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Defence Policy

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). I enjoyed his general strategic overview, as well as his specific points about the DLO and defence attachés. I hope that the Minister will have answers to those questions at his fingertips when he replies. I declare an interest as a medical officer in the Royal Naval Reserve, and I am in receipt of a naval pension. We have heard 14 Back-Bench speeches today, all of which had merit, even if in some cases one had to dig a little deep to find it. Ministers can surely be in no doubt that the military covenant has been broken. I appreciate the caveat that the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Hamilton) entered with regard to Scotland, but the Royal British Legion has felt it necessary to mount its ““Honour the covenant”” campaign this autumn, while a completely new organisation, the British Armed Forces Federation, was created this summer to lobby for a better deal for the service community. Unofficial forces websites have sprung up. I draw the Minister’s attention particularly to the Army Rumour Service website—better known, if you will forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by its acronym ARRSE—which provides a free and frank window on the views of an increasingly dischuffed service population. In 25 years of service in the armed forces, I can never remember anything quite like this. It is important to acknowledge, however, that there have been times in our history when our troops have not been given the respect to which they are surely entitled. Rudyard Kipling described the plight of Tommy Atkins. Although Kipling’s Tommy emerged in the 1890s, he is chiefly associated with our engagement in total war in two obvious fights for national survival. His descendants are involved in conflicts that are much more discretionary, and that do not command the support of the British public in anything like the same way. In my view, that means that the Government owe more than ever to today’s men and women who are putting their lives on the line in pursuit of their foreign policy. That is all the more reason for disappointment at the attitude adopted by Ministers, captured perfectly by Mrs. Diane Dernie, mother of Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, who said of injured servicemen:"““They are simply figures on a balance sheet. They do not have any role, any function and the MOD wants to dispose of them as cheaply as possible.””" Meanwhile, Ben, even after Ministers have been shamed by public outcry into doubling his payment, faces a bleak future. No doubt the Minister will crow about guaranteed income payments, but on close examination those appear frugal, and for junior soldiers unrepresentative of potential future earnings. I am sorry if I detected a scoff from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence—he criticised me earlier in a rather crude intervention, if I may say so—but that is certainly the view of the service community. If he doubts that, I suggest that he look at the website to which I referred. It is difficult to see Labour’s armed forces compensation scheme as anything other than a second-rate deal, which is inferior in important respects to elements of the preceding war pension scheme, imperfect though that undoubtedly was, and which uniquely attempts to swim against the tide of society’s prevailing compensation culture. The formulaic way in which compensation is pegged ignores the fact that a broken body is so much more than the sum of constituent injuries. It addresses quality of life forgone in the most bludgeonly way imaginable and is untenable. The Royal British Legion is correct to point out, as we have, that the vast majority of personnel will simply not benefit from the changes announced on the hoof last week, and that the changes will not benefit those with a single devastating injury of the sort sustained by Lance Corporal Martin Edwards. As the Minister’s announcement was, admittedly, by way of launching a consultation, I hope that he will listen to those with the best interests of servicemen at heart before finalising his plans; I say that in all sincerity. So far, those plans have been chaotic. We understood initially that an increase in retrospective payments was ““highly unlikely””. If that were so, people injured in Operation Telic I to IV would have found themselves at a financial disadvantage compared with people hurt post-April 2005. Clearly, that would be a nonsense, and we understand that the MOD has been obliged to change tack. The United States is often held out as the exemplar in delivering the military covenant. I simply do not know why America lauds servicemen in a way that we do not. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) touched on some of the possible reasons. I am realistic enough to appreciate that the attitudinal differences between our two countries mean that our servicemen will not be patriotically ushered to the front of queues or showered with cinema tickets. But the strand of care for those who have given extraordinary service, embodied in the GI Bill and the Veterans Administration, and extended this year in the inauguration of the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, is indicative of our best friend’s far more generous interpretation of the military covenant. I hope that the Minister will say what lessons he has learned from the US and how he intends to implement best practice here. Our armed forces are a mirror of the society from which they are drawn, yet increasingly their deal looks second-rate. What are they to make of compensation for the most severe battlefield injuries, reluctantly increased by Ministers to £285,000, against nearly £500,000 for an RAF typist with repetitive strain injury of the thumb?