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Armed Forces Personnel

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention, because I have raised the issue before, and it has not been addressed by Ministers. If the news has been mentioned on the BBC, the House is entitled to be informed. I hope that the Minister will deal with that when he winds up. The latest performance report by the Ministry of Defence shows that there are serious shortages across the board. Let me list one or two. There are just three Royal Navy Harrier instructors, against a requirement of seven. There is a 38 per cent. shortage of Merlin helicopter pilots, and there are just 95 Army bomb disposal corporals and sergeants, against a requirement of 222—a 57 per cent. shortfall. The RAF is short of 88 loadmasters, a trade critical to operations in the fields. We also know that only 85 per cent. of the armed forces are fully available and fit; 15 per cent. are not fit. The Government have a target of 90 per cent., and it is clearly not being met. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) drew attention to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury drew attention to the harmony guidelines. The Royal Logistic Corps has a 15-month average tour interval, against a target of 24 months. That cannot be sustained. Furthermore, there is an outflow of personnel. We now know that in the year ending 1 September last year, the voluntary outflow rate of RAF officers was 3 per cent., against a long-term sustainable rate of 2.5 per cent. The figure for other RAF ranks is 5.8 per cent., against a sustainable rate of 4 per cent. Clearly, if that trend continues, there will be serious consequences for the maintenance of capability. In the first six months of last year, there was a net outflow of something like 1,250 people—overwhelmingly, that means 12,200 experienced people being replaced by 10,960 rookies. The Prime Minister is falling over himself to ingratiate himself with the new US President, so who can doubt that he will press service chiefs to accede to any request from the United States for more troops in Afghanistan? I understand that one battlegroup is all that can be afforded; Ministers need to tell us how many troops they are prepared to contribute. The truth is that our armed forces are overstretched. They have received much better equipment in the form of improved armoured vehicles, as has been mentioned, but the Snatch Land Rover remains in operation, which causes great concern for the safety and security of our armed forces, and we were told just before Christmas that a whole series of programmes were to be cut, curtailed, reduced or scrapped altogether. That is not at all satisfactory. If the Government want our armed forces to do what they are being asked to do, the Government have to back them with resources; otherwise they will have failed our armed forces. I will conclude on a positive note, by paying tribute to the British public, whom I do think support our armed forces. The welcome home parades have been mentioned. I salute Wootton Bassett for what it has done, and I salute my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire for what he has done as chairman of the all-party Army group. The nation owes a huge debt of gratitude to our armed forces, and the more that we can show that we are understanding of their commitment and the sacrifice that they are making on behalf of all of us in this country, the better we will be able to impress on them that we really are concerned about them and value them, and will do much more than we are doing to ensure that they get a fair deal from the Government of this country, whoever is in power.