Examination of Witnesses (Questions 2120
- 2139)
WEDNESDAY 21 JANUARY 2004
LT GENERAL
ANTHONY PALMER
CBE, GROUP CAPTAIN
BARBARA COOPER
CBE, GROUP CAPTAIN
NIGEL BEET
AND COLONEL
ANDREW COWLING
OBE
Q2120 Mr Cran: But you do
know about it?
Lt General Palmer: I do but it
is the job of the Commanders in Chief, so my particular field
of concern would be the one I mentioned before which is to ensure
that whatever that commitment was that we were about to undertake
potentially, the Chiefs and Ministers knew from me personally
what the impact was going to be on the people. I can assure you
that I have done a lot of that because I am totally involved in
the debate about whether or not we should enter a new commitment
from the personnel perspective. Others will enter that debate
from the training perspective but it is inconceivable that we
would send a force we did not consider was trained or properly
constituted to undertake an operation. At the moment, from my
perspective as a soldier rather than as head of personnel, quite
clearly there are operations we can not do at the moment while
we are recuperating from Telic.
Q2121 Mr Cran: But, General,
you would surely accept, as any reasonable person would, that
training is not black and white. It is not a question of "not
trained" and "trained": quite often it will be
shades of grey in between. Surely you could not say to me or the
Committee that every member of the Armed Forces sent into operations
is 100% trained?
Lt General Palmer: I would certainly
say to you that no Commander would send an individual or a sub
unit into an operation unless he felt they were trained for that
operation. What you mean by "100% trained" is trained
for everything. He would certainly be trained sufficiently to
undertake the task that he or she was being asked to undertake.
Q2122 Mr Cran: So from the
desk you are sitting at you are telling me that you are not overly
concerned at the minute?
Lt General Palmer: No.
Q2123 Mr Cran: Let's take
a specific then. The information that the Committee has is that
training levels, I think it is called CP4 and 5, have been cancelled.
Is that the case or not, because you can see the implications
immediately.
Lt General Palmer: Yes, but with
respect you are talking to the wrong person. I am not the person—
Q2124 Mr Cran: Is there nobody
here who can talk about training?
Lt General Palmer: The responsibility
for collective training is with the Commanders in Chief. They
are responsible for delivering the forces trained and ready to
the PJHQ, who then are responsible for deploying them and then
the operation commences on the ground. That was no different in
Telic and it will be no different in the future, so that is where
the responsibility lies. All I can say, and I think I am a reasonable
person, is that if exercises have been cancelled and collective
training is not being done then it is inconceivable that those
troops missing out on those exercises and that collective training
would be committed to an operation that required them to have
that training.
Q2125 Mr Cran: I entirely
understand that the responsibility lies elsewhere for the training
but, dash it all, I would expect the Deputy Chief of the Defence
Staff (Personnel) to know a little bit about it too. I would expect
all of these people doing it operationally would be coming back
to you and saying, "Hey, General, this is what I am doing".
I presume they do?
Lt General Palmer: Of course they
do but I would say in my defence that personnel covers an enormous
area. In fact, you could say everything has an impact on people—of
course it does, and I completely understand that. I am responsible
for the people policy aspects in all their facets and, as I said,
although collective training is not my responsibility, I am senior
enough and take part in Chiefs of Staff discussions to know that
those people who are responsible for training would not dream
of committing troops without—
Q2126 Mr Cran: Well, you have
said that four times already and I entirely accept that. It is
just that we are trying to get below that to make an assessment
about the words you are using and what they mean, that is all.
So in answer to my specific question about CP levels 4 and 5,
how much training at those levels has been cancelled? Are you
in a position to tell me?
Lt General Palmer: I am not in
a position to tell you how many of those exercises have been cancelled.
All I can tell you is that I am concerned to make sure, as I have
said earlier, that the pace of life of personnel is reduced and
if that means the odd exercise has to be cancelled because otherwise
people have not got the breaks they require from operations and
they cannot take their leave and have some time with their families,
then I would be all in favour of that. If that has implications
for whether we can conduct an operation then so be it, but if
we do not get the recuperation aspects right, which may mean cancelling
the odd exercise, then we will not have Armed Forces to conduct
exercises because they would all leave, and I am sure you would
understand that.
Q2127 Mr Cran: Colonel Cowling,
you are at the sharp end of all this, as I understand it, because
you are Deputy Chief of Staff for 1 (UK) Armed Division so you
are at the users' end of all of this rather than in the General's
position of being a Director of Personnel. Can I ask you, therefore,
what your observations on training happen to be? As a practitioner
are you worried about the effect that overstretch might have on
training?
Colonel Cowling: All I can say
is that within 1 Division, which is made up of three brigades
of course that comply with the FRC, I have 1 Brigade in Basra
at the moment and they were fully trained while I was on Telic
1 in Germany to the requisite standard at the time and they have
now deployed. I have got 7 Brigade in its other tasks year, which
is focused very much on Bowmanisation and digitisation, and that
is its task for the coming year, and finally I have 4 Brigade
that will go on Op Telic 5 in due course. It will train in BATUS
to Collective Training Standard 3: it will not achieve 4 and 5
because it will have moved on from its FRC war-fighting training
to pre Telic training, and that is what it will focus on later
on in the year. To answer your question, therefore, if I compared
this year to last year—no change.
Q2128 Mr Cran: So again, if
I put the same question to you as I put to the General, and the
1(UK) Division was called upon to undertake another exercise in
nine months' time, the training aspect of what we are pursuing
at the moment would not be a concern to you as an operational—
Colonel Cowling: It would not,
with the exception of those forces that are inevitably already
committed to Telic that would not be available for it.
Mr Cran: That is reassuring, thank you.
Q2129 Mr Hancock: You said
you were a reasonable man, General—and as somebody who supports
Portsmouth I would say that is very hard for a Southampton man!—but
you also did say on four occasions that you felt that it would
be very unusual for an untrained soldier to be sent on an operation
like Telic. We were given evidence by an officer who said that
there were TA units where some of the TA soldiers who were sent
had not even completed one session of full TA camp training, so
how come they were there?
Lt General Palmer: We had a two
and a half hour session, as you remember, on reserves before Christmas
and we went into that point with the Director of Reserve Forces
and Cadets. Again, if you can give us the detail of which unit
this was we can go into the detail of what training it did or
did not receive, but my information is that the TA units were
well trained and that certainly the TA I have spoken to—and
I have spoken to a number—felt they were well trained, and
it was frequently commented on that the difference in standard
very quickly became hardly noticeable between the TA. All I am
saying is if you can give me chapter and verse of which unit this
was I will get back to you with exactly what the training programme
was that they went through. In fact, I did this in answer to a
question when we did talk about reserves investigating a complaint.
Q2130 Mr Hancock: So when
you were being asked about certain units that were being put together,
were you satisfied that all the information you were given as
head of personnel led you to believe that all of the troops deployed
had gone through whatever could have been expected of them in
the way of training what they would have to do when they were
in a combat situation?
Lt General Palmer: Yes.
Q2131 Mr Hancock: And you
were given evidence to support that, that a unit supplying 30
men or women were all properly trained up to the required level
so when they were put in harm's way they would be able to do the
task that was expected of them?
Lt General Palmer: Yes.
Q2132 Mr Havard: On the question
of levels 4 and 5 and 3 and so on, what concerns me is you can
say that this higher order of training, as I call it, 4 and 5,
if they are not going through that part of it, helps you in terms
of people having less separation and gives you more time to do
all the other training and so on, but what is important about
it is, as I understand it, that this is the very level at which
they are getting joint and combined training?
Lt General Palmer: Yes.
Q2133 Mr Havard: And more
and more on your pre Op Telic training that is the very element
they need if they are going to engage in expeditionary warfare
in coalition circumstances, so while it may be expedient at one
level in terms of the training regime and separation it saves,
you may be sacrificing a lot at other levels. You are struggling
with that lesson presumably, are you not, and that must be something
that is screamingly obvious coming out of the circumstances we
have just seen after Telic. What are you doing in order to balance
all that up?
Lt General Palmer: As I said,
I play a very major part in making sure Ministers and Chiefs know
about what level of commitment I believe is sustainable from a
personnel angle, and people understand that if we go on committing
our service people endlessly they will all get fed up and leave,
so there is no choice here really. You have to get the balance
right otherwise you will have a recruiting and, more importantly,
a retention problem.
Q2134 Mr Havard: And maybe
an operational problem?
Lt General Palmer: An operational
problem of course, yes, insofar as there are some things you might
not be able to do immediately because the training has been stopped
in order to allow people to recuperate, and therefore the decision
would have to be taken in terms of how long it would be before
that force was considered fit to take part in an operation having
completed its level 4 and 5 training. We can do level 4 and 5
training relatively quickly; it is a matter of making available
a training area in Canada and getting people together but, as
I say, that has to be a balanced decision.
Q2135 Mr Cran: General, lastly,
we go around the establishments too and we speak to the troops,
and there is a concern that comes up time and time again to us
that, because of the number and places of operations, they are
simply not getting access to the longer term training programmes
they need for promotion and all the rest of it. Now, do not ask
me for names because I am not going to give them to you; you must
just accept that this is something the Committee is told time
and time again. Are you concerned about that?
Lt General Palmer: I do accept
that because individuals want different things out of life but
out of the Armed Forces in particular, and some of the younger
ones want to be doing either operations or training all the time,
and they are part of units which have a balance between young
ones, slightly older ones, the NCOs, the senior NCOs, etc, and
they have different needs, requirements and expectations. It is
quite difficult to keep in balance those who want to see their
families because they have them and those who are single who have
no families or responsibilities and want to be roaring around
doing things all the time. It is a balance.
Q2136 Mr Cran: But that is
not the proposition I was putting to you. I accept what you say
but these are courses which the Armed Forces themselves would
like the soldiers to go on but the soldiers cannot go on them
because of the situation I have outlined to you—because
they have no time and are in operations or whatever. Now, that
has to be of concern to you, has it not?
Lt General Palmer: It is of concern—
Q2137 Mr Cran: So what are
you going to do about it?
Lt General Palmer: I can tell
you what we are doing about it: training courses lead to promotion
and promotion leads to more pay and clearly, when people cannot
go on their promotion courses, they are very fussed about it.
But when you are fighting a war you cannot have people going on
courses at the same time and there has to be a balance struck.
What we are doing, therefore, and part of the recuperation process
is dealing with this specific issue, is trying to recover the
ground that was lost for individuals when they were prevented
from going on courses because of the war. We cannot suddenly go
from a situation where lots of individuals lost their courses
to where they have all got them because of vacancies on the courses,
etc, but we are gradually getting there. Perhaps Colonel Cowling
could talk about this because I was in 1Div about four months
ago addressing this very concern with 1 Division, how were we
going to make sure people did not miss out, and what we did was
to say, "Right, you could get your promotion because you
got your pay, but it is then conditional on you completing successfully
the course you have been prevented from doing because you have
been on the operation".
Q2138 Mr Cran: At some time
in the future?
Lt General Palmer: Yes, so you
get promoted, get the pay, and then you do the course, and the
consequence, if you fail the course, is you have to come down,
but at least you will not have been disadvantaged. Now I am not
saying that in every case that has happened, but it was one of
the solutions we looked at to this problem.
Colonel Cowling: Sir, within the
Division the tempo is clearly a concern but we now have a lesser
number of troops on operations within the Division and we have
looked at all of our training activities and sought to reassure
ourselves that we are doing the right number of activities and
no more to meet those training standards. We have also given commanding
officers many freedoms to ensure that their soldiers get their
leave and they are indeed eating into a backlog of lost leave.
We anticipate there will be some unfortunate individuals who will
still have leave untaken at the end of the year, but we are addressing
that and there will be carryover as well. Commanding officers
are also putting in place imaginative programmes both for their
soldiers and their families to retain their interest and look
at those aspects to reinforce retention. When it comes to individual
courses that is another concern, but we have sought to free up
within the programme time for the commanding officers to send
individuals away. In the context of Telic, certainly on Telic
1 there were a lot of individuals who failed to go on their career
courses. We are now into Telic 3 moving on to 4 and 5 in due course:
the manpower pressures to keep those individuals in theatre are
not as they were and I would anticipate for my next brigade to
deploy, and indeed the one there, that commanding officers through
the Brigade Commander are releasing individuals to go on those
courses. Some are harder than others. For an individual to go
away on a driver training course, or a qualification it might
be three weeks. For some of the platoon sergeants' courses, for
example, at Brecon, where there is significant preparation for
very lengthy courses which are limited in numbers, it is much
harder to programme that all in. I personally would put the responsibility
of that at the commanding officers' feet, and I expect him to
manage that within those commitments.
Q2139 Mike Gapes: Can I ask
you some questions about equipment? It is quite clear that the
mass media, including the BBC, have given a great deal of concentration
on the issues of equipment shortages but it is not clear to me
that there is any difference in the situation today from what
it has been in the past. Would you agree that in the past people
wrote letters home to their families about shortages or maybe
twenty or thirty years later wrote about it in their memoirs,
but now they are writing anonymously—or perhaps not—to
tabloid newspapers, and therefore the stories are appearing in
the public domain immediately. Would you agree or not?
Lt General Palmer: Yes. I think
the situation has definitely changed. As you say, young people
today express their views much more openly than before and I do
not necessarily think that is a bad thing. In a lot of ways I
think it is a very good thing. Internet chatrooms, and journalists
who obviously to a certain extent feed on these stories, do make
life much more difficult. The danger for us is that, from particular
instances, people come to general conclusions.
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