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Mr. Key: What I found extraordinary was that the MOD said that it could not tell me why it had had to pay that money except "at disproportionate cost". I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We reviewed the matter on the Defence Committee. We said that it was important that there should be a review of compensation arrangements in the MOD. Indeed, the Government pledged themselves to that some two years ago. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, hopes that they come to a speedy conclusion on the matter because it is an important part of the human resources package for our armed forces.
Mr. George: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I recall one of my constituents, the best shot in the Territorial Army, being on an exercise to raid an Army camp to test
its security. To save the MOD some money, he and his colleagues drove in his vehicle. They got dressed, blacked up their faces and achieved their objectives. The soldiers who were on guard were so angry that they chased after them, rammed my constituent's car and destroyed it.
When my constituent wrote to his insurance company, it told him to go and jump in a lake because such a use was not within the terms of his insurance cover. When I wrote to the MOD saying, "Come on. Surely this is your responsibility," it declined. The result was that the best shot in the TA left the organisation. I suspect that, on occasion, the MOD guards public funding too well.
I am sorry that I am going on at greater length than I should. On the Gurkhas, I had no sense of guilt last week when I asked the Secretary of State for Defence ever so politely whether, in the light of the unfortunate death of two Gurkha soldiers, he would look again at the mode of payment and compensation. We all know the arguments, which are advanced loudly: "There is an agreement with India and Nepal; wages are low, but we boost them with incidentals; do not shout too loudly because, if the cost of Gurkhas rises too far, they will be dispensed with; the cost of living in Nepal is so low."
However, it simply does not look right. What the present and previous Governments have done is objectively right, but it simply does not look right. I am delighted that the Minister is reviewing the matter. Perhaps the families of those unfortunate Gurkhas will have the slight consolation--if there can be any consolation from such a disaster--that their deaths might have led to a review and an improved pension arrangement. The idea of £500 one year after death looks obscene.
On the Military Provost Guard Service, I have been interested in--indeed, obsessed by--policing and security in the MOD for a number of years. The Defence Committee asked for assurances that, when the previous Government's inquiry into the service ended, it would be consulted before any decision was taken. The commitment was made not by the present Minister, but his predecessor, who said that the Defence Committee would examine the experiment and produce a report before the implementation of any decision. I hope that the Government fulfil that commitment.
I was amused by the fact the soldiers' service will be limited to their travel-to-work areas. I recall the famous Army folk song, uttered in the era of Queen Anne, which perhaps would not apply today. It would probably go, "The Queen commands. We all obey. Over the hills as far as Wolverhampton." Anyone employed in the service in my area will, for 11 months of the year, be limited physically to Warley, Wolverhampton and the southern part of Walsall. It may not be quite the soldiering that one joined for, but the idea is right. Some people may not want to travel, or to indulge in the life and the nights out of bed that a normal soldier, sailor or air man is obliged to undertake. The scheme for the Military Provost Guard Service to relieve full-time soldiers has to be a step forward.
I enter a caveat. I am not a spokesman for the Defence Police Federation. It is the one police federation that does not need to pay people to speak on its behalf. One thing is certain--MOD policemen will be replaced. I am pleased by what the Minister has said--it will be reinforced in an inquiry that the Defence Committee is about to conduct.
There is a critical mass in the MOD police. The Government say that it is 2,500 to 3,000. I would say that it is nearer 3,000 than 2,500. When we replace MOD police with soldiers or private security, God help us if the numbers go down to such a point that the police force becomes almost impossible to operate.
The Defence Committee is committed to many inquiries involving personnel. We are visiting the Falkland Islands. We hope to receive an invitation to visit Kosovo. We go to Northern Ireland every year. We are engaged in the continuing inquiry into Gulf war syndrome. We are engaged in a study of defence medical services. We are monitoring TA restructuring. We are looking at science and the MOD and, in particular, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. It is a personnel issue. In the Defence Committee's view--I say it in advance of the Committee report--if DERA is privatised, it will be an unmitigated disaster.
I know someone who could not get in the Army because he had asthma. He wanted to work within the public ethos, so he joined DERA; there are many such cases. If that organisation is shunted off into some form of semi-privatised status, it might do untold damage to its morale.
I am not certain whether our American colleagues will be prepared to be as free in sharing information with a privatised company as they have been with an agency of the Ministry of Defence. I therefore hope that my very good friend the Minister for Defence Procurement--a man of great and independent thinking, and of formidable stature--is not being bounced by the Treasury on the issue, and that the Government will not go down that route.
Mr. Brazier:
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman--my Select Committee Chairman--for giving way on this point. Does he accept--and share my dismay--that one small indication that the decision on that critical, scientific issue may be going in the wrong direction is that the MOD's principal finance officer is chairman of the MOD sub-committee examining it?
Mr. George:
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has no intention of alleging any financial skulduggery or any impropriety--any more than I did by saying that, if the sale goes ahead and is a management buy-out, Barbados would be the appropriate place for the Committee to conduct its follow-up study of the sale. Management buy-outs, followed by a swift sell-off, usually result in a swift move to places nicer than those in which the Ministry of Defence currently operates.
The Defence Committee will continue to visit our armed forces, and to talk to their wives--and, consequently, to be brutalised.
I hope that our Committee will continue in its consensual manner. We, too, are suffering from great overstretch. The command authorities are pushing their forces intolerably. Similarly, last Session, the Committee had 100 meetings, which must be way beyond the number of sittings held by any other Select Committee. Nevertheless, we are doing our job in protecting the interests of this country and of our wonderful armed forces.
I am an unashamed admirer of Rudyard Kipling, the most politically incorrect of all authors. In a poem on Thomas Atkins, he said:
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater):
I certainly join in the final comments of the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), and pay tribute to the Committee's reports. I should add that I am sure that his confidence in the approach to the situation at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency is not based on any previous acquaintanceship with Lord Gilbert on the Committee.
I have listened to the traditional--but heartfelt--tributes paid to our forces by Front Benchers on both sides of the House. However, those tributes are meaningless unless the people to whom they are paid know that those who made them really have their welfare at heart and are prepared to back up those tributes. The most obvious bit of initial training that any young officer receives is that the welfare of his men is his first responsibility. I certainly sought to employ that philosophy when I was a Minister, and I hope that current Ministers realise that the welfare of our armed forces should be their top priority if they are to achieve effective defence for our country.
I had not intended to speak in this debate--which is part of our new structure for defence debates: one debate on defence personnel, and another on defence equipment--but the issue of armed forces personnel is the greatest single challenge facing Ministers and the Ministry of Defence. I therefore regret the absence from the debate of the Secretary of State. I should not necessarily have insisted that he speak in the debate, but his presence would have been a symbol that he appreciates the serious situation facing him.
The Secretary of State did not create the current situation, but Secretaries of State for Defence have to inherit and resolve other people's problems. I had the responsibility to ensure that our country was able to discharge honourably its undertakings, whatever those might be. Nevertheless, the challenge facing the current Secretary of State is much greater than any we have faced before. I am worried about the situation, which is why I intervened on the hon. Member for Walsall, South.
As the Select Committee said, we can deal with overstretch in one of only two ways: increase recruitment or reduce commitments. The Select Committee's report on the strategic defence review was published almost a year ago, in September 1998. What has happened since then? The Minister was quite frank about what has
happened: retention is poor; recruitment is difficult; and commitments have manifestly increased enormously. We now face an acutely worrying situation.
I tell the Minister for the Armed Forces that his speech gave me no reassurance. We know about the type of measures that he described, such as more home telephone cards. Such welfare measures are important--my God, they are--and were probably taken by us for the first time in the Gulf. However, they are only palliatives in trying to deal with the type of problems that we face. I worry acutely about whether the Government are seized of the seriousness of the problem.
I am not given much encouragement--I fear that the Select Committee will not have been either--by the Government's response on overstretch. The Select Committee devoted about 30 paragraphs of its report to the issue, but all it received from the Government in response was seven lines--in paragraph 97--stating:
The hon. Member for Walsall, South knows as much about defence as any hon. Member--although I am not sure whether 20 years on the Defence Committee is an achievement or a punishment--and has a fund of knowledge. I recognise the absolute validity of his comments on overstretch. In my time as Secretary of State for Defence, there were criticisms about overstretch. I went to the Ministry of Defence from the Northern Ireland Office. Northern Ireland was the cause of unaccompanied tours. Although we had plenty of forces in Germany, those tours were accompanied, as were tours in Hong Kong and Cyprus, for example, to which people were happy to go and to take their families.
"There'll surely come a day,
I hope that we will not need the intervention of the Almighty to ensure that our forces are properly paid, properly protected and properly armed. If that can be done, they will continue to serve our society, our alliance and the world community as effectively in future as, I am proud to say, they have done in the past and are doing now.
When they give you all your pay,
And treat you as a Christian ought to do,
But 'til that day comes round,
Heaven keep you safe and sound
and Thomas, Here's my great respect to you".
3.53 pm
"we do not believe that there is a single standard or correct method of calculating overstretch and associated family separation."
The Government went on to say that they wanted
"a greater degree of coherence across the Services . . . The feasibility of setting up appropriate mechanisms is being examined."
That was the totality of the Government's response to the issue of overstretch.
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