Examination of witnesses (Questions 500
- 519)
WEDNESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2000
MRS LIZZIE
IRON, MRS
MAXINE JAMES
and MRS DENISE
MOUNTAIN
500. How much does it impact that the welfare
officer is usually a sergeant or a former RSM?
(Mrs James) It is not in the Navy, in the Royal Marines
it is. One has to remember that with the Naval Service we are
talking about the Royal Marines as well, and they are a very different
set up altogether, and for all intents and purposes move much
more like the Army, experience a lot more of the lifestyle that
the Army families do.
(Mrs Iron) The Army is very much committed to maintaining
the role of welfare within the chain of command. There is a big
debate to be had there. That seems to be part of the problem.
In 1975 the Spencer Report recommended then that welfare was put
into the hands of independent professionals or discretely employed
by the Army, but a professional independent service. There are
very good reasons why the Army wants to keep welfare support within
the chain of command because there are cases where it impacts
on operational effectiveness. We accept that that is the prime
purpose of the Army. There are plenty of reasons why it is a good
idea. How it is managed and how it is managed in order to gain
the trust Maxine is talking about, so that families know that
a welfare case that does not have impact on operational effectiveness
is kept confidential, and the ones that are not kept confidential
are only disclosed for good reasons, that is the balance that
has to be achieved.
(Mrs Mountain) The RAF has stepped outside that by
putting its Welfare Service into the hands of SSAFA Forces Help.
It has created a bond of trust between people who want to take
the problems further than the Service.
Mr Hancock
501. Is that more difficult for the Navy?
(Mrs James) The Navy has gone beyond where the other
two Services have, they have a Welfare Service made up of civilian
professionals and military social workers. I can honestly say
that if that is what is being looked at by the other two Services
then our evidence is that there is no greater improvement in the
feeling that welfare problems exist. There is nothing to suggest
that if you go down the road of a welfare service which has a
mixture of civilian and military professionals, it is going to
be any different. You have to deal with the perception of trust
of the organisation in itself, not necessarily by saying just
because it has civilians attached to it it is going to be any
different. If those civilians are still monitored, controlled,
educated and trained by the same military establishment, that
trust is not going to exist.
502. If I can concentrate on the Royal Navy
and the Royal Marines, because I represent a lot of their families,
and I see them virtually every week, what is your contact with
the Navy and Family Service as an organisation?
(Mrs James) Very good. We can tap in pretty much anywhere
we need to. I have a good rapport and contact with the DNPFS,
who wears two hats, DNSC, our military one star, who also heads
up the Naval Personal and Family Service. I have contact with
the local area managers and officers as well. In the Navy it is
split into three base ports, the three main areas are Scotland,
Portsmouth and Plymouth. The Royal Marines, as you know, run their
own Welfare Service very differently. With Fleet First, they are
examining the validity of having a separate service for the Royal
Marines. I was asked to contribute to that survey or inquiry and
I still believe, from my experience, standing in a totally objective
position, the Royal Marines do need something that takes account
of their very unique existence outside of the normal run-of-the-mill
naval experience. I have good links with the Royal Marine welfare
service through the SO-1 that heads up Royal Marine welfare I
have good connections with and speak to her regularly. From a
families perspective, some families experience the Welfare Service
very, very positively and have absolute praise for it, both Royal
Marine side and Navy side. There are an equal number of families
that have negative experiences of both elements of it. I think
with the humility to look at the Service that they are delivering,
there are vast improvements that could be still made to both.
503. Do you think they have a problem with young
Service wives not being able to relate to some civilian staff,
because the civilian staff do not know enough about the problems
of young Service wives, particularly in the Navy, who does not
have husband support because they are not on the same base?
(Mrs James) It depends on how long that particular
social worker or worker has been in the system. I do not think
that is really fair to say of all the welfare workers, because
I think if they have a desire to work within that system, within
that organisation, they obviously have an interest in that environment.
Having worked for a few months they would grasp very quickly an
understanding of what a young wife would go through. If they could
not empathise with it they could certainly understand it.
504. Do you find their attitude to the young
woman who is not married, who has two children by a sailor who
is away at sea, is they are unable to help?
(Mrs James) Representing this organisation I do not
find it acceptable because of the nature of the way Naval Service
families live, in that they get LSAP, Long Service Advance Pay,
an interest free loan to buy a house a lot earlier than the other
two Services, they get it at 23 in the Navy. This encourages the
young serving people to establish their own homes a lot sooner.
It gives them, and I totally approve of it, the choice to do that
or not to do that. By consequence clearly a lot of them in today's
society sociologically, are going to take advantage of that and
have a partner relationship. I do not know exactly what the percentages
are. I suspect that a lot of Naval Service personnel have partners
that they live with and they are not married to. I have personal
knowledge of the consequences of partners not being recognised
by the Welfare Services and not being officially entitled to any
support can have a huge effect on that family.
505. What have you done to make representations?
We had the Second Sea Lord here, you said that you meet him and
the relationship has got better with the current Second Sea Lord.
I accept that he is very much personnel orientated. What are you
doing to try and influence that change? It is the biggest problem
that a young naval rating faces at the moment.
(Mrs James) Absolutely. My first port of call is usually
our One Star, who is Commodore Bryant, who is DNSC, he and I have
had long discussions about this very subject. I wanted to establish
very firmly the footing on which the Naval Service is going forward
on this, are they supportive of my view that partners should be
recognised and offered the same support that married personnel
get? I believe he is totally behind me on that. I keep getting
the message back to me that the Government has to decide what
a partner is before the Forces can actually recognise them. The
cost implications, clearly, are going to be another matter. The
practical and logistical implications of how far and to what extent
you recognise a partner need to be discussed. In principle I feel
it is the way forward as I experience and see evidence consistently,
day after day, of the consequences of my families not having that
recognition. Sometimes it is very severe, particularly on the
children. For instance, we had a Royal Marine that became a paraplegic
very recently and he was not able to marry his partner of five
years, with whom he had two children, and clearly for that partner
it was an extremely difficult time. I have to say that the Royal
Marines Welfare Service, being smaller and more self-contained,
rallied around and did support her, but officially they should
not have been doing that.
506. What about the Navy's attitude to these
families, about telling them what is happening to their husband
on a ship which is supposedly on his way home and then suddenly
diverted for another two months and they are not told, because
they are not included in the family loop, even though they have
two children and all of the same anxieties?
(Mrs James) Personally I feel that the Navy would
like to recognise them. I do not feel any resistance from the
Service, as a whole, that it does not want to recognise and provide
a service for those families. I do feel the resistance comes because
they do not have a clear directive to work to and clear guidelines
from the MoD as to how they can go about doing that. The Navy
cannot in isolation begin to recognise partners without the other
two Services coming on board with that. From my perspective the
Navy is very willing to go down that road, but it is not able
to do so.
507. Do you feed into the Second Sea Lord's
personnel liaison team?
(Mrs James) I was offered the possibility of accompanying
the PLT on their summer tour this year. I jumped at the chance
because any medium where I can get to speak to more serving people
and their families about how we do our business and that we exist
is great. I do not feel that it was as valuable as it could have
been because I was not able to talk to the serving people, I was
only able to give my presentation to the families. Unfortunately
families do not seem to want to attend the PLT's, whether that
is because they do not get enough notice, whether that is because
of the timing, I do not know. I know a lot of families who I have
consulted about why they have not attended and when I explained
that it is a very valuable way of getting their views right up
to the Second Sea Lord very effectively and very quickly the comments
I usually get back are they are very cynical as to whether they
will be listened to and if their views will obviously be acted
upon. They are also frightened of coming and being seen to be
overtly critical of the Service and that obviously affecting their
husband's career.
Mr Brazier
508. I am going to ask both Lizzie Iron and
Denise Mountain some parallel questions on the Army and Air Force.
Could I ask you first, Mrs Iron, do you feel you have a sufficiently
active contribution to the CGS's briefing team? Do you think that
the Army families are sufficiently aware of its activities? Do
you think that team has shown ordinary Army families they are
making some progress to help them?
(Mrs Iron) Yes, I think they have. We have a good
contribution to it, that is the first answer. We are very involved
with it. If we have a co-ordinator in the area they are visiting,
we do our best to make sure she attends. Yes, we certainly are
included in it. Do families have enough access to it? They certainly
have access. The publicity for it can sometimes be patchy, some
is very good, where there is a lot of support from Units, some
is poor. It is tacked on to the end of a busy day and maybe the
publicity is not good enough and people do not go. Whether it
is effective or not, again, that is one of the questions we ask
in this survey that is out at the moment as to whether people
know about it. It is extremely patchy. A lot of our problems are
to do with the inconsistency of provision. If we have a good Unit
who put the emphasis on family welfare then lots of good things
happen. If you have not then they do not. As far as the Briefing
Team is concerned it has now been going for a year and a bit and
families are wondering where the feedback is. The military is
aware of that and they are going to put feedback from it into
the Soldier magazine.
509. From an Air Force angle, do you think there
is something parallel going on in the Air Force at the moment
and what is your role in it if there is?
(Mrs Mountain) The Air Member for Personnel has a
liaison team which travels the country and overseas stations and
meets with Service people and their families to obtain their opinions
and exchange information. It is something that although it is
publicised the response varies enormously. I have been to meetings
as a wife where there have only been half a dozen of us, although
it has been advertised. I think that lack of interest reflects
people's feelings that it does not matter whether you go or not
because what are they going to do with the results. That is what
is coming back to me more and more. It does not matter what questions
you ask it is what you do with the answers that matters. People
want to see some results. I do have access to it. I met with the
members of the team within the last three weeks. They have just
finished one round of talks, they came to me and we had a couple
of hours together discussing issues, seeing whether the things
they were hearing were the same things I hear from our representatives
and vice versa. To a great extent they were, although there were
issues which I raised with them which were possibly an eye-opener
to them, and vice versa. I have access to AMP should I need to
(the Air Member for Personnel), we meet regularly and with members
of his team further down through the Service. I speak regularly
to them about issues that come over the desk. One way we are going
to try and improve the spousal access to this liaison team is
by including the Airwaves representative in the visit. Quite what
extent that will take yet, I do not know, whether the Airwaves
representative will be allowed to present to the Service personnel.
As you were saying, this is an issue that really needs looking
at, because if we can sell it to the Service personnel as well
as the family it is a great bonus, or whether it is simply that
the representative will go along to the spousal meeting, which
is a separate meeting, has yet to be decided.
Mr Hood
510. Can I come back to the question of unmarried
partners? I was quite bemused when you said in an earlier answer
that when you get married in the Navy they give you a package
of what is available to you. It reminds me of an AA package, if
you join up with the AA you get a membership package. I suspect
that it is that sort of outdated thinking that is the problem.
You said in an earlier comment that you thought it was the Government.
We criticise the Government quite a lot but I do not believe for
a minute it is the Government that is responsible, it is the old-fashioned
prejudices that are within the Navy Service itself. When I met
sailors in the Falklands it was the big issue they wanted to talk
to me about. There was a warrant officer in particular who had
lived with a partner and had a young son and the issue of pension
is involved, death in Service is involved. It is so outdated and
so old-fashioned, it is almost unbelievable that it is existing
today. You tell me that you are getting sympathetic hearing within
your Service, with the Second Sea Lord. You are meeting the politicians.
I am accepting no responsibility, it is not the Government that
is the problem, we need the solution now. We will make sure this
evidence session gets back to the MoD. This problem will be solved
within the MoD because it is still being caused within the MoD.
I firmly believe it is not the Government's case that this should
carry on. How strongly is it felt? Do the Force feel as strong
as I obviously do? Do you think it would be welcome?
(Mrs James) I can only speak for the Naval Service.
I speak time and time again on the telephone to serving people
and their families who contact us who consistently say, "Why
are they not doing this? Why are they not recognising me?"
We also have the scenario of the extended family from that first
family. A chap might divorce, he might not want to get remarried
but he has more children and a partner of ten or 12 years but
he has children from a previous marriage also. I think there are
lots of extended elements to the partner recognition issue that
need to be looked at.
511. We are only talking about wanting the same
rights as civilians. We might have to ask for a wee bit more.
(Mrs Mountain) The cost factor is a problem.
(Mrs James) I talk to the Service and my Service seems
to support what I am saying and certainly listens to the evidence
that I produce to support the argument for recognising partners.
I have not been told of any barriers internally that have come
up against it, other than the fact they want a clear direction
from the MoD as to how they can do it and to where those limitations
are. What is a partner? Can somebody define a partner? Is it somebody
that you have lived with for two weeks? Is it somebody you have
one child with, three children with? I know they were looking
at the Australian model where it runs like a point system, whereby
you get so many points if you have a joint bank account, if you
own a home together, if you have children. I am not sure whether
it goes on length of relationship or not and how you can prove
that. There are Navies and Services around the world that are
doing this. The barrier that I am getting fed back to me is when
it comes to MoD centre, it is getting them to make a decision
as to how they are going to define a partner and how they are
going to implement it.
(Mrs Iron) The Army view is similar. It is less extreme
in the Army because we are more mobile. The reason I think it
is so extreme in the Navy is because there is more of an established
home basing, so people will meet people and they will be able
to stay in one place. It is certainly relevant in the Army. Again,
one of the aims of the survey is to find out people's views. The
more I speak to people, the early results of this are that the
general view is, yes, partners should be recognised. There are
still those that are threatened by that, and feel threatened by
it, because, inevitably, if you recognise unmarried partnerships
you have to recognise homosexual partnerships. A group of half
a dozen ladies the other day said they had no problem with that
at all.
512. Have your members commented on any effects
they have noticed from the introduction of the Code of Social
Conduct?
(Mrs Iron) Nobody has commented on it to me. I think
it is the right way to deal with these issues, it is not to say
there is discrimination because you are homosexual or because
you are unmarried. There are rules of conduct which apply to every
member of the organisation and when they commit to the organisation
they accept those rules of conduct. It is to do with how you conduct
yourself within the work place.
Chairman
513. Jimmy Hood on the discrimination against
unmarried partners.
(Mrs Mountain) We are traditionally more like the
Army and we are more into settled, married relationships because
of the nature of our past. The RAF recognises that it needs to
look at the issue of extending the recognition of partners. However,
we have asked our representatives to go to the families and find
out what the families' viewpoint is, because nobody has done that
before. What do families think about extending it, because it
is their neighbourhoods that will be affected and their lifestyle?
The knock-on impact is what is holding everyone back. Recognition
will come but it has to come because of Human Rights legislation.
We have no right to impose our own moral standpoint on other people's
way of life. It will come, but how is it going to be catered for?
We are already getting rid of quarters, where are these people
going to live? What is going to happen to pensions? What is going
to happen to end-of-service benefits? What is going to happen
to health care? The impact is so enormous, that is what is frightening
everyone.
514. Mr Spellar is coming to talk to us soon.
The MoD's parliamentary clerk is making frenetic notes there.
(Mrs Mountain) That is one of points Mr Spellar raised
with us when we met with him in the summer, what do we feel about
the extension or the idea of family. We all feel that all families
contribute to the Services. Servicemen's families contribute enormously
to the effectiveness of the serving person, be they married or
not. You must recognise them. However, who is going to pay for
the extension of all of these benefits? That was my question to
him.
515. Was there any kind of precedent created
when the poor guy from the SAS was killed in the rescue in the
Sierra Leone? A pension was paid to his partner, was it not?
(Mrs Iron) As I understand it, it was not paid to
the partner, provision was made for the unborn child. The provision
was not directed at the partner, it was directed at the child.
516. Is that so?
(Mrs Iron) Yes.
(Mrs James) I do not think the fears of financial
implications, of worries about how we are going to logistically
do this, should be a reason not to do this.
(Mrs Mountain) Not at all.
(Mrs James) What you have to be careful of is when
you canvass for an opinion, I value Denise's comments about contacting
her families, but as an organisation they only have contact with,
generally speaking, married personnel. If married personnel have
the fear that their housing is going to suffer if they recognise
these partners, their benefits are going to suffer, their allowances
are going to suffer if they recognise partners, then clearly,
the married personnel within the Services are not going to want
to go down that road.
(Mrs Iron) My suggestion is that there are some of
those. My view at the moment is, as I gather information, they
are relatively a minority on the whole.
(Mrs James) I would like to see the other organisations
representing partners and the extended family as we do. That is
for them to decide, I have not had this discussion with them—I
am springing that one on them—The Service then would have
to take that on board.
Mr Brazier
517. It just seems to me there is an absolutely
fundamental distinction between the Navy and other two Services
here, because what the other two Services and particularly the
Army have, I put it to you, is a very large number, particularly
in the Army's case, of young unmarried men living in many cases
in totally third rate single accommodation. If you say to those
people that you can move from that into married quarters if you
acquire a girlfriend, the consequences are just breathtaking,
thinking of the estate in my own constituency.
(Mrs James) I have to disagree with you there because
if they had LSAP at the age that the Naval Service personnel have
it, they do not go off to get married, they opt to buy their own
property and become self-sufficient. Army personnel cannot get
LSAP until they are in their thirties. Naval personnel can get
it at 23, there is a huge impetus in whether they buy their own
property or not, or whether they marry or not.
518. Can I ask Mrs Iron for her view because
they are moving every couple of years in the army. What are your
views on that?
(Mrs Iron) It is related to accompanied service, and
as long as the Army wishes to support accompanied service, as
they currently do, then the implications are very different from
the Navy. One of the practical problems with the unmarried partnership
issue is, if you do not use marriage as your record of commitment,
how else do you do it? The Australian model is certainly worth
looking at. Because of the mobility and because of the housing
connected with that, you have to be sure that the relationships
you are recognising are committed. As you say, you cannot have
soldiers who simply want to get out of the barrack block finding
themselves a girlfriend for two weeks and apply for a quarter.
It has to be prepared in way that is going to prevent abuse.
Mr Brazier: One other point just for
the record, I have looked at the Australian model carefully and
a fundamental point about Australian law is that they have a system
of legal registered relationships. It is usually called de
facto marriage, and to get on to the scale at all you have
to be in one of those. We do not have an equivalent.
Chairman: One thing this short exchange
has done is to show up what appeared to be Mr Hood's and my almost
knee-jerk liberal reaction, for example, to the infinitely more
complicated rule, and we would be profoundly unwise to offer any
comment before we had gone into all of the arguments. Thank you
for letting us into that.
Dr Lewis
519. My questions are about the Service Families
Task Force, which is a high level group dealing primarily, as
I understand it, with health, education and welfare issues. Could
you tell us first how your organisations respectively work with
the Services Families Task Force and what, if any, direct input
you have into its work?
(Mrs Mountain) We identify the issues to be discussed.
They are discussed first with DCDS Personnel and then taken on
to ministerial level. We put forward our own issues. As we mentioned
earlier, there will be issues which are particular to the individual
Service, usually they can be taken out at an earlier level but
some issues, while they affect all Services, can be taken to the
higher level for input and we try to agree on major issues. We
feel that if we can speak together on a particular issue, it gives
us more power, so we try to do that as far as we can. But I think
we have a very direct input to that.
(Mrs James) The Service Families Task Force has evolved
as an entity since its conception. The initial remit of the Task
Force was to only deal with external issues. That remit has not
changed but it has certainly evolved into the fact that we now
are able to deal with internal issues which were not seen before.
We used to have to only go with issues that affected all three
of our Service families, which clearly is not too difficult at
the moment, but I suspect that as the Task Force continues its
work will become more and more difficult. Bringing into it the
internal issues does not take away from that but it adds a different
element, and consequently the one star service representatives
have joined us on the Families Forum to be able to give the minister
immediate feedback on those internal issues. I think that that
is a valuable addition. I do not know how the other two Families
Associations feel but I feel that is a valuable addition, not
a negative addition to it.
(Mrs Iron) I think the direct input is important.
We negotiate with our service contacts as well. I think we have
got to the stage where many of the easy issues were dealt with
quite quickly, because it was simply a case of educating other
departments to the specific problems of the Services, and where
a simple solution was available I think it has been put into place.
I am thinking of student grant support, the fact that families
who have been abroad for three years with the Services could not
apply for grants, that has been dealt with and is very welcome,
but we are getting to the stage where the issues we are dealing
with now are much more complex, and we have a slight concern that
some of them as stated by DCDS Pers as completed, we do not feel
are completed. We feel steps have been taken but there is considerable
monitoring that needs maintaining in order to make sure that those
steps have or have not been effective.
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