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Mr. Hain: My hon. Friend will welcome the increased number of life peerages, which enables the Labour contingent in the House of Lords at least to close the gap with the Conservatives, who are still the largest party there, which makes their presence in the upper House disproportionate to their support in the country. As for House of Lords reform, the Government are addressing the issue and we are determined to advance reforms on the composition of the House of Lords, its powers and procedures.
Mr. Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab): I am pleased that Members on both sides of the House have welcomed the fact that the European Union has increased in size with the arrival of 10 new member countries. They will be aware that this week the President of Poland is making a state visit to this country and I am sure that we all welcome the fact that Poland has come back to its European home. May we have a debate in the House as soon as possible on the economic implications of future enlargement of the European Union for both Britain and the EU as presently constituted?
Mr. Hain: I join my hon. Friend, on behalf I am sure of the whole House in welcoming the state visit by the President of Poland, which was an important ally of ours in the second world war and has long been a friend of Britain's. My hon. Friend is one of the Members who have promoted ties with Poland. We value its entry into the European Union and I believe that it will be a strong ally of Britain in the EU's future development.
As for any future plans for the EU enlargement, my hon. Friend knows that Bulgaria and Romania are closing a number of chapters necessary for the conclusion of negotiations on their accession and other candidate countries are lining up, including Turkey, which I personally would like to see in the EU at some point. No doubt there will be opportunities to debate later enlargement.
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David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): In light of a planned lobby of Parliament by employees of Her Majesty's Prison Service and the national probation service, who wish to express their concerns about the national offender management service, would the Leader of the House care to pay tribute to the professionalism and commitment of those two groups of people and ask the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House to supply the organisational detail that is missing but necessary, provide assurances about resource levels and explain the delphic term "contestability", which seems to threaten employees and voluntary sector providers alike?
Mr. Hain: The Home Secretary will want to pay attention to the points made by my hon. Friend, but I happily join him in paying tribute to the role played by prison officers and probation officers. As for the latter, I often feel that they are the butt of attacks and criticisms, rather like social workers, but in fact they do an important job, which we are happy to acknowledge.
BILL PRESENTED
Mr. Frank Field, supported by Mr. Jon Owen Jones, Mr. Derek Wyatt, Kevin Brennan, Mr. David Willetts, Mr. Nigel Waterson, Mr. Steve Webb, Annabelle Ewing, Sandra Osborne, The Rev. Martin Smyth, Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson and Adam Price, presented a Bill to make provision about the allocation of unclaimed assets secured by the Balance Charitable Foundation for Unclaimed Assets: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on 18 June, and to be printed. [Bill 104].
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Points of Order
1.14 pm
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will have heard the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and colleagues on both sides of the House about the possible deployment of additional troops to Iraq. You will also have heard the thoroughly casual and dismal reply by the Leader of the House to the serious point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire. It is plain that the newspapers, particularly The Times and The Sun, have already been briefed that additional troops are to go to Iraq, and we know that a reconnaissance force is already there to assess the state of play in the area. Given your own very strong views, often rightly pronounced in the House, that statements should be made in the House before they are released to the press, if a decision has been made in principle—we believe that it has been—to consider a deployment, the House of Commons urgently requires the Government to come and explain their policy, and give the House the opportunity to debate this serious question, which involves sending up to 4,000 troops into harm's way.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the matter was raised by the shadow Leader of the House. With regard to comments in the press, as he knows, sometimes they can be inaccurate, and therefore I do not wish to make any statement on that. However—and I hope that note is taken of this—if there is any significant increase in Army personnel going into an area of danger, I would want the House to know about it.
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall) (LD): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a great discourtesy to the armed forces and their families that no attempt has been made to clarify the accuracy of the reports in the papers today or to make sure that we now have a statement on the facts?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman knows my difficulties. I cannot be drawn into these arguments, and I think that I have made the point on behalf of the House.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I take you back to Question Time and draw your attention to Question 3, when a number of Opposition Members rose but you were unable to call them? I make no argument about that whatsoever. However, after Question 5, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths), a junior Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry, commented that no Opposition Member had risen to ask a question when, in fact, you had called four Government Members to ask a question. Could you inform Ministers that it is you who decides who is called in questions? Unfortunately, the Opposition do not have much say in whom you call.
Mr. Speaker:
I think that Ministers know that, but from time to time they take some liberties.
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Orders of the Day
Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Bill
As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.
[Relevant documents: First Report from the Defence Committee, Session 2003–04, HC 96, on Armed Forces Pensions and Compensation, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6109.]
New Clause 1
'The Secretary of State may by regulation enable the Armed Forces Pension Scheme to make contributions to personal pension plans owned by members of the Reserve Forces.'.—[Mr. Brazier.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
1.18 pm
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I declare an interest, Mr. Speaker, as I served for 13 years in the Territorial Army, as you yourself did. Indeed, as background to our debate on pensions, I might say that my grandfather served throughout both world wars as a reservist officer. His health was ruined as a result and, although he was decorated for gallantry, he never received a pension of any kind. The proposal in new clause 1 does not relate to the past, but aims to address an injustice that exists today.
In connection with the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), Operation Telic involved the largest deployment of reservists since the war, so this is a good time to focus on the issue. They constituted a huge proportion of the overall personnel, with 5,000 out of a nominal total of 45,000 reservists—only 35,000, however, were trained and available for service—being deployed. Even today, the Library tells me, we have 989 reservists in Iraq, 230 in Afghanistan and about 300 in the Balkans. Recently, the first military cross since 1945 was awarded to a territorial.
Nearly all those are people who have civilian jobs. They give of their time during peacetime and for many years serve at annual camps, weekends and evenings in the Territorial Army and its counterparts in the other two services. There is no pension provision for reservists, however many years they serve, except in one respect. Those who are called up for full-time service can have payments made into an employer's pension fund, if they have an employer. If they happen to be self-employed—a large and important category of reservists—there is no provision. The new clause seeks to address that, for two reasons.
First, the current arrangements are grossly discriminatory against self-employed people; why, I cannot imagine. I served in three different TA units and self-employed people played a vital role in all of them. As call-outs become more burdensome and onerous, and as employers become reluctant to allow employees to serve in the reserve forces, the proportion of self-employed people, if they can be found and are able and
6 May 2004 : Column 1510
willing, may have to rise. It is very unfair that such discrimination exists.
The second point relates to all reservists. No matter how long they serve, there is an absolute lack of provision for their general service outside full-time deployments. I was one of those who argued strongly and many times in the House for more use to be made of reservists, preferably in formed units. I welcome the fact that just before the last Conservative Government fell, we passed the Reserve Forces Act 1996 and started the process of making more use of reservists. I did not envisage at that stage that there would be huge cuts in the number of reservists and an enormous increase in the scale of work required of them. That is what happened.
When we consider pensions for those who are not on full-time service, it is important to recognise the sacrifices that they make. Overtime opportunities are greatly reduced if one is spending weekends away and spending training evenings as a reservist. Even in the old days, career opportunities were somewhat jeopardised by reserve service. I well remember conversations in which people said, "We really wanted so-and-so to take such-and-such a job, but he finally felt unable to do so because it would have meant giving up a promotion, as the job is so busy." Today, with the prospect of being called out in peacetime for periods of as long as six or even nine months, perhaps as often as once in every three or four years, the reduction in people's earning prospects, and consequently in their eventual pension prospects, is considerable. That is not reflected at all, outside the periods of full-time service.
I shall not detain the House with a long argument because that would not strengthen the case. However, it might be for the convenience of the House if I explained in a few sentences how the national guard scheme works. It is a good scheme and a cheap one. Bearing it in mind that reservists provide defence on the cheap, much of it funded by their employers—or their own business where they are self-employed—it is a scheme that the Government would do well to consider. Such a scheme is envisaged by new clause 1.
The scheme is governed by three simple rules. First, leaving aside the full-time deployments, there is no contribution for anyone who serves fewer than 20 years, so the scheme applies only to a small proportion, but it applies to those people who are the very backbone of every unit—the company commander, the company sergeant-major and the long-serving non-commissioned officer. In America, when such people have done 12 or 13 years and feel that they have had enough, they realise that in another six or seven years they will be eligible for a pension. The scheme affects a fairly small class of people, but a critical one for maintaining unit quality. Secondly, one does not receive a pension at the age where one's regular counterpart would. The pension starts at state retirement age, which, from memory, is 67 in America, so the provision is relatively cheap. Thirdly, it is entirely related to the amount of time spent serving.
At a time when the defence budget is stretched, I know that there is no huge willingness to consider spending extra money on anything, but when the burden is being disproportionately borne by members of the
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reserve forces, the very small sums that the scheme would cost would be good value for money and would represent justice.
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