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Defence Policy

Entry into NATO has to be agreed by both parties—those who are already in NATO have to give the security guarantee and the incoming country has to fulfil certain legal obligations, not least that any territorial disputes must be resolved. Georgia's entry into NATO would affect how Georgia operates in the region. Membership of NATO does not come automatically—it must be earned. That seems to have been forgotten at the present time. I want to end with some questions for the Minister about personnel. None of what we have discussed is possible without the brave men and women who make up our armed forces. I thank my friends, Freddie Forsyth, Simon Weston and those who took part in the Conservative party's military covenant commission. I should like to raise three issues of some urgency. The first concerns decompression. The target is that those coming out of theatre should get up to two weeks' decompression time among their colleagues to deal with the consequences of stress and combat before returning to bases in the United Kingdom or back to civilian life if they are in the Territorial Army. I was surprised to discover that civil servants in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who spend time in Iraq get a compulsory two weeks' decompression out of theatre every seven weeks. We are lucky if some of our soldiers are getting much more than 48 hours decompression after a six-month tour. That is not to say that the FCO civil servants are treated wrongly, but it provides some clarity about why there is so much unhappiness about the issue. It is important to talk about decompression because more evidence is emerging about the possible development of long-term problems associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Decompression is an essential means of reducing the temperature for those who have been in theatre. If they are being short-changed for operational reasons, that is not acceptable. We may pay a high, long-term price for what are very small short-term gains. I am sure that the whole House shares my concerns, and I hope that we can have an immediate review of the time given for decompression. Secondly, the air bridge is a continuing problem that saps morale. We need urgent action and if we cannot have sufficiently robust RAF aircraft to carry out such duties effectively, the Government have a duty to ensure that we get them from somewhere. It is quite unacceptable for servicemen and women to be left for long periods waiting on their leave to return to the United Kingdom. The third issue is the one highlighted in the press today: hearing loss. I was not going to raise the issue until I saw what the Ministry of Defence had said. Clearly, too many servicemen and women are already not fit for service. If we have a 10 per cent. recorded level of hearing loss that is judged to be moderate to severe, which will prevent personnel from serving in the future, that is a big problem. I would like that matter to be looked at urgently. I regret the statement from the MOD, which stated that"““the majority of hearing impairment cases cannot be directly attributed to deployment””." It sounds like a classic washing of the hands, and it is not sufficient. Finally, we have talked a lot about our servicemen and women and civilian groups that support them. There is one other group to remember, however, which is our charitable sector. There are many in this country who say, ““These things should not be left to charities; the Government should deal with them.”” I happen to believe that the charitable sector is extraordinarily important because it reminds citizens of their responsibilities to other citizens and does not allow people to abdicate their responsibility on to the state. Help for Heroes, Combat Stress and so many other charities are doing invaluable work, and are thanked too seldom in this country for what they do. The armed forces, families and charities all enable us to have and support the finest services in the world, and at this time of year more than at any other, we should thank them.