was absolutely brilliant. It was the first time families had seen their loved ones for a long time so it was a proud moment…It was very emotional. One soldier proposed to his girlfriend and she agreed.’ The parade was ""hosted by the City of London Corporation, the local authority for London’s financial district, the Square Mile. It included…Territorial Army soldiers, regular reservists and 26 Grenadier Guards””," who had been placed under the command of the TA company. If we look across the Atlantic at the National Guard in America, we see that every state has deployed units—not stray individuals—to Iraq, usually as parts of whole brigades. I heard all about the fantastic welcome when the Louisiana brigade returned to the state, despite its having being away during Hurricane Katrina. The TA is tiny in relation to the regular Army—the volunteer reserves in America, the National Guard and the US Army Reserve, are bigger than their regular counterparts—and as a result, our regular forces are in danger of slipping into cultural isolation. Much of the debate has turned on the mismatch between resources and tasks, but I put it to the House that, in looking at the future shape of our armed forces as a whole, there are three good reasons why we need greater civilian involvement in defence. The first is the one that I have just mentioned, namely that otherwise our regular military forces will become more and more isolated from the civilian community, which is rapidly happening. The second reason is cost. In America, where 55 per cent. of ground forces are volunteer reservists, there is obviously a big difference in cost from the comparable figure of less than 30 per cent. in Britain. The proportions are also very different in the Navy and the Air Force. I shall not speak about the Navy today because our all-party reserve forces group has just started a study of the maritime reserves. We can see some really striking statistics if we look at the Air Force. It costs £4 million to train a fast jet fighter pilot. When such a pilot leaves the RAF in Britain, that money is completely lost to the taxpayer. In America, such a pilot can go and join the Air Guard, which provides a third of all the fast jet fighter squadrons in the country. Because its pilots are overwhelmingly ex-regular, the training cost is minimal. In other areas of the American air forces, the figures are even more striking. Most of its supporting functions are provided by part-timers, who mainly fly for a living. They are extremely experienced pilots who provide a very effective back-up for the front-line aspects of the air force. Some of the Air Guard’s equipment is even cheaper. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) referred to the merits of slow-flying ground-attack aircraft. The A10—or Warthog, as it is nicknamed—costs about 10 per cent. of the price of a Eurofighter, but with its titanium case around the engine and the protection that it provides for the pilot, it is immensely resilient to anti-aircraft fire and, because it can loiter, it is very effective in a ground attack.