Select Committee on Defence Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1300 - 1319)

WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER 2004

RT HON ADAM INGRAM MP, COLONEL DAVID ECCLES AND MR MARTIN FULLER

  Q1300  Mr Cran: Minister, you have made it very clear that you are opposed to public inquiries and so on. You have given all the reasons why that is so and, if I may say so, your reasons are logical, but they are also very matter-of-fact; they are really rather quite cold when you look at them. What I have discovered in this inquiry, and particularly meeting the families, is that these are people who simply cannot put this issue behind them. I think you and I and the Committee and everybody else will understand why that is so. They just cannot move on and they cannot rest at all. The impression I have been left with by most of the families I have talked to is that really they think that the MoD just does not care for them at all. If you ask any of them to give an assessment of the MoD I assure you it would not be high. What I would like to know out of all of this is, where is the place for these families if the decision is to refuse to have a public inquiry? Where are they in all this?

  Mr Ingram: I am trying not to be cold and insensitive; I am trying to say that in all of this we have to determine the way in which government structures operate and those who comment on them I think have to use a critical faculty. It is not, I would suggest, the job of politicians or, even more so, Ministers, to be populist. It is easy to be populist, to agree with the last person who puts pressure on you, simply to gain that headline. Good governance has to be more than that. It has to be a whole lot of factors in the balance. It does not mean to say that there is no sharing of the pain, that we cannot truly understand the pain because we are not in that family, but there is a comprehension and you always put yourself in the position, "If this was me what would I be saying?". You then have to separate out those aspects of the governance of all of this. That is what I am seeking to do. This is not the first time I have been through this. In Northern Ireland I established a whole structure to deal with the victims of 30 years of violence that had never been addressed before We commissioned the Bloomfield Report which set a whole range of processes forward and we then started to implement it. I had to deal with this in a previous job when it was in Northern Ireland, meeting people with grievances that had never surfaced, never been dealt with, and then having to work through how best to deal with all that, knowing that we could probably never satisfy them, never find the truth to the past because there are people in that community in Northern Ireland who will never tell the truth, and therefore you have to face up to that. If I am sounding insensitive and cold, it is not my personality. I am trying to say that I have got to use analytical faculty alongside the other side of the equation. I do not think you can score them in that way. It has been said to me, "Give a public inquiry and you will be a hero". That is not why I am in government. It is not to be a hero; it is to do the right thing and administer the department which I have responsibility for to the best of my ability. It is not chasing headlines.

  Q1301  Mr Cran: I entirely understand all of these reasons you give and I would be the last to say that you as a Minister were insensitive. I just have to say to you that in the course of this inquiry I have had my mind changed about this issue simply because the considerations for these families have got to be ratcheted up the decision-taking process somewhere. I just feel, and I repeat the point to you, that they cannot rest, they cannot put it behind them, and I do not think that they will allow you to put it behind you either. If you are not careful you will give the impression—I am not trying to make a cheap political point; it is simply that I have had my mind changed on this issue. You are just going to be seen, I fear, and it would be the same if it were my government, kicking and screaming towards further concessions.

  Mr Ingram: I do not know if that is a statement or a question. These are not concessions. These are an examination of all the information which is in front of me. I do not see them as concessions. I believe them to be an iterative process. If something new comes along they have to address that issue. The other bit of the equation which I ask you to consider as well, is that if there is a public inquiry, whatever it is into, whether it is wide or narrow, how long it is going to last? How much truth will it establish? How many untruths will it bring into the public domain which then do damage unfairly which will not be retracted? Meanwhile, we are trying to recruit, we are trying to maintain the high standards within Her Majesty's Armed Forces. Those are the judgements that have to be taken in this.

  Chairman: We have not reached any conclusions yet. We have three months to go before we produce our report.

  Q1302  Mike Gapes: I want to move to the other aspects of the inquiry that we have set up when we started this duty of care inquiry. One of the most important, obviously, is the recruitment process and we have taken evidence on that. Rear Admiral Goodall, the Director General of Training and Education, told us in an earlier session that one per cent of applicants to the Army are at Entry Level 2, which is a reading age of seven, and 24% at Entry Level 3, which is a reading age of 11. When I was at Hendon Police yesterday, Hendon Police have a reading age of 14, I think, in recruitment into the Metropolitan Police. I just wonder, as a result of the processes of recruitment, do you believe that the Armed Forces should be recruiting people with a reading age of 11 or less?

  Mr Ingram: We have got to look at the recruitment pool from which we draw. I would reverse that question and say, look at output, look at the large numbers of people who come in with that limited capability who are immediately put, not in the early days of their training but as they go through their career, into basic skills training. We are, I think, the largest provider of that type of training anywhere in the UK. We take people who have these deficiencies but they still can be bright. For a whole lot of reasons people do not attain those higher levels when they are young. We identify it, we seek to turn them round and the output shows that we do so to a remarkable extent. That is to the credit of the Armed Forces, and it is probably more predominant in the Army than it is elsewhere, again for the reasons that technicians and others go into the RAF and certain skills in the Navy. I have seen this at first hand. I have been round barracks where there are young men and women sitting writing letters to their teachers back in England, and in this case it was a visit to a barracks in Northern Ireland, and they were all doing this, things that should have happened to them at school. If we say we are not taking those people because they have not reached that level, knowing that we can turn them round—and they are good soldiers—and knowing the qualities that they bring, I do not think we would have an Army anywhere the size we have today. It would be better if they were better educated. We have to take from the population which is out there and then make the best of them and judge it on output, not on input.

  Q1303  Mike Gapes: You have said the three Services are different in their educational requirements, and we have had evidence to that effect, that the RAF would be higher and for the Royal Navy as well, and so predominantly the young people with the lower educational attainment are more concentrated in the Army. Could you give us any indication of what proportion of recruits enter front line units lacking basic educational competence?

  Mr Ingram: Not off the top of my head.

  Colonel Eccles: Could I say that within Phase 1 and Phase 2 training, we are only able to do a limited amount to improve the basic standards of our people because of pressures on them, constraints of time and compressed timetabling and so on. So while we do remedy some deficiencies and make good for some people, there are still an awful lot who start with low levels and who go on into the Field Army.

  Q1304  Mike Gapes: So it is quite possible that some 18- and 19-year-olds would still have a very low reading age but would actually be doing a job serving with our Forces wherever?

  Colonel Eccles: That is perfectly possible, yes.

  Q1305  Mike Gapes: You cannot give me any figures? How do you assess this?

  Colonel Eccles: No. The way in which we do it is that during the recruit selection process, as I think you may have seen on your visits, tests are given to people who are coming through the system. We try and make good deficiencies in Phase 1, for example in Catterick we have a two-week block at the end of their course for those who need additional training. In Phase 2, if there are gaps in the programme, we fill in, but those gaps depend on the nature of the construct of the programme. It is difficult to identify a figure. I would reiterate, there are a number who still go through the system and require additional help when they get to the Field Army.

  Q1306  Mike Gapes: Would you accept if you are carrying out the remedial educational work for these recruits, firstly, it takes time?

  Colonel Eccles: Indeed.

  Q1307  Mike Gapes: Secondly, for those young people it could be potentially quite a difficult period because their peers know they are getting this special help and therefore in a way they are singled out?

  Colonel Eccles: Of course, it could be difficult for those individuals but, equally, turning it round, there is a great sense of achievement when they make progress and they can demonstrate to their peers and families and so on what great strides they have made. There are two sides to it.

  Q1308  Mike Gapes: How do you protect people who are undergoing this remedial training or educational support from being bullied or ridiculed or picked on by other people?

  Colonel Eccles: I do not think there is any policy across the board but what we do is deal with each case as circumstances arise, and we are very sensitive to those sort of issues. We would treat each case classically on its merits.

  Q1309  Mike Gapes: Do you have any way of assessing whether this is happening?

  Colonel Eccles: I do know our skills tutors are very alert to these sorts of issues, they are very skilled people, and these are the kind of issues which are in every part of society and they are very attuned to them and would be very aware of it.

Mr Ingram: Can I say this is what the Adult Learning Inspectorate may be examining as well, because they are bringing that type of experience from elsewhere to look at this. If lessons are to be learned and new approaches have to be adopted coming out of what they say which can deal with that potential problem—it may not be a real problem—and how can that be best dealt with, they will be. I would suggest ridicule and so on could apply across a whole range of attribute failings, if he or she was not the fittest person in the class, they could be the slowest runner, the person who cannot swim; a whole lot of reasons. I come back to my earlier point, we cannot be perfect on this, and therefore we can never wholly eliminate bullying, harassment and victimisation. No organisation can. When you look at the statistics, what it does tell us is that our incidence level on this is lower than is happening outside in the rest of society. The figures are still ones that we have to address but outside in comparator areas they are sitting around 14% and we are 7 to 10% who would say they fall into that category. You then have to say, "What do they mean by bullying? Is it physical, is it mind-breaking or something people can work their way through?" These are complicated issues and I doubt anyone will give us the perfect model to eliminate it.

  Q1310  Mike Gapes: As we change and reduce the number of recruits targeted for the Army—and the figures I have indicate that the target for this current year is about 11,500, and last year it was over 13,500—do you think that will lead to a corresponding, if you like, increase in the average reading age of recruits? Will it reduce the numbers of those who are currently being, or have in the past been, recruited into the Armed Forces?

  Colonel Eccles: I do not think it is going to make a significant difference either way. Having introduced the new system on 1 April this year, where we screened and did not allow those with the very lowest entry level to come in, those with a reading age of a five year old, we have only debarred 130 people so far. We are playing around at the margins and I do not think it is going to make a huge difference to the overall composition of our cohorts.

  Q1311  Mike Gapes: So there will still be recruits with a reading age of seven coming into the Armed Forces?

  Colonel Eccles: I suspect there will be.

  Mr Ingram: Maybe you could get our old friend, Charles Clarke, to find out why we have this pool in the community.

  Mike Gapes: I agree, and in case anybody in the public misinterprets my line of questioning, I actually think the Army does a very important job in raising educational standards which should have been raised elsewhere in society, but nevertheless we are doing an inquiry on the duty of care and it is important we do pursue these questions.

  Q1312  Mr Viggers: The bulk of those with low educational attainments go into the Infantry and the Logistics Corps, not into the Signals and Engineers and so on. Is there a correlation between events at Deepcut and Catterick and the very different way the arms and services in the Army recruit? Are we specifically talking about an Infantry problem?

  Colonel Eccles: I do not believe so. Recruiting into the Army is done across the board, as you know, and people identify at an early stage in the recruiting process which arm of the Service they would like to go to. Part of that choice is governed of course by their innate abilities, and numeracy and literacy are part of those factors taken into consideration, so I do not think the way in which we recruit into the different arms of the Service makes a huge difference in that regard. Whether the problems we have historically experienced, and we have been talking about earlier today about Catterick and Deepcut, are a reflection of the skill levels of those people who are going through training is a point on which I do not think we are competent to comment.

  Chairman: I am not trying to undermine Mike's line of questioning, which is very valid, but I would like to point out at the age of 11 people can read very competently, it is not a sign of some mental deficiency. I was reading, as I am sure many people here were reading, some quite serious books at the age of 11, so while it is necessary to raise standards I would hate people out there to think there are some sub-normals operating in the Infantry. This is not what Mike was saying but I am merely saying when people hear about a reading age of 11, somehow they think it is childlike reading, and it is not; 11 is an age when people are able to read and comprehend and write very seriously. Having got that off my chest, Frank Roy?

  Q1313  Mr Roy: Can I say, as someone who as an 11-year-old never read a serious book, I was reading comics at age 11, speaking to some of the families, especially the Catterick families, they have highlighted to me that the people who, for example, are dyslexic or are slower on the up-take for reading are the very people who have that weakness, that chink, which will allow them to be the target for bullying. It is the same in schools, and I can tell you in Scottish schools those children who have that deficiency are the very children who are pinpointed for bullying. Would you not agree therefore, where we do have this problem, that the Army should pay special attention to these particular recruits?

  Colonel Eccles: Yes, they should, as they should for anybody who has a vulnerability or weakness in any area, and I think that is implicit in all that we do. Part of the function of the Chain of Command is to understand the people whom you are commanding or the people for whom you are responsible, and if you identify a person needs additional support or protection then of course you must do that, and that runs right through our culture. I entirely agree with you.

  Q1314  Mr Roy: On that additional support, could I draw you towards the very important parental support, or the lack of it which seems to be given or able to be received by young recruits? We have heard evidence from the parents of soldiers who died at Deepcut and Catterick that their involvement throughout their child's recruitment process was minimal, and the most they did was sign the consent form. We also heard from the Commanding Officers that they consider parental involvement is extremely helpful. Therefore where do you merge them? What do you think could be done to inform parents or guardians so they are involved more effectively in recruitment? Let me tell you, the families we have spoken to felt they absolutely were not connected to this process.

  Colonel Eccles: Can I say that we very much welcome the involvement of parents, guardians or whoever else right from the very beginning, and we have discovered through long experience that if a potential recruit comes along with somebody—a grandfather, an uncle, a parent, whoever—it is much better, it aids the process, and it is very much encouraged. When youngsters come in for the first time, if they are on their own, people often say, "The next time you come back . . .", because that person will come to the recruiting office on another occasion before they go off to the Recruit Selection Centre, ". . . please bring somebody with you."

  Q1315  Mr Roy: Are they told that though? Are your people obliged to lean towards the recruit and say, "I know you are an adult but really we do think it is imperative you bring someone along so there is this involvement"?

  Colonel Eccles: I was at the Commander Recruiting Group's Conference at Bovington a month ago and we had a presentation on precisely this and it was discussed and people were talking about their experiences, spreading best practice and how recruiting organisations were doing, and I could see everybody in the audience nodding their heads saying "Absolutely. If we get somebody along with an adult, a much older person, it is so much better. It speeds the process and it is much better". That of course makes sure we look after that person to the best of our ability.

  Q1316  Mr Roy: Is there some sort of best practice code that people in the recruitment office should be saying to people when they phone up and say, "I would like to come for an appointment, I am thinking of joining the Army"? Does somebody there say, "We will give you an appointment for a week on Tuesday, it would be helpful if you want to bring someone along"?

  Colonel Eccles: I do not believe it is written in the administrative instructions for those working in recruiting offices, but I do know from this Best Practice Forum we were running, it is very much encouraged. The whole time we are looking to develop and improve our procedures and tighten up the bolts and so on, and this is just the kind of thing we should be doing.

  Mr Ingram: I understand you using the Catterick families and others as the basis to understand things, but you have to look at the other side as well. I do not know if you have been to a passing-out parade and talked to the parents who are there and seen their incredible pride. They say, "Look what they have done, how they have turned this youngster round in such a remarkable way", and that is why we have to look at the output here, and not just look through the other end of the telescope. All those qualitative approaches have to be there and commonsense applies as well, and it seems to be commonsense if you encourage someone to come along with another person.

  Q1317  Mr Roy: Some people are guilty of not using commonsense.

  Mr Ingram: Some young people are guilty of not using commonsense and saying, "I am big enough to do it myself." We live in the real world and they are not dictated to, and when we recruit we have to live in that way and draw from the pool we are drawing from. We cannot dictate, we can only try our best to set best standards.

  Q1318  Chairman: Frank has made a valid point, it is as much for the parents as for the young soldiers. They are taken away from home—and I know some of them in one or two cases are very happy to be away from home and maybe they are going into the Army because they do not want to be at home—and what we got from our many visits is that the kids leave and the parents cannot see them for a long time. This is more than good public relations, and it will not cost a fortune, but writing a letter or allowing a little more contact, so that the transition, which would last only a couple of months, from living at home to going off to combat is made a little less unpleasant and alien for parents who are seeing their children disappearing. This is one of the things you could do. I know you are thinking about this and it would be very helpful if you could let us have some more information about that Conference in Bovington because you seem to be thinking much more strongly along those lines.

  Colonel Eccles: Indeed. We have been focusing on the recruiting element of it at the moment but once the young person enters Phase 1 training we do have a number of set procedures and these are laid down in the ATRA Handbook, which I hope you have seen, whereby the Commanding Officers can get in touch with parents at the beginning of the course and say that if they have any concerns or problems, this is the contact number they should phone. We try to establish contact at the beginning. A number of the establishments invite parents at the half way point and they all invite them at the end, so we try and maintain that linkage throughout.

  Q1319  Chairman: Send us any documentation because this is a really valid point and I think that would be helpful.

  Colonel Eccles: We will.


 
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