Examination of witness (Questions 1052
- 1059)
TUESDAY 6 MARCH 2001 Afternoon sitting
THE VENERABLE
JOHN BLACKBURN,
QHC
Chairman
1052. Good afternoon. Can I give a very warm
welcome indeed to the Chaplain-General. We are very pleased that
you have been able to come along and give evidence to the Committee
this afternoon. Indeed, I would say that serving on this Committee
has provided me with an invaluable education in the invaluable
role that chaplains play in our Armed Services. We certainly had
some very useful contact last week when we were visiting Kosovo
and Cyprus and it was a bit of an eye-opener in many ways to the
very many and very important roles that they can play. A very
warm welcome to you, Chaplain-General. Is there anything you would
like to say by way of opening comments or remarks?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) No, other
than to thank you for your welcome.
Chairman: Thank you. Can I open it up
to the Committee then and ask who would like to lead off. Mr Key?
Mr Key
1053. Thank you. Chaplain-General, five years
ago when this Committee was doing its work, and I was a Member
of that Bill Committee as well, we were quite distressed to discover
that there was any question that traditional confidentiality between
a priest and anybody else should possibly be interrupted by the
chain of command. That was in particular in connection with the
issue of homosexuality, which I think is behind us. Nevertheless,
it raised a very important issue and we recommended in our report
then that things should change and it should be quite clear for
padres to know exactly where they stood, not least because, of
course, the chain of command situation is different between the
padres in the different services because in the Army you have
a rank and in the Navy you do not. Did what we say make any difference?
Did anything happen to clarify the position of confidentiality
in the chain of command?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) It was clarified in
the sense that my predecessor wrote a letter in 1996 on 27 July,
and here I speak from the Army perspective, which was signed by
himself and the Deputy Chaplain-General and the principal Roman
Catholic chaplain pointing out that confidentiality was to be
an absolute and that all servicemen needed to be reassured, if
you like, that anything that was divulged to a chaplain would
not be passed on to the chain of command. I happen to think that
this was well understood before but it would appear that there
were one or two exceptions to this rule. It is well enshrined
now, it is in the Chaplain's Handbook, and that position that
Victor Dobbin, my predecessor, applied also has the full endorsement
of the Assembly of Churches.
1054. Thank you. A commanding officer said to
us in Kosovo only last week that the chaplaincy had been on the
spot in that terrible bombing of the bus carrying Serbs and that,
in fact, this was far beyond the apparent duties of Army chaplains,
but in the end everyone relied on them wholly and, as he put it,
they are always bottom of the pecking order until you discover
you really need them. I did get the impression, and I have had
the impression over some years, that you are always regarded as
bottom of the pecking order when it comes to supplies of very
basic things like transport, private rooms in which you can actually
give a great big hunk of a man who wants to have a good cry a
shoulder to cry on in private. It seems to me you are always going
to be bottom of the pecking order unless someone suggests you
ought to be otherwise. Do you feel that the Army, Navy and Air
Force chaplains are, in fact, adequately resourced for the work
that you do?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) The mounting instruction,
for example, for the operations in the Balkans makes it absolutely
clear that a chaplain requires a land rover and a driver so he
can get around and do his work. Clearly you cannot have a chaplain
driving around and then turning up feeling fresh and ready for
whatever tasks might be there for him. Equally, in the United
Kingdom we do need a private office, a telephone line which is
not a shared line, and other matters. Most of my chaplains, I
think, now have mobile phones, for example. At regimental and
battalion duty they do not have a dedicated clerk but the administrative
burden of the chaplain at that particular level of duty is not
that onerous. I think overall we are fairly well resourced, but
if you were to say to me do we get the brightest, the best kit
that comes off the line like tomorrow, I would have to say that
is probably not the case. Equally, I would want to say to you,
as I think any other Service Director would have to say, I never
get all the kit that I would really want.
Mr Keetch
1055. Chaplain-General, the most ultimate sacrifice
that any member of Her Majesty's armed forces can do, of course,
is to lay down their lives, and the CDS referred to Bombardier
Brad Timmin who was serving with 22 SAS when he was killed in
the Sierra Leone conflict, and I know as an MP for Hereford that
that regiment looks after its chaplaincy very well and has a very
high regard for its chaplaincy and for the family ethos, and sadly
last week another member of the regiment was buried who was killed
in a car crash. Can you just explain to us what you feel the role
of the chaplaincy is when a member of a regiment is killed in
relation to their families?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) When a member of HM
Forces is killed there is a Casualty Visiting Officer appointed
and it is the duty of the Casualty Visiting Officer to actually
go to the next of kin and explain what has happened. In a lot
of cases an Army chaplain will go along with the Casualty Visiting
Officer, both to be there for the family and to support that officer
in a task which is a particularly difficult one. Thereafter we,
along with the Casualty Visiting Officer, will take a lead in
arranging the funeral if that is the case, that is from the spiritual
point of view, and go back and support the family from time to
time afterwards. When that family leaves the service environment
we would then immediately liaise with the local cleric so he could
then pick up that support. Once a family has left the service
environment we cannot go on extending any care to that family
in the way we did when they were within the forces because we
simply do not have the resources to do so.
1056. You used the expression "next of
kin" and I am going to be very deliberate about what I say
on this. What I am about to say has already been in the national
press and in the public domain. In the case of the incident that
the Chief of Defence Staff referred to of the soldier killed in
Sierra Leone, he was not actually married but he did have a long-term
partner. The Defence Select Committee noted in the report they
issued that 12 per cent of the service people now live with their
partners as opposed to being married. Do you see that your chaplaincy
role extends to partners as well as simply to married spouses?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) I would expect all
my chaplains to deal very sensitively and carefully with anyone
who was in a serious relationship, if I can put it that way, with
the deceased. It is not my job to go in and be a judge in any
way about that relationship, but to recognise that there is a
need, and a need which we might have some particular skills in
helping them go through. That is the way I would expect my chaplains
to behave and it is certainly the way that I have behaved in the
past. If there is a need for spiritual support and help I would
try to be supportive.
1057. So, just to make it absolutely clear,
as Chaplain-General, as the chief religious chaplain within the
Army service, you do not distinguish between a couple, whether
that couple is married or whether that couple, as you have said,
has a long-term, loving relationships, you regard that couple
as the same?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) I do not think I am
saying that. I am saying I am recognising that there might be
a need for spiritual support. As a Christian priest, of course,
I would wish to uphold the formal state of matrimony. I know,
for example, that this Government and the opposition are both
seeking ways to strengthen matrimony. What I am saying is that
we have to deal with the situation as it presents itself to us
and if there is somebody in need of spiritual support I would
give it to them. It is the self-same way that Jesus spoke to a
woman at the well in Samaria who had been in four relationships
before.
Mr Keetch: I am grateful.
Chairman
1058. I know Mr Watts wants to come in.
(The Venerable John Blackburn) By the way, I am not
setting myself up as Jesus when I say that.
Chairman: I also know that Mr Randall
wants to come in but he has to leave imminently so, with Mr Watts'
permission, I will give Mr Randall the opportunity to come in
and then Mr Watts.
Mr Randall
1059. Chaplain-General, do you think there are
enough Service chaplains?
(The Venerable John Blackburn) There was a study undertaken
into the spiritual needs of the Army by Brigadier Ian McGill and
Brigadier Ian McGill took as a base line that every operational
unit should have a chaplain. That would enhance my establishment
by about 50 chaplains. That report was presented to the Army Board
who took note of it. I am now under remit to try to recruit more
chaplains. This is a very difficult area because, for example,
the average age of ordination is rising, so the broadest age band
of ordinations now in the Church of England is between the ages
of 40 and 50. The number that got ordained, shall we say, in the
30 to 40 bracket, perhaps it would be wider than that, was 240
last year. Given that I need to recruit 12 out of 15 just to stand
still every year, given that the Navy and the Air Force together
would need to recruit that number, you can see that this is a
pretty heavy recruiting mandate that I am under. Equally, if you
look at the Church of Scotland, for example, they ordained 19
men last year, the Roman Catholics about 39. Because of the age
barrier, that limits their military service and equally it limits
the time that I can take to develop these men. Given that I have
to go back to the sending churches, the 50 extra that I need are
going to be extremely difficult to get, so the Army have said
to me "take between five and ten years to do it". It
is going to be an uphill struggle. I have not got sufficient chaplains
in answer to your question. I think the likelihood of getting
sufficient in the short run is going to be extremely difficult.
The fact that chaplains and other professionally qualified officers
can now serve until they are 60 will be of some help, but clearly
what you can expect of a man of 58 and what you can expect of
a man or a woman of 28 is somewhat different.
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