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Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford): The Minister said that, in addition to enforcing peace and stability in former Yugoslavia, our forces there are being given the opportunity to train. Will he confirm that our Challenger 2 tanks deployed in that area have no training
ammunition at present? They have only war ammunition, which cannot be used in training as it contains depleted uranium. The forces are unable to undergo training--an extremely important matter for our armed services.
Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood my remarks. I was making a point about individual training and education programmes. We are providing facilities for our forces to undertake such programmes. I was not, in this instance, referring to the military training described by the hon. Gentleman. As the hon. Gentleman correctly points out, and as I mentioned earlier in my speech, operations can be detrimental to the broader training required by our people. We need to find a balance; that is why we have introduced the initiatives that I described earlier.
As I was saying, my right hon. Friend announced on 22 February that we had completed development of the armed forces overarching personnel strategy. That will provide a coherent framework within which we can develop policies that will allow us to recruit and retain the best and brightest that society has to offer.
That new approach, which is currently being introduced across the armed forces, will allow us to identify issues of concern to services personnel and to address them before they become major disincentives to service life.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): Previously, we were told that it was hoped to achieve the full manning target for the Army by 2004. The date has been revised and has now slipped to 31 March 2005. Will the Minister confirm that and comment on it?
Mr. Spellar: The date was 2005. We have been moving towards more positive figures for the Army. Although they are not yet satisfactory, fortunately they are rising. As I have been pointing out, we need to achieve the right balance between recruitment--last year, it was at its best for about 10 years--and translating initial recruitment into trained personnel. We have been refining our procedures for that, especially on fitness training, so that we lose fewer people during the build-up. We are not compromising on standards for the completion of training; we are doing more building up for several reasons--not least the reduction in sport in schools over several years. We are also incorporating the measures on retention that I outlined. That has resulted in a positive balance, although I acknowledge that the figure is not yet satisfactory. The trend is in the right direction, however.
Mr. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan): We all welcome the initiatives that the Government have introduced to help to deal with our inheritance from the Conservative Government--the huge shortfall in establishment in all the services. Is my hon. Friend a little concerned that, because of the Government's success on employment--800,000 new jobs during the past three years and employment rising every day--our job will be more difficult in future years?
Mr. Spellar: It is a great tribute to our training and recruitment teams that, in the face of a substantial increase in employment throughout most of the country, we have been able to achieve substantial recruitment figures. Traditionally, high employment has had an impact on retention, and it still does. That is why we need to try
harder to do away with many of the irritants in service life, for both service personnel and their families, to sustain retention in the face of attractive employment prospects, especially among those qualified to work in the telecommunications industry.We are looking ahead to the challenges of tomorrow, not only on the world stage, but in the lives of our people. The armed forces overarching personnel strategy epitomises our approach to joined-up government. For the first time, the armed forces collectively have a coherent, overarching strategy within which to develop their personnel policies.
Talking of the need to recruit, figures to date indicate that nearly 25,000 people have joined the armed forces in the past 12 months: that is 96 per cent. of our target for the year. More than 3,000 of those recruits are women. However, we acknowledge that we have a way to go before we have armed forces that are sufficiently representative of our society.
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead): The first year in which there were Government-set targets for the recruitment of members of ethnic minority communities has just ended, on 31 March. Does my hon. Friend have the figures for the year, and did the armed forces meet the target set for them?
Mr. Spellar: We fell slightly short of the targets, but were well ahead on the numbers of the previous year. The ethnic recruitment team is doing a tremendous job. I hope that, like many hon. Members, my hon. Friend has met the members of that team as they go around the country, putting across our message in a highly effective way to youngsters, many of whom have had no previous contact with the armed forces. As I often say, however much Ministers say about the opportunities available to youngsters from the ethnic communities, nothing is more effective than a member of that community in our uniform putting across our message. That is why recruitment is increasing among youngsters from ethnic communities and why many personnel from ethnic communities are moving up through promotion.
Mr. Brazier: Will the Minister for the Armed Forces bear it in mind that one of his own hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra), served in the Indian Army during the last war? It might be worth giving him some prominence, so as to reach back across the generations and influence grandmothers and grandfathers who still have a say in encouraging youngsters to join up.
Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of speaking to those who have influence in the community as part of our effort to persuade youngsters that the armed forces offer a good career. We want to send the message that many members of the ethnic communities who now live in this country have previously served in the armed forces. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments, and he will be pleased to learn that, at the reception for the Royal Navy held the other day, Commander Manchanda of the ethnic minorities recruitment team had a long conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra) about involving him in the team's work in west London.
We have some way to go before we reach the numbers required, but we are determined to continue our efforts to attract into the armed forces the brightest and the best, whatever their gender, ethnic origin or social background. I am pleased to say that we offer taster days for young women in the armed forces and the MOD civil service to show them the exciting opportunities that are available. Finally, to return to the theme of modernising our approach, the armed forces are dramatically increasing their use of the internet as a recruiting mechanism. I hope to report further to the House on our success in this regard.
I do not have time today to list all the measures that we are taking to improve the lives and careers of our forces. I know that in his closing speech this evening, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence will address some of the measures on which I have only touched, in particular improvements to service accommodation, which we recognise is a longstanding and legitimate grievance of both married and, as was rightly stressed earlier, single personnel.
The measures that I have mentioned demonstrate, as I am sure the House will agree, how much we--the Government and the House--value all our defence personnel, and show what we are doing to help them to continue to perform their job, which they do so magnificently for our people and our country.
2 pm
Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury): I start by thanking the Minister for the Armed Forces for a very good annual report. It was a lot better than this year's defence White Paper, and a lot more fun, too. We start on a good note--it was a good speech, if I may say so.
Since we last debated armed forces personnel, a great deal has happened, and much of it has been good. Inevitably in these debates, we concentrate on problems and challenges, though the Minister of course presented an up-beat report. It is important to remember that most of the time, most armed forces personnel and their dependants are doing a superb job, usually--in spite of everything--pursuing a challenging life style and enjoying a high quality of life. I agree with the Minister about that.
I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends hope to raise a number of issues. Between us, we will draw to the House's attention facts that Ministers will find less palatable, but which they cannot ignore.
It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) in his place. I look forward to his contribution from the perspective of Ulster.
I would be remiss not to point out that in spite of the new constitutional relationships with Scotland, there is not a single member of the Scottish National party present, even though this Parliament continues to have responsibility for defence in Scotland.
I remind Ministers that, this year, the Ministry of Defence faces a real-terms percentage budget cut since 1998-99 of 3.8 per cent. Furthermore, the 1999-2000 winter supplementary estimates noted that the MOD's departmental expenditure limit after the first six months of the year was running 4.3 per cent. ahead of forecast. If that continues unchecked for the entire financial year, it could result in an overspend of £950 million.
The Select Committee on Defence was told that the additional costs of Kosovo operations falling on last year's budget were likely to be almost £400 million. Even if that were met from the capital reserve, it would still leave a significant margin to be clawed back by the Department in order to avoid breaching its cash limit.
The strategic defence review settlement was based on achieving 3 per cent. a year cumulative efficiency improvements over the four years to 2001-02. That means £500 million worth of new efficiency measures every year. We are told that that has been achieved, but the Defence Committee concluded:
- We cannot be expected to believe the MOD's assurances that these measures are genuine efficiency savings, and not cuts, until it produces this evidence. A year-on-year programme of efficiency savings can have a debilitating effect at all levels of command and can be destructive to the quality of life that will sustain retention in the armed forces.
- if the wheels have not yet come off the SDR, they are certainly beginning to wobble alarmingly. . . Commitments and resources have to be brought back into line, or we risk finding ourselves stumbling from one crisis to the next.
That means an additional cost to the defence budget of £260 million, which must be met within existing departmental expenditure limits. Will armed forces personnel be better off in real terms, or will the increases once again be swallowed up by rising messing charges and rents?
Air Marshal Pledger, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel), told the Defence Committee that the attitude surveys of people leaving the armed forces showed that operational tempo was the main reason for people wishing to leave. The adjutant-general confirmed that overstretch and undermanning remain top of the list. There is a 5 per cent. shortage of personnel on Royal Navy ships, which are already lean manned. That must have an effect on education, individual and team training, and drills.
The Army has an agreed period of 24 months for tour intervals, yet no Army units achieve that. The Royal Engineers and the Royal Signals have tour intervals of seven months and six months respectively. In the Army, nights out of bed have accounted for as much as 31 per cent. of the time. That assessment did not cover the period of highest commitment last summer.
The position remains critical in the Royal Air Force, which is 95 fast-jet pilots under strength. Ministers have failed to explain how they plan to reverse that dangerous downward spiral.
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