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Armed Forces Personnel

Armed forces personnel issues are very close to my heart. My daughter serves as a Royal Navy officer and I grew up in my constituency with the knowledge of the importance of HMS Raleigh. I have heard first hand the concerns of Royal Navy personnel throughout that time, but I have recently learned of issues that concern me and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to provide me with some answers today. One area where civilians frequently come into contact with our armed forces personnel is search and rescue. According to a Library paper of 22 February this year on the search and rescue service, the RAF has 16 Sea King mark 3 or 3A helicopters in service, with 272 personnel currently employed in roles directly related to search and rescue activities, and that the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm has nine Sea King mark 5 helicopters, with 81 similarly employed personnel. That means that the average number of service personnel for every search and rescue helicopter is 17 for the RAF, but nine—almost half—for the Royal Navy. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister explain this difference between the two services? The figures seem to suggest that some services are already more efficient than others and, therefore, that there is less fat to cut. A parliamentary written answer on armed forces deployment confirmed:"““Each service operates different harmony guidelines. Royal Navy personnel should not exceed 660 days deployed in 36 months, the Army 415 days in 30 months, and the RAF 280 days detached in 24 months.”” —[Official Report, 14 December 2009; Vol. 502, c. 820W.]" Those figures equate to a diverse average deployment length across the three services. The separated service figures show that the term ““overstretched”” means three different things to the three services. Coupled with the reputed average deployment length, the Army deploys for around six months at a time, the RAF rarely deploys for longer than three months and the Royal Navy deploys for around six to nine months. This suggests that the deployment burden on certain sections of the three services is higher than others. As a result of the differences in separated service, the frequency of deployment also varies between services. A Royal Navy warfare or engineering rating, or a warfare officer, can expect to deploy repeatedly year on year. I know of one warfare officer—not my daughter—who has deployed for seven to eight months in each year from 2008 to 2011. This deployment burden should be taken into account when demanding redundancies, as any squeeze that increases the burden further could have consequences for manning those key positions. Finally, I want to address the redundancies. Royal Navy personnel were informed of the outcome of the redundancy selection boards on 30 September this year, almost a month after the RAF and Army announcements on 1 September, placing all Royal Navy personnel at a disadvantage. It meant that they were the last to register in the career transition partnership, which will be working at maximum capacity anyway to manage the surge in service personnel taking redundancy. I understand that the delay allowed financial resources to be drawn from two financial years. The disadvantage was confirmed in a letter I received from my constituent, Mr Spencer. He wrote to me about the recently announced redundancy tranche implemented by the Royal Navy. His stepson is a serving Logistician Steward and has been given 12 months' notice of redundancy. He was informed at the end of September and it is now proving extremely hard to place him on any meaningful course to prepare for civilian life. Most college apprenticeships and other vocational courses start at the beginning of the autumn term, in September, and he is finding that the best training courses are fully subscribed until the end of the summer term 2012. Mr Spencer feels that little thought appears to have been given to this by the MOD, and I believe that it has done Royal Navy personnel a major injustice by badly timing the date on which individuals were informed. His stepson also approached the local armed forces careers office in Plymouth to inquire about entering the RAF as a regiment gunner or the Royal Navy to pursue a career as a Royal Marine. Both branches are recruiting new entrants, but he was told that he will not be able to apply to join either service for 18 months from the date on which he was informed of his redundancy. Mr Spencer feels that that rule is rather narrow-minded, and the armed forces careers office was unable to give him the reasons for it. He points out that his stepson is fully trained in weapons handling and first aid, has the other basic military skills that one would expect of him and presents a low training risk. More importantly, he loves life in the forces, and, although he accepts the reasons for his redundancy, he considers it ridiculous that he is not able to apply for other branches of the armed forces when they are actively recruiting. Perhaps the Minister, when he sums up, will provide me with some answers to those questions.