Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
WEDNESDAY 19 JULY 2000
AIR MARSHAL
MALCOLM PLEDGER,
VICE ADMIRAL
PETER SPENCER,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL
T J GRANVILLE-CHAPMAN
AND AIR
MARSHAL SIR
JOHN DAY
100. Is there a plan to increase the number
of Gurkhas?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Apart from
that that I have just said, no.
101. Is there any reason why not?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) It comes down
to the whole matter of whether we are meeting our manning targets,
on which I presume you will want to address us in due course.
That is challenging without a doubt, but at the moment we see
ourselves being on track to meet the challenges being set.
102. By which date?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) April 2005.
103. So we shall have a shortfall until 2005?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Yes, we shall
indeed.
104. Would it be feasible to recruit or retain
more Gurkhas? It struck me as immensely stupid to get rid of so
many Gurkhas a few years ago. It seemed obvious, even then, that
we would have an undermanning problem. Have you no intention of
increasing the number?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Not beyond
the two squadrons to which I have just referred.
105. What about the Fijians or the Tongans?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Yes.
106. Is that all a plot to improve Army rugby?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I have no doubt
that that will help. We are recruiting a number of Fijians, certainly.
107. How many?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I shall have
to give you that figure.
108. Why are we recruiting Fijians and not Gurkhas?
They are slightly taller, but in terms of military performance,
for the past 200 years Gurkhas have been known to be of formidable
assistance to the British Army.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) One has to
look at the structure of the Army as a whole. The proportion of
the Army that is infantry and the proportion that is other parts
and so on is taken into account. If you recruit Fijians or people
from other parts of the Commonwealth, there is no indication that
they will necessarily go into the infantry. They can be used across
the Army. Gurkhas are very high grade and have done us very well,
but they are essentially infantrymen and therefore simply to do
it on the basis of Gurkhas alone would not be necessarily the
way of attending to the requirements of the Army as a whole. The
figures have just been passed to me. 316 Fijians were recruited
last year.
109. They are all going to become pilots or
naval captains?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Transfer is
an opportunity that is open to them, but that is most unlikely
in the Second Sea Lord's case. They will be used across the Army.
110. The Gurkhas could be used across the Army.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) That is not
the basis on which we take Gurkhas on. We take them as infantry
for which they are principally suited. We also do it in the realm
of sappers, signals and transport to consolidate the way in which
their particular infantry component of the Gurkhas works.
111. Could you send us a little more documentation
on the recruitment of Gurkhas and why they are considered to be
less useful additions than Fijians? I remain to be convinced,
apart from the Army rugby explanation.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I will give
you a note.
Mr Hancock
112. I was going to ask the Admiral about the
situation vis a vis the Navy. Your headquarters and my home are
in Portsmouth and we see a lot of sailors every week, but we do
not see too many Bangladeshis and yet we have a huge Bangladeshi
population in the greater Portsmouth area and we have a large
Afro-Caribbean population, with very, very few of them in the
Royal Navy. What are you doing about that?
(Vice Admiral Spencer) I can tell you what I personally
did. I invited them to attend a conference we had on equal opportunities
at HMS Dryad earlier this year and we got a good number of them
there. As was mentioned earlier, this is long term, confidence
building stuff. One of the things we have to start off with is
by not in front of them trying to say that there have not been
problems in the past. We had some very candid statements by one
or two people who pointed out that in the past some things happened
which clearly should not have. Equally, and very helpfully, some
black servicemen, particularly a black warrant officer from one
of the establishments, stood up and said that actually he had
a rather different and much more positive experience. I was seeking
to win their confidence that we were at least being candid in
confronting the fact that there had been difficulties, but not
painting a picture which was too pessimistic. The other thing
which I have been doing is engaging particularly with councillors
from the CRE, who I have found extremely helpful, particularly
the deputy chair, Bob Perkiss. I had a long discussion with him
and Sir Herman Ouseley and General Webb-Carter to see what lessons
the Household Division had learned which might transfer into the
Navy. Also, we had a dinner in Portsmouth which was attended by
the Bishop of Stepney and various people from within different
parts of the community, the editor of Asian Voice and one
of the others from the CRE, just to have a conversation about
how we make this confidence building work. It is clear to me that
one of the areas that we have not yet targeted as effectively
as we need to—and we are in the process of doing it—is
getting direct contact with the parents of young people. I can
illustrate that with quite an interesting piece of figure work.
We have a questionnaire on arrival of new recruits and one of
the questions is, "Did you get strong support from your family
and friends in the period before you joined?" About 30% of
young white recruits ticked the box saying yes; less than 5% of
young black or Asian recruits ticked that box. We have to be able
to win the trust of parents. It is not just the recruits; it is
parents in particular. We have fantastic opportunities for young
people that are open to them. We value the skills that they have
and they have to be able to trust us to look after them. There
is not harassment on a grand scale but there is, as in any part
of society, the isolated incident and we come down very hard on
it. That long term building of trust is going to be the fundamental
way of bringing this about. The people I feel the greatest sympathy
for are the young, black and Asian recruiters out there, who absolutely
work unbelievably long hours, going out into the community, and
after two years of quite an improvement in the Navy we flattened
off last year. That is an area which we are looking at very hard.
One of the things I refused to do was to revisit the targets because
that looked like the headquarters running scared and giving up
on them and they would have felt betrayed. If we fail next year,
the failure is going to be mine, not theirs. That is what leadership
is about. We will be out there, helping them through it. A lot
of senior people in all three services do get involved. This is
not just a thing which I do. It is a thing which the First Sea
Lord gets involved in and a lot of my fellow admirals. Going from
the sublime to the cor blimey, on Sunday, at the big Afro-Caribbean
festival[7]
in Leicester, I shall be leading the Navy team against the police
and either the Fire Brigade or the carnival organisers, just to
show that we all get out there in the community and mix it up.
It is those accidental contacts that you have with parents which
can often gel so well. The other major initiative we are taking
are things called personal development courses. Last year we took
something like 300 young people, largely black and Asian but if
a white child wants to come as well of course we take him, from
schools in the big cities, for a week and show them the Navy with
a young, black or Asian rating with them, so that they can actually
see for themselves what it is like. That number will double next
year. We get wonderful letters of appreciation from careers advisers
and head teachers to say what it has done for these youngsters'
self-esteem. Even if they are not going to join the Navy, they
have had sight of something which is worthwhile doing and they
can apply that either to a naval career or to some similar career
in the public sector.
Chairman: Thank you for not taunting
us with, "Well, your record is not so good either in the
House of Commons." It is not. We all have to learn. We have
all had failures and we will be watching progress very closely
because a number of us represent constituencies where there are
substantial ethnic minorities. There is a resource there that
is only beginning to be tapped. Even a cursory glance at the history
of the British Empire shows you the near total dependence that
the Armed Forces and the Army had upon the ethnic minorities.
That is a lesson that appears to have been largely forgotten.
Mr Cohen
113. I completely agree with you that we are
losing talent to the Armed Forces by not making this a success.
The campaign has not reached all the areas where the ethnic communities
live because it has not reached my constituency, Leyton, and the
surrounding areas. Are you being too dependent on the consultants
in this area? I know they do a good job in terms of their pilot
projects but they are, it seems to me, a bit slow in bringing
that out into the other areas where there could be good recruits.
The Vice Admiral talks about outreach services, which are very
good in the community, but again is it much too little? I have
not seen, for example, any poster campaigns, any hot-lines, any
call centres where people can discuss it. There is very little
in the way of days, weekends, weeks to sample what life is like
in the Armed Forces. Should there not be much more of that than
there is at present?
(Air Marshal Pledger) I am disappointed with what
you say. I think we are using every one of those channels. We
are not simply depending on consultants. Presumably, you are talking
about Focus as one of those activity areas. Every one of the opportunities
that we can identify and exploit we are pursuing with the utmost
vigour. I will give you another example of one that you did not
mention that I have to say is a focus for most young people today
and it is called the net. We are exploiting that to a great extent.
Each of the single service websites is hit many, many times. It
is one of the most used websites and we get a great deal of response
and interaction from that. I do not believe that we have identified
any of the kinds of opportunities that you have described that
we have not taken full advantage of.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I would echo
that and the net particularly so. It is now possible to have an
online conversation with a recruiter on the net and that is quite
recent. We have four recruiters permanently on the net from eight
o'clock in the morning to ten o'clock at night and that has proved
to be very successful. If people are finding it difficult for
all sorts of barrier reasons to get to us, that will work very
well but your points are usefully made. Thank you.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) We also, for example, are
targeting ethnic minority TV channels, which has been quite successful.
All things are relative but I honestly believe we are prepared
to listen to any new initiative. Any initiative that anybody has
thought of we are putting a lot of effort into. In the Royal Air
Force, 11.5% of my annual recruiting budget goes on ethnic minority
recruiting, so I am disappointed that the turn round in figures
has not yet occurred. Interestingly, officer intake was over four
per cent last year.
Mr Cann
114. What percentage of the people who come
for basic training get through? They have been sat in trainers,
watching the net rather than doing anything physical.
Chairman: In relation to ethnic minorities
or recruitment in general?
Mr Cann: Ethnic minorities, but recruitment
in general.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I do not have a figure
on that.
Chairman
115. Perhaps you can write to us.
(Vice Admiral Spencer) I can refer you to my earlier
figure: 29% failure rate on Raleigh. Your basic point is one which
we recognise. Because people have been more sedentary, we have
to build up their physical fitness very carefully, so that we
do not break them.
(Air Marshal Pledger) On the other hand, they do bring
different skills to bear.
Mr Cann
116. Does it differ across ethnic—?
(Vice Admiral Spencer) Physical fitness? No.
Dr Lewis
117. One of the minefields arising out of legislation
in connection with any form of discrimination, whether it is racial,
religious or gender, is that it can tend to lead to what I sometimes
call the compensation culture. I am sure you will all know that
there was great public concern at the scale of various financial
awards made to women who lost their careers when they became pregnant
and, to be honest, when the size of these awards was compared
with the size of awards made to servicemen or women who had been
physically injured, the gross disparity was almost obscene. Do
you agree with me that, as long as there is a possibility of gaining
huge financial rewards if one can prove to the satisfaction of
a tribunal that one has been discriminated against, there will
be a temptation for people belonging to any minority group who
are in fact feeling tired of service life to claim discrimination?
Would you also agree that therefore there is, in a sense, a duty
on the services not to do what the police have been doing in recent
times, which is to pay people off, not because they think they
have a good case but because they say it would not be a good use
of public money to fight the case?
(Air Marshal Pledger) I am not sure that the characteristic
you have described is peculiar to the Armed Services. You are
describing a society that perhaps is more focused on rights than
it used to be and more willing to use legislation to pursue those
rights. My answer to your question would have to be that we need
to create the conditions in our service whereby those opportunities
that you describe are not available. There are reasonable conditions
to apply in order that we get the benefit of each individual's
capability in delivering the outcome that we all strive to give.
I do not think it is appropriate to answer directly. We have to
create conditions whereby those kinds of opportunities do not
exist and that is what we are actively engaged in. So far as the
comparison with what I will call the physical injury, as you know,
we are currently engaged in a review of compensation and ministers
are considering the findings of that in conjunction with the pensions
review.
Chairman
118. When is this report coming out? We have
been waiting three years for it now.
(Air Marshal Pledger) It is being considered in conjunction
with the pensions review. We are hoping to put the pensions review
final findings to ministers in the very near future and we are
then hoping that there will be an announcement on the pensions
side later this summer.
119. How about the rest of it?
(Air Marshal Pledger) Until we have looked at the
two in conjunction, I cannot give you a definitive timescale.
The two are being looked at together.
Chairman: I hope you will get a move
on because we have been waiting a long time. We have taken a lot
of interest in the MOD's record of compensation which again is
not entirely a good example to the rest of public service. I hope
you will use your influence, Air Marshal, to get the report out
and circulated because we would like to see it. In fact, we were
going to make an inquiry ourselves and we were bought off with
the announcement of this inquiry so our frustration will be even
more apparent if it is not reported to by the end of the year.
7 Note by witness: the cricket match was not,
as expected, part of the festival which took place on 6 August
- but took place on 23 June in Leicester. Back
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