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Mr. Henderson: I have said what I shall examine and I will not say any more than that. Members could put many hypothetical situations to me. It would not be fair for me to try to answer them without notice before I have examined all the various implications of these issues. I am not discounting anything as being unimportant. I want thoroughly to consider these matters once I have received appropriate advice.
I want to move on because I know that many right hon. and hon. Members want to speak in the debate.
Education is also important for retention. It enhances skills and I believe that, in future, it will be more and more valued by our armed forces. Young soldiers recognise that, when they leave service life and join civilian life, they must have skills. In addition to their military skills, I know that they recognise the importance of skills such as computer literacy and information technology. I was extremely impressed when I visited Albemarle barracks in Northumberland recently. I saw soldiers, who were primarily involved in dealing with
Phoenix, sitting before computer terminals, clearly delighted to be learning computer techniques and improving their computer literacy skills. They believe that those skills are important for their time in the services and that they will hold them in good stead in the future. That is an excellent example.
The right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) talked about families, about which I want to say one or two things. One of the disincentives to retention is often a sense of separation from family life. I put a high priority on measures to bring families closer to their loved ones who serve. We have increased the allowance for free telephone calls for personnel deployed abroad to 10 minutes a week. We have also introduced flexibility to permit any of the allowance unused in one week to be carried forward to the next.
I believe that families and friends should be able to communicate easily with their loved ones in the armed forces and, earlier this week, I announced a new service to enable them to do so using the internet. Those in the forces will know what I mean by the Bluey, which has been modernised and speeded up. After I made my announcement on Monday, I can tell the House that the system has been heavily used this week, especially between families in this country and those whom they love who are serving in the Balkans.
I want to see an improvement in telephone services worldwide for our troops. Many right hon. and hon. Members who have visited troops on any location will know that in many instances telephone facilities are not as good as they should be. That is inadequate and I intend to do something about it. I am conducting a review of the provision. I believe that our troops should have access to all the best and latest technology. Improvements have been made in Macedonia and we are extending them to Kosovo.
Mr. Key:
I am grateful to the Minister for very generously giving way to me for the first time.
Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House why our service men and women in Bosnia have run out of telephone cards, which means that they cannot communicate with their loved ones in this country? It is good news that the length of time that they can call home is to be increased, but that will not work if there are not more telephones. The queues are getting longer, which means added frustration. What will the hon. Gentleman do about that?
Mr. Henderson:
This evening, we will dispatch telephone cards to Bosnia from wherever we need to get them. The hon. Gentleman has my assurance on that.
I move on to the welfare of families. It is not enough to keep in touch with families; their welfare must be considered as well. I know that commanding officers--I meet many of them every day of the week--place a high priority on their responsibilities to look after the welfare of our service families. They know, as the House should know, that a soldier who knows that his family is being well looked after is a focused soldier, and we want our soldiers to be focused.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex):
Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Henderson:
This is the last time that I shall give way.
Mr. Soames:
I am sorry to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful to him for giving way.
I urge the hon. Gentleman to examine carefully the disparities in the way in which family policy is run. For example, in my judgment, the Royal Navy has always looked after the families of its personnel more effectively than the Army has done. The Royal Air Force has an entirely different system. The standard throughout the Army varies very much from regiment to regiment and from corps to corps. Will the hon. Gentleman consider instigating a form of benchmark of best practice in each of the three services and examine how best we can bring all the services together, so that what he and everyone else want to do--to provide a first-class service for families--can be put in place?
Mr. Henderson:
Building on some of the radical reforms that were previously made in the office, I regularly meet the family associations from the different services. They have raised with me the point that has been made by the hon. Gentleman and benchmarked certain issues for me, indicating where they think improvements have been made and how they could be extended. I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says.
I chair a task force that deals with issues such as education and health. I am pleased to say that we have had a number of meetings at officials' level and a meeting at ministerial level. Considerable progress is being made in improving the facilities for service families in education and health and in other areas. In consultation with the families, they agree that we should deal with those issues first and then move on to others that are important for them.
For example, when a service family moves from one location to another, how do they ensure that their children have access to a school of their choice? The Department for Education and Employment has taken that on board and modified the regulations accordingly. If a service family moves from one location to another and they are in a waiting list for a hospital facility, how will they be treated?
Those are two of the initial issues with which we are dealing. There are many more that I deal with that I believe are of the highest priority.
Mr. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South):
I thank the Secretary of State for his words of welcome at Question Time last week, and I thank the Minister for the Armed Forces for his words of welcome today, although I would rather be known as the spokesman than the spokesperson.
Having joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16, serving for nine years at the height of the cold war, witnessing at first hand the withdrawal east of Suez, and then serving for 10 years in the Naval Reserve, I feel that life has come full circle as I find myself participating in this most important debate today.
The debate is about the men and women who serve in our armed forces. It addresses the central issue of their numbers, their welfare and their qualities. The Defence Committee's eighth report stated:
Following President Milosevic's withdrawal, British troops led the NATO spearhead into Kosovo. No one doubts the great dangers and difficulties that they face, but they face those dangers as the best trained and most professional soldiers in the world. The dangers facing our troops were underlined only last week when, as the Minister said, two British soldiers--Lieutenant Gareth Evans and Sergeant Balam Ram Rai--lost their lives helping to make safe unexploded munitions near a primary school in the village of Orlate. We join the Minister and pay tribute to them. Our thoughts are with their families.
There are many operational demands on our service men. Although Kosovo currently makes the news, no one should forget the contribution that our forces are making in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Gulf. Only last week, our Tornadoes struck three communications sites and two radar sites in southern Iraq, in response to aggressive Iraqi action.
"The quality of its people is perhaps the defining characteristic of the UK's armed forces."
In recent months, world events have shown yet again that our armed forces are of the finest quality. In Kosovo, the Gulf, Northern Ireland and all around the world, British soldiers, sailors and airmen serve the country with great bravery and professionalism. In Operation Allied Force, as part of the NATO alliance, our airmen carried out hundreds of hazardous missions against a well armed and capable foe.
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