House of Commons
Thursday 20 January 2005
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
Prayers
Mr Speaker in the Chair
Oral Answers to Questions
Education and Skills
The Secretary of State was asked—
Truancy (East Anglia)
This is the first Government to put school attendance at the heart of policies for improving standards and pupil achievement. Our measures provide both support for pupils and their parents, and sanctions to reinforce parental responsibility. In 2003–04 school attendance increased for the third consecutive year to a record high of 93 per cent. On average 40,000 more pupils are attending school every day than in 1996–97.
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her well deserved promotion and wish her well in her task ahead. Will she join me in thanking and paying tribute to all the head teachers in my constituency who have been working tirelessly to reduce truancy levels? They are doing their level best and working with Mrs. Val Creasy, the new education officer dealing with attendance. What progress are the Government making in reaching their targets? Does the right hon. Lady agree that today's school drop-out is all too often tomorrow's criminal?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words and pay tribute to him for the seriousness with which he approaches the subject. He is right to say that we must tackle absence. If we are to have an effect on the next generation, we must make sure that children get to school. We are the first Government to have invested directly in anti-truancy measures. The hon. Gentleman is also right to draw attention to the fact that there is a stubborn, persistent number of children who are serial truants. We have to tackle that. The proportion has remained about 0.7 per cent. since records began. It is clear that schools are cracking down, and the number of authorised absences has fallen dramatically. Again, I congratulate the teachers and the local authority in the hon. Gentleman's area, who are doing everything they can to make sure that children attend school and are ready to learn.
I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on her promotion. As she and I have something in common, in that we both have young children, I am sure that our commitment to raising educational standards for everybody is shared, and is total. On the subject of truancy in East Anglia and elsewhere, does she agree that one of the measures necessary to reduce truancy is to give children a disciplined environment where they feel safe? I am sure that parents in East Anglia and elsewhere will agree with what she said, as reported in one of this morning's newspapers:
"Head teachers must be able to exclude difficult pupils."
Why, then, earlier this week, did the Minister in her Department block an amendment in the other place that would have given head teachers the final say on exclusions?
I thank the hon. Gentleman, too, for his kind words. As a parent, I share his objectives of good discipline in the classroom and good teaching, and children learning in a good learning environment. Over the next few weeks and months I intend to draw attention to Conservative policies, which would wreak havoc on our plans for school discipline, on our measures to tackle truancy and open up university access for all children, and on our support for working parents in East Anglia and elsewhere. the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) is drawing attention to them, too.[Interruption.] My hon. Friend
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) is right to say that children are entitled to a good disciplined learning environment. I am surprised that he criticises Labour's measures to ensure that there are fair admissions procedures, which are supported by Kent and Surrey county councils, among others, and head teachers in those Conservative councils are saying the Government are doing exactly the right thing. Yes, we must back head teachers in making disciplinary decisions, and in the decisions that they take on exclusions. We must also ensure that parents take their responsibilities seriously and get their children into school, with respect for learning and ready to learn.
One gathers that the Secretary of State wants to back head teachers on expulsions, but does not want to give them the power to take the final decision. That is very disappointing, but exactly in line with her predecessors. With reference to truancy in East Anglia and elsewhere, does she agree that head teachers wanting to raise standards will give a wide welcome to her statement, again reported in one of this morning's papers:
"We want popular schools to expand more quickly"?
Why, then, under her Government, have only four schools in eight years been funded to expand?
Order. I have tried to give a little leeway, but that goes far beyond the question before us.
I, too, begin by welcoming the new Secretary of State and wishing her every success. It is no advantage to any hon. Member if a Secretary of State fails in such a key policy area. Now that she has launched the general election campaign on East Anglia schools, does she agree—judging by her comments at the North of England education conference, I hope she will—that one of the key groups for increasing student attendance and dealing with truancy is parents? Parents in East Anglia and elsewhere must be able to be involved in what happens in schools. Can the Secretary of State therefore explain why the number of parent governors in the new foundation-status schools will be reduced from one third of the governing body to one, and why academies will have no parent governors—
Order. I call Andrew Mackay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker—I am enjoying these questions already.
Bullying
We take all types of bullying seriously, and attach unprecedented importance to tackling it. In November 2004, the first ever national anti-bullying week was launched, featuring a variety of events including a Radio 1 campaign and a new public information film. From November this year, anti-bullying week will become an annual event. We have also launched the anti-bullying charter and a programme of regional conferences for head teachers and local education authority representatives.
As there is nothing more unacceptable in our schools than bullying and there should be zero tolerance of it, does the Secretary of State really think that having an anti-bullying week or an anti-bullying charter is sufficient? Do we not need to do much more? Does she agree that a high level of bullying is a clear sign of a poor and failing school?
Hon. Members may be surprised to hear that I agree with the right hon. Gentleman to a large extent. We must tackle bullying and create a culture in which every child is valued; indeed, we must have zero tolerance of bullying. There is a clear link between schools with a good record on bullying and attainment in those schools, as well as between LEAs with a good record on tackling bullying in schools and attainment in those LEAs. We have to create a new culture. I pay tribute to the work led by the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has personally taken charge of this programme. Pioneering work is taking place. Head teachers, and indeed pupils themselves, are telling the Department that they now realise that bullying must be tackled, and that they will stand up and fight it wherever it occurs.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her richly deserved new position, and I am pleased to see her in her place. My right hon. Friend takes a keen interest in the welfare of children during the school day. Is she concerned, as I am, that some schools' approach to bullying is inconsistent with that of others that are more successful? The kind of school day that children have affects their home life, and can lead to truancy if they are too miserable to continue to go to school. Is it not important that we take a consistent and sustained approach to ensure that all schools engage with the problem, particularly through peer mentoring and other approaches that gather all pupils into the fold?
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Children tell us all the time that this matters to them. Not only do they not want to be bullied themselves, they want to learn in an environment where there is no bullying, and no toleration of bullying. That is why we are trying to change the culture, and learning mentors and support in the classroom have an important role to play. As a Government, we have secured a broad consensus across groups, working with teachers organisations as well as the voluntary sector and the Anti-Bullying Alliance. Many schools are signing up to the anti-bullying charter, and I should like that to be widespread across the country.
But should not head teachers have the right to expel children who are bullying, without being second-guessed by another body?
Head teachers do that. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to Conservative proposals to get rid of independent appeal panels, may I remind him that only 149 out of 9,290 permanently excluded pupils were reinstated by that process? Everyone can see that the facts speak for themselves.
I join others in congratulating my right hon. Friend on her promotion. Is she aware that there have been problems with bullying, and wider disciplinary problems, in some Northampton schools, partly as a result of reorganisation? I agree that heads should be able to exclude pupils, but should there not be facilities outside schools so that children who are excluded can be picked up, receive a good education and return to mainstream schooling as quickly as possible, which is in their long-term interests?
I thank my hon. Friend for her kind words, and I entirely agree with her question. We are making real efforts to tackle bullying and I think that that is having an impact on schools, but of course there is much more to be done. For instance, teenagers should be able to engage in activities not just at school but outside. I shall return to that subject in due course. I recently looked at evidence from surveys in which parents were asked what they wanted, and top of the list were things for their teenage children to do. This Government are prepared to do something about that, whereas the Conservatives refuse to take it seriously. They would slash local education authority budgets, and they say that they would not protect any of the money that goes into such programmes.
I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her new post. Most schools take bullying very seriously, and their policies enable victims to report incidents on a confidential basis. They also provide staff and pupil mentors to counsel both victims and bullies, which is important. The most insidious form of bullying, however, is unseen and sometimes occurs outside school. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge the important role of parents in tackling this problem? Without that role, policies implemented in schools would be hampered. In the interests of ensuring that parents accept responsibility for their children's unacceptable behaviour and for trying to modify it, will the Secretary of State give teachers the freedom and flexibility to draw up enforceable home-school contracts and to have the final say on exclusions, by scrapping independent appeal panels?
We have come to the independent appeal panels at long last! I have quoted authoritative figures showing that head teachers have the power to exclude pupils. The hon. Lady is right, however: we must take every child seriously. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families has been promoting that agenda, and we have published proposals entitled "Every Child Matters". In future, the role of local authorities will be to ensure that the needs of every child are met, both academically and in terms of their overall welfare. I should like the hon. Lady to confirm, now or later, that the Conservative party would keep education welfare officers at local authority level—or would it scrap them?
Apprenticeships
The Learning and Skills Council collects data by broad area of learning. Of the apprenticeships started in 2002–03, 17 per cent. were in the engineering, manufacturing and technology area of learning. In 2003–04, the proportion was 18 per cent. Data for previous years are not available on a consistent basis.
I am delighted to welcome my right hon. Friend to her new position. Tomorrow in Stafford I shall host, with Perkins Diesel, a seminar on apprenticeships in manufacturing. Does my right hon. Friend agree that after the Tories in government devastated manufacturing and apprenticeships, Labour in government restored both to good health? Manufacturers attending tomorrow's seminar can be confident that British manufacturing has a bright future, and that they therefore can and should invest in apprenticeships.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to the work that he does with representatives of the manufacturing sector in his constituency, which I have had the pleasure of visiting twice. He is right to pay attention to the role that apprenticeships will play, particularly in the manufacturing sector. The Government have set up sector skills councils, which will take forward a programme to ensure that the vocational education, training and apprenticeships that we are delivering are relevant to the employment that young people will later enter. Overall, the number of young people participating in apprenticeships has risen from 75,000 in 1997 to 242,000 today.
The national employers' skills survey found that 2.4 million workers lacked the necessary skills to do their job. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to focus on providing more support for modern apprenticeships? What will she do to provide more training places for plumbers, electricians and other trades in Essex, where there is a dire shortage of such skills?
I agree that there are skills shortages, particularly in the manufacturing and engineering sectors. We need to raise skill levels so that we can compete on the basis of quality, not of price. We will not be able to do that unless more young people aim not only for level 2 but for level 3 and the specialised level 4 skills. I do not want to pre-empt any announcements that I shall make in the House in the weeks to come, but we intend to prioritise vocational skills and apprenticeships in response to the Tomlinson report on 14 to 19-year-olds' education, and we shall seek to take that even further in the forthcoming skills White Paper.
I join other hon. Members in welcoming my right hon. Friend to her post. It is certainly richly deserved. I acknowledge the progress that has been made on the recruitment of modern apprentices. Does she agree, however, that in trying to fill the skills gap that still exists in manufacturing industry, it is necessary to raise the level of interest in manufacturing industry among high-quality young students in schools at a much earlier stage? Will she undertake to support initiatives that are designed to do just that?
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We need not only to raise the interest of young people in manufacturing as a career, but to give them experience of what it is like to work in the sector, if they feel attracted to it. That is why, in our response to the Tomlinson report, I shall seek to achieve just that, by ensuring that we put the same emphasis on vocational education and workplace experience as we do on the academic side. It is really important to the future of our economy that young people are allowed to raise their aspirations, so that they think it is worth continuing to learn and raise their skill levels, and end up with skills that are recognised and valued by employers.
The Secretary of State will be aware from her previous jobs that manufacturing industry is one of the main sources of sustainable non-inflationary economic growth. There is a college in my constituency that works in conjunction with BAE Systems and is known to be a centre of excellence for aerospace studies. I fully support the question that the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) has just asked the Secretary of State. What further initiatives are the Government prepared to take to encourage young people to go into manufacturing and to undertake the apprenticeships that are so vital to the manufacturing sector?
My hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, who is sitting beside me, tells me that the facility in the hon. Gentleman's constituency is indeed a very good one. Perhaps I shall have the chance to visit it at some point. I know that the hon. Gentleman shows a consistent interest in manufacturing, and he is right to draw attention to its needs and to say that we need to encourage young people into the sector. The Government are setting up sector skills councils, which bring together employers to identify the appropriate skill needs and to think of ways of tailoring to their needs courses that will be appreciated by young people.
The sector skills agreement, reached by the sector skills council—which, unfortunately, I believe the hon. Gentleman's party is set to abolish—provides a means for employers not only to shape training, but to challenge each other to work together and put funding directly into training, which is relevant to industry's needs and also offers ways into employment and future career progression for young people.
Higher Education (West Cumbria)
The Higher Education Funding Council for England has been undertaking a review, in consultation with interested bodies, of higher education provision in Cumbria, including west Cumbria. Sir Howard Newby, chief executive of the funding council, met with local partners last week to discuss the outcome of that work and I expect that an announcement will be made soon on new plans for higher education in Cumbria, along with a timetable for implementation.
A big thank you to my hon. Friend for that very encouraging reply. West Cumbria is one place in the country that does not have easy access to a university. Progress is being made in that direction, but will my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State take a personal interest in ensuring that the dream of a university in west Cumbria, which has long been held by many people, becomes a reality?
I take great pleasure in assuring my hon. Friend that I will take a personal interest in that matter, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will, too. There is no doubt that universities are great economic drivers, and regions that do not have universities are the poorer without them. In view of the great manufacturing and extractive industrial history of my hon. Friend's constituency and the surrounding area, the potential for a university there should be tapped, and we must ensure that it is. That applies especially to parts of industry that are in decline, such as the nuclear industry. It could provide a great research base for a university in Cumbria.
Foreign Languages
School and college performance data collected by the Department show that in the 2003–04 academic year, 9.8 per cent. of 16 to 18-year-old A-level candidates took at least one modern foreign language.
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to encourage more students who are doing A-levels in science subjects to continue to study a modern language? We live in a globalising world, and in a typical career nowadays, a scientist or engineer is likely to work in several different countries. We need to find more flexibility in the sixth-form curriculum to allow scientists to continue to study languages.
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. When we look at the A-level figures, it is quite striking to see that there has been a slow decline in the number of young people taking A-levels in modern foreign languages. At the same time, however, the number going into higher education to study modern foreign languages has been broadly stable, and the number combining languages with other subjects in higher education is increasing. There are lessons to be learned from that positive experience of higher education, which we can apply to A-level study, as my hon. Friend suggests.
Is the Government's decision to remove a modern foreign language from the core subjects of the national curriculum likely to improve the situation? The Minister has already admitted that the situation is fairly dismal, with the number of students opting for foreign languages at A-level declining year on year.
I believe that we took the right decision, because languages are an option that many young people do not want to take at 14. If they have to, they may not only lose out themselves, but hold back other young people who are motivated to learn languages. The key to whether the hon. Gentleman is right lies much earlier in our schools system. That is why we are placing such great emphasis on primary school language teaching and learning.
Should we not be ashamed of the poverty of our foreign language teaching? I encourage the Minister to follow up what he said at the end of that answer. There is a great deal of evidence to show that the neurological development of children makes it much easier for them to learn foreign languages at infant and junior school level. That is buttressed by evidence from Welsh language schools, Scottish Gaelic schools and Gaeltacht in the Republic of Ireland, showing that people who learn foreign languages at a very early age prove more successful across the whole range of academia. We should therefore be teaching French, German and other languages in our infant and junior schools for children of all abilities. That is where we need to make progress.
My hon. Friend is right. In 2001 only one in five primary schools provided any foreign language teaching. I am delighted to inform hon. Members that the most recent survey suggests that that figure has doubled; indeed, it is now 44 per cent. That is not good enough, but it constitutes major progress by primary schools in the past three years. By 2010, we want every seven to 11-year-old to have the opportunity to learn at least one foreign language in classroom time, and we are working hard to achieve that.
We are a pretty lazy nation at learning languages. We think that everyone else should learn English and that we can simply sail along. When the Minister encourages young people to learn foreign languages so that they can go on to take A-levels and perhaps go into businesses afterwards, will he examine the teaching of Mandarin? China will be vital to the younger generations, and we need to train teachers now so that young people can learn Mandarin at an early age.
This is a very consensual discussion; the hon. Gentleman is right. We are doing specific work on Mandarin now. When the languages strategy was first published, we talked about enabling children to learn a European language. We have revised our definition for several reasons, including the persuasive case for Mandarin to be part of that strategy. We would like that to be extended across the board.
Since launching the languages strategy in 2002, we have trained more than 1,200 new primary language teachers and committed around £10 million to supporting early language learning initiatives. At secondary level, the key stage 3 strategy continues to have a positive impact on pupils' language attainment, while the alternative qualifications and vocational options at key stage 4 allow pupils more flexibility in their language studies.
Two weeks ago, I joined French, German and Japanese classes for a day at Hendon school, a specialist language college. The teaching quality was excellent and teaching methods were in a completely different league from when I was at school. The teachers engaged students of all abilities effectively. Does my hon. Friend agree that learning a language is not only for able and enthusiastic linguists but that it provides a key life skill to enable all students to become effective world citizens? It should not be limited, because it enriches horizons and aspirations and has a positive impact on all aspects of the curriculum.
I agree with my hon. Friend and I am delighted to join him in congratulating Hendon school on its success. We have 207 specialist language colleges, which are critical to providing the highest quality of language teaching and learning, not only in language schools but in others, including primary schools. I gave the figures for the increase in the number of language lessons in primary schools. Part of the explanation for that increase is that teachers from schools such as Hendon not only teach in their own schools but go out to neighbouring primaries and teach there.
We in Northern Ireland, on a small island, have realised for a long time that we must pay attention to foreign languages. Indeed, in many primary schools foreign languages are exciting for our children. We must get away from the stiff, academic approach. Does the Minister agree that the involvement of assistants from overseas plays a big part in making foreign languages real? Can we do more to encourage more schools to involve foreign language assistants?
Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right to talk about making language learning exciting. Part of the reason for our action on language teaching for 14-year-olds was because of the number of young people who were demotivated and switched off. We need to start teaching and learning earlier, but we must also use work force reform as an opportunity to bring others into the classroom, including the language assistants to whom the hon. Gentleman referred. I have seen some great examples of schools in this country being twinned with schools in Spain. There is a positive process for the development of the teachers' skills and for better learning opportunities for the children and young people.
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Montgomery high school in Blackpool? It is a language college, is actively engaged with primary and secondary schools across the whole town, and is also twinned with schools in other countries. With the council, it has embarked on an exciting initiative to send pupils to Bottrop, Blackpool's twin town, for a week's work experience. That means that students have to use their language skills in a work placement in a foreign country.
That is excellent. I am delighted to congratulate Montgomery high school in my hon. Friend's constituency, which offers a really good example of what I referred to when I spoke about the 207 specialist language colleges. We must encourage schools to have direct links with schools and communities in other parts of the world. That is why, late last year, we launched the "global gateway", which is a very good way of promoting more understanding and of breaking down barriers between people. It is also a way to encourage the excitement about language learning that a number of hon. Members have mentioned.
I speak some foreign languages, which I found immensely useful in my legal practice work in Brussels and in the European Parliament. Will the Minister reverse the Government's decision to end compulsory language teaching for 14 to 19-year-olds? It has had a dire effect on the number of people studying languages and, as a result, on the business community around the country. Is he concerned that the students who drop out of school foreign languages classes tend to be boys rather than girls?
I am concerned about the second point that the hon. Lady raises. We intend to address the problem, but there is no intention to reverse the proposal to which she referred. We want there to be more choice and flexibility in the phase of education for 14 to 19-year-olds. We do not want to return to greater compulsion being placed on schools and learners, and I do not think that the way to improve our country's very poor record on languages is to force young people aged 14, 15 or 16 to do them against their will. We must do it by tapping into the excitement evident at a younger age, which is why our strategy deliberately focuses on primary school language teaching and learning. That is where we are putting in resources, and our approach commands very wide support.
Planning and Co-ordination
There is a range of locally agreed mechanisms to support such collaboration. Local authorities are represented on local learning and skills councils. Many areas have 14 to 19 steering groups, normally jointly led by local education authorities and local LSCs, in particular to oversee the development and implementation of area inspection action plans. Local LSCs are required to consult all stakeholders, including LEAs, in strategic area reviews of post-16 provision. LEAs are required to consult LSCs in school organisation and capital planning.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment to the Front Bench, and thank him for that response. Two reviews are taking place in St. Helens at present, one of schools and the other of post-16 provision. What advice can he offer about how organisations can ensure that they work together and produce the best options for parents and young people?
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I can give a clear example of what he seeks. The increased flexibility of the programme for 14 to 16-year-olds is an excellent example of how local LSCs and LEAs work together constructively in local partnerships to improve learning opportunities for young people. The scheme is in its third year, with about 300 partnerships in existence. There are some partnerships in every LSC area, and they involve more than 90,000 young people from 2,000 schools.
I, too, welcome the Minister to his post. Will he look again at the changes being made to the Connexions service, especially in respect of careers advice in schools? Real problems are being caused in many of the schools in my constituency, and I suspect that the same is happening elsewhere. I understand the concentration on helping pupils of modest achievements, but all the students in a college like Frome community college need careers advice. However, the college has lost its specialist careers adviser, which means that it has lost an essential ingredient in ensuring that young people are directed towards the right training and higher education after the ages of 16 and 18, and towards the right future career paths.
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important matter. We are reviewing the situation, and will make an announcement shortly.
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on his promotion. He may be aware that Luton recently had a difficult 14 to 19 inspection, but that is countered by good news, because Barnfield college and Luton sixth form college in my constituency both received grade 1 in their inspection and are both now beacon status colleges. Also, two high schools have now left special measures and are making strong progress. Does my hon. Friend agree that the problems in 14 to 19 education derive mainly from problems in primary education 10 and more years ago, now that that cohort has reached the 14 to 19 stage? The Government's correct emphasis on primary education will feed through and lead to improvements in the future.
I congratulate the schools in question, which have obviously done a very good job. We have to get the basics right, and our literacy and numeracy strategies have been working well. Standards are at their highest ever. Starting with Sure Start, we are making sure that that goes right through schooling.
Tuition Fees
In the context of the fascinating discussion that we have heard this morning about the use and importance of modern languages, I apologise in advance for the hideously opaque language of the answer I am about to read out. Tuition fees are currently remitted for eligible trainees on postgraduate certificate in education courses. Other forms of support are also available. For the future, providers of initial teacher training will be able to charge variable fees to PGCE trainees, but we are working on the basis that when variable fees are introduced the first £1,200 of the £2,700 maintenance grant will be non-means-tested for PGCE students. That matches the current grant for PGCE students and if, in the light of the "Gateways to Professions" report, we decide to make changes to the support arrangements, they will be announced in due course.
I am grateful to the Minister for that slightly complex answer. At least we now know a little more about what will happen. Does he agree, however, that given that those on the graduate training programme do not have to pay for the costs of their training, there will be an anomaly with those who are on the PGCE course and charged variable fees, even if part is remitted?
I think that the graduate training programme has been an enormous success so far. The news today is that lots of quite senior professionals are going into teaching. They have decided to take up teaching as a career—and it is a great career. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will take every precaution to ensure that anomalies do not exist and that we see a good take-up of PGCE places, with a good supply of teachers in the future.
Does my hon. Friend accept that the other side of the tuition fee argument is the restoration by this Government of the student grant? He will have seen yesterday that my constituency sends the fewest youngsters to university of any in the United Kingdom. In a poor constituency such as mine, 60 per cent. of youngsters would qualify for a full grant and an additional 36 per cent. of youngsters for a partial grant. That is the best way to crack the problem of getting young people from deprived backgrounds into higher education.
Yes, and I know that my hon. Friend is passionate about working with all the bodies in his constituency and the wider region to try to increase applications to university. He knows, as I do, that the task is very complex, because it means addressing the most pernicious problem of poverty of aspirations in so many of our communities in areas such as the one that he represents. That is the great task before us, but I am convinced that all of the measures we have introduced will help.
This is bad news for our student teachers—fourth-year students who have already run up the costs of three years at university, and who will now see a significant increase in their debt. That means that fewer people will come forward to do those courses. Where will it stop? Will it be radiographers and doctors next? Do the Government plan to remove all the concessions on fees? When will the Government understand that it is our public services and recruitment to teaching and national health service jobs that will suffer from their ill-thought-out policies on fees? I say to all those student teachers who will suffer from this measure that the Conservatives in government will reverse them.
I know that we all have problems with language from time to time, but that was speaking with a forked tongue with a vengeance. That lot want to cut the number of teachers and cut public services, and they will do it. Let nobody be taken in by their weasel words of sympathy for teachers and those in education. The Conservatives will cut public services; they always do. They did it in the 1990s and they will do it if they are ever elected again.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on getting angry about that issue; it is vital that we bring more people into teaching. As the balance has changed and more people are coming into teaching through the PGCE route, will he assure me that he will keep an eye on the situation and undertake detailed research so that people are clear about what they are sacrificing by coming into teaching—the balance of funding in terms of the jobs given up as more and more mature students go into teaching and the costs of going into the profession? Will my hon. Friend assure me that he intends to undertake that detailed research?
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance, but I must tell him that I do not think that it is a sacrifice to take part in higher education and to invest in one's own future. Frankly, a lot of drivel is talked about that. When people take part in higher education they do so in the good knowledge that it will cost them something, but that it is the best investment they will ever make and that they will be given the best help they are ever likely to get in their lives. We shall keep a close eye on the situation, but we will also ensure that people are not put off either by scaremongering stories or by misconceptions about what entering higher education entails and that they know the good it can do for every individual in the country.
League Tables
Between key stage 2 and age 15, pupils in wholly selective local education authorities made more progress than pupils in partially selective or non-selective authorities. On average, that extra progress equates to pupils in wholly selective LEAs achieving approximately two grades higher in one GCSE than in non-selective LEAs. However, between key stage 3 and age 15, there was little difference between LEAs. Value-added measures currently take no account of the proportion of pupils in schools who are especially vulnerable, including children with special educational needs and children in care.
I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that selective areas perform better than comprehensive areas on the value-added measures. In fact, five of the top 10 LEAs use selection. Grammar schools perform much better than comprehensive schools and secondary high schools perform as well as comprehensive schools. Is not it true that for those of us who did not have the advantage of the expensive public school education of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and the Prime Minister, selective schools and selective education areas offer better results to children throughout the country? Is not it time that the Government dropped their mindless opposition to grammar schools and allowed them to expand in the same way as other good schools?
The real issue is that the education policies of the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are about supporting every child in fulfilling their potential, in stark contrast to the Conservatives when they were in government. Of course, we celebrate the achievements of all schools in this country, but I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not focus on the big story that is emerging from our education system: inner-city schools are performing at the levels we have wanted for decades, directly as a result of the Government's investment and reform programme. We shall accelerate that programme, for the development of foundation specialist schools and new city academies and to reform the curriculum and qualifications for 11 to 19-year-olds.
Let us be clear about the dividing line between the two parties on these issues. The Conservatives want to introduce selection at five and reintroduce selection—
Order. I call Dr. Iddon.
Is not it true that in a selective system certain values can never be added for the children who fail 11-plus education, because in local authorities that operate selective systems better resources are concentrated in the grammar schools? By that, I mean things such as better science facilities, better science and language laboratories and even better sports facilities. I speak from personal experience.
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The Government's vision is that parents in every community should have a choice of high-performing, diverse schools and that high standards and high expectations should to be applied to all students, not just a few. That shows the difference of vision between the Labour party and the Conservative party in respect of the education system and the best interests of young people and the knowledge economy.
School Meals
The Department for Education and Skills and the Food Standards Agency assessed secondary school lunch standards and reported their findings in July 2004. As a result, we have invested £1.1 million to tighten up current secondary school lunch standards to reduce sugar, salt and fat intakes; to evaluate primary school lunch standards; to improve training and support for school catering staff; to support head teachers and governors to purchase in a better way a healthy lunch service; and to set standards for other school food.
Does the Minister agree that, although the primary responsibility for children's nutrition should lie with parents, that principle should be followed in both primary and secondary education? Is she aware that many primary schools already provide fresh, home-cooked meals that are healthy and nutritious, often with ingredients such as locally sourced meat and fresh vegetables, thus aiding pupils' ability to concentrate and therefore to learn?
We can end this set of questions with total agreement. I agree with everything that the hon. Lady says about the role of parents and schools and about the importance of healthy food in stimulating and supporting children's good development in every sense.
Solicitor-General
The Solicitor-General was asked—
Animal Rights Extremism
Where animal rights extremists commit criminal offences, they will be prosecuted. They are mostly prosecuted for violence, threats of violence, offences under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, criminal damage and public order offences.
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, in a report published yesterday, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry listed 177 cases of damage to company, personal and private property and 100 threatening phone calls to companies engaged in animal research? Although we all accept that testing on animals should be carried out only when there is absolutely no alternative, does she agree that it is high time that those thugs and criminals were brought to book? They are terrorising hard-working, sincere people and threatening our science base.
I absolutely agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. We strongly support people's right to express their views, to demonstrate and to protest, but that does not extend to committing criminal offences against perfectly lawful and, indeed, important industries—the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries—and we will protect them in carrying out their lawful and important work against criminal acts.
The Solicitor-General knows that those who carry out such acts are extremely adept at working their way around the system, switching from primary to secondary targets often on the fringes of illegality and, sometimes, stepping well over the line. What steps are being taken to ensure a uniformity of approach by Crown prosecutors and, in particular, in the role of special prosecutors in dealing with such activities? I understood that the Government were going to place such things in the hands of special prosecutors, but the evidence that is coming back to us shows that there is still a great deal of patchiness across the country in the way in which those problems are being approached.
The Attorney-General has taken the chair of a national policy forum on animal rights extremist crime that brings together the police, the prosecutors and Departments such as the Department of Trade and Industry, the Treasury and the Home Office, precisely to ensure that we have a national strategy to deal with what the hon. Gentleman rightly suggests is highly well-organised, sophisticated crime. It is also important that the Crown Prosecution Service plays its part nationally and that all the areas are involved. Such work is under way, and I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the approach that we need to take.
Crime Prevention Partnerships
The Crown Prosecution Service works on crime prevention through its membership of the local criminal justice board in each area. In addition, depending on the local situation, it works with local councils, the voluntary sector and other criminal justice agencies on issues such as tackling antisocial behaviour, domestic violence and crime caused by drug abuse. Its officers attend community safety partnerships on an ad hoc basis.
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the local criminal justice board in North Yorkshire has started working systematically with crime reduction partnerships in the county, including of course the Safer York partnership, to ensure that the work of courts and prosecutors complements and supports the work of other agencies fighting crime? Does she think that encouragement should be given to Crown Prosecution Service officers in all parts of the country to do such work?
I agree with my hon. Friend that the Crown Prosecution Service needs to be encouraged to work closely with other criminal justice agencies, and beyond that to work with local authorities and engage with local communities. The CPS is of course a member of local criminal justice boards, but the specific pattern of work will depend on each area. The principle exists that it should work closely with others to prevent, as well as prosecute, crime.
Is the Solicitor-General aware that there is close co-operation between the criminal justice board and Crown Prosecution Service in North Yorkshire, which will be consolidated when they move into joint offices in Clifton Moor in the Vale of York? Will she also pay tribute to the work of not only neighbourhood watches, but farm watches to prevent rural crime in areas throughout North Yorkshire? What formal discussions are taking place between the CPS and farm watch schemes in North Yorkshire?
I am afraid that I do not know the answer to the question about the connection between farm watch schemes and the Crown Prosecution Service, but I undertake to find out and get back to the hon. Lady. There is obviously close liaison between the CPS and her local criminal justice board because the chief Crown prosecutor chairs that board.
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that one of the most important elements of bringing a successful prosecution is ensuring that there are witnesses who not only provide an initial statement, but stand in court. We sometimes lose many such witnesses because of intimidation in their local communities or simply because they find the whole justice system difficult. What is the Crown Prosecution Service doing to ensure that more witnesses stand in court?
My hon. Friend makes an important point. If people do not have confidence in the criminal justice system, they will not report crimes, give statements, or come to court. If that happens, a prosecution cannot occur, so the perpetrator gets away with the crime and is free to reoffend. A great deal of activity is going on throughout criminal justice agencies and especially in the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that witnesses are told what is going on and not passed from pillar to post without knowing their position. It should be ensured that witnesses who are intimidated are protected with special measures in addition to police protection, and things should be geared around witnesses, without whom there can be no justice.
Does the Solicitor-General agree that while partnerships need to be in place, justice must be seen to be done? Will she listen to representations that I may make to her about the length of a sentence given to an offender who was found guilty of raping a 12-year-old child? He received only six years for that offence, so will my right hon. and learned Friend join me and probably the local Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that that sentence fits the crime more suitably?
I shall ask my office to liaise with that of my hon. Friend to get the details of the sentence. As he will be aware, if a sentence is unduly lenient, I can refer it to the Court of Appeal to ask for it to be reviewed, so long as that happens within 28 days. It is possible for me to examine the sentence and take action to reinforce the public's confidence that sentencing levels are appropriate.
Crown Prosecution Service
The CPS has specialist prosecutors in a number of areas, including child abuse, rape, antisocial behaviour, domestic violence and recovering the proceeds of crime. It is also building on specialist activities, such as its work on animal rights extremists—I apologise because I failed to answer the earlier question from the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). A specialist cadre of prosecutors to work with the new Serious Organised Crime Agency is being established.
What plans does my right hon. Friend have to increase the number of specialist prosecutors for antisocial behaviour? In south Wales, we have experienced the benefits of having a successful specialist prosecutor for domestic violence. I welcome the fact that we now have a special prosecutor for antisocial behaviour, particularly in view of the large amount of antisocial behaviour that has recently been occurring in my constituency.
Because of the number of representations that I have received from hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am aware that antisocial behaviour and the need to respond to it are problems in almost every constituency. My hon. Friend knows that her city, Cardiff, has a specific antisocial behaviour prosecutor who specialises in such work, and the number of specialist prosecutors will no doubt be expanded as their work develops. I thank her for her comments on the specialist domestic violence prosecutor in her area, who does a marvellous job, and I want to place on record my thanks to the specialist prosecutors for their work.
The CPS areas have no specialist fraud prosecutors, and the de minimis level at which the Serious Fraud Office investigates and a possible prosecution occurs is very high. White collar crime is not getting the attention that it deserves from the CPS. Will the Solicitor-General ensure that specialist fraud prosecutors are included in each CPS area?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that fraud is an area of criminality that must be taken seriously. Fairness should exist across the criminal justice system, and one should not be less likely to be prosecuted because one has committed a white collar crime. The Serious Fraud Office has specialist prosecutors who deal with fraud, and the headquarters of the CPS also has specialist fraud prosecutors. Specialist fraud prosecutors are not used in every area, and I recognise the concern that greater co-ordination should occur between police and prosecutors in that area, which is often difficult and technical. The Attorney-General and I refer unduly lenient fraud sentences to the Court of Appeal, because we want the public to be sure that people do not get off lightly just because they are city business men.
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for next week?
The business for next week will be as follows:
Monday 24 January—Remaining stages of the Gambling Bill.
Tuesday 25 January—Opposition Day [3rd Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on implementation of the Licensing Act 2003, followed by a debate entitled "Renegotiation of the Food Supplements Directive". Both arise on an Opposition motion.
Wednesday 26 January—A debate on sitting hours and other House motions, followed by remaining stages of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Bill.
Thursday 27 January—Remaining stages of the Railways Bill.
Friday 28 January—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the following week will be:
Monday 31 January—Consideration in Committee of the Constitutional Reform Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 1 February—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the Constitutional Reform Bill [Lords].
Wednesday 2 February—Motion on the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2005–06, followed by motions on the local government finance report.
Thursday 3 February—Remaining stages of the Child Benefit Bill.
Friday 4 February—Private Members Bills.
It may be helpful if I inform the House that, because of the holocaust memorial day events taking place on 27 January, the sitting of the Westminster Hall Chamber on that afternoon will be held in Committee Room 14. The sitting will be between 2.30 pm and 5.30 pm, with time added as usual for Divisions in the House.
It may be of further help if I notify the House that the explanatory memorandum to accompany the debate on sitting hours is now available in the Vote Office. It explains the principles behind the amendments to Standing Orders, which are complex.
I thank the Leader of the House for the business and I certainly welcome the explanatory memorandum, because anyone who has seen the Order Paper will realise how complex those motions are. I also thank him for agreeing to my request that the whole of the Committee stage of the Constitutional Reform Bill be taken on the Floor of the House, in line with convention.
Can the Leader of the House report any progress concerning my request for a foreign affairs debate, so that we can discuss Africa and the middle east, or on my request for the timetable for the Bill on the European constitution? When will it be published? When does he expect to be able to give us the date for the Budget?
Following my question last week about 24-hour drinking, the Leader of the House seemed to support staggered closing times.
Staggered?
Staggered or staggering. Since then, a well-meaning citizen has pointed out to me that page 73 of the Government's guidance to local authorities states:
"licensing authorities should . . . not seek to engineer staggered closing times".
The guidance goes on to suggest that
"all the public houses in a single street could open until 3 am".
May we have a statement on this issue before next week's debate? Do Ministers understand that local residents who are already being troubled at 11 pm do not want such problems at 3 am? Is it not time for the Government to launch a serious attack on binge drinking, instead of what we have at the moment, which is a lot of Government binge talking?
May we have a statement on the figures due to be released by the Office for National Statistics, which show a massive increase in state jobs? Does that not show that the Chancellor is making empty promises about cutting back while in fact indulging in binge hiring?
It is more then a year since the European Scrutiny Committee asked the Leader of the House to change the relevant Standing Orders to enable it to deliberate in public. Will he now table such a motion for next Wednesday, when we will deal with House business and, if not, will he explain why he is dragging his heels over this sensible proposal?
Finally, may we have a statement on the timetable for the former Home Secretary leaving his grace and favour residence, which is provided at the taxpayer's expense? It is said that there are security procedures to be completed but, given the cost of those facilities, are not the public entitled to know how long this process will take?
On the last point, it has been said that the former Home Secretary will stay for a while in the Home Secretary's official residence, which has been allocated on the basis of security requirements. The Prime Minister has made that decision and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman were, like me, in the Cabinet, he would understand the reasons for it. I deprecate the harassment campaign against the former Home Secretary, and frankly, the hon. Gentleman should come up with better questions.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for thanking me for providing the explanatory memorandum. As he knows, the motions have been produced in this form because we have to amend the Standing Orders to make permanent the decision of the House next Wednesday. The principles are simple. Provision is made for maintaining the existing hours but for starting an hour earlier on Thursday, so that we can take Government legislation and Opposition debates then and have a full working day. To help the House, given the very divided opinion on the question of sitting on Tuesday evenings between 7 o'clock and 10 o'clock, my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House has tabled a motion that will enable those who wish to return to a 10 pm finish on Tuesday to vote for doing so. That is the reason for the complexity of the motions, but the principles are essentially the same.
I am also grateful to the hon. Gentleman for, unusually for him, offering a second thank you, on the Constitutional Reform Bill. We reached agreement on that issue and I understood the arguments that he and the rest of the Opposition made. We are still considering a foreign affairs debate, but he will understand that the legislative programme is very busy, with Second Readings and remaining stages of various Bills. There is important legislation to get through, including on tackling crime and drugs.
I fully expect the Bill on the European constitution to be introduced sooner, rather than later, with its Second Reading to follow. It is a complex piece of legislation, but, obviously, it is a very important Bill.
Information about the Budget date is guarded carefully by the Chancellor. When he can give that information, the House will know as soon as is possible.
I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman's soundbite on licensing hours, but the fact is that that Act followed more than five years of consultation, and in typical opportunist fashion, the Conservatives supported it when it went though Parliament. Now that there is a hue and cry about it, they flip and jump on the bandwagon. The important truth about this legislation, which is why, when the fuss has died down, it will prove popular with local communities harassed by binge drinking and violence from yobs pouring out of pubs and other licensed premises, is that it hands control to local authorities, which are accountable to local residents, and to the local police, instead of the bureaucratic and long-winded process of going through magistrates courts. The legislation puts the decision with local communities. If local communities feel that licensed premises are encouraging abuse, yobbery, binge drinking and violence, they can either shut them down for 24 hours or ensure that their licences are reviewed. That will ensure that the problem is brought under much better control than has been the case up to now. He knows that that problem has gone on for years and years, and this will help to solve it by putting the power in the hands of local communities, local residents and the local police to crack down on those pubs and clubs that encourage binge drinking and the violence that follows.
On Office for National Statistics figures and public sector jobs, we are proud that, under a Labour Government, there are 77,500 more nurses, 19,000 more doctors, 12,500 more police officers, 29,000 more teachers and 106,000 more school support staff. Under our investment plans, there will be more nurses, teachers, police officers and other front-line service workers to care for and support the public if we win the next general election. Let us compare that with the massive cuts that will follow if a Conservative Government come in, with a return to boom and bust and all the risk to living standards, mortgages and jobs that will follow.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, a request for the European Scrutiny Committee to meet in public has been made and it is fair to point out that it was made a while ago. It is being considered by the Modernisation Committee, on which he sits, and we hope that that report will be ready in a month or two, and that the subject will be addressed. He will also be aware that a delicate balance has to be struck between an obvious desire for openness and transparency, which is a principle that I support in general, and the fact that in that Committee, officials and Officers of the House give a lot of detailed advice on complex matters in relation to heavy business. It is also a case of bearing in mind their situation, so that they can do their proper professional job and advise the Committee appropriately.
Last July, my friend the Prime Minister disappointed me by saying that he would not end the practice of awarding hereditary knighthoods. Is not there a case for an early debate on the honours system after the scandal of Mark Thatcher, who has been convicted in the South African courts, but whose knighthood is apparently inviolable? Should not we strip Mark Thatcher of his baronetcy, which is a hereditary knighthood?
Just say yes.
The hon. Gentleman suggests from a sedentary position that I say yes. Mark Thatcher is a baronet, and it would require primary legislation to remove a baronet's title. The Government have no plans to introduce such legislation.
In the context of the debate on licensing next Tuesday, can we have a more measured Government response on the issue—from the Home Secretary, I presume—than we have just had from the Leader of the House? Has he noticed that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who I presume is not just an opportunist, has this morning appealed for the changes in licensing to go slowly? A full report in the Evening Standard today has the headline, "Our cells overflow with drunk yobs". What is the Government's response to that? It is not just politicians but the police who are asking for the process to be slowed.
The Leader of the House said that legislation on the European constitution would be introduced sooner rather than later. Can he be more specific? When does he anticipate that the Committee stage, which will presumably take place on the Floor of the House, will be completed and, after a necessary delay, when does he expect Third Reading? What date has he written in for completion of proceedings in the House of Lords? If he thinks that that is all going to be completed before 6 April, which many of us have in our diaries as a possible date for the Dissolution of Parliament, surely he has got another think coming. What advice has he given the Prime Minister on those dates?
Finally, did the Leader of the House notice that this morning an important decision was made about trans-Europe co-operation on serious crime? He may recall that a schoolgirl from my constituency, Caroline Dickinson, was murdered in Brittany nine years ago. Her father, mother and I have been pressing ever since for better co-operation across Europe, particularly on issues of DNA. This morning, an important development took place, and that co-operation is guaranteed in future. That is good news, but it has taken nine years to get there. Can the Leader of the House ask the Home Secretary to give us a statement on that issue?
I understand the predicament of Caroline Dickinson's family and I know that they appreciate the consistent support that the hon. Gentleman has given them, as do his constituents. The Home Secretary will want to consider the issue in the light of his intervention.
On licensing and binge drinking, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner told the Evening Standard today:
"If 24-hour drinking came in, we would need to reinforce staffing levels in the early hours."
The proposals are not for 24-hour drinking in every pub and club across the land. They put sensible flexibility in the hands of local authorities and local police, so local residents can apply immediate pressure if they think that there are abuses. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, as a Liberal Democrat who believes in decentralisation and empowering local communities and residents, would be right behind the measure, instead of jumping on the Tory bandwagon. When the fuss has died down, people will realise that they not only have more power under the legislation for flexible and sensible licensing hours so that, for example, theatre-goers can pop in for a final pint or a glass of wine before they go home, but more power to crack down on yobbery and the drunken, violent minority who all come out of our pubs at the same time of night. I am sure that he will want to review his apoplectic intervention in the light of that common-sense advice.
On the European Union Bill, I cannot be more specific, but the hon. Gentleman made an intriguing observation about the coming months. I do not know where he got 6 April from—perhaps he is better informed than the Leader of the House. I do not think that there would be a problem from the Liberal Democrats, but it would be interesting to know whether the official Opposition would give a cast-iron guarantee to speed the Bill through the House. If they did so, they and the shadow Leader of the House would have an opportunity to keep pressing me every week on when the referendum will take place. However, there is no such offer from Conservative Front Benchers to help with the passage of the Bill.
I hope not.
The right hon. Gentleman and his anti-European supporters, who want to take Britain out of Europe, will want to obstruct the progress of the Bill when it is introduced.
In the run-up to the debate on sitting hours next Wednesday, is my right hon. Friend aware of a rumour that has been circulating among some right hon. and hon. Members? It is suggested that, if the House votes for a return to the dark ages and later hours on Tuesday, that will automatically mean that Members will be free to leave at 5 pm on Thursday. Would he like to set the record straight?
I have heard lots of rumours in the past few days, including that one. The proposal that I am tabling would allow the House to sit an hour earlier on Thursday at 10.30 am but keep the finish time at 6 pm, when there is usually a vote. That would have two benefits. It would allow people to continue to return home to Scotland, the north of England and the far west that evening, but it would also allow us to complete a full day's business with a vote. All too often—for all I know, it may well have happened last night—the place thins out on a Wednesday evening, because it is not easy to take whipped business, legislation or Opposition debates on a Thursday. If there were any attempt to encourage part-time membership of the House by moving the time forward to 5 o'clock, and if that were suggested as an inducement to do something else, as my hon. Friend described, that would be wrong, and I would resist it strongly.
May we have an urgent debate on procedure in courts martial? Was the Leader of the House as alarmed as I was about the publication of what can only be described as very prejudicial pictures during the course of a judicial and legal proceeding? Does he think that that was wrong, is he worried about it and can something be done about it? Does he think that this will leave the whole process wide open to appeal?
For once, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The point that he makes is very important, which is why the Attorney-General wrote to the newspapers last night about this matter. It is very important that there is a fair trial, and we should do nothing to jeopardise that.
Will the Leader of the House give us an opportunity to discuss the conduct and stewardship of our police forces, against the background of concern among Members across the political spectrum about the professional standards department—it used to be known as CIB3—of the Metropolitan police? It is felt that there are police officers who have been suspended for an inordinately long time, often unjustly, and that some police officers who are innocent are in prison and that some people who have put them there are guilty. This is an unspoken and unrehearsed issue, but it needs to come out into the open, because there is widespread concern not only about the Metropolitan police, but about two decades of very poor stewardship of the Sussex police, for example, and systemic failures there.
My hon. Friend always raises important and serious matters, as he has just done. The Home Secretary will want to pay careful attention to what he said, and my hon. Friend will have the chance to question the Home Secretary on Monday week.
May we have an early debate about access to the Post Office card account system? Serious issues remain in relation to the inability of many people, but especially the elderly, to operate the system properly and to get through when there are difficulties and get proper answers from customer services. Members of Parliament are not given a direct line through to those involved to help constituents in these important issues. May we have an early debate to try to air some of the problems, get answers and get the problems fixed?
The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to raise that matter in Department of Trade and Industry questions on Thursday, but I recognise his point. In my constituency, there are pensioners who have been issued for the first time with a card and personal identification number, but who have never used a PIN before and have lost it, and have therefore been unable to draw the pension to which they are entitled. I know that the Post Office has been alerted to the problem. In some cases, at least in Neath, emergency procedures were put in place. This is a serious issue of which the authorities are aware.
Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a debate about economic regeneration and the important role played by regional development agencies? I know that he is aware of the significant regeneration that has taken place in the lower Don valley in my constituency since 1997, including the building of the largest printing works in Europe, which I drew to his attention a few weeks ago. He may not be aware of a masterplan now being developed by the council and British Land with the help of the RDA, Yorkshire Forward, for further significant regeneration, thousands of jobs and 4,000 new homes. Does he agree that those plans and others throughout the country would be put at risk if the Opposition had their way and abolished the regional development agencies, which would be a false economy that would endanger regeneration and jobs throughout the country?
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The more the public and the media look into the fine print of the proposals published earlier this week, the more they will see them fall apart. In the case of regional development agencies—this would effectively massacre the work of Yorkshire Forward—a £365 million saving would be made. That means cuts in regeneration and job creation programmes and in the regeneration of communities, and the devastation of regions such as South Yorkshire, which suffered mine closures under the previous Government and have needed more investment to create the enterprise economy that is now taking root. All those measures, including that regional development issue and the Opposition's proposed abolition of the new deal, would result in massive cuts and the return to high unemployment, boom and bust, risks to mortgages and all the rest of the Tory economic misery that the Opposition plan for us yet again.
Is the Leader of the House concerned about the unfair treatment being meted out by the Government to local authorities that have responsibility for housing, as they are being denied the resources given by the Government or the ability to retain for themselves the money that they get from the rent from municipal property, as against the treatment of registered social landlords, who are treated much more favourably than housing authorities? Macclesfield, which is debt-free, is being forced to dispose of its housing stock through large- scale voluntary transfer against my wishes and the wishes of the council and council tenants. It is being forced to do that because it is not being allowed to keep the necessary sum to maintain and refurbish its council housing stock.
I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that there is a debate on those matters the week after next, on Wednesday 2 February. If he has a chance to intervene or speak in that debate, he may wish to take it.
When the shadow Leader of the House asked perfectly reasonably about a foreign affairs debate, the Leader of the House replied that the legislative programme was very difficult. Well, it is not 1 per cent. as difficult as the position of the coalition in Iraq. What sort of impression do the Government imagine is given of the House of Commons if we can find time for debates on gambling, drink and aspects of constitutional affairs that might wait, and a whole day on our own hours, while there is apparently no time to discuss the immensely important situation in Iraq? Some of us think that, after the election, we may have to make a choice as to whether we are in Iraq for five or 10 years, or whether we go headlong into a Vietnam situation. Surely there is a case for a proper debate on an amendable motion.
Obviously, we will want to assess, as will the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, the situation after the Iraqi elections on 30 January. I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to applaud the fact that recent polling in Iraq shows that more than 80 per cent. of Iraqis intend to vote if they can and that 111 groups with almost 8,000 candidates are standing in the national elections and a further 11,000 candidates are standing in the provincial and Kurdish regional government elections, and a third of all those candidates are women. That provides an opportunity for a major democratic advance in Iraq out of the tyranny that was overthrown when Saddam was deposed and out of the new investment that is now taking place. I accept that the situation is very difficult and that the insurgents and terrorists are seeking to destroy that prospect of democracy, but I should have thought my hon. Friend would want to support it and to hope and work for the success of the elections on 30 January. I am sure that after those elections the House will be informed by the Foreign Secretary of the outcome and where future policy might go.
Will the Leader of the House acknowledge that since the publication last March by Sir Michael Lyons of the public policy programme of civil service dispersal and relocation, the Government have published a plan to reduce dramatically public sector employment, particularly in Departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions? Will he acknowledge that it is time the House discussed public sector relocation so that communities that are suffering job losses, such as Galashiels in south-east Scotland, which is subject to DWP cuts, can be considered as priority cases for civil service relocation in future?
I understand the hon. Gentleman's point about his constituency, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will want to consider it carefully. That Department and others have initiated a huge redeployment out of the overheated London and south-east area to the regions and nations of Britain, Scotland and Wales included, where there are the skills and the sites.
Efficiency savings are also being made to divert resources from back-room staff to front-line services. That is very different from the massacre of public sector jobs that will take place under the Conservative plans published earlier this week, which mean that 250,000 people are set to join the dole queue.
On 17 January, the closure of a company, Lubrizol, in my constituency was announced on the internet. I was not consulted, nor was the local authority or the Northwest Development Agency. The decision was made because the US parent company thought that production could be better located elsewhere. The UK company was not a lame duck. It was an efficient company that had won many awards, most recently on Tuesday this week. Will my right hon. Friend arrange for the subject of arbitrary closures to be debated? Will he draw the matter to the attention of the Department of Trade and Industry to see whether it was consulted, whether it regards this as the proper way for an inward investor to behave, and whether the workers and unions were appropriately consulted? Will he also draw the matter to the attention of the Department for Work and Pensions so that the workers who will be affected by the closure, both senior and more junior workers, are given appropriate assistance, should they need it?
I am astounded at that account. I have heard of workers being texted to be told that they are redundant, but I have not heard of workers discovering it on the internet, if they have access to it. It is a very bad way for an employer to behave, and I will make sure that Ministers at the Department look into the matter and write to my hon. Friend about the points that he has raised.
Has the Leader of the House begun to reflect on how he might persuade people in Neath to re-elect him at the next general election? If he has, he will realise that no meaningful decisions can be taken about that campaign until we know what our elections expenses will be. The Electoral Commission made recommendations to the Government on that. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it is the Government's intention that the next election be fought on the basis of those new recommendations? If so, when will the Government lay the necessary order?
The right hon. Gentleman has made a plea on behalf of all of us, but I can assure him that my spending will come well under the expenses limits. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs will want to reflect carefully on the point that the right hon. Gentleman made and will, I am sure, respond to it.
Can time be found to discuss the work of the small business unit, in particular the small business unit in west Yorkshire, which is supporting plans by a consortium of local businesses to break into new markets in China and eastern Europe? We should debate any vulnerability to which the small business unit might be exposed, especially a £500 million cut, and how that would affect trade into my area.
I am alarmed by the plans to axe the Small Business Service, as the Opposition propose. We will not do that, partly for the reason that my hon. Friend gives—it provides vital support for small businesses, which are the engine of our future economic competitiveness. They need the support that the Small Business Service provides. Another proposal is to cut massively the resources and staffing of UK Trade and Investment, which provides important support for exporters who find it hard to gain openings in a very competitive international market. I notice that in the list of cuts proposed earlier this week, nobody, let alone the shadow Chancellor, proposed a cut in the £3 million Short money that the Conservatives get from the taxpayer—very bad value for money, I might add. All the other cuts listed have been added up, but the £3 million of taxpayers' money going to the Conservative party will stay ring-fenced, protected and guaranteed.
May we have an early debate on the statement on the continued detention in Belmarsh of a number of people held under the terrorism legislation? The Leader of the House will bear in mind that it is now a month since the House of Lords declared that that was unlawful, and a year since the Newton committee report recommended substantial changes in the terrorism legislation. It is quite wrong that those people should be held unlawfully. They are entitled to know their future, as is the House.
I understand the point that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. The ruling in the House of Lords on 16 December raised a number of complex issues, and the Home Secretary, as he has explained to Parliament, needs time to consider fully the implications of the judgment, while being mindful of the need to act as quickly as possible on the matter. I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman will find in due course that his request has been satisfied.
I know my right hon. Friend is aware of the widespread concern among local government workers about the planned changes to the local government pension scheme, due to be introduced in April. When will we have the opportunity to debate the issue? I have been approached by many local government workers in my constituency. When will we have the opportunity to discuss the raising of the retirement age and the impact on current members of the scheme? Will the Government consider postponing the proposals until there has been more consultation?
I am sure that many local government workers and their trade union, Unison, have approached her, as they have approached me and other Members on the matter. Perhaps it would be helpful if I explained that the changes coming into effect this April, as the Chancellor announced in his pre-Budget report, are necessary now as part of a wider package to reduce pressures on local authority budgets and thereby to help protect front-line services and keep council tax levels in 2005–06 under 5 per cent. If the changes were not implemented, local government would face increasing pension costs of about £300 million per annum over the next three years, which would mean possible cuts in services and front-line jobs and pressures on council tax levels. We all know that public sector pensions must be reformed. Indeed, we have reformed our own pensions as Members of Parliament. The changes for local government workers are part of that process.
On the day of the inauguration of George W. Bush as President of the United States once again, has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to look at a BBC World Service poll, which shows that the British people and the people of practically every other nation believe the world is a less safe, less secure place because of the President? Can we therefore have a debate about our special relationship to examine it, put forward the true views of the British people on that relationship and warn Americans about any future action in Iran during the President's second term?
That was a constructive intervention for the purpose of influencing American foreign policy. No doubt the hon. Gentleman does not intend to be Foreign Secretary at any stage in his future career.
Unlike you!
As always, the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) makes helpful interventions and is a bit of a joker. The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) raises an important point. Why has the middle east peace process—which the Prime Minister has made a priority for many months, if not years—been retriggered? In part, because of that special relationship. As a result of the Prime Minister visiting Washington and meeting President Bush very soon after his re-election, the middle east peace process suddenly entered a new dynamic phase. We need that process to succeed, and maintaining the special relationship will help it to do so.
Setting aside the question of licensing hours, Britain has a serious alcohol problem now, and if there had been no Licensing Act 2003, it would still have a serious alcohol problem that must be addressed, with high levels of addiction, high death rates from cirrhosis of the liver, rising levels of heavy drinking among young women and, most worrying of all, a high incidence of foetal alcohol syndrome. Will my right hon. Friend make time for a full debate on all aspects of Britain's alcohol problem, including factors such as price, advertising and health warnings on alcoholic drinks?
I know that that issue was raised in Health questions. My hon. Friend makes a serious and considered point with which I am sure we all agree. That is why the Secretary of State for Health has taken forward a plan for tackling the alcohol problem. There is a culture in this country that is almost unique among comparable countries, and is very disturbing. If one goes to France or Spain, where there is the same flexibility in licensing laws that we intend to bring in, one does not see this phenomenon: young girls, let alone young boys, are not paralytic and fighting each other on the streets. We have to work together to tackle that.
The Leader of the House will be aware that Peter Sutcliffe is rightly incarcerated for good in my constituency. Is he also aware that there is grave concern in my constituency and in Yorkshire that the Home Secretary allowed him to leave Broadmoor hospital for a day, which is unacceptable? Can he ensure that the new Home Secretary comes to the House to explain himself, because this very bad start for him makes it clear that he is not serious about law and order and crime prevention?
I understand the right hon. Gentleman's concerns. He may wish to consult the statement that the Home Office made this morning in which the Home Secretary made the background to this matter absolutely clear.
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the widespread concern about the apparent intensification and growth of Islamic and Christian fundamentalism. Recently, as a result of the screening of "Jerry Springer—The Opera", a Christian fundamentalist group decided to publicise the names and home addresses of BBC executives. That was absolutely disgraceful. Some of those groups are keen that the blasphemy laws should be extended to cover their own particular beliefs. Some of us believe the opposite: that the existing blasphemy legislation should be abolished, if only to make it absolutely clear that we are not going to give way to these fanatics. Could we have a debate on that legislation?
I am not in favour of fundamentalism of any kind, whether Christian, Islamic or Tory. I understand my hon. Friend's point; that is why we are bringing in a new offence to ban discrimination on the grounds of religion.
The Leader of the House will understand that not every Member of the House can be present at this statement to hear the business for the following week, and that many rely on access to the parliamentary video and data network to garner that information by e-mail or by looking at the official record. This weekend, we are to be denied access to the full facilities of that network. That will affect not only information about this business statement, but our ability to transact business on behalf of our constituents, which will be heavily constrained, if not made impossible. Will the Leader of the House postpone whatever work is to be carried out and try to find a more convenient time for it to be done, so that Members can maintain access to this vital communication network?
I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman reasonably makes. I am advised that the difficulty is that the system needs an upgrade, and if it is not done sooner rather than later the problem will develop into a bigger one. It is better to do it over a weekend than during the working week. However, I will bear his comments in mind, and I am sure that the Serjeant at Arms will want to take careful note of them.
The Government recently published a document called, "Iran's Nuclear Programme—a Collection of Documents". Skipping over the fact that I always thought that a collection of documents was called a dossier—perhaps we are not allowed to use that word any more—will the Leader of the House ask the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on that? In particular, can the Foreign Secretary tell us whether the UK would give assistance to the US in relation to any military intervention in Iran, and whether the Prime Minister will make it clear to Mr. Bush after his "do" today that we will not support any such action?
Both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have already made it crystal clear that such action is not on the British agenda at all. In respect of the document, the Foreign Secretary will be here to answer questions on Tuesday.
Would it be possible for the Leader of the House to arrange for a statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland concerning the statement made on RTE by an elected Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Mitchel McLaughlin, that the murder of Mrs. McConville, who went out to help a British soldier who was shot and did what any woman would have done to comfort him in his last moments, was not a crime because it was sanctioned by a court martial of the IRA? Does not it further corrupt the body politic when such things go unchallenged?
Criminality and murder must be no part of a democratic future in Northern Ireland, and any groups that want to be part of that future must eliminate it from their practices and beliefs. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will want to take careful note of the points that the hon. Gentleman raises.
May I remind the Leader of the House that on 13 October the Scrutiny Committee recommended a debate on a Commission document on the fight against fraud in the European Union, and that on 12 January the same Committee recommended a debate on another document relating to the so-called European Anti-Fraud Office? Are we failing to have those very important debates because the Government condone fraud and malpractice in the EU or because they do not care about public expenditure?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, most of this fraud, which is a scandal but has been tackled much more energetically in recent times than previously, takes place in member states rather than in Brussels. He will be aware that a debate on fraud in the European Union is taking place in Westminster Hall next Wednesday, and he will have an opportunity to make his points there.
On the subject of our sitting hours, may I gently point out to the Leader of the House that to this particular Scottish Member it makes not a whit of difference whether we finish at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock on a Thursday, because neither time will allow me to get home on a Thursday night?
I associate myself with the call by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) for a statement on the operation of Post Office card accounts, and bring to the House's attention the situation that recently faced a post office in my constituency that was flooded after the very high tides resulting from the bad weather and had its electricity supply knocked out. As a result, pensioners in that part of Orkney were unable to get their pensions because they had access only through the computer system, which was obviously not available to the post office. Surely that situation is not acceptable.
Clearly not. I am sure that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will want to pay careful attention to the hon. Gentleman's comments and to look into the matter.
On sitting hours, I appreciate that even if we stopped at lunchtime on a Thursday, the hon. Gentleman still might not get back that evening. I am sorry, but I cannot change the geography of the Orkney islands.
May we please have a debate in Government time on the long overdue and much needed further reform of the House of Lords? Given that a cross-party group of Members of Parliament, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), and the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), has called for a predominantly if not overwhelmingly elected Chamber—a view with which I happen to agree, as does, I suspect, the Leader of the House—does he agree that it is vital, not least in the name of self-respect, that we should have an early debate, reach a conclusion and proceed accordingly? Surely that is in the interests of parliamentary scrutiny and democratic legitimacy alike.
I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman's general point—he invited me to agree with him, and I do. I have long supported such reform of the Lords, as he acknowledged, although I am not sure how long he has supported it.
For a long time.
That is excellent. We need to reach a conclusion not only on the composition of the Lords but on its powers. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees with that. The proper role of the Lords is that of a revising, improving Chamber, not a vetoing Chamber on the decisions of the House of Commons, which is how it has acted for the past few years in particular.
Does the Leader of the House recall the double act by the two Chancellors—of the Exchequer and the Duchy of Lancaster—at an election poster unveiling, an event that featured all the humour but none of the charm of the Two Ronnies? May we have a statement about the use of Government cars by Ministers and their flunkies attending events of that sort, as they are evidently going to become more and more frequent in the weeks ahead?
We will add a discussion of the Short money to that debate, shall we?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the rules governing these matters are very strict, and need to be observed. Anyone who has enjoyed the privilege of ministerial life is aware of that.
May we have a debate on the state of the United Kingdom film industry? Last year only 27 films were made solely in this country and solely by UK producers, 40 per cent. fewer than last year, and a number of productions scheduled for this year have already been shelved. The main reason that has been given is a change introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the tax relief that the film industry used to enjoy. It is pointless Ministers' rubbing shoulders with the glitterati and celebs on the red carpet if they will not ensure that film producers and their technicians can shine by backing the industry.
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will realise if he looks into the matter in detail, a loophole was being exploited and abused. It has now been closed, but the Chancellor has also provided separate and quite proper targeted relief to support the film industry, which now enjoys the prospect of a very bright future.
Speaker's Statement
I am aware of the interest in the actions of British servicemen in Iraq, stimulated by the publication of photographs in the press yesterday. While passing reference may be made to the general standards of conduct of British forces, the Chair will not allow any comment on cases before a court or a court martial, which are clearly covered by the House's sub judice rule.
Points of Order
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I welcome your statement, but the point of order is about a different matter. Have you received a request from any senior Minister, perhaps even the Prime Minister, to come to the House and make a statement that the Labour party will not accept Short money when it loses the general election?
No, I have received no such approach.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It relates to your statement.
In the past, various Speakers have come down on me like the proverbial ton of bricks for infringing a sub judice rule. I think I understand your reasons for telling me yesterday that it was not your business, Mr. Speaker, but could we clarify the distinction between "sub judice" as recognised by the House of Commons and the sub judice rule that has apparently been infringed by the press in recent days?
What I say to the hon. Gentleman is that the question he asked yesterday was not about the sub judice rule. What I say about the press report is that we in the House of Commons have higher standards than the press.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, further to your ruling. This morning I studied the rules on the treatment of prisoners of war, and I was proposing, if called, to speak about their treatment in general terms—without, of course, referring to any current cases. Can you confirm that that would be in order?
I can tell the hon. Gentleman, whose standards are very high indeed, that that would be perfectly in order. My concern is for Members not to be drawn into a discussion or debate about any court martial or civil action that may currently be under way.
Armed Forces Personnel
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ainger.]
This debate on personnel issues takes place against a backdrop of intense public scrutiny of the alleged misconduct of some soldiers in Iraq. I am sure the House will appreciate—this is in line with your ruling, Mr. Speaker—that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the current case, or on other ongoing investigations.
The Prime Minister was right yesterday to draw a distinction between tyranny and democracy and to speak of the way in which we in this country seek at all times to bring wrongdoers to justice. He was also right to echo views expressed by the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mike Jackson, drawing attention to the fact that some 65,000 British soldiers have served in Iraq with distinction. They have done so with courage, exhibiting the highest levels of professionalism in helping to deliver the peace and stability so earnestly sought by the Iraqi people.
Another issue is currently exciting the minds of some hon. Members and the media. It relates, of course, to the accusation that Ministers are indifferent to our serving soldiers and other personnel who have been injured in conflict. The charge that Ministers are uncaring and unmindful of the needs of personnel as they recuperate is, in my view, an unwarranted slur that could not be further from the truth. I have personally met soldiers, both in theatre and back at their home bases, who were recovering from their injuries. I have also visited field hospitals to pay tribute to the sterling efforts of our medical personnel, who work in what are sometimes difficult circumstances but still deliver the highest level of care to our injured troops—and, on occasion, provide medical care for injured civilians.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has visited the Ministry of Defence hospital unit at Selly Oak hospital, and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin), is due to go there shortly. The visit was planned some time ago, well before the recent furore.
I intend to deal later with the general issues relating to the Defence Medical Services, but I want to make it clear at the outset that the consequences of conflict, whether death or injury, weigh heavily on the minds of those who commit the armed forces to action. To suggest otherwise is ill-judged, misplaced and, not to put too fine a point on it, offensive. Having said that, I should add that today's personnel debate is timely.
The pace of change across the globe is clear for all to see and shows no sign of slowing down. That offers special challenges to our armed forces—challenges to which they have risen magnificently—and places a special responsibility on the Government to ensure that our services are properly structured to face the world of tomorrow. The focus of our people policies is on providing better trained and more flexibly deployable forces. Together with our continuing investment in new platforms and technology, they will deliver the military capability that we need today and in the foreseeable future.
Current threats to international peace and security are obvious to us all. In recent years, terrorist groups who respect neither international borders nor the sanctity of human life have aspired to inflict even greater levels of destruction to achieve their warped objectives. In weak and failing states, mismanagement and corruption can lead to poverty, hunger, disease and the collapse of law and order. They pose significant challenges for the international community. In some cases, they provide safe havens from which terrorist groups and those involved in organised crime can easily operate and recruit. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction remains a serious concern and a serious threat to international security.
With our allies and partners, we must confront and tackle the causes of instability in the world, as well as its consequences. That means working with our European, NATO and United Nations partners to resolve conflict, build peace and lay foundations for democracy. That is what we have been doing in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.
To ensure that we are best placed to meet those challenges, the Ministry of Defence has embarked on an ambitious modernisation and rebalancing of the armed forces. Each of our services needs to prepare its men and women to meet changing security challenges in less predictable and more complex operational environments. We need the right number of people available in the right place and at the right time, equipped with the right skills. That is how we will deliver military effect.
What support has the Minister received for his proposals to restructure the Scottish infantry—apart, perhaps, from that of General Sir Mike Jackson—from veterans, regimental associations and forces families?
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and his party do not support our proposals. Indeed, they have called the Union flag "the butcher's apron", and I have not heard that being repudiated from the nationalist Benches. We are not hiding from that fact that what we have sought to achieve has created considerable debate. We must take account of the needs of the future, however, as well as trying to understand the sensitivities of the past. The hon. Gentleman, who is perhaps a bit of a specialist on one particular regiment, should also recognise that we have been through these iterations before in Scotland. Regiments have been amalgamated before and they are, of course, subject to further changes.
I have met some of the associations involved and I have to respond to many inquiries from members of the public who are genuinely interested in this issue—people who really have the interests of the regiment at heart, rather than those who are interested only in political point scoring. We try to get across that the demographics in Scotland present difficulties for recruitment. I have explained before, from the Dispatch Box and elsewhere, that those demographics are such that it is not only the armed forces that come under pressure when recruiting—this applies right across the public services and certain parts of the private sector. We have to deal with that, look to the future and decide how best we can marshal the available resources, in people terms, to leave us best placed to deal with any future threats. I am also conscious that the hon. Gentleman, in opposing what we are doing with the armed forces, does not actually want to use them. Perhaps he just wants them to stand outside castles and be a tourist attraction, but that is a matter for his party and its supporters.
On recruitment, I have here an answer given by the Under-Secretary on 18 November to a question from the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), in which she asked whether there had been a cap on recruitment for the infantry in the last three years. The Minister answered:
"There have been control measures placed on all levels of the Army . . . to meet adjustments to funding allocations."—[Official Report, 18 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 1824W.]
Does that not suggest that there was a recruitment freeze in place, and would not such a freeze have had an impact on recruitment?
The hon. Lady has not been listening to the other answers that have been given on this issue. In recent times, we have been very successful in our recruitment campaigns overall. That means that we have had to adjust the training structures to meet the increased numbers of recruits coming in. That involves taking experienced personnel away from the front line and putting them back into the training environment at a time when the front line in certain key areas is exceptionally busy. To pause is therefore the way to get the best adjustment. It was not a freeze, although I know that the hon. Lady will keep using that word no matter how many explanations she is given.
I am trying to explain how our success has meant that we have to ensure that we get the balance right between the training environment and our front-line demands. If we look back to the exercise known as "Front Line First", which took place in the 1990s, there was a thinning out of the training environment resulting in a significant reduction in the ratio between instructors and trainees. We have had to address that. During my time, we have put a considerably more money back into the training environment and increased the number of instructors, in order to strike a better balance.
That is not true.
I am grateful to the Minister—
The hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) made a sedentary comment that that was not true. I shall give way to him.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. As far as I can recall, there were no studies in "Front Line First", with which I was intimately associated, that resulted in a thinning out of the number of instructors per trainee. That was not a product of "Front Line First". Indeed, its result was to release resources to increase training, such as flying training for the Royal Air Force. That was a direct benefit of the process.
We were talking about infantry and the Army, but there are certainly variations within that answer. The hon. Gentleman should go back and look at just what happened as a result of "Front Line First". He should also study the reports that have been produced on the back of the tragic incidents at Deepcut and at the investigations that the Army conducted, which looked at some of these issues. We can exchange history lessons from that period, but if the hon. Gentleman looks at what happened in the training environment he will see that the ratios were changed, not because of an increase in the number of recruits, but because of a reduction in the number of instructors. The ratio reached a level which then had to be adjusted. If that had not been the case, I would not have had to put in additional resources to increase the number of instructors. I believe that what I was saying was true, but I am not disagreeing with some elements of what the hon. Gentleman said.
Does the Minister agree that, when service personnel put their lives at risk, they do so not only for Queen and country but for their comrades and their regiment? Obviously, the ethos and history of a regiment is very important. Does it not worry him that, by scrapping every remaining English county regiment, he will undermine that key ethos?
Well, there is always a possibility of anything, I suppose. I tried to explain in my preamble that this is about trying to reshape and restructure the Army for the future. That has gone on through the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. Over recent decades, something like 44 regiments have come out of the line under Conservative Administrations, and 22 under Labour. I am not trying to make a cheap point here. I am simply saying that previous Governments have had to deal with changing environments and to restructure accordingly. Only time will tell whether that restructuring has been effective and can deliver for those who approach this issue from a military, as opposed to a political, perspective and who have to help those honourable men and women who serve Queen and country to deal with the challenges that they face. This is about military advice and military assessments, and about matching resources to those needs. Previous Governments have done the same.
Will the Minister confirm that there is a need for fairness in recruitment across the United Kingdom? That being the case, does he think that the 10 counties that traditionally recruit to the Royal Anglian Regiment, and which have a population of 2 million more than the entire population of Scotland, are being unfairly represented in the new structure that he is proposing?
No, I do not. In the early examination of what we are seeking to do, there was a view that the four battalions coming out and the redistribution of certain posts would strengthen the capability of the Army. At the same time as doing away with the arms plot, it was mooted that two regiments should go from Scotland because of the recruiting profile. A judgment was made, however, that to do that would be wrong because it would have left a bit of the United Kingdom from which we did not draw soldiers into a regiment and/or a battalion. We were trying to get an equal distribution, so the debate then turned to four battalions coming out—one from Scotland and three from England. The hon. Gentleman will be aware, however, that in a sense only two have been taken from England, because of the determination to look at utilising 1 Para as a core base of a tri-service support battalion for special forces. There was, therefore, a process of change as all of that got under way. We tried to examine how best to lay down the footprint across the whole of the United Kingdom, so I do not think that "unfairness" is a word that I recognise. I think that the process has been well judged but, as ever, only time will tell whether we have got it right.
I speak as someone who congratulates the Department on having the courage to rebalance our armed forces to meet future challenges and enhance capability. Nevertheless, does the Minister agree that the names of the new regiments are important, particularly because history and tradition affect recruitment? Will he confirm that the Secretary of State is carefully considering the names of the new regiments? The Royal Welch Fusiliers and the Royal Regiment of Wales have a 300-year tradition and it is very important that we get the new names right.
I believe that it is important to get the names right. That is why the Army spent so much time examining the issue. There was a whole process of consultation within the Army, which the Army Board took into account. Not everyone agrees with what we are doing—[Interruption.] It is a big change. History shows that there is always a great debate whenever that happens. It was the same when the Conservatives decided to integrate the Gordon's into the Highlands. There was a big furore in Scotland about that, but a brave and, I think, justifiable decision was taken because of the need to bring about that effective change.
As to the Secretary of State becoming involved, we have said consistently that it is a matter best left to the Army, and we should tread warily and not become over-involved. That is particularly true when many people believe that this is an election year. That may or may not be the case. We should not be seen to be playing with this matter for political purposes, but I recognise the strong feelings expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) and others in Wales. Their representations will be made available to the senior military personnel who deal with these matters. It will be for them to decide. As I said, it would be wrong to bring political pressure into the debate because we would then be criticised for over-interference.
I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman. He can enter the debate later if he wants to.
rose—
I have given way quite extensively already and I want to make some progress.
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
I have just said no. I am generally willing to give way to my hon. Friends and I may provide her with an opportunity to intervene later.
It would be wrong to assume that better armed forces equal bigger armed forces. Our emphasis is on providing agile and flexible forces, utilising 21st century technology, to ensure that they are structured with a pattern of operations that they are most likely to undertake. More people do not necessarily mean more capability. By shifting resources from lower priority capabilities and delivering maximum efficiencies where possible, we will make the best use of our people. We will also provide better support and better equipment to our people. Those are essential factors in taking care of our people.
For the Army, particularly the infantry, those organisational changes are essential to addressing the new challenges. They will mean that we have more deployable troops and that our troops will be better balanced in respect of the branches and trades required for modern operations. Ending the arms plot will increase the availability of the infantry for operations. Capability will no longer be lost through the need for battalions to move location or re-role.
No matter how good our infantry, it needs top quality support to be effective. That is why we will reinvest people freed up by normalisation in Northern Ireland in key areas such as engineering and logistics, which have been in great demand in recent operations. By boosting capacity in those areas, we will also make a real difference to the lives of hundreds of key specialists and their families.
Similarly, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force are embracing change and delivering force structure changes in line with our operational requirements. For the RAF in particular, that will mean a reduction in numbers, but the result will be forces better suited to the challenges that they will face in the future rather than the conflicts of the past.
There will, of course, be an impact on our people. For some, it will be unsettling in the short term. To maintain a balanced force structure, there will need to be a limited number of redundancies. That is essential so that we do not repeat past mistakes that left gaps in our force structure. It does not imply, however, any less commitment to continue recruiting high quality people or to offering young people a wide variety of challenging and rewarding careers.
I am not giving way.
We recognise that the restructuring of the armed forces has not been welcomed by everyone, but we believe that it is necessary to ensure that our forces can meet the challenges that they will face tomorrow in the same way as they are succeeding in the challenges that they face today. Let me spend a few moments on those challenges. We currently have some 32,000 personnel deployed in 10 countries around the world.
I am about to move on to a different subject, so I shall be generous and give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams).
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. In view of his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith), would he and his team in the Ministry of Defence be prepared to meet a delegation from the parliamentary side? He will be aware of the considerable disquiet in Wales concerning the proposals for restructuring.
Throughout the whole process, the Secretary of State, the Under-Secretary and I have met interested parties extensively across the board. My answer to my hon. Friend's request is yes. I understand that a letter from hon. Members based in Wales is on its way. I have not yet received it, but I have been notified of it.
Let me say to the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) that he will have an opportunity to enter the debate later and I suggest that he does so. As to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), I know that he is a member of the Select Committee and that he has been highly critical about the subject that we are discussing now. I was rather surprised that he did not attend the meeting to put me on the rack. That is what Select Committees are for, so I do not know why he was not there. He has had plenty of opportunities to raise issues with me. If he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps he can enter the debate later.
The right hon. Gentleman is afraid to take my intervention.
One thing that I certainly can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I am not afraid.
Since the tragic Indian ocean tsunami, UK personnel have acted quickly and effectively to provide assistance to those affected. Working closely with the Department for International Development in support of the UN, our personnel have provided much-needed skill, expertise and equipment. A C-17, TriStar and five C-130 air transport planes have been made available to DFID to assist in delivering new UN aid and heavy equipment to the region. I visited Brize Norton earlier this week to thank the air crew, ground crew and planning staff for all their efforts over recent weeks.
In addition to the RAF contribution, HMS Chatham, which has two Lynx helicopters, and Royal Fleet Auxiliary Diligence, which is co-operating closely with a reconnaissance team on the ground, are providing assistance in restoring livelihoods, schools and medical facilities to villages on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Engineering support has also been deployed to the Maldives to assist in repairs to generators and desalination equipment. Instrumental in co-ordinating the military response with DFID and regional government and military representatives have been the three military observation, liaison and reconnaissance teams deployed to the region. I know that the whole House will pay tribute to all of those engaged in the massive humanitarian effort and to those members of the armed forces who have made such an invaluable contribution.
More than 8,000 personnel are deployed on Operation Telic. In difficult conditions, they are successfully providing direct security assistance to the Iraqi authorities and building the capacity of Iraqi security forces to take on that role. The relatively stable security environment in our area of operations is a testament, I believe, to our armed forces' achievement. It has enabled progress to be made on the reconstruction of schools and hospitals and the restoration of water and power. Our people are making a vital contribution to building a peaceful, stable and democratic Iraq. We should take pride in what they have achieved to date.
I suppose I shall have to give way to the hon. Gentleman, although I am breaking the rules.
I am most grateful. I want to bring the Minister back to the tsunami. He is right that HMS Chatham and RFA Diligence are doing excellent work. However, will he confirm that the Diligence is, unfortunately, to be scrapped next year rather than replaced, and that the Chatham is one of 31 frigates and destroyers that are to be reduced to 25 over the next few years? That will lead to a considerable shortage of ships to assist in future disasters.
That does not necessarily follow. I am conscious that the Conservative party has recently announced its back-of-a-fag-packet approach to defence expenditure. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could tell us in his winding-up speech—
I shall be happy to do that.
Oh good. I look forward the analysis of the way in which the Conservatives will keep every legacy system at the same time as continuing with expensive procurement streams. The scale of the spend on all that could mean that the hon. Gentleman might have to tackle some matters later. He also claims that he would keep all the regiments. I believe that he intends to achieve all that through cutting 25,000 extra personnel from overall staff in the Ministry of Defence. That is on top of the 20,000 that we announced and towards which we are progressively working. I shall certainly return for the winding-up speeches if I am going to hear all that detail, but I doubt whether I shall hear it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give way to me when he starts looking at the back of that fag packet.
Afghanistan has already made huge progress. President Karzai's victory in a free and fair election last autumn is testament to that. Our forces, currently some 800 strong, contributed to that success. Whether serving with the international security assistance force in Kabul in the north or with the coalition, our forces have made a genuine impact, helping the Afghan people to bring greater peace and stability to their country.
Did my right hon. Friend see the headline in today's Daily Express about the Queen's being angry about the treatment of the wounded? Is that not clearly unfair to Ministers? Is it not extremely doubtful whether the Queen expressed any view at all on the matter? Does he have any figures about the number of wounded who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq? I ask for only a rough figure, because the report was outrageous.
Order. I must remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that it is not correct or proper to bring the name of the Queen into debate.
I am grateful for that ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was going to comment accordingly. I do not always believe what I read in the newspapers and I believe some newspapers even less than others, although I had better not rank them. When I read glaring and lurid headlines, I sometimes wonder why newspapers report in that manner.
My hon. Friend asks an important question, however, because there is a charge that we have somehow been hiding the figures, and that is not the case. The figures are not currently available but such information can readily be made available to the House. I shall write to my hon. Friend and place the content in the Library. Of course, he could have asked a parliamentary question to ascertain the information.
When we talk about the injured, we must acknowledge that, sadly, some people are seriously injured but that injuries can be caused in many different ways. For example, road traffic accidents are sometimes serious; some people become ill through picking up a bug, and injuries can even occur in training in theatre. We must balance all that. I am happy to help my hon. Friend to gain a better understanding of what we have published not only for Iraq but for Afghanistan and perhaps other theatres.
On the deployment of our forces in Afghanistan, will my right hon. Friend update us on the international contribution alongside our forces? The Secretary-General of NATO has made strong pleas in recent months for larger contributions to assist the ISAF. Does my right hon. Friend believe that other countries are doing enough to assist the Secretary-General and stability and progress in Afghanistan?
My hon. Friend has a good knowledge of those matters. Although the Secretary-General has made such comments, my hon. Friend knows that there are also continuing discussions with allies to consider different formations that could be used in Afghanistan. Our allies are individually and collectively considering, for example, taking on provincial reconstruction teams and with which phase—1, 2 or 3—of the PRTs they engage. It is a matter of getting the right combination of countries to make an important impact in key areas as we progressively move into others. Again, I shall write to my hon. Friend to outline the current position. I hope that it will aid him to understand which countries have made a contribution, which are considering making a contribution, and the possible combination of such contributions. Clearly, we must acknowledge the sensitivity of some discussions, which can take place between Defence Ministers and, indeed, at prime ministerial level, to try to develop force generation. Those individual representatives have to report to their democratic forums. That means that sometimes we can divulge what is happening and at other times we cannot. However, I shall give my hon. Friend as much information as possible.
In the Balkans, UK forces continue to assist with achieving self-sustaining peace and stability. Their efforts were brought into sharp relief last year when our people were instrumental in helping to restore calm after the March violence in Kosovo. In Bosnia, the UK took leadership of the EU mission, launched last December, which aims to move that country forward towards its Euro-Atlantic goals.
Those operations have meant a major strategic evolution in the employment of our reserve forces. We are moving from a large but little-used reserve to a smaller and more effective force. Since 1995, the reserves have consistently provided 10 to 15 per cent. of manpower deployed in the Balkans. They have deployed to Afghanistan and, since January 2003, nearly 11,000 have been mobilised to support Operation Telic. Some 5,300 took part in the combat phase.
Our reserves and their employers have responded magnificently and I thank them for that. Indeed, such have been reservists' contributions to operations that we intend to integrate them still further into our force structures. As already announced, that will involve some reorganisation and re-roling to achieve the optimum operational capability that we seek.
In parallel and in recognition of reservists' contributions, we shall continue to explore ways in which to improve the support that we provide to them and their employers.
Is the Minister conscious that many reservists have given up to six months' service? Many can do that only once in their career without its being detrimental to their families or their jobs. How can we ensure that the strength of the Territorial Army is maintained and that we do not lose the service of those who have already made serious commitments? If we do not achieve that, people will tend not to volunteer for fear that they will simply fall out.
That is a genuine problem. We have undertaken the review because of the intensity of the effort and of the demand that we have made on the reserve and TA forces recently. We are therefore considering how better to organise them so that they are better integrated into work alongside the regular forces. The close integration of the reserve forces with the regular forces is nevertheless amazing. I witnessed that in Iraq and it was impossible to tell them apart. However, concern was expressed that the engagement of such a large number of reservists would mean some disjointedness and disconnection. That was not the case.
We have learned valuable lessons from the deployment. There was also a worry that employers would say, "Hold on a moment, this is too big a commitment. You're taking away key personnel." Some reservists are unquestionably key players in their companies. We have to consider the whole matter, which relates to my earlier point that size does not deliver quality of itself. Getting optimum strength and the right structure, with the right resources, commitment and use is vital. That should be presented up front so that people know to what and for what they are joining up, and what the demand on them is likely to be. We want to give them a future horizon of utilisation. That may not be easy, or possible, but we want them to have confidence that they are being used in a balanced way. That work is under way, and valuable lessons can be learned from recent experiences.
I would also like to recognise the contribution made by our civilian staff. Many are currently living and working alongside their military colleagues in operational theatres, providing advice on policy and on financial, legal, contractual and other issues. Indeed, several of our deployed civilians were recognised in last month's special honours list for Iraq. I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to the contributions that our civilians make, in the field and behind the scenes, to our success on operations.
The excellent achievements of our regular and reserve forces are testimony to the degree of preparation provided by high-quality individual training and education throughout their careers.
While physical and mental challenge is an integral and essential part of military training, the services are very conscious of the need to treat people as individuals, taking full account of varying abilities, needs and aspirations. Even so, we have been criticised as the result of tragic incidents in some training establishments. We have taken this criticism seriously and have made—and will continue to make—strenuous efforts to correct shortcomings and put in place robust systems to ensure that best practice is recognised and spread, that the highest standards are maintained, and that our training process is open to professional scrutiny.
As the House will be aware, the adult learning inspectorate is currently undertaking a detailed survey as to the manner in which the MOD discharges its duty of care to young people in training. This important work, which sits alongside the current inquiry by the Defence Select Committee, will report before Easter, and it is my intention to bring their findings, and our response, to the House at the earliest opportunity.
The MOD is one of the largest single providers of training and education in the UK. The lifelong learning process maximises individual potential through professional and personal development, and requires the active participation of both the organisation and the individual, supported by best-practice quality assurance systems. It captures education, academic and vocational learning activity, delivered through career and beyond. It includes, but is not limited to, modern apprenticeships, national vocational qualifications and higher education, including post-graduate training.
A fundamental premise is that, where possible, relevant defence training will be accredited towards civilian qualifications. Qualification, knowledge and experience gained through lifelong learning benefit both the Department and the individual. We also ensure that our people have access to the best available medical care at home, on exercise and on operations.
At home, our regional rehabilitation units have greatly reduced waiting lists and inappropriate referrals to secondary care for musculoskeletal injuries. The MOD is a leader in this type of initiative. In mental health, we have pursued a modern, community-based care approach. We have established, with King's College London, a mental health unit to keep abreast of the latest thinking. The Royal Centre for Defence Medicine is also a key element in our modernisation and the nucleus of a centre of military medical excellence in the midlands.
We have a successful partnership with the Department of Health and we work hard to ensure that our two Departments and the NHS work together effectively. Initiatives include the possible joint procurement of drugs, and we have already delivered improvements in reception arrangements for military casualties from overseas. On operations, and particularly recently in Iraq, regular and reserve personnel in the Defence Medical Services have played a vital role and provided high standards of clinical care in difficult circumstances.
I am sure that hon. Members will join with me in acknowledging the debt that we owe to those who have been killed or injured in operations or other circumstances, and in expressing our sympathy for the price paid by them, their partners and their families.
We continue to support those families to minimise any further distress. For example, we have reviewed our policies regarding the provision of living accommodation to bereaved spouses and their children. We will ensure that they have somewhere to live close to their families while they come to terms with their loss, and we aim to react quickly, sensitively and effectively to accommodate injured personnel in modified housing where there is a need.
We have also reviewed our boards of inquiry process to ensure that they are instigated more quickly—within 48 hours—and that Ministers are kept informed of progress. In addition, we have taken action to establish a single point of contact for next of kin, to ensure that they are briefed clearly, comprehensively and regularly so that they understand the stages in the process.We continue to keep these and associated policies under regular review, to ensure that bereaved families and injured personnel are provided with the support that they deserve.
Looking to the future, we must ensure that we have the people policies in place to deliver people who are motivated, multi-skilled and adaptable. We will need recruits with greater potential and we must be able to offer rewarding careers to succeed in a highly competitive job market. Our terms and conditions of service must remain attractive overall, and at least comparable with the private sector.Currently, there is a shortfall of just over 3,000, or 1.6 per cent., against our trained requirement. That figure has been adjusted to reflect the force structure changes announced last July.
We need between 18,000 and 19,000 personnel to join the trained strength of the three services each year, after completing basic training. Typically, that requires annual recruitment of up to 24,000 suitably qualified, fit and motivated young people of the right calibre. Success in recruitment is fundamental to the delivery of the people component of operational capability.To recruit and retain the required number and calibre of people, we must continue to provide attractive terms and conditions of service, and efficient, responsive and modern personnel support processes that meet the changing expectations of people, today and in the future.
Will the Minister give way?
No, as I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already.
It is a separate point.
I should hope so, as I have spoken on about three different subjects since the hon. Gentleman's previous intervention. However, I am conscious of the time and of the fact that other hon. Members want to speak in the debate.
We have developed a service personnel plan to deliver sufficient capable and motivated people, in a co-ordinated, coherent and effective manner. The plan analyses the strategic environment for at least the next 15 years, and uses the latest academic and business techniques. The result is an ambitious, and widely supported, personnel change programme with clear milestones for delivery. It also provides a risk analysis mechanism, and performance metrics led by senior programme champions.
The armed forces are determined to ensure that they become more representative of our diverse society in the UK, through harnessing the wealth of talent and skills of individuals from different backgrounds. We aim to create an environment in which everyone is valued and respected, and encouraged to reach their full potential. I should highlight the fact that, as recently announced by my hon. friend the Under-Secretary of State, we are extending the range of chaplaincy provision currently provided from the Christian and Jewish faiths by appointing the first chaplains from the Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim faiths.
Improving the retention of personnel is a crucial factor in sustaining our desired manning profiles. It also helps to provide an effective return on the substantial investment we make in training our people. Our overall "people package" is a factor when people choose whether to continue service or to seek alternative careers.
The need to recruit, retain and motivate suitably able and qualified people lies at the heart of the independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body's work, with the unique circumstances of service life being a key consideration. I am pleased that last year, for the sixth year in succession, we were able to accept the review body's recommendations in full, including increases to those allowances specifically designed to compensate for separation from families.
The review body's latest report was submitted on 17 January to my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence. As always, the Government will give the most careful consideration to the recommendations.
Our forces continue to be deployed on operations and other tasks around the world. I understand the potential impact that this has on families. Family issues are central to our personnel policies. The service families taskforce brings together Ministers and officials from across Government with representatives of the Service Families Association. It plays a vital role on issues affecting communication with families, housing, education, children and health, and I pay genuine tribute to that work.
With the end of the arms plot, battalions will, in future, be fixed by role and largely by location. That will mean that the infantry is able to offer much greater stability for soldiers and their families. It will also allow the career development of soldiers to be much more carefully planned, while keeping the variety, opportunity and challenge of new roles and locations open to soldiers in the large infantry regiments.
All that provides peace of mind for our people while they are away from their partners and families so that they can concentrate on the job in hand. At other times, it allows them to plan their lives with confidence, knowing that they will be able to establish roots in one place, if they want to. That, in turn, supports separate careers for spouses and the schooling and employment of their children. We remain committed to providing good quality accommodation for service personnel and their families.
Annington Homes.
Well, that charge cannot be levelled against this Administration. I joined the hon. Gentleman not long ago in a major initiative for a big development in his constituency—the beginning of many such projects. I shall leave it to him to score political points against those on the Benches to his right—
Politically.
Well, one never knows with the Liberal Democrats. However, they are probably on the right side in this instance.
Our housing strategy aims to provide greater choice through a mixed economy of service, rented and privately owned housing. Perhaps the hon. Member for Blaby will tell us when he winds up whether he will reverse the actions taken to sell off service accommodation. Would he spend even more money clearing up the mess his party left behind? He shakes his head: it does not surprise me that he will not rise to the bait.
We aim to provide high-quality single and family service accommodation in the right locations to support mobility. We are also providing better advice and assistance to those who seek greater stability and a stake in the housing market.
We value and support the well-being of the service community, because it is good employment practice and it contributes to operational capability. We have learned lessons from Operation Telic on the availability of welfare services and we are reviewing welfare and well-being issues more widely, including strategies for stress, care of vulnerable people, and the coverage of existing welfare provision.
This April, we introduce new pension and compensation schemes that provide equal terms for officers and other ranks, and compensation better focused on the more seriously disabled. Where possible, the schemes include changes sought by service personnel and ex-service organisations. Notably, we have introduced a major increase to widows' benefits, provided pensions for unmarried partners, improved death-in-service benefit and extended the time limit to claim for compensation. The new arrangements should better meet the needs of the armed forces for the foreseeable future.
Will the Minister give way?
No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman may wish to intervene in the speech by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State later, because he has the specialist knowledge of the matter. I never shy away from taking on a challenge, but I have enough respect for the hon. Gentleman to know that he will take the opportunity to make his contribution in his own way.
We also take the problem of ex-service homelessness very seriously. We have a duty of care to ensure that service personnel are given as much assistance as possible to make a successful transition to civilian life, and when things go wrong, for whatever reason, we provide assistance through ex-service charities. Of the estimated 5 million veterans in the UK, research shows that the vast majority found service life a positive experience and made a successful transition to civilian life.
All service leavers now receive some form of resettlement assistance, regardless of time served or reason for leaving.
Will the Minister give way?
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I enjoy the knockabout with the SNP. Will he apologise for the comment about the butcher's apron?
I will ask the question, if the Minister does not mind. How many of the veterans' associations that he consulted in his survey welcome General Jackson's plans for the Scottish infantry?
I have dealt with that point. I have had enough knockabout on that point for now. I offered the hon. Gentleman an opportunity when he intervened. A representative of his party made an outrageous slur on the armed forces and, time and again, I have asked SNP Members to condemn it. They have not done so and, therefore, I can only assume that they share that view. Perhaps I should not have given way, because it has led us into consideration of other issues. However, I repeat the point that we genuinely listen to the views of veteran and regimental associations. I have met several of them, as have my ministerial colleagues. We view the associations with respect and we understand their sincerely expressed point of view. They are not involved in political point-scoring because they have the interests of the regiment at heart. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman falls into that category.
Will the Minister give way?
No, I have already dealt with the hon. Gentleman.
The MOD provides general housing advice to all service personnel as well as identifying service leavers at risk of homelessness. For the latter, we provide additional preventive assistance as necessary. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, will speak further on veterans and resettlement issues later in this debate.
Our service and civilian personnel have continued to do a remarkable and widely applauded job in difficult circumstances. But we cannot stand still. We must ensure that our armed forces are organised and equipped to meet the challenges that we will face in the foreseeable future. Our people policies must continue to provide us with the right number of well trained and motivated people, ready to undertake the most demanding operations. I am confident that the work we have in hand now, which I have set out, and our plans for the future will allow us to achieve that goal.
I welcome this opportunity to speak on behalf of my party in this debate on armed forces personnel. The Government, the Opposition, members of the Select Committee and Back Benchers have all rightly emphasised the importance of our armed forces. Their quality and professionalism are central to our defence and security. In all the debates we have, all hon. Members rightly praise our armed forces, who frequently respond rapidly and decisively to the orders of the day, despite those orders increasingly coming at short notice, sometimes with less than adequate equipment, and involving deployment worldwide.
We take it as a matter of course that our armed forces have the ability to move seamlessly from war fighting to peacekeeping. Relatively few armed forces have the ability to do that. Some can just do war fighting and some can just do peacekeeping. We should be grateful for the professionalism of our armed forces over many years and their leadership, which have meant that they are able to do both.
What our armed forces do and say is now examined in minute detail by 24–7 media, by Parliament and by the public. Their families, as much as they themselves, are now in the firing line. The task we politicians face is to provide the legal basis on which they operate, to provide them with the necessary resources, to give them our support and, at the same time, to hold them to account. It is against that background that we must consider in the course of this debate some of the problems relating to our armed forces in operations overseas.
Earlier, Mr. Speaker rightly said that he would not consider any comments or discussion of the case involving the recent allegations about members of the armed forces. My party actively and absolutely supports that ruling. However, I have some general questions to put to Ministers, which the Under-Secretary may be able to cover at the end of the debate. I put the questions on the grounds that many misleading comments have been made in the press and it is possible that if some factual information is put into the public arena, it will benefit the debate and provide reassurance and confidence to the members of our armed forces, their families and the public.
First, does the Under-Secretary agree that the military do not see themselves as above the law, but that hard lessons have to be learned about how they operate within the law, given military constraints? Is he able to tell the House how many other cases of alleged abuse are being investigated and/or are coming to trial? Some figures have been put by the press into the public domain. Will he clarify, if possible, whether there may be any further repercussions, such as civilian convictions, for any soldier put on trial by court martial who is not found guilty. In other words, is it possible that the case could then come before a civil court? Can he confirm that the Army reviewing authority has the right to overturn a finding of guilt, and amend it and/or the sentence that has been imposed? Is he fully satisfied that proper, timely and full briefing, including the individual training directive briefing, was offered to all our soldiers deployed to Iraq? I hope that we can have some factual information about those problems.
Many of our constituents have expressed much disquiet about how some cases have been looked at by the Attorney-General before the Army legal people examined them in great detail. Does my hon. Friend agree that those cases should be left to the Army legal services, not to the Attorney-General?
My hon. Friend reflects the concern not only of our constituents but of a number of Members on both sides of the House. To many of us, including those of us on the Front Bench and possibly even Ministers, at times, there appears to be a lack of real clarity about some of the legal aspects, and indeed about the type of legal opinion that not only Ministers but senior officers have to take. I look forward to the Secretary of State coming to the House at some stage and making a full statement about the legal aspects of that problem and of the problems experienced by service personnel as to when they have to, or do not have to, use force on operations, and the consequences if, on the spur of the moment, they make a mistake.
Reductions in training have a progressively damaging effect on the fighting power and ethos of the armed forces. At the highest level, combined arms collective training at formation level and above may look like a quick fix for making savings, but it may take years fully to recover the standards and combined training that have been lost. Being heavily committed to operations can offset some of the disadvantages. At the end of the day, our armed forces are not just on operation as bandbox armed forces. They are there to be used and they have a considerable amount of experience, and I concur entirely with the Minister of State in his criticism of SNP defence policy. I always hate to get in the middle of what is obviously an old family feud that only those with Scottish blood—although with a name like Keith Robert Simpson I have a little Scottish blood—
As I mentioned the SNP, I shall be generous and allow the hon. Gentleman to come back on that point.
Have the Scottish Conservatives given up the fight to save the Scottish regiments? This is the third time that the one and only Conservative Member with a Scottish constituency has missed an important and crucial debate about the Scottish regiments. Where on earth is he?
I think he is in my constituency.
There we have it. The one and only Scottish Conservative is traipsing around somebody else's constituency instead of being in the Chamber putting the case for the Scottish regiments. The Scottish Conservatives may have forgotten about our regiments but the Scottish National party certainly has not.
Unlike the Minister of State, I welcome the SNP intervention because of the sheer cheek of people who are the greatest political ambulance chasers in the United Kingdom. That statement should be examined and taken at face value.
In a debate on defence in the other House, Lord Guthrie said:
"It is important that our service men and women are properly trained. It should be of great concern that soldiers are now being deployed less well trained than they should be and less well trained than they have been in the past. The defence budget is so tight that training suffers. That affects all parts of the Army. Individual soldiers are less skilled than they were; training standards are too low; gunnery and field firing camps are cancelled; training between infantry, tanks, engineers and those parts of the Army that may have to co-operate and fight together rarely take place."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2005; Vol.668, c. 564.]
In the past when such quotations were used by Conservative Members or even, to be fair, by Labour Back Benchers, they were usually dismissed by Ministers on the grounds that they came from retired military dinosaurs in the other place. No one could refer to General Lord Guthrie as that. He is a man who served all Governments with great loyalty and professionalism and has always been constrained about what he says in public. He reflects publicly the deep concerns about training felt in many parts of the serving armed forces, who rightly do not put their reservations into the public domain.
I have a question for the Under-Secretary about language training. As we prepare our armed forces to fight constantly overseas, developing capability in language training for our military personnel should have considerable priority. Currently, relatively small numbers of our armed forces attend courses at the Defence School of Languages: 363 in 2001–02; 271 in 2002–03; and 380 in 2003–04. Will the MOD consider putting greater emphasis on language training, and is it considering ways of encouraging personnel to undertake further such training, possibly through financial inducements or educational qualifications? Language skills should be given great priority.
I want to turn to the overall situation in Iraq. Our armed forces personnel, as citizens as much as members of the armed forces, have a right to know in detail what Government policy will be over the next few months. With the Iraq elections two weeks away and no signs that the deadly insurgency is abating, the Government should be thinking of and beyond the election date. The imminent Iraqi elections have brought to the foreground calls for an early US withdrawal. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to George Bush Senior, predicted "an incipient civil war" and suggested that
"the Iraqi elections, rather than being a promising turning point, have the potential for deepening the conflict."
Does the Minister agree with the US Secretary of State designate, Condoleezza Rice, who acknowledged that problems of absenteeism and desertion among Iraqi forces are endemic? Is her assessment that there are 120,000 trained Iraqi troops more realistic than the suggestion of Senator Biden, who claimed after his recent visit to Iraq that the number was closer to 4,000? What is the British Army's assessment, in its area of southern Iraq, of the number of insurgents and the number of trained Iraqi security forces who are available and effective?
We know that the Netherlands will pull out its troops on 15 March, along with the Portuguese contingent, sticking to a decision made in June. What plans are there for increasing the number of other coalition troops in Iraq? Perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten the House as to whether other countries have been approached and whether there are any positive signs. What are the MOD's plans for additional deployment of British troops to and beyond Multi-National Division (South-East)? Can the Minister shed any light on the report in The Daily Telegraph today that Britain is urging America to announce a timetable for withdrawing coalition troops from Iraq over the next 18 months?
In view of the hon. Gentleman's remarks about possible withdrawal from Iraq, can he clarify the position of the Conservative party? Does he believe that we should stay in there and finish the job or that we should cut and run?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that highly partisan point. He knows that we have supported the Government in their attempt to bring law and order to southern Iraq. We support the election. I have been asking the Government specific questions about the situation beyond the election. The Select Committee, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member, has also asked such questions—but answers have we none.
I now turn to MOD support for civilian contingencies, which the Minister touched on. We very much welcome the efforts made by the MOD and by military and civilian personnel who continue to offer support to those people affected by the tsunami in the far east. Can the Minister cast any light on the reasons behind the offer of 500 Gurkhas to Indonesia, and why the Indonesian Government rejected it? Did the advice to offer the Gurkhas come from the Foreign Office or the MOD? Why was the civil affairs group not mobilised and deployed, given the amount of study and work that it has done in the past?
On civil contingencies, may I also press the Minister on homeland security? What plans exist for the use of regular forces stationed in the United Kingdom to react to terrorist incidents in this country, or will that be left entirely to those units of the reserve forces that have been specifically set up to deal with it? Clearly, even if plans exist for regional brigadiers to call for regulars in their commands to assist local authorities, it is difficult to predict whether units will be available while the current overstretch in operational deployments continues. Has the problem with the number of reservists who are double-hatted—those who have a commitment to serve overseas but have also been allocated to Territorial Army units for home defence—been sorted out?
Deployments over the past seven years have included continuous operations in the Balkans and additional operations in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Commitments have fluctuated from a peak of 44 per cent. of the Army on operations in 1999, falling to 22 per cent. in April 2001, with 31 per cent. committed to operations in November 2001, falling back to 23 per cent. by December 2002, but rising again to about 40 per cent. during the height of the Iraq conflict.
General Lord Guthrie said in the debate in the other House:
"It seems extraordinary to many of us—at a time when there is so much uncertainty in Northern Ireland, where it sadly appears that the situation could again deteriorate; when Iraq needs reinforcing; when Afghanistan needs additional troops; when the Balkans, in particular Kosovo, could erupt; and when the tragedies of Darfur and elsewhere are clear for all to see—that we are actually reducing the size of the Army and in particular the number of infantrymen, who are the very people we need on current and future operations. Cessation of arms plotting certainly will help, but the Army will still be too small for what the Government expect it to do. They expect the Army always to succeed on operations, but they also expect it to sort out the foot and mouth crisis, to fire-fight and to undertake disaster relief."
Just for the record, although this has been said from the Dispatch Box before—I have the utmost regard and highest respect for Lord Guthrie—it is worth the hon. Gentleman reflecting on the fact that the Regular Army is about 2,500 bigger today than when Lord Guthrie was Chief of the Defence Staff.
The Minister's problem is that the Army is deployed more frequently and more of its personnel are now on operations. Unfortunately, as he said, size is not everything, and Lord Guthrie, who has considerable experience, makes the point that, at the end of the day, the Army's critical mass is too small. In particular, the fact that the Government intend to cut four infantry battalions will damage the Army's operational effectiveness.
Lord Guthrie continued:
"Ministers sometimes infer that the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Mike Jackson, and the Army Board approve the measures that are planned. We should be very clear that if adequate resources were available, they believe, as many of us do, that the Army should be increased in size. The Army Board is loyal to Ministers, as it should be—they make the best of it—but that does not mean that they are happy with a smaller Army. I hope Ministers recognise that. It is wrong for them to hide behind the Chiefs of Staff."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2005; Vol. 668, c. 564.]
The current Chief of the General Staff said in an interview to a newspaper on 16 November 2004:
"I would much prefer increasing the size of the Army but that's simply not on offer. I can either accept what's on offer—a reduced size of the Army—or go . . . The debate about the Army's future is not simple. It is time to make some hard decisions."
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could remind me of the last time a retired Chief of the General Staff said that we had enough Army personnel, or indeed that we had too many.
The hon. Gentleman should know that any professional organisation always requires more, but to my mind and to those who have nothing to do with politics, to have provoked General Lord Guthrie of all people—he is very considered and has worked very closely with the Prime Minister and has been careful not to appear parti pris—into saying such things shows that the matter is one of considerable concern and worry.
Let me turn briefly to Army restructuring, regimental cuts and the reorganisation of the infantry, about which we have had many debates and many statements, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have expressed their concerns, as has the Defence Committee. It is extraordinary that, when we sadly have a stalemate in Northern Ireland, when Iraq may need reinforcing, when there could be other problems in Afghanistan and elsewhere, we are actually reducing the number of infantry battalions—the very people whom the Army and the other services recognise that we need on current and future operations.
The ending of the arms plot has been broadly welcomed—few people in the armed forces or outside would say that its continuation is necessary—but the kind of regimental cuts that Ministers came up with was not such a purist package as they made out. A number of options of one kind or another were on offer. The Minister rightly said that, from a purist, academic, or indeed a civil service point of view, there could be a good argument for reducing further the number of Scottish infantry battalions. Quite rightly, he said that a footprint of one kind or another must be borne in mind.
To any outsider and certainly to those in the Army, the absurdities of the infantry reorganisation, in which the Scottish regiments managed to get their names up front and the English regiments behind, appears to be the most amazing piece of military theology and tautology. I see the Minister smiling. The only point that I would make is that there was a template that the MOD could have used. One part of the infantry that it was decided not to touch were the Guards infantry regiments. The MOD director of infantry's briefing paper said that they were not touched because they have a ceremonial and national profile.
I would not disagree with that view, but the Guards infantry regiments represent the model that could have been used. They are effectively a larger regiment—a Guards regiment—and they retain in that regiment individual infantry regiments, with their history, battle honours, badges, recruitment and so on. They operate effectively, and in respect of arms plotting, they are able to post and cross-post between them. They are a national institution: the Grenadiers, the Coldstream, the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh. I should be fascinated to know why that model was not used—it seems a blinding glimpse of the obvious. That question will not go away, and I tell all hon. Members that I suspect that the reduction in infantry battalions may have to continue, as much as anything else, not just because of financial pressure but because of the pressure of reconfiguring the Army at large.
Not only has the Army been affected. The other two services at times rightly resent the fact that so much emphasis is placed on the Army. RAF trained strength will be reduced from the current figure of 48,500 to approximately 41,000 by April 2008. There may be a major reduction of RAF air bases and facilities throughout the country as part of that configuration. The process will be painful and will raise legitimate questions about the levels sufficient for the RAF to carry out its functions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) will touch on the Royal Navy. There will be a reduction in the strength of not only its manpower but its platforms. As Admiral Lord Boyce has pointed out on numerous occasions, today we can have only one naval platform in one part of the world at any one time. There is incredibly limited flexibility, and if some of the cuts go ahead, operational limitations will be imposed on the Royal Navy, and its ability to assist in disaster relief will also be affected.
Has the average interval of 24 months between tours for the Army been achieved? The Minister rightly highlighted people policies and welfare, and I know that he and his predecessors have put a lot of time and effort into that. I am grateful for his comments about the treatment of our wounded and injured military personnel on operations, because rather lurid comments have been made in the press. I would not infer in any way that either he or his colleagues are insensitive to the situation.
I have some specific factual questions. How many personnel are currently receiving medical attention in the UK? Is there a breakdown between those suffering from physical injuries and stress-related injuries? I welcomed the Minister's comments about the work being done at King's college, London. How many of the servicemen who have been physically or mentally wounded in the past few years have been able to take up their former military careers? How many have been discharged, and what measures have been taken to compensate them financially and enable them to seek civilian employment? The Minister rightly touched on the problems that the Government, and indeed previous Governments, have faced regarding homeless ex-servicemen, which is often highlighted before the holiday season. Does he have any statistics showing many ex-servicemen are homeless today compared with a year ago, and is there a trend?
During our consideration of the Bill that became the Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Act 2004, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) ably led for the official Opposition, the Ministry of Defence refused to address the inability of most members of the armed forces to earn a full career pension. Although we welcome benefits of the new scheme, such as the increase to the death-in-service benefit, it should be noted that the early departure scheme means that those who leave mid-career will be materially worse off than they would have been under the existing scheme. Such important manning and retention tools act as a pull through for members of our armed forces who would ordinarily have left earlier.
Owing to the heightened risks of military service and the requirement for those serving to have high levels of physical fitness, the compensation arrangements under the war pensions scheme have always been generous. The standard of reasonable doubt, which has traditionally been applied in the absence of a time limit on claiming, reflected the exceptional nature of military service and led to the awarding of many claims that would have been unlikely under comparable public service schemes.
Figures provided by the British Legion on claims made in 2002–03 suggest, however, that 60 per cent. of claims would fail under the new criteria following the introduction of the balance of probabilities and the five-year time limit. On Third Reading, the Under-Secretary confirmed that the change to the new scheme would result in a saving of £300 million over 10 years. What else can that money be except that which would otherwise have gone to those injured in the line of duty? Does that affect the Government's concept of a duty of care?
If the Under-Secretary is able to respond to my point now instead of at the end of the debate, I would be grateful.
I shall say what I said before. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Ministry of Defence contests the 60 per cent. figure. We have held discussions with the British Legion to examine the information in greater detail and are happy to work with it. He also knows that we were not looking at a figure for savings. The pensions and compensation schemes are separate, but both are cost neutral.
I thank the Under-Secretary, and I look forward to hearing further representations from those affected.
The Minister of State touched on the problem of accommodation. Progress is not being made on improving service family accommodation. We understand that the target of bringing all core stock SFA in the UK up to standard 1 for condition will not be achieved by 2005. Why will it not be achieved, and will there be a new target date? What progress has been made on Project Slam to improve single living accommodation for members of the armed forces? I fully appreciate that new recruits in today's world—both men and women—much prefer, and indeed want, single accommodation rather than old-style barrack accommodation.
The Minister knows that about 8,900 troops have been affected by the failure of the "Pay 2000" computer software. What measures are being taken to address the problem, and what is the date by which he expects it finally to be rectified? I understand that he has to face several computer problems, as do Ministers across the board.
The Government have made much of their claim that the defence budget is growing by 1.4 per cent., but they have failed to point out it is about 2.2 per cent. of gross domestic project, which makes it lower in those terms than any defence budget for the past half century. There is frankly little confidence that the present defence programme can be achieved with 2.2 per cent. of gross domestic product. Conservative Members do not think that the Government are prepared to meet the financial demands of our front-line soldiers. According to a recent internal survey of the MOD's personnel, fewer than one in five—only 19.2 per cent.—agreed that the armed forces were well-equipped. A series of important decisions looms in the future about major items of kit and equipment and smaller, but nevertheless crucial, items of kit for individual servicemen and women on active service.
The Conservative party's commitment on defence, which was announced last October and reaffirmed at the beginning of the week, is to spend more money in the defence budget on the front line. We will also produce money from savings in other Departments to go to the front line.
I always think that the Minister would make a good music hall act because he changes between being serious and becoming a knockabout Scottish comedian—he is the Harry Lauder of the Ministry of Defence. [Interruption.] Harry Lauder was a much-loved figure with a knighthood. The Minister and other Ministers have suggested that the Conservative party's figures on defence do not add up. They said last October that we would cut defence spending, but now they say that according to their figures, ours do not add up. Let us have a look at examples of what they have done.
Since the Labour party came to office, £118 million has been wasted on the defence stores management system. Some £77 million was spent on a new radar for the Sea Harrier before the decision was made to take it out of service. The defence staff in Washington wrote off £8 million
"to regularise various control accounts used to manage Foreign Military Sales".
The Defence Procurement Agency was subject to a £40 million claim for
"delays in supplying design information and equipment".
Some £6.5 million was wasted on new aircraft lifts for the current aircraft carriers that were never installed. As a result of a change in accounting procedures relating to the submarine facility at Devonport, a write-down of £287 million occurred.
A National Audit Office report states that the total cost overruns in major defence projects was £170 million in 2000–01. This year's figure, £1.7 billion, is nearly 10 times greater than that. According to the NAO, the total slippage in time for major defence projects was 27 months in 2000–01. In the worst year to date, 2002–03, major defence projects overran by £3 billion. And the Government have the cheek to question our figures, which are based on information extracted from civil servants and military people from within the MOD who have been prepared to talk to us, experts from the City, and our own experience. The Conservatives intend to reallocate £1.8 billion of savings from within the MOD and to provide another £1.7 billion through extra spending. Those realistic figures are laid out in public and have been available to the Under-Secretary for the past year.
When the Minister and the MOD say that they are incapable of reorganising either the Defence Procurement Agency or the Defence Logistics Organisation, I think back 20 years to when Lord Heseltine, who was Secretary of State for Defence, introduced a chief of defence procurement. The howls of anguish within the MOD, let alone the total opposition from the Labour party on the grounds that the position would never work, were proved absolutely wrong. The next Conservative Government will do the same thing, and it will be better for our armed forces.
The 15-minute limit on speeches by Back Benchers now begins to operate. Bearing in mind the length of the opening speeches, if hon. Members stick to the full allocation decided by Mr. Speaker, it will be very difficult to recognise everybody.
I will heed your comment and try to keep my remarks well within the time limit, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I am pleased that we have this debate, which has happened for a number of years, on personnel policies in the armed forces. All Members of Parliament have experienced people who serve in the forces or their families telling them, "You come up with the high-falutin' policies on world politics, but we have to implement them and our families must live with that." The armed forces serve us proudly whenever they are asked to undertake a task and we owe it to them to consider their situation and that of their families. Serving officers and soldiers can also read reports of what is said in Parliament, which allows them to campaign and make their point, if they feel that that is necessary.
The armed forces know that they operate in a world of change and that their requirements always flow from political considerations. Hon. Members know that important changes in world politics, such as the destruction of the USSR, the threat from global terrorism and the problems that increasingly flow from poverty and the alienation of people in poorer parts of the world who see the life enjoyed by people in richer parts of the world, have affected the tasks that our armed forces carry out.
The institutions on which we have traditionally relied to implement our military policies must also change. In the past 50 years, we have relied heavily on NATO, which I continue to support, but NATO itself is questioning its own purpose. Is its only purpose to protect western Europe from potential threats or does it have a wider role? Should it operate within the western European theatre or across a wider area? Whatever conclusions it eventually reaches, they will inevitably have major consequences for our armed forces' structure and purpose and in respect of with whom our armed forces must link up, of training requirements, of operational matters and so on.
I see a world of increasing change. We have paid little attention to China and its potential economic and military power and we must build strong political relationships with it. I know that the leaders of our armed forces are aware of those considerations, and, whatever decisions we take, I am sure that our armed forces will be subject to major repercussions.
Thankfully, there is more agreement on such matters than many hon. Members would admit. The G7 countries and the leaders of the armed forces in those countries and beyond agree on the tasks that we face and there is much agreement in the House. I do not support the intervention in Iraq and believe that we should set out a timetable for withdrawal. However, I support 100 per cent. the need to have the military capability to operate at a distance—an expeditionary force, if you like—on behalf of our nation or our allies. Such a capability has major repercussions for logistics and operations and, consequently, on personnel policy.
I am not a member of the Select Committee, but I have read its reports. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the strategy of effects. I thought that the world of politics and the military were trying to convince us that they have discovered something new, but Lord Haw Haw immediately came to mind. There is nothing new in the effects strategy, but if it was important in the past, it is crucial now because of instant media, embedded journalists and so on.
We must not only secure a physical victory in theatre, but convince civilians in that theatre that we are acting on their behalf in the interests of the values that we hold. At the same time, we must hold public opinion in our own country, in our NATO allies' countries and in UN colleague countries, which requires a different approach by our armed forces. I am pleased to say that the Government recognised that point in their dialogue with the Select Committee.
We want more resources to fulfil those greater tasks. I know that Front Benchers have argued about who can deliver what, but real-terms increases in defence expenditure have occurred in recent years and, this year, the increase is 1.4 per cent., which is welcome. It is necessary to increase resources, but resources cannot be increased for ever, so it is also important to use resources more efficiently, which has consequences for personnel policies. Some areas can obviously be improved and the need to reduce cost and get better value is never ending.
There is probably room for further efficiencies in internal logistics, which will have consequences. If a technician, rather than a middle-aged major, undertakes tasks in a warehouse because of restructuring, it has major consequences for officer structures in the Army and for sub-contractors, who are not members of the armed forces and who will carry out such tasks in the future.
The White Paper, which has my support, identified the key issues. The Army is not a museum that we must keep in its current shape for ever. It has to change as its task changes, and the people who know that better than anyone else are the Army personnel themselves—this point also applies to other armed forces—both officers and other ranks. They understand that what they are being asked to do in Iraq is completely different from what the Army was asked to do in Germany 20 years ago. They know that things have to change. They know that their principal purpose, according to the mission statement, is to protect the nation, our values and our way of life, and to carry out any tasks that they are asked to do. They know more than anyone else that there has to be change.
The Scottish nationalists raised earlier the names and structure of the regiments, and such issues are indeed important. I support the Government's proposed reorganisation of the regiments and there is a case for reducing the number from 40 to 36. Northern Ireland is part of that story, as is the need in the modern Army to diversify skills. Crucially, this is a relatively minor issue compared with the main one, which is how we protect our nation. We must also consider the purpose of NATO and how we deal with future expeditionary forces.
The hon. Gentleman says that restructuring is a minor matter compared with the bigger context that he describes, but perhaps he could explain that to the six Scottish regiments, which regard it as far from minor. Scrapping the entire Scottish regimental system surely cannot be described as a minor matter.
I disagree with the hon. Lady. To my mind, restructuring is a relatively minor matter. It is important that we get the answer to it right, but compared with the question of whether a major threat to this nation or its allies exists in some other part of the world, it is not the main issue. Anyone who tries to tell the public otherwise is merely creating confusion. Such reorganisation is necessary.
There is also a clear need to re-orientate training programmes. The traditional requirements of war fighting will always be the central purpose of any army. If our Army is to be any kind of deterrent, people have to know that, if we go into battle, we are effective. That must be the central purpose of training, but there are other purposes that have to be met. Peacekeeping is a very important issue. There is no point in winning a battle, only to lose the peace three weeks later. We also have to be effective in dealing with humanitarian tasks. There is no point in winning a battle and keeping the peace, if poverty or natural disaster means that everything is then ruined and no humanitarian aid can be provided. Such an outcome renders those efforts purposeless, which is why our forces must be trained to deal with all those eventualities.
There is little disagreement over ending the arms plot. When I had to deal directly with such issues some years ago, I could not understand why everybody clung to it. I am glad that a different view is now taken and that a consensus has developed. My doubts about the arms plot arose from talking to soldiers' husbands and wives. They said, "It is unnecessary. We understand that our spouses have to be away and that there must be some disruption, but we don't understand why we must move camp to meet some general statistical plan." Ending the arms plot is a good move and it will win support among forces families. For working spouses, giving the family as much support as possible is important. Moreover, those with children do not want their education disrupted.
Many changes are ahead of us. Some are the consequence of changes in the European theatre, and others of technological advances. Some are the consequence of the increasingly significant role of the United Nations and the demands placed on it, and others of the ever increasing need for specialist staff. Other important issues—we have been shy of tackling them in the House today—will also have major repercussions, such as how we replace our existing nuclear weapons and how we deploy such weapons. From the technical and operational point of view, that issue has to be faced. I have always believed that a nuclear deterrent is an important instrument in defending our country at home. It is perhaps not as important in dealing with overseas issues—I am glad that it is not—but it still has a role.
The armed forces have always responded to what we as a nation have asked them to do, and I am absolutely confident that they will do so in future. They deserve our support.
I welcome this timely debate, not because it comes in a week when some of our armed forces are unfortunately in the media spotlight, but because it gives us an opportunity to remember and to pay tribute to those personnel still serving in Iraq, and to recognise the magnificent support that our armed forces provided in response to the devastating tsunami on Boxing day. A tremendous amount of work has been done and it reflects the huge variety of tasks that we ask our armed forces to undertake at a moment's notice.
The hon. Gentleman rightly mentions the tsunami, but we should also consider matters closer to home and reflect on the work undertaken by the armed forces in particular in Carlisle and in Boscastle, which is of course in his own county. That shows the considerable contribution that our armed forces can make in dealing with crises at home arising from natural disasters.
Quite so, and the Minister will know how important it was that the helicopters used in Boscastle were very close to hand. I hope that he will reflect on the suggestion that they might not be there in the immediate future and think carefully before taking a decision.
We have heard this afternoon about our armed forces' various commitments and we have also heard that, unfortunately, there will be redundancies. All three of our armed forces will be subject to cuts and it is necessary for us to question the balance that is being struck between manpower and technology. Achieving the right balance is a difficult thing, as I have always accepted. It is a perennial problem for any Government. However, we have to weigh the demands of operating at the high end of the war-fighting spectrum against the equally demanding humanitarian and stability-related tasks that we are asked to carry out around the world. We recognise that technology is expensive, but manpower is invaluable. It is widely known that our troops on the ground are greatly admired for their flexibility, training and professionalism, which they can display in a variety of circumstances. We never underestimate their value, but we should also never overstretch their capabilities.
It is tempting to believe that fewer fighting troops are needed when technological advances are made in weapons and communication equipment, but it is clear from the events of the past few months that technology alone does not win battles. It therefore seems astonishing, as the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) said, that even though our troops are still required in a variety of situations—be it Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan or the Balkans—we are seriously contemplating reducing the Army's size. In particular, a reduction is being considered in the number of those infantrymen who are a crucial component for many such operations.
I was surprised to read that, at a time when we are cutting our manpower despite our considerable commitments, it appears that the United States army is likely to increase its forces by another 20,000 or 30,000, despite its already huge numbers. We have indicated that we support the ending of the arms plot, which has been welcomed across the House, but we do not see why that should necessarily lead to a reduction in numbers. Cutting personnel numbers is a dangerous game, especially in the current climate, as there seems little likelihood of any major reduction in our commitments throughout the world, at least in the immediate future.
Recruitment and retention of our armed forces personnel are therefore even more crucial, as the Minister said in his opening speech. We must ensure that we have a continual recruitment process and that the forces have a promotional structure to retain our best servicemen and women. I was particularly pleased to hear of the continuation of the upgrading of family housing, which is crucial to retention. I shall listen with interest, however, to hear why there has been some slippage in that programme, which was welcomed by everyone when it was announced. I hope that the slippage is not too great.
As for reserve forces, reservists called up to serve in Iraq are said to be a little more unwilling to go again. At the moment, only a small fraction of trained reservists are immediately available. Clearly, some are untrained, some are unfit, and others are already stationed out in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The considerable pressure on our reservists continues. Will the Minister comment on what progress has been made in recruiting and retaining reservists?
The ability to deploy and move around sufficient numbers of personnel who are suitably trained and appropriately equipped is vital, but the resources available and manpower levels in the Army are becoming dangerously low. The Minister will remember that the MOD's internal survey last year revealed that two thirds of those questioned were spending their money on extra equipment because they did not have enough confidence in that which was issued by the MOD, and nearly half our soldiers in Iraq had no confidence in their fighting kit. That same survey revealed that 39 per cent. of soldiers do not feel valued by the Army and that 35 per cent. felt that morale was very low. When asked whether the MOD looked after its personnel, only 3 per cent. of respondents agreed strongly, and 32 per cent. somewhat agreed, leaving a rather damning 62 per cent. who either did not know or did not believe that the MOD looked after its staff. Those figures are worrying. I hope that the Minister will provide some evidence of efforts made by the MOD to try to address some of the matters raised as a consequence of that. We need to address what our troops say in such surveys, as they are not just carried out for statistical reasons and I hope that there will be some evidence that the MOD has addressed some of the issues that underlie those views.
We must ensure that our forces have the best and most effective equipment. The alarming figures from the survey suggest that they do not. The amount spent on basic kit and equipment, as a proportion of total expenditure, cannot be large. The situation must be remedied so that no member of our armed forces feels compelled to purchase additional kit with their wages in order to feel more confident in any dangerous situation to which we send them. They are protecting us, so surely we must ensure that we protect them.
Training is causing some concern. We are witnessing signs of overstretch and it appears that some soldiers are being deployed who are less well trained than used to be, and perhaps should be, the case. I want to praise HMS Raleigh, which happens to be in my constituency and of which I and the community in South-East Cornwall are proud. It has undertaken some incredibly good training work, over many years, and it is an absolute joy to see many young men and women going into that training establishment and coming out as confident and effective young men and women going into the Navy. Training establishments such as HMS Raleigh are vital to our personnel and defence. Whatever budget calculations take place, our training establishments must be protected to ensure that they get exactly the right resources, so that training standards are not affected and we do not see any failures and incidents in training organisations such as those at Deepcut.
In our last debate on this subject, the Minister offered several Members the opportunity to visit a number of establishments. I took up that offer and was pleased to go. I do not know whether we were allocated a Chinook with a window missing, which allowed us to endure previously unknown temperatures, in order to demonstrate that the cuts were hitting. The visits to establishments were extremely worthwhile and we all came away much more impressed in the sense that there was a more proactive approach to recruits. The training officers, voluntary services and chaplaincies were all working effectively together to address some of our underlying concerns. I for one felt that that day was well spent and I want the Minister to recognise that those of us who made that visit felt that it was a worthwhile exercise.
It was interesting to read through the defence debate in the other place earlier this week, which was clearly attended by a considerable number of senior retired gentleman—five former chiefs of staff, I think. Although we might feel that they do not say now, when they are retired, what they might have said previously, if we reflect on that debate, I hope that the Minister will accept that they have a great wealth of experience from which they were trying to make constructive points.
This week, figures—to which the Minister referred in his opening statement—were revealed on the high number of soldiers who have been wounded and are now hospitalised. I hope that the sort of detailed analysis that was offered earlier, and which the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk called for, becomes available. Some categorisation is important and I recognise that the hundreds mentioned could cover a wide spectrum of injury. It would be helpful if the MOD could provide some analysis of the figures. I hope, and I am sure that the MOD and Ministers will recognise, that those troops who have been brought back because of casualties demand our attention. I am sure that they will get that and hope that they will receive regular visits.
Perhaps more worryingly, the same newspaper report, although I agree that we should not always accept what we read in the newspapers, seemed to suggest that those who had been wounded, and their relatives, should not talk to the media, and should be careful of what they were saying and to whom they said it. That sends a worrying sensation through us and our constituents. We owe a significant amount to these men and women, and we should not deny them the opportunity to speak to Ministers and to their constituency MPs, if they wish to visit.
Finally, I am sure that the issue of voting is uppermost in people's minds. It is ironic, when we send our troops to places such as Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq to help promote democracy, that they should effectively be disfranchised. The number of registered service personnel voters has dropped dramatically since 2000, when there was a change from a single lifetime registration to a requirement to register every year. I am not certain why the system changed, so perhaps the Minister can explain. In some areas, only 10 per cent. of servicemen and women have registered, which is worrying. We have heard that they should understand what Government policies are and so on, but being able to vote is more important. I hope that the Government will ensure that our armed forces personnel do not lose their right to vote and will provide every opportunity to promote registration.
I might be able to assist the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) secured a Westminster Hall debate on the matter and I explained in detail all the changes stemming from the Representation of the People Act 2000. Unless my recollection is incorrect, I am sure that I answered questions on this in Defence questions only 10 days ago, and that the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) became excited. There is a great deal on the record about the issue, but the simple fact is that it is not as bad as it seems.
I am delighted to hear that and hope that it is the case. It would be helpful if the Minister gave us an idea of the number of people who have registered, and whether it is 10, 20 or 50 per cent.
In summary, we are extremely fortunate in the quality of our armed forces, which is the product of many years' work. I hope that we can further improve the career prospects of people who join the armed forces and enhance the training available to them. I hope that we can supply them with the equipment that they need and look after their welfare needs, as well as those of their families, so that we can repay them in the very best possible way.
Bearing in mind the earlier ruling by Mr. Deputy Speaker on speeches and the number of people who wish to speak, I will confine myself to one or two personnel issues.
I welcome our debate because it gives us an opportunity to pay tribute to the excellent work that our servicemen and women do throughout the world. Hon. Members who have the privilege of serving on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly regularly see examples of such work. We see our servicemen and women doing a tremendous job, often in grave circumstances. Whatever is taking place elsewhere today, it should not cast a shadow on the record of our service personnel. As an ex-serviceman myself, I am concerned about the effects of being put under the microscope by the media and of the 24/7 coverage. There is a certain naivety and a lack of realism in attitudes towards military conflict. Warfare is a brutal, cruel and bloody business, and anyone who thinks otherwise makes a grave mistake. My view is that mistakes take place in those difficult environments—there but for the grace of God go I. It may not be popular to say so—unfortunately, however, it is true—but in my limited military experience I saw some terrible things that make current activities pale almost into insignificance. We live in a democracy and members of our military forces who make mistakes will face justice and be made accountable if necessary.
The Government's record on personnel matters is particularly good, and the policies introduced since the strategic defence review are a credit to them. We have not implemented all those policies by any means and we will probably have to review a great many, but the Government's intentions are good as they are trying to change personnel policies in response to the dramatic change in the military's role since the end of the cold war. There has been an attempt to train, recruit and organise personnel to meet threats and challenges outside this country but there have also been dramatic internal changes. Earlier, we had an exchange about recruitment and retention in the armed forces. I remind Members that being able to recruit and retain servicemen and women when there is almost full employment is a hundred times more difficult than trying to do so when there are 3 million to 5 million unemployed, as was the case not very long ago. That is a major consideration. If we do not offer attractive terms and conditions, as well as support for service personnel and, in particular, their families, we will find it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain the best people to serve in our armed forces.
I therefore welcome the personnel policy that we have introduced and warmly welcome, as do most hon. Members, the abolition of the arms plot. In future, larger units will be located in an area for a much longer period, which will improve training, expertise and continuity. When I was in the forces a long time ago, my wife did not work. Now, however, practically every service wife, husband or partner wants to work, so we need an environment that allows them to pursue a career. Their children should all be able go to the same school. I have a large military base in my constituency, so I am aware of the problems, especially the educational problems, that affect families who move on every two years—for example, their children have to move to a different school. I am glad that those issues have been addressed.
I am also glad that we are rebalancing our forces and I welcome the restructuring that will allow us to meet the challenges that we face. I think that all in the House, if they are honest with themselves and assess what we need to do with the resources that we have, will recognise that restructuring the infantry regiments is inevitable. What is the point of having 40 infantry battalions if they cannot be deployed to carry out the tasks that we now face, rather than those that we faced 15 or 20 years ago during the cold war? It is much better to have 36 battalions that can be deployed at very short notice.
How do the hon. Gentleman's comments square with the fact that—to take one Scottish regiment—the Black Watch was recently deployed on its second tour of duty within a year in Iraq? The Royal Highland Fusiliers have just been sent out for their second tour of duty. I do not understand how that squares with what he is saying.
It does in fact square up because we want to share that burden of deployment so that more battalions can deploy in the front line and in difficult situations around the world. We have been unable to do that, partly because of the arms plot and partly because of the gaps that still exist in logistics and other areas, which do not allow us to mobilise those forces.
The way in which we conduct the process is very important. In Wales, we have seen the merger of our historic regiments. I support that move, although I know that it is not popular with everybody. We must do things the right way, however, and I believe that we have made a mistake in the names that we have chosen for those historic regiments, which have a 300-year history of excellence. The Royal Regiment of Wales has received battle honours such as the wreath of immortals, which was awarded to it after its heroic defence at Rorke's Drift. Playing about with its name after the Government have proposed restructuring is a mistake. The same policy should be adopted in Wales as has been adopted for the Scottish regiments in putting their historic titles first within their new names. That should be done in the new Welsh regiment, and failure to do it is a slight to the Welsh regiments.
I think that I am right in saying that it was the South Wales Borderers who were at Rorke's Drift, after which they were incorporated in the Royal Regiment of Wales. Names are important, but I would like to get one thing absolutely straight: is the hon. Gentleman saying that he supports the reduction of the infantry by four battalions?
I certainly support the restructuring of our regiments to make them more usable and more deployable to face the challenges that are ahead of us. Anybody who denies the need for that restructuring has his head in the sand and is unaware of the problems that we face. There is still a debate to be had about the exact numbers of units and personnel, but there is no doubt about the need for restructuring.
If we are going to quibble over titles, I point out that it was the 24th of Foot who were involved in Rorke's Drift. They were then entitled the Warwickshire Regiment, but they were recruiting in the south Wales area and went on to become the South Wales Borderers, who were in turn incorporated in the Royal Regiment of Wales.
Both those interventions are right, but we must be careful or we will lose the very argument that we are trying to put. The regiments that have been mentioned have been amalgamated in the past, which proves that tradition and loyalty can be maintained. Nevertheless, we must get the message across about the Welsh regiment. The Prime Minister referred to the matter yesterday in Prime Minister's questions, and I hope that the Ministry will have another look at it.
In the time that remains to me, I want to focus on one very important personnel issue that relates not to the Army, but to the Royal Air Force. It is crucial that we get our personnel policies right. We must not only enable our forces to do the job that they were recruited for, but give them appropriate resources. The changes that are now taking place present us with a big challenge, which is why it makes no sense whatever that we have decided to give the Royal Air Force a role that has no military relevance. Following an announcement on 16 September last year, which was confirmed on 16 December, Royal Air Force personnel will now be asked by the Ministry of Defence to undertake depth support of our front-line offensive fighter jets at RAF bases in central and eastern England—something that they have not done for some years and that involves carrying out a function that they do not have the capability to carry out.
Depth support for Tornadoes and Harriers does not exist anywhere in Europe other than where such work has been done for the past 50 years, obviously with other front-line aircraft. It has been done by military personnel—including RAF personnel in the past—as well as civilians at RAF St. Athan. The reason why the RAF has not done that work for some years is that there is no military requirement for it to do so. There used to be such a requirement, but the Government have reached a conclusion that is somewhat bizarre and runs counter to the whole argument about rebalancing forces and outsourcing as much support for our front-line forces as we can to allow our military to get on with the job that we pay them to do and that they do best—fighting wars and preparing to fight wars. We now have the absurd decision by the Government to ask service personnel to do factory maintenance—deep maintenance—on those jets.
We are reducing the number of our deployable offensive jets to 64 ready at any one time. The support facilities must be available to ensure that those aircraft are repaired, maintained and overhauled correctly, as they have been for many generations in south Wales, at St. Athan in my constituency. The Government have decided to renationalise that function within the Ministry of Defence and to ask RAF personnel to carry it out. That is a dangerous move, which threatens front-line capability and is demoralising for the RAF.
I have a letter from a senior NCO stating that that is an appalling decision and recommending that one of the Ministers go to RAF Cottesmore, where the Harrier has recently been moved to be repaired in that way, and speak to some of the NCOs in the crew room—off the record, of course, and away from their commanding officers—and ask them what they think about doing such irrelevant work in the 21st century. There was a case during the cold war for our military personnel to undertake such factory maintenance, but since "Options for Change", aspects of which we picked up as a Government under the strategic defence review, all non-essential military work has been taken away from service personnel and given to the private sector or, as in the case of the Defence Aviation Repair Agency, outsourced to a trading agency made up entirely of civilians who operate in an exclusively commercial environment and who have done a fantastic job for the past five years.
Having built an £80 million military hangar that will open in three weeks—the size of six football pitches, it is the largest and most advanced military hangar of its type in the world—instead of repairing the prime of our front-line jets in that wonderful facility, the Government are to transfer the work to remote air bases in the east of England. When I say remote, I mean remote. I am old enough to have been stationed at one of them, RAF Marham—a delightful posting, as I recall it, nicknamed when I was there "the el-Adem with grass". There are probably not many hon. Members who can remember the RAF base in el-Adem, which happened to be in the middle of the Libyan desert. We are seriously proposing that the entire front-line fleet of the Royal Air Force is repaired in the middle of nowhere, with all due respect and apologies to any hon. Member who represents that area. I had a lovely time at RAF Marham, and they were lovely people, but it is not the place to repair the RAF front-line fleet.
I can tell my dear friend the Minister that that demoralises military personnel. They know more than most that what they are being asked to do is nonsense. The work that is to be done at RAF Marham was done by RAF personnel at St. Athan five years ago—4,500 military personnel were doing the work that 1,500 civilians do now. Anybody who has had service experience knows that there is no great mystery about that. Military personnel join the forces because they want to play a part in defending our country. They want to work together as a team, doing something relevant in that defence. They are the first to spot it when they are asked to do something that is not directly relevant to that role. They know damn well that what they are being asked to do in respect of maintaining the front-line fleet is wrong.
I make a prediction: the RAF will be unable to meet its in-service date for the Harrier after giving that work to the RAF. The front-line capability of our Royal Air Force is placed at risk by such work being given to the RAF. The RAF will do it, and do it to a very high standard—there is no such thing as not getting the job done—but it is not noted for doing it within fixed budgets and efficiently. If they had wanted to be aircraft engineers in big factories, they would not have joined the Royal Air Force.
It is no good my coming back in five years' time and saying, "I told you so." I plead with the Government to look at this issue again. I ask them to give this work to the people who can do it—either the civilians who currently do it or others—and for goodness' sake do not waste vital pounds of our defence budget on unnecessary work.
I hope that the Government listen to the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith), who speaks with passion and has right on his side. It goes against the stream of Government decisions to bring work back from a specially designed, skilled organisation and allocate it to service personnel who are more expensive to maintain. I really think that the Government are going down the wrong route on this issue, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to campaign on it.
It is always a pleasure to listen to the Minister, but I regret the absence of the Secretary of State. One might say, "The House is rather thin, and why should the Secretary of State spend his time in a thin House?" But what about cause and effect? If Cabinet Ministers were shown to be taking account of debate in this House, where many of the speeches are made by people with very specialised skills and knowledge, the House might fill up and the Government might learn something.
At their best, the armed forces are absolutely outstanding. Right at the top, they are commanded by people who have usually been to the Royal College of Defence Studies to take a one-year course that gives them a rounding and a generalisation that armed forces chiefs in many other countries do not have. The RCDS is outstanding and contributes very much to the exceptional and rounded skills of our leading generals, admirals and air marshals. Likewise, Shrivenham staff college is exceptional in providing ranks at the level of major across the three services with broadening experience. I will never forget the last day of the Shrivenham experience—it was devoted to the realities of war, and people with experiences ranging from the D-day landings to being shot down over Iraq came to speak about the reality of being involved in war.
The Army, Navy and Air Force provide the largest single amount of training for 16 to 20-year-olds in this country. As a member of the Defence Committee, I visited several training establishments when we carried out our study on the duty of care to those who are undertaking training. We found that they, too, are responsible for producing very well-rounded people. It is a remarkable fact that these young men and women, some of whom have pretty rough edges, can be facing fire after as little as eight months. The armed forces have an exceptional ability to train people and to bring them forward. A corporal commanding a patrol will take decisions with very little time and very little experience other than the training that he has been given. The ability of those young people to accept responsibility is remarkable. It is amazing that they can be given responsibility for using sophisticated and expensive equipment, including weapons that can kill. The armed forces do an exceptional job from top to bottom.
There have been various discussions about overstretch—a word that tends to be used a great deal. The 1999 defence White Paper referred to the need to retain the edge of skills and
"to solve the deep-seated problem of overstretch".
Even in 1999, the Government were looking forward to solving that problem. Overstretch means that more tasks are being given to armed forces personnel than they can do well and safely on a resilient, continuous basis. The Chief of the Defence Staff recently told the Defence Committee that the armed forces could not undertake another operation the size of Telic—the operation in Iraq—until the end of this decade. He said that we will not
"be able to get to large scale until . . . 2008 or 2009".
Overstretch means that there will be more deployments and that individuals will have less time between deployments, more time overseas, more time away from their families, less training and less preparation. That can cause problems.
I want to discuss three aspects of overstretch. First, the reserves are now more committed than ever before to being involved with the regular armed forces. Their role in providing infilling for the regular forces is very important, but there is one role that they do not currently have. They do not have the ability to reconstitute a much larger Army should there be a need to expand the Army rapidly. That has always been the role of the Territorial Army: to provide a framework around which it is possible to reconstitute a much larger armed force. During the last war, units with the framework of a Territorial Army unit were much more effective than units created from scratch. Asymmetrical warfare may lead to threats that we cannot currently anticipate. What might the unexpected be? I do not know, of course, because it is unexpected, but I think it is an unwise Government who fail to maintain the ability to reconstitute much larger armed forces.
The second aspect of overstretch that I want to discuss is the treatment of prisoners of war. I am extremely conscious of Mr. Speaker's ruling and nothing that I say should be interpreted as a comment on current events, but current events did cause me to look into the manner in which prisoners of war should be treated and the way in which the rules came about. It is quite a touching story.
In 1841, a Swiss who had been on a battle site went back to Geneva, and with four colleagues from Geneva created, in 1848, what became the International Committee of the Red Cross and the first four Geneva conventions. The first is the convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded and sick in armies in the field. The second is the convention for the amelioration of the condition of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea. The third relates to the treatment of prisoners of war, and the fourth is relative to the protection of civilian persons in times of war. It is laid down clearly that people who comply with the conventions are
"especially required to ensure that the implications"
of the Geneva conventions
"are clearly understood by members of their Armed Forces and by the civilian population. In order to assist this process"
the conventions
"place an obligation on signatories to disseminate the text of the Conventions to appropriate military and civilian personnel."
My reading on this subject included a Ministry of Defence publication dated March 2001. I read about commanders' responsibilities. Commanders in military campaigns are instructed that prisoner-of-war issues should be taken fully into account. Paragraph 202 states:
"In recent military campaigns PW issues were not taken fully into account as a planning factor. This resulted in UK forces being faced with the problem of handling very large numbers of PW for whom little provision had been made in terms of accommodation, food or clothing. Fortunately, in recent operations the problems of dealing with such a large number of PW coincided with the collapse of the opposing forces and the end of hostilities. Had this not been the case and had operations continued, the problems posed by the presence of large numbers of PW and the requirement to administer them would possibly have had a profound influence on the conduct of operations."
It is clear from my reading that there is a heavy obligation on all those planning any military operation to take advanced notice of the manner in which prisoners of war are to be handled. There are strict rules about the escorting of prisoners of war and the work that they are allowed to undertake. Paragraph 3G9 of the MOD publication states:
"PW working conditions are to be guided, as far as is possible within the constraints of operations, by the provisions of the UK Health and Safety at Work legislation. Conditions must not be of a lesser standard than those enjoyed by members of the UK forces or of UK civilians engaged on similar work."
I was not aware, until I studied these regulations, of the extent to which it is an obligation on every power to plan for prisoners of war and to take all proper provision to ensure that they are looked after in a decent manner.
My third point on overstretch relates to Defence Medical Services. This is another area of undoubted weakness. The current military plan is that the Army should be capable of producing 14 field hospitals—three from the regulars and 11 from reserves. In fact, the regulars are capable of producing one and a half field hospitals, while the reserves could produce two and a half, making a total of four. That shortfall is extremely serious and it is merciful that we have been spared from having extensive casualties in recent military operations.
A recent press report, the accuracy of which I do not know, suggested that 790 casualties had come back from Iraq. They would have to be spread among the civilian hospitals around the country. The Government decided in December 1998 to close the remaining military hospital, the Royal military hospital Haslar, which is in my constituency. I am delighted to say that it is still in service and I hope that the Government will rethink their plans. The Government's strategy was to move to a new centre of defence medicine in Birmingham, based at Selly Oak hospital, at a cost of £200 million. However, they ran out of money and cancelled the £200 million that was intended to go to Selly Oak. As a result, the new centre of defence medicine is based loosely around Birmingham university hospital, but it does not have its own centre for the purposes of ethos and morale. It does not have its own mess arrangements or sporting facilities, for example.
While the Government take great pride in the fact that they are recruiting quite well into Defence Medical Services at the moment, the level of retention is extremely bad—there is very little to keep someone at consultant level in the armed forces. The result is that Defence Medical Services will recruit people from school and university but will find it very difficult to retain them at consultant level. That will lead to an even greater loss of defence medical personnel than we are experiencing at present.
The Under-Secretary knows, because he and I have debated this many times, that there is already a critical shortfall in the key faculties of anaesthetics, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery and general medicine. That will get worse unless the Government rethink their proposals. We in south Hampshire continue to believe that the right way ahead would be to realise that Selly Oak is not working and instead to work for increased facilities where the armed forces tend to be based, which is in the south Hampshire area. This work could certainly be done in hospitals around Southampton and Portsmouth.
My concern about the Government's personnel policy in the armed forces is that they are trying to deal with existing issues, but that there is very little in reserve to deal with the unexpected. We ask a great deal of our armed forces and we should treat them accordingly. Our treatment in terms of pay, pensions and conditions is not as good as that of many of our allies, including the Germans. We should take account of that and do rather better for our armed forces.
It is fortunate that the Minister on the Front Bench should be the Under-Secretary responsible for the one topic that I wish to raise: Gulf war syndrome. I should like to acknowledge the work that has been done on this subject by Lord Lloyd of Berwick, whom I have known for 60 years. He was a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1984 to 1993, and Chairman of the Security Commission from 1992 to 1999. I also acknowledge the work of Lord Morris of Manchester, who, as Alf Morris, was my close friend and mentor in all matters relating to the disabled for a third of a century.
Frankly, I am not a newcomer or a Johnny-come-lately to this subject. On 2 May 1995, I asked the Secretary of State for Defence what concrete evidence he had of Gulf war syndrome. This reply was given by Roger Freeman:
"To date, we have found no convincing scientific or medical evidence from our investigations, or elsewhere, to suggest the existence of a Gulf war syndrome."—[Official Report, 2 May 1995; Vol. 259, c.158.]
Subsequently, some of us went on a delegation to him. I have to say that he was a listening Minister and I believe that he did his best. On many occasions, and particularly on 18 June 1996, Alf Morris followed the matter up with Nicholas Soames, who told him:
"The Government take seriously the health concerns of all service personnel, and we are committed to ensuring that those who believe they are ill as a result of their Gulf service receive the best possible treatment."—[Official Report, 18 June 1996; Vol. 279, c. 412W.]
I fear that that is not the view of many of the people affected.
On 20 December, the Under-Secretary wrote to me:
"As you are aware Lord Lloyd published his report on 17 November. I have studied the report carefully. However, the MOD view is that it contains no new substantive or scientific evidence to support its conclusions and recommendations. It also fails to take into account the large amount of either substantive or scientific written material provided by the MOD to Lord Lloyd to help inform his investigation."
That is outrageous. Ministers say that the Lloyd report produced no new scientific evidence, but why should Lord Lloyd be required to produce new scientific evidence when it is already there? Is the work of Simon Wessely on the Gulf war health effects and that of lady Professors Doyle and Cherry—world experts in this matter—to be viewed as worthless? Is it being denied that soldiers and civilian personnel who went to Iraq are twice as likely to have symptoms as those who did not?
The brutal truth is that many people have become ill over the past 15 years precisely because they did go to Iraq. Are the ill veterans satisfied with the way in which they have been treated by the MOD since their return from the Gulf? No, they are not. They feel let down and rejected. Those are not my words, but that is how they feel—let down and rejected. I am using the words of Lord Craig, the general officer commanding at the time of the Gulf war and, indeed, a member of the war Cabinet. Those words were echoed by Lord Bramall.
Lloyd set out some of the reasons behind those feelings. He quoted extensively from the relevant reports of the House of Commons Defence Committee. In relation to the MOD's delay in commissioning epidemiological research, the report states:
"In responding to the allegations of a Gulf War Syndrome, the MOD have been quick to deny but slow to investigate . . . in the Committee's view the MOD's response had been reactive rather than proactive and characterised throughout by scepticism and defensiveness and general torpor".
In relation to the organophosphate pesticide saga, the report highlighted
"the culture of resistance that pervades much of the MOD. There seems to be a deep-seated reluctance to respond positively to external stimuli . . . Despite all the outside signals, parliamentary questions, press articles, letters from veterans, etc, the MOD continue to assume blithely that everyone else was wrong."
Indeed, I fear that torpor is not an unfair description because on 17 January, I asked the Secretary of State
"whether he has discussed with his US counterparts the findings of the Report on Scientific Progress in Understanding Gulf War Illnesses of September 2004 commissioned by the US Secretary for Veteran Affairs; and if will a make a statement."
The answer was:
"No."—[Official Report, 18 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 835W.]
That was curt and rather rude. I am not pompous about being Father the House of Commons, but the Ministry of Defence might have provided a more decent answer to a parliamentary colleague.
Why has the United States evidence from Texas been ignored? Why has not the work of Professor Robert Haley of the Research Advisory Committee, including paragraphs 430 to 444 of his medical appendix, been taken into account? The paper contains the combined expertise of US experts. The US has been far better on the matter than the British Ministry of Defence. I do not know why the issue has been dismissed here.
The recommendations of the Lloyd report should be taken seriously. First,
"The MOD should acknowledge publicly that the veterans who have made claims (other than the 272 who have had their claims rejected) are indeed suffering injury or disease as a result of their service in the Gulf."
Secondly,
"Since the name of the injury or disease is only a label for wrapping the symptoms from which the veterans are undoubtedly suffering, the Ministry of Defence should accept the name favoured by the veterans, that is Gulf War Syndrome, as the most convenient label."
Thirdly,
"The MOD should set up a fund out of which ex gratia payments should be made on a pro-rata basis to all those who have made successful claims."
Fourthly,
"The 272 Claimants who have had their claims rejected should have those claims reviewed in the light of this report."
There are further claims from the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association.
My hon. Friend will recall that, at Defence Question Time shortly after the publication of that report—I think it was 29 November—I announced that we would examine the 272 cases. In fact, 100 or 110 cases need review. That work is happening now at the Veterans Agency.
Yes, but what is the time scale? To put it bluntly, such action has been greatly delayed. It has taken years. My hon. Friend will forgive us for being extremely angry about it. The Under-Secretary is dealing with people such as Lord Morris, Lord Lloyd, Lord Craig and Lord Bramall, and I simply do not understand why the British Ministry of Defence has been so tardy.
Last night, I spoke again to Dr. Graveston of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association. He says:
"There needs to be recognition that the Gulf Veterans illnesses are due to, and attributable to service.
Recompense"
should
"be awarded to reflect the ruined lives and families, the lost careers, the physical and mental suffering."
He also said that there should be
"Proper well directed research into GWS like that done in the USA.
Effective medical treatment for ill Gulf Veterans by educating health care professionals about GWS",
and
"Implementation of the statutory right for war pensioners to have priority medical treatment."
As a Labour Member of Parliament, who has been here for a long time, I am ashamed of the seven years of Conservative lack of action but even more ashamed of seven years' inaction by a Labour Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) spoke earlier about the treatment of prisoners of war. I want to make two comments about that, and I hope that they do not infringe the correct ruling given earlier by Mr. Speaker.
I hope that, over time, the wider world will accept that the humanitarian relief extended to the shattered communities devastated by the recent tsunami in the Indian ocean, and the work being done to help rebuild them, will be regarded as more typical of the conduct and professionalism of the British soldier than the alleged abuse of prisoners in Iraq, about which we all feel such shame. I have some personal experience of the treatment of people in custody, which I gained all those years ago during my police career. I shudder to think that this year it is 40 years since I joined the force.
How long is it since my hon. Friend left?
It is 35 years since I left. My experience is that men of the utmost good character and capable of acts of great courage can—in the heat of the moment, or as a result of provocation or out of a false sense of triumphalism—lose all sense of what is right. They can lose the self control and discipline—
Order. I am conscious that the hon. Gentleman prefaced his remarks by saying that he would be careful, but I think that he is already starting to veer into dangerous territory. The whole House needs to think very carefully about this matter now that so much has been said about it. Mr. Speaker made his statement earlier today, and I shall listen carefully to what the hon. Gentleman says, but he ought to steer away from that line now, for the sake of safety in this matter.
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I wanted to conclude this section of my contribution by saying that my concern centres on the remarks made in the other place on Monday by General Lord Guthrie, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) referred earlier. Lord Guthrie said—and he should know better than anyone—that he believed that people were being sent to Iraq without proper training. That is a very serious issue, and we must consider it in the context of the current situation.
Order. There are imputations in the words that the hon. Gentleman is using. I do not want to cut him off altogether, but I hope that he will now move on to another topic.
I certainly will, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk made the point that Lord Guthrie also made it clear that the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Army Board would prefer the Army to be increased in size, and that they are generally unhappy about the cuts being made in the infantry. It is on that point that I wish to focus my remarks.
The Army has obeyed the Government's decision. All those who take a close interest in this matter understand the philosophy that commands are given and must be obeyed. However, although many of us have tried to be extremely constructive in our approach to the potential outcome of the Government's decision to reduce by four the number of battalions, to restructure all the regiments and to reduce the overall number of infantry soldiers, that does not mean that we agree with it. My view, which has already been expressed in this debate by other hon. Members, is that we should not be reducing infantry numbers at this time, or making the cuts on which the Government have decided.
In this debate, and in Monday's debate in the other place, a number of speakers have emphasised the degree of overstretch faced by the Army. They have also noted that we ask the Army to attend to any problem that might arise. Very often, that involves the relief of problems in our own society, such as those arising out of the atrocious weather of recent days.
I have said that we have tried to be constructive, but I want to draw the House's attention to the remarks made by General Sir Mike Jackson to the Defence Committee last week. The Chief of the General Staff praised the way in which Yorkshire's three regiments were willing to bite the bullet and get on with the job of transforming themselves into a new regional super-regiment. However, as the Under-Secretary knows, it was a close-run thing. From the letter that the Chief of Staff sent to all commanding officers on 16 December, it can be seen that the original intention was for two out of six regiments from the King's Division to be scrapped, which meant that one of the three Yorkshire regiments would have been scrapped. I am pleased that the case that I have made in this House and, particularly, in Westminster Hall in November—that if there were to be cuts in the number of battalions, the Army should stick with the three battalion cuts that it had identified and put the fourth to one side—has been accepted. That has sensibly been done by moving sideways the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment to a support battalion for our special forces from 2007.
Great relief is felt in Yorkshire that the three Yorkshire regiments will form the only future county regiment, the Yorkshire Regiment, but we still have some considerable concerns. The first fear is that the individual identities in the new structure, especially the Green Howards and the Duke of Wellington's, will be relegated into brackets. Several hon. Members have mentioned the way in which the new names have been crafted, which means that they could be airbrushed out at any time. The new structure will basically result in the Yorkshire Regiment, with 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions. At some convenient future date, one of those battalions could be dropped.
Several hon. Members have referred to the situation in Scotland and contrasted it with England and Wales. Scotland is being treated differently. I have read what the Chief of the Defence Staff said and I have spoken to the Minister of State. I understand that in Scotland six regiments will, in effect, be reduced to one and that there was therefore a case for putting the old names of the regiments ahead of the new names for the battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. I do not understand the advantage of doing that. What is the reason behind it and what difference will it make? If it makes a difference to Scotland, surely it would make the same difference in England and Wales. However, if it is completely worthless and does not mean anything, why not do it anyway, given that many of us feel so strongly about it? The suspicion is that the Scots will largely retain the old regimental system within a regiment, whereas we in England and Wales will not.
It takes more than a name, whether in brackets or before a divisional name, to make a regiment. What makes a regiment are things such as cap badges, traditions and local recruiting areas. All those will be lost to Scottish regiments. It will make no difference if a name survives in front of a new title.
Well, we think that it will. The colonel of the Green Howards has made clear the utter determination of the three regiments to make the new Yorkshire Regiment a great success and to be the very best in the British Army. The Under-Secretary knows that that is the case. One would expect nothing less from a regiment that has faithfully served the Crown since 1688.
I want to use this debate to explain a dimension to the argument that is often overlooked by people outside Yorkshire. It is a big county, more than 100 miles from north to south and almost 100 miles from west to east. In many respects, it is three if not four counties in one, with people still having strong links to and feelings for the old ridings. The Green Howards was a nickname adopted in 1744 to avoid confusion with another regiment commanded by a Colonel Howard; the soldiers had green facings on their uniforms and their colonel was the Hon. Charles Howard, the second son of the third Earl of Carlisle, who built Castle Howard in north Yorkshire. The regiment has been associated with the north riding of Yorkshire since 1782 and is one of only two English infantry regiments never to have been amalgamated. Similarly, the Duke of Wellingtons have always been associated with west Yorkshire. Since 1875, we have had a Scandinavian link through the colonels-in-chief; the present colonel-in-chief is King Harald V of Norway. We do not want that link to be lost.
At present, the three Yorkshire regiments have the brown beret in common. I hope that a new cap badge, fitting to the new regiment, will be one of grand design of which we can all be proud, and not based on the old Yorkshire Brigade cap badge of the 1960s. I can see no reason why at battalion level the belt buckle and rank slides of the three regiments should not be retained, nor even their mess dress, which, individually, could incorporate the new regimental insignia.
The Army may say that is none of our business, but I hope that the openness and public involvement of the past six months will prevail and that the Army does not close ranks and shut us all out. Without public support, the Army will not achieve what it wants by establishing the new single regiment.
Recruitment needs close public involvement to promote the right climate and attract the right calibre and numbers. Even in a recruitment area as small as that of the Green Howards, local contact is still necessary. The Army is not a major employer, but there are local links; for example, the Green Howards marched through Scarborough and Middlesbrough with fixed bayonets and colours flying, when they came back from Afghanistan last October.
Communications are also important. When our forces are on operations, some of which are extremely dangerous, people back home see and hear every movement and event as it happens. The stress and strain can be far harder for the families and communities left behind than for those on operations. The Chief of the Defence Staff has made it clear that families should have high priority in the future Army structure. Being in a close-knit community is a great help, just as community spirit is for those on the ground. Public support for our individual regiments over the past few months, especially for those serving in Iraq, has been tremendous. I pay tribute to the Yorkshire Post for highlighting our concerns and for helping us with our campaign. None of us wants to lose the good will that has been established.
I have told the Secretary of State in earlier debates that a Yorkshire regiment of three battalions and one Territorial Army battalion could be a real success. We must give the four battalions a chance and an edge and that will be greatly enhanced by allowing their individual identities to remain. That will give the Government everything that the future infantry structure requires and a regiment that the people of Yorkshire can continue to support and with which they can identify. The motto, "Once a Green Howard, always a Green Howard", is very much enshrined in the north riding community. I want it retained and taken forward.
None of the three battalions in the Yorkshire regiment will ever see one another in future, because they will all be posted to different places, some of them in other parts of the world. That gives rise to a question that was put earlier in the debate: why do we need to abolish the existing regimental structure? Even if one conceded—I do not—that the Government have a case for reducing the number of battalions by three, that does not mean that we should scrap all those regiments. Furthermore, we all now understand and appreciate the importance of scrapping the arms plot, but none of us can see why the ending of the arms plot should mean scrapping all those historic regiments—a central feature of the debate in the other place on Monday. However, that is what the Government have decided to do and, in Yorkshire, we will try to make a success of the new regiment.
The Minister of State said earlier that the Government and the Army Board are listening to the arguments about identities. I hope that he, his colleagues and the Army Board will reflect on what many of us have said in the debate about the importance of the names and the way the regiments are structured, and the importance of ensuring that as much of their current identity as possible is retained for the future. I genuinely believe that that is an important ingredient in the Government's achieving what they want.
The Defence Committee—at least, most of it—is in Cyprus, and it is unfortunate that the debate clashes with that visit. It is not the first time that something like this has happened, and I am sure it will not be the last, but I hope that planners will look at such matters in the future to try to allow as many members of the Committee as possible to attend such debates.
The Defence Committee is visiting our forces in the sovereign base areas on the island. It is part of our ongoing work as a Select Committee that we visit our forces. In the past year, we have visited Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq, twice. We have also visited British forces in other parts of the world, and we will continue to do so. One of the things that I have learned during my two periods as a member of the Committee is the high quality and calibre of our people in the MOD and our armed forces. I shall not comment on the cases that are currently before the courts, but irrespective of whether the allegations are true, they are extremely damaging to everyone's reputation.
The Defence Committee has three inquiries going on simultaneously, one of which is into the duty of care. That inquiry has taken us to the initial and other training establishments around the country and has involved various other visits. I went to Hendon police college while looking at comparator organisations. I have seen how young people are trained, how instructors do their work and how people learn not just the aspects of the military regime but how to become better citizens in the wider sense, so that they can get worthwhile employment in society when they leave our armed forces.
When we see the work that the British Army is doing in southern Iraq, with the quick-fix projects and the enormous skills that are deployed, we realise that it is continuing to have an enormous, positive impact on Iraq. Full-time military personnel and Territorial Army people are assisting with water projects, construction, administration, banking and all kinds of things that the military should not really have to do, because regrettably no one else is around to do them, given the lack of trained people.
I wish that our broadcasters in this country—particularly the BBC—would say something about what we are doing positively in Basra and elsewhere, instead of only basing in Baghdad journalists who take television footage of atrocities and incidents and then comment on them. It is dangerous for journalists—it is dangerous for other civilians—but we have stories tell about what is happening in the south of Iraq. Those stories are not getting out because the journalists are not there to report them. I make an exception for two journalists—one from the Financial Times, the other from The Times—whom I met during our visit to the police training college in December, but it is important that the media give a balanced view of what is happening in Iraq, particularly now in the run-up to the elections and directly afterwards.
In its ongoing inquiry into events in Iraq the Defence Committee has asked a number of questions about investigations into allegations of misconduct. I will not comment on any specific case, as I have said. A memorandum that we were sent in September said:
"The total number of Service police investigations involving allegations of abuse against Iraqi civilians is currently 131. These investigations cover a range of incidents including operational engagements, negligent discharges and road traffic accidents as well as the alleged physical abuse of detainees. A number of these investigations have concluded with no case to answer. Other investigations are in their early stages".
It said that the number of personnel who had been reported for specific offences was 35 as of 31 August. Will the Under-Secretary tell us how many allegations have now been made and how many personnel have been reported for specific offences?
The memorandum also told us that 55,000 servicemen and women had served in Iraq, and the Prime Minister told us yesterday that the figure is now 65,000. It is clear that a large proportion of our armed forces have gone through Iraq over the past year and a half, and I suspect that many more will go in the coming months as we continue to assist after the constituent assembly is elected and in preparation for the referendum on the new constitution later in the year and the elections for a Parliament, which are scheduled before the end of the year. However, we also need to get many more civilians into Iraq, so the Department for International Development should do far more to assist with the projects that our military have had to carry out over recent months. That could be done safely in the area in which the British military are based, because the situation there is not as it is in other parts of the country.
The Committee's third inquiry is examining future capabilities. We recently took evidence from the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Secretary of State, and we will take more evidence before we conclude our report. We will publish our three major reports in the next few months. I am sure that we will have them out just before the general election—whenever that is.
As I said earlier, I have visited Kosovo and Bosnia, so I would like an update on what has happened following the transition of the control of forces in Bosnia from the NATO SFOR to the European Union EUFOR. Is it going well, and have we solved the problems caused by different national rules—the so-called national caveats? They prevented co-operation, because countries such as Germany had restrictions on the policing role of the armed forces, and caused other difficulties. Given that we are six weeks on from the transition, may we have an update on the situation?
My right hon. Friend the Minister referred to the situation last March when we had to intervene in Kosovo at short notice because of disgraceful violence and the fact that Albanians were burning out the homes of the Serb minority. Pressure and difficulty are increasing because the majority in Kosovo have expectations that their status will finally be resolved in 2005, but there is no easy resolution to the situation. It is reported that investigations are being held into many leading figures in the Kosovo Administration. The recently appointed Prime Minister of Kosovo, Mr. Ramush Haradinaj, has close links with some of those against whom allegations have been made and his brother has been arrested. If another upsurge of orchestrated activity occurs, I would like an assurance that the NATO forces and our own people will be ready for it and that a period of a few hours, or perhaps even longer, in which they do not intervene does not occur, which was the difficulty in March last year.
I want to move on to my final remarks and shall try to finish in less than the maximum time, to allow Opposition Members to speak. On ethnic minority recruitment into our armed forces, the MOD has published a helpful document, "Race equality scheme 2002–2005 progress report 2004", which reveals that the number of ethnic minority personnel has increased in all three services. However, it admits that progress has been slower than expected and that the percentage goals have not been met in all respects.
I ask the Government to redouble their efforts. My constituency contains large numbers of people from all kinds of ethnic minorities. In my work with the Select Committee, I have seen people from all over the world serving with British forces, which is partly due to recruitment from Commonwealth countries. I have come across Fijians, Samoans and people from other parts of the world, as well as pilots from New Zealand, in our armed forces. However, I hope that we can start to recruit British-black, British-Indian and British-Pakistani people, so that our forces more accurately reflect the diversity and nature of modern Britain.
Finally, the excellent work by British forces, which we always expect, in the relief of people who have suffered from the tsunami has already been mentioned. My Sri Lankan-Tamil constituents want me to put it on record in this House that they greatly appreciate our efforts. They are a little bit concerned that some of the aid to Sri Lanka is not getting through to Tamil areas because of the history of internal conflict, and they want the British Government to do whatever they can to facilitate that process so that aid is distributed fairly.
My Sri Lankan-Tamil constituents have nothing but praise for the help that has been given to places such as Batticaloa that were victims of the terrible disaster. We should place on record our thanks to all those involved, whether they are civilians, work in Departments other than the MOD, are on ships such as RFA Diligence and HMS Chatham or whether they are helicopter pilots, for whatever they have done to save lives and to help make at least some lives better after the terrible tragedy.
As a significant number of hon. Members are still seeking to catch my eye, Mr. Speaker has decided that the order of the House of 26 October on shorter speeches will apply today. From now until half-past 5, a shorter 10-minute time limit will apply. I remind hon. Members that no added time is allowed for interventions during a period of shorter speeches.
The armed forces reflect the esteem of the people for their way of life and the commitment of a nation to the defence of its values and culture. Any Government who neglected the interests of the armed forces and those who serve in them would demonstrate a lack of care for the way of life that the people themselves hold dear.
The subject is important, and it is sad that the Secretary of State could not be present, particularly because our armed forces have served with exceptional distinction in Iraq, where they have taken so many casualties. Soldiers have been killed and, as we have learned, wounded in very large numbers. As was said, we should also remember the sterling help given by our armed forces to the victims of the tsunami tragedy in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.
I want to address two practical themes and a further, more strategic one. Apart from the exploits of the British Army in Iraq, there has also been some unfortunate publicity. In addition, particularly unfortunate publicity was given to the suicide last year of four recruits at the Royal Logistic Corps training centre at Deepcut barracks. One theme unites both these episodes: that the discipline of our armed forces must be absolutely fundamental. We do not emphasise sufficiently in our debates the need for our armed forces to retain the very highest standards of discipline. When things go wrong, it is not the soldiers, airmen or sailors who are so much to blame: it is the officers who should carry the can and demonstrate a sense of responsibility, care and concern for those in their command, and a sense of leadership.
Officers will have those attributes only if they are properly trained, and training is the second of my practical themes. For officers, the training process these days has become too much of a sausage machine. Let us consider other armed forces of great distinction, such as those of the United States. The West Point army academy, the Colorado Springs air force academy, and Annapolis naval academy have four-year courses. Other armed forces of leading nations are not taking our path, which is to cut the length of training for officers in the early stages. That is a wrong-headed economy, which does not give the necessary basic training or the required sense of commitment, duty and above all discipline. Shortfalls in basic training and in the induction process have to be made up in the units themselves, which reduces their operational efficiency.
It has been complained that the Territorial Army, which constitutes some 20 per cent. of the British Army in Iraq, has gone into theatre with inadequate weapons training. That is absolutely inexcusable, and it re-emphasises the point that there can be no shortcuts in training. Of course, the TA's performance in theatre has been admirable and everyone has rightly praised it, just as they have praised the performance of the Royal Naval Reserve and in particular of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force's 600 City of London Squadron. The squadron, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary, is based at RAF Northolt in my constituency. The reserves have an enormous part to play in the future of our armed forces, but they need adequate training and the support of the regular element. Over time, we should pay more attention to the reserves, and the Conservatives will. Indeed, such a policy is at the heart of one of our main proposals for the future of our defence.
The strategic theme on which I want to touch is not the growing power of China. In that regard, I was interested to hear the observations of the former Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), which exemplified one thing—that we live in a greatly changing world—but the disposition of our forces does not reflect the fact. It is an anachronism that the largest single element of our Army should be deployed in Germany. Of course, we have forces elsewhere, too. We have more or less 1,000 troops in Kosovo, some 1,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, approximately 1,000 in the Falklands and a further 1,000 in Gibraltar. There are 3,500 troops in Cyprus, some 1,000 in Brunei and just under 1,000 in Afghanistan. But do we need 21,250 in Germany, at bases that are left over from the cold war?
The Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, of course, is dependent on the British, as we are the framework nation and provide 60 per cent. of the headquarters personnel. I wonder, however, about keeping an armoured division, with three armoured brigades based at cold war garrisons such as Hohne, Osnabrück, Münster, Paderborn, Gütersloh, Sennelager and Falingbostel—names that will be familiar to cold war warriors such as me. Does that reflect today's reality, now that the Warsaw pact is disbanded, and NATO has expanded to encompasses the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland? There is a buffer zone between western Europe and the east, and there is even a clear divergence of attitude between our German friends and us—the Germans sought to prevent Turkey from having Patriot missiles for its air defence before the Gulf war, and the Germans, French, Belgians and Luxembourgers had their own Defence Ministers meeting in the spring last year to try to pursue a slightly different strategy.
We ought to try to evolve a new strategy to pay much more attention than we do to expeditionary warfare. We are moving in the right direction, and the various reviews have embraced that idea. In practical terms, however, a great deal more needs to be done. The Government have announced the provision of a new C-17 heavy air-lifter to take personnel to trouble spots overseas, but we have only four others, although the amphibious forces and the Royal Marines are the best of their kind in the world today, and I wholeheartedly applaud Her Majesty's Government's attention to amphibious capability. Nevertheless, the British presence in Germany, which, I think, costs about £1.2 billion per year—perhaps the Minister will correct me on that—is an anachronism, and should be reviewed. There is no need to keep our forces stationed in Germany for them to participate in the ARRC.
I was interested to note, too, that Her Majesty's Government, and certainly the Minister of State in his speech, made no mention of the European security and defence policy, and the commitment, to which we are signing up under the European constitution that the Government embrace, to be ready to participate in the deployment of an army corps up to 4,000 km from Brussels, and to keep it in theatre for up to a year. Those are big commitments of an expeditionary kind, and I do not yet see that our armed forces have been modified sufficiently in that direction. I find it perverse that the main instrument for projective power, the Royal Air Force, should be the one sustaining the biggest cuts in the review being imposed by Her Majesty's Government.
We should spend our money more at home, deploying our forces from home bases, using instruments of power projection such as amphibious vessels and an enhanced air transport fleet. In that way, our armed forces would be better configured, particularly if they had larger reserves. I know that my party is working on many of those ideas, particularly in the field of deployment and reserves, but the stationing of such a large proportion of our Army in Germany, particularly western Germany, is questionable at the present time.
As the MP for Perth, where the Black Watch has its regimental headquarters, I know that my constituents would wish me to make several points on their behalf today. I am therefore very pleased to have been given the opportunity to do so.This is the first time since the Defence Secretary wielded his axe to scrap the entire Scottish regimental system, further to his announcement on 16 December last year, that the House has had the opportunity to debate the matter more fully. It is just a pity that the Government have not had the courage of their convictions and allowed a vote, because if we were allowed a vote on this shameful decision, it would be interesting to see which Labour Members would be prepared to stand up and be counted to save the Scottish regiments. I fear very few indeed, if any.
That contrasts with the position of the Scottish Parliament, which had a vote on the same day as the Defence Secretary made his announcement. At present, the Scottish Parliament does not enjoy power and jurisdiction in this matter, but the House may be interested to learn that, none the less, it voted against the decision by the UK Government to scrap Scotland's regimental system, which was a rare defeat for the Labour-Liberal Scottish Executive. Since the Defence Secretary made his announcement in December, I have been inundated with messages of support for my stance on the Black Watch, the Argylls and the other Scottish regiments from my constituents, people the length and breadth of Scotland and, indeed, people throughout the United Kingdom and further afield.
That support was clearly in evidence at the "Save the Scottish Regiments" rally in Edinburgh on 18 December, when veterans, retired officers, the families of serving soldiers—the Minister of State rightly recognised that their interests are important—and members of affected communities marched proudly down Princes street. Serving soldiers even came along, but they could not wear their uniforms because they were expressly ordered not to do so. The people of Edinburgh lined the streets to support the campaign and applaud the Scottish soldiers. I was proud to march alongside them and to speak at the rally, along with my hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart). While speakers from all parties came to the rally, not one Scottish Labour MP bothered to turn up or to stand up and be counted. I suspect that that will not go unnoticed and will not be forgotten or forgiven as we approach the UK general election, which is widely predicted to be held in May.
The people of Scotland regard our brave soldiers as part of the fabric of the Scottish nation. They are proud of them and disgusted by the Government's decision to disband and amalgamate the Scottish regiments out of existence. Their disgust is even greater, given the fact that the announcement was made by the Defence Secretary just as soldiers from the Black Watch were returning home to their families in Perthshire, Fife, Dundee and Angus.
They had just served their second tour of duty within a year in Iraq, had been involved in the controversial deployment to northern Iraq and had sustained the loss of their comrades in arms.
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not customary for a Member making a speech at least to indicate to someone who asks them to give way that they will not do so?
Whether the Member addressing the House gives way is entirely a matter for her. If the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber early on, he might have realised how short of time we are, which is probably why the hon. Lady is not giving way.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
On the timing of the Defence Secretary's announcement, not only were soldiers from the Black Watch returning home after their second tour of duty in Iraq and a controversial redeployment but they had sustained the loss of their comrades. They had also been required to take part in a publicity shoot with the Defence Secretary, who visited them when they were safely back in Basra—he did not quite make it to Camp Dogwood. It is no wonder that there is anger not just in the traditional recruiting heartlands of the Black Watch but the length and breadth of Scotland.
People believe that the Black Watch, the Argylls and the other Scottish Regiments have been stabbed in the back. They do not accept that it is either sensible or logical to axe the Scottish regiments at a time of increasing international insecurity and military overstretch, about which we have heard much today. They rightly regard the Scottish regiments as the finest in the world, and the bravery, professionalism and commitment of our Scottish soldiers are second to none. It is cynical in the extreme, they believe, that the Government should, on the one hand, put a cap on recruitment—I think that we are supposed to call it a pause in light of what the Minister of State said in response to my intervention—while talking up recruitment difficulties, even though the Black Watch, to name but one regiment, exceeded its recruitment target. They consider the arms plot argument a red herring, because nobody has ever explained why scrapping the entire Scottish regimental system is necessary to phase out the arms plot.
What is clear to people in my constituency and elsewhere is that this was a political decision, although the Government tried in an unseemly way to pass the buck to the Army. It is also clear to people in Scotland that the decision was Treasury-driven and that the impetus came from the Chancellor. That was recognised by no less than Colonel Tim Collins. In a BBC interview of November 2004, he said:
"These reductions are about saving money for the Treasury. It is not about making the army better and it is not about fixing something that is broken."
We have heard much from the Government about operational efficiency and the need to improve it, but the fact of the matter is that scrapping the entire Scottish regimental system will not improve operational efficiency.
Our Scottish regiments are the envy of the world, for the esprit de corps that is engendered by loyalty to the regiment first and foremost is what puts Scottish soldiers in a class of their own. That was recognised even by this Government, who took the decision to redeploy 600-odd Black Watch soldiers to the US zone in Iraq because they were indispensable to the 130,000-strong US army. What my constituents still want to know is why the Black Watch is not therefore viewed as indispensable to the Government. Indeed, in recent weeks, we have seen the return of the Royal Highland Fusiliers to Iraq, with the Royal Scots held in reserve. That is another example of how indispensable our Scottish regiments are and how fit for purpose they are for doing the job that the Government have asked them to do.
Key military experts have also expressed fears about the impact on recruitment of these damaging policies. We need look back no further than the early 1990s, when the then Conservative Government launched their assault on the Scottish regiments with the amalgamation of the Gordons and the Queen's Own Highlanders, to see the devastating impact of such changes on recruitment for many years.
We have heard much about the Government's claims that serving Scottish soldiers favour the scrapping of their regiments, but they were not asked how they felt. The only poll conducted by the Ministry of Defence apparently did not even include that question. Instead, there was a Hobson's choice question about which kind of amalgamation they would prefer. Curiously, the results of that poll were not published by the MOD, as far as I am aware. Given that the soldiers have also been gagged to stop them speaking out, it is difficult to understand how the Government can state that they have evidence to show support among serving soldiers for the decision to scrap the regiments. I have received many letters from serving soldiers not only in the Black Watch, but in other regiments, and I can assure the Minister that none of them wishes to see their regiment scrapped.
In conclusion, the decision taken by the Government to scrap Scotland's entire regimental system is not only wrong, but a betrayal of our brave soldiers. It will never be forgiven or forgotten by the people of Scotland. Even at this late hour, the Government could do a U-turn. They have done so on other issues, and they could give the regiments a reprieve. That view is supported by the Adjutant-General, no less, and by the current colonel of the Black Watch. I urge the Government to think again. If they do not do so, they will deserve all that they get at the ballot box when the people of Scotland have the opportunity to say what they think.
I am delighted that the Minister of State is back in the Chamber. I thought earlier that it was rather silly and slightly pompous of him to take the attitude that my failure to be present in the Select Committee on Defence when he was giving evidence was a basis for not taking an intervention from me. If the Secretary of State exercised such criteria, several Labour members of the Committee would be in serious trouble in future defence debates.
Had the Minister taken my intervention, I would have asked him the question that I now hope the Under-Secretary will answer. Now that we have agreed the configuration for the infantry regiments, can the Ministry of Defence give us a timing for when those decisions will be implemented? When will the full capability now being talked about be deployable? On commitments, what tasks was the Secretary of State alluding to when he said that they would no longer be on the agenda of the Royal Navy? When he was pressed to answer that question at the Defence Committee, regrettably he chose not to. Several hon. Members were concerned that he had stated on two occasions that a number of cold war tasks would no longer need to be tackled by the Navy and could be covered in other ways, possibly by other navies. He was not prepared to give straight answers to questions about timing for the Army or the commitments of the Navy.
All hon. Members who have spoken have been extraordinarily complimentary, and rightly so, about the men and women who serve in our armed forces, from the very top to the most junior recruits. We have heard testimony after testimony of the work that they are doing in their fighting capacity and in delivering humanitarian aid, which has been so apparent not only in recent weeks in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, but repeatedly across the world. We should recognise that and be proud of it.
We must recognise that discipline is crucial to a coherent fighting force. It must be present at all levels and there must be confidence that it will be exercised fairly and accountably. The Defence Committee is engaged in a duty of care exercise. If Ministers have not yet read the testimony of families from Catterick and Deepcut who came to give evidence, I urge them to do so. If I had been present at that evidence session, I would have asked the Minister for the Armed Forces why he felt compelled to set up the inquiry into Deepcut at that stage, when the evidence that he is now asking the inquiry to examine had been in his hands for several months before that decision was taken. The decision to hold the inquiry was taken because the Ministry of Defence, or the politicians who head it, was shamed into it by the sort of evidence that we heard in the Select Committee when those families came, and by the media exposure of the incompetence and the failure of Ministers to tackle the issue properly.
The issue is where the duty of care starts and finishes. Many reports were written. We were given evidence by Lieutenant Colonel Hais, who gave the last report on the problems relating to training and recruitment. When he started the process, he was not told that there had been previous reports. When asked where those reports had ended up, he could give no answer. When senior officers came to give evidence to us, we asked them the same question. None of them has so far given an answer. The Defence Committee is still awaiting a written reply from the Ministry of Defence about where those three or four reports on problems at Deepcut and on bullying in the Army ended up and who took responsibility for them.
If there is to be discipline, it should start at the top. Discipline and a duty of care should be exercised from the top downwards. It is beyond belief that for years the MOD was in a state of denial and thought the problems would go away. That was the failure that so depressed the families. [Interruption.] I can understand the Minister for the Armed Forces muttering under his breath that he does not want to hear it. He did not want to hear the intervention earlier. He did not want to hear what the parents of the dead soldiers had been saying—[Interruption.]
Order. The Minister must not keep chuntering. It is very disruptive of the debate.
Thank you for that intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This shows that Ministers are extraordinarily guilty about the way in which they have let these people down. They are as responsible as any non-commissioned officer or senior officer in the Army for exercising a duty of care to these young men and women and their families.
The Geneva convention, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), does not cover many of the situations in which we now find ourselves. We do not know if a prisoner of war is a genuine combatant of the country with which one is at war, an insurgent, a common criminal, or a terrorist engaged in fighting not for a country but for an abstract issue that is not directly part of the war. That blurring of responsibilities makes it difficult for soldiers on the ground to decide who is covered by what. The prevailing situation should always be governed by how we would want and expect to be treated ourselves in a similar position. I hope that that message goes out loud and clear.
I urge the Ministry of Defence to reconsider some of the issues that it has so far identified as being at the top of its list—for example, the replacement for HMS Diligence, a ship that has served this nation well and offered a capability that will be lost when she goes out of commission in 2006. When that issue was raised by at least three hon. Members at a recent meeting of the Select Committee, the Secretary of State said, "We've moved on from replacing like with like, ship for ship." But this ship is a unique facility that is being got rid of with no way of replacing it. The Government should seriously consider the way in which it has operated over the past two years in making a significant contribution to the maritime aid and defence of the soldiers and civilians whom we want to assist.
On the capability of the Royal Air Force, the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) spoke with passion about his concerns for the work force at St. Athan. No satisfactory answer has been given to the question of why this is being done. What will happen to that multi-million pound facility? It is a similar situation to that of the military hospital in Haslar, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Gosport. The facilities were updated at the same time as the Government were considering closing it. The same thing has happened at St. Athan.
As always in these debates, Members have to balance what they say in defending the armed forces and the great work that they do and in spelling out the problems as we see them. Ministers might feel that some criticisms are unfair, but they are not listening to the men and women who work and serve in our armed forces if they ignore many of the concerns that have been expressed here this afternoon. Armed forces personnel care about how their families are treated. I urge the Minister to think long and hard about this question: when does he genuinely believe that he properly exercised his duty of care to the parents of those children who died at Deepcut and Catterick? It is about time that we had more than a face-saving device and undertook a proper public inquiry.
I have not participated in an armed forces personnel debate before, and having listened to the speeches I rather feel that I have been missing out. We heard powerful contributions from the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith), who spoke in defence of contracting out and privatisation—one does not often hear that from a Labour Member—and from the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), who talked about Gulf war syndrome. I particularly enjoyed the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), who spoke with great wisdom and knowledge about the dangers of cuts to the RAF. I entirely agree with him. I am afraid that my own contribution will be much more mundane and prosaic, concentrating on a couple of issues that particularly matter to forces families in my constituency.
I apologise to the Minister for missing his opening speech. I am particularly sorry because I know that he visited RAF Brize Norton in my constituency this week. I want to take this opportunity—as, I am sure, would he—to put on the record how much we value all the work done by the armed forces and other personnel at RAF Brize Norton, not just their support for forces overseas but the help they have given with the tsunami appeal and other such things. All hon. Members say how much we value our armed forces, so it is important for us to turn words into action. The forces do so much work for us and there is much more that we should do for them.
As I have said, RAF Brize Norton in my constituency is one of the largest and most important air bases, and it is becoming more important as staff will be relocated from Lyneham to Brize Norton. When I went there recently, planes and personnel were in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Ivory Coast and elsewhere. As the Minister will know, the base has a huge range of facilities. It has a fleet of VC10s, TriStars and C-17s, and there is the future strategic tanker aircraft to come. It includes the parachute training school, the tactical communications wing and two auxiliary squadrons supporting the RAF on the ground, as well as a number of lodge units.
Brize Norton is the funnel to convey men and materiel out of the country to wherever they are being deployed. As our role grows, as we do more, as we do what my predecessor Lord Hurd described as punching above our weight in the world, it is important for Brize Norton to have all the facilities that it needs. My point is simple: Brize Norton is becoming a super-base. It is becoming more like a Catterick or a Colchester than what it has been in the past. We must ensure that it has the facilities that go with that status, and that we treat the people who work there well. We should also look at the facilities in the neighbouring town of Carterton.
Many are far more expert than me when it comes to procurement and equipment, but there are real concerns in the RAF, often relayed to me, about whether our forces will have the planes that are necessary for them to do what is required of them. The issue is continuity of equipment—people are worried about gaps between the decommissioning of one set of equipment and the commissioning of a new set. Everyone says, and I am sure it is true, that mobility and flexibility of forces are what will matter in the future. At the heart of that lie heavy lift and refuelling, which are very much what Brize Norton is all about.
We clearly need to replace the Hercules fleet, but the A400M has not yet been built and many believe that there is no chance of its arriving on time. We also need to replace the VC10s, which are extremely old, but the future strategic tanker aircraft contract is huge and complicated and it will be difficult to deliver. I would like the Minister to tell us whether the Government are confident that continuity of equipment can be achieved. I would also like to know whether the Government have a plan B lest any of those things do not come to fruition at the intended time. As I have said, refuelling and heavy lift are essential and are at the heart of what happens at Brize Norton. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
I want to say something about schools and housing. Almost exactly a year ago, I secured an Adjournment debate on forces schools. A vital issue of concern to armed forces personnel is the level of education that their children are getting and whether the schools are adequate for the job. As the Minister knows, there are two types of forces schools. There are those run by Service Children's Education, which are very successful. If SCE were a local education authority, it would be one of the top performers in the country. Then there are normal schools which are part of LEAs, but admit a large number of forces children. I want to talk about the second type.
In my constituency there are five primary schools in Carterton containing a large number of forces children. I am visiting one, St. John's, tomorrow. There is also Carterton community college. The key issue is what is known as turbulence, or turnover. At some of these schools the number of children arriving and leaving within a year can be as high as 75 per cent. At Gateway school in Carterton, which I visited recently, the turnover is 45 per cent.
It does not require rocket science to work out that such a high turnover leads to problems. There is a problem with continuity of teaching, and extra report writing obviously imposes additional costs. There is the problem of integrating new children, particularly those with special educational needs, in a new school. There is a series of issues for Ofsted, which does not always understand the pressures faced by forces schools. There is also the fact that these are forces families, not just any families. Given the situation in Iraq, among others, counselling services—even bereavement counselling—are required. It should be borne in mind that while a man or a woman is away in theatres of action, the family left behind becomes a single-parent family, with all the pressures and problems that that entails.
In my Adjournment debate, the then Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Miliband), said:
"In response to concerns that were raised, the SCE and the Department are working together to develop the National Association for State Schools for Service Children's Education into an organisation that operates more formally than at present. We hope that it will be an effective organisation representing schools with service children nationally and commenting on policy matters. The schools contacted so far have expressed support for the proposal."—[Official Report, 7 January 2004; Vol. 416, c.100WH.]
He went on to explain that a national conference was anticipated later in the year. That was all very positive stuff. My question for the Minister today is: what happened next? From what I have discovered, the answer seems to be not much.
I have here a letter from a teacher in my constituency, who says:
"In May 2004 we set up regional meetings all around the country and invited Headteachers of schools that had service children along with LEA representatives. The issues that were facing schools were noted from these meetings. We sent a letter to the Minister at the beginning of August 2004. The letter outlined the issues and made recommendations . . . In September 2004 the DfES responded to our letter. Firstly it had not been seen by the Minister and secondly it ignored many of the issues that we raised. At the meeting we asked the DfES representative to give a copy to Charles Clark. This they agreed to do. We cancelled a meeting in November because there had been no response from the Minister and here we are in January with a change of Minister and still no response. My principal concern now is that our concerns and issues may be overlooked and that we may have to start again."
This is a serious situation for the Minister to take into account. May I suggest that MOD Ministers get in touch with their DfES colleagues and try to push this matter to the top of the appropriate Education Minister's in-tray? One of the most tangible things that we can do for service families is ensure that their children get a good education. Oxfordshire county council has put some extra money into forces schools, and it is time for the national Government to take the issue more seriously.
My final point is on housing. The Minister knows that this is a long-running saga in Carterton, and we need to resolve it. The bottom line is that the forces housing in Carterton is among the worst in the UK. The prefab homes were never meant to last this long. We now have a real opportunity to provide better homes for our forces families and a better environment for the town. Almost every services family has a story to tell about the wife arriving, seeing the forces home and bursting into tears. Yet that is where they will have to live for the next few years. Some of the buildings look, from the outside, like Soviet housing in Volgograd; we really need to do better.
There is a clear answer to be found in the knock-down and rebuild programme, but this private finance initiative scheme has been beset by delays. It has required three bodies to take action: West Oxfordshire district council is dealing with planning and planning gain; Annington Homes is involved in making land available to other bidders; and, above all, the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Housing Executive that must push the process forward. I can now give the Minister an update. West Oxfordshire district council has given outline planning permission for the scheme and costed the section 106 agreements. It has done its bit. Annington Homes has made its land available to the other bidders, Riverside and Tricon, at a transparent price. It is now up to the Ministry of Defence to move things forward. I hope that this issue will get to the top of the Minister's in-tray. It really would make a huge difference to my constituents in Carterton.
The forces do a great job for us and we must do more for them. Overstretch in our armed forces is getting worse, time at home between missions is getting shorter and the stresses and strains on our forces families are getting more severe. We want to see action being taken and priority being given to these issues. Frankly, it is the least we can do.
It is always a pleasure to follow my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron). I, too, want to make some Oxfordshire-related comments.
There is clearly a tension between what Ministers in the Ministry of Defence think the armed forces should be doing and what the armed forces can do within the tight restraints of their budget. To understand this tension, we need to take a few steps back to 1997, when the present Government were elected on a manifesto promise to undertake a strategic defence review. It was intended to be the biggest review of the armed forces since the cold war. It was described in a Library briefing as
"a foreign policy-led review to re-assess the UK's national interests and likely overseas commitments in the post-Cold War strategic environment to 2015, and then to establish how the UK's Armed Forces should be structured and deployed in order to meet those interests and commitments."
In other words, it is a process to identify budget cuts.
We then had the terrorist atrocities of 11 September 2001, which changed the world landscape. Another chapter was hurriedly added to the strategic defence review: indeed, it was titled "A New Chapter" and was published in July 2002. It sought to re-examine the UK's defence in response to the challenges of international terrorism and the issues highlighted by the events of 11 September. The Defence Secretary told the House in a statement on 17 October 2002:
"Across Government, we have now been set new challenges by international terrorism. We have set in train work to re-examine our defence policy and plans in the light of the terrorist threat demonstrated by 11 September . . . As a result, we published a new chapter to the strategic defence review on 18 July. It shows that the strategic defence review's emphasis on expeditionary operations working with allies was right, but demonstrates—crucially—how best to use our forces against a different sort of enemy: one that is determined, well hidden and vastly different from the conventional forces that we might have expected to face in the past." —[Official Report, 17 October 2002; Vol. 390, c. 500.]
All that represented a conundrum to Ministers. On the one hand, the strategic defence review was supposed to bring significant cuts to the armed forces and the size of the defence budget. On the other, the horrific events of 11 September would lead to additional commitments that UK armed forces would need to undertake. What has happened? On 26 July last year, two years after "A New Chapter", the RAF was cut by 12,000 personnel, the Royal Navy lost 5,000 men and the Army had 5,500 troops axed. Overall, the armed forces are to be reduced by a 10th, with many ships and tanks being scrapped in what is nothing short of a political and moral betrayal.
Not only were personnel being cut, the kit was also cut. The focus on loss of equipment is especially relevant to my constituency and the MOD facilities based at Bicester and Caversfield. Ministers have been arguing that the armed forces need less kit, and that with less kit come fewer personnel. Ministers perversely claim that such cuts are being made because the UK faces a new threat and that advances in technology mean that a little kit will go a long way. That is what Ministers claim, but few have been convinced.
Let us consider, for instance, the excellent Defence Committee report late last year on the defence White Paper. It brilliantly summed up the paradox in which the Ministry of Defence finds itself. It states:
"As the post-conflict stage in Iraq has shown, a great deal more is required to achieve the objectives of an effects-based operation than advanced military technologies in the hands of numerically small forces."
In other words, a little kit does not necessarily go a long way. Armed personnel still need to be armed and properly kitted out. Despite what the Secretary of State said in his statement on "A New Chapter" about
"a different sort of enemy: one that is determined, well hidden and vastly different from conventional forces",
the response to combating the enemy is still strikingly conventional, as we are witnessing in Iraq.
The MOD facilities based in my constituency have been crucial to the ongoing operations in Iraq, as they were during the first Gulf war. There are two significant MOD operations in north Oxfordshire: the Defence Logistics Organisation and the Defence Storage and Distribution Centre. During the first days of the war in Iraq, the DSDC dispatched more than 2,700 International Organisation for Standardisation containers of supplies to troops. If those containers were stacked end to end, they would cover the whole length of the M40.
The DLO, the DSDC and all those who work there are crucial, and continue to be crucial, to UK operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, the DSDC was able to deploy more than twice the amount of kit in half the amount of time during the Iraq conflict in comparison with the previous Gulf war. The DSDC and all who work there are clearly demonstrating greater efficiency and effectiveness, but Ministers want their operations severely cut back. They are suggesting savings of 28 per cent.—a huge amount. If Ministers said that they wanted the equivalent cuts of 30 per cent. to social services in Oxfordshire, the community would see huge chunks of services vanish overnight.
I took a delegation last year from the DSDC in Bicester to meet the Secretary of State, who gave a commitment that any in-house bid put together at MOD Bicester would be fairly considered against bids from just the private sector, but nothing in the defence White Paper or the Secretary of State's subsequent statements to the House suggest that a trading fund for defence logistics has a genuine chance. Yet there are genuine benefits in undertaking a trading fund—it could make the substantial efficiency savings that the MOD wants and preserve jobs at Bicester. Those who advocate a trading fund are confident that it can meet the 28 per cent. savings that the MOD wants.
The situation at the Defence Logistics Organisation is bleak. No job is safe. The Minister for the armed forces wrote to me at the end of last year to say that the MOD is exploring,
"best value for money for the taxpayer . . . more efficiency ways of working . . . improving the service provided".
When Ministers use words such as "efficiency" and "best value", it is often code for cuts being on the horizon.
Ministers are being coy about how significant the job cuts will be, but we know that there will be cuts and that jobs will be lost. Indeed, in the same letter the Minister made it clear:
"Based on the work done so far, we estimate we could save"—
which is synonymous with "cut" in that context—
"up to 950 posts across the DLO by changing working practices in these functions by April 2005 and at least a further 2,000 posts by 2008."
That is a large number of jobs to axe. Almost 3,000 lost jobs would wipe out the DLO at Bicester, although I accept that not all the job losses will necessarily happen in my constituency.
There is a genuine fear that almost all the jobs will be lost in and around Bicester. That is underscored by the Minister's comments about the work that the MOD is undertaking. He said that
"further work will look at options for incremental collocation, using the existing Abbey Wood site in Bristol as the hub of the MOD acquisition community, and the extent to which the DLO retains staff at other sites".
None of that is reassuring for local people that jobs are safe. Rather, it suggests that jobs may be secured at Bristol, but not at Bicester. There is a suspicion in the community that Ministers are preparing local people for a soft landing on those job losses.
In less than four months, we will know the extent of the job losses. The signs are that, overall, more jobs will be lost at Bicester than anywhere else in the country. Ministers have indicated neither how many jobs will be transferred—very few I suspect, given that Bristol already has an extensive DLO operation—nor how long it will be before the jobs are phased out. They have not said what assistance will be given to those who will definitely lose their jobs at Caversfield.
Why are not Ministers considering whether savings can be made without widespread job losses? The Defence Committee's report stated:
"We are left wondering whether the Defence White Paper is properly set in the strategic context of Britain's security circumstances, or whether it is more a reflection of what the UK has actually been doing for the last three years, and the existence of a number of legacy systems of whose continuing importance the MoD is uncertain. In other words it is far from clear whether the review process has actually been effects-led, or rather resource driven."
I suspect that it was entirely resource driven. That description can be applied to almost every aspect of the MOD since the start of the SDR, and certainly to developments at Bicester.
Much attention has rightly been paid to the bravery of our armed forces in Iraq and there is—again rightly—considerable dismay about the number of regiments that have served in Iraq and the Gulf and are now under threat. However, there are also unseen heroes, who have worked very hard for long hours, often through the night, to make sure that our troops overseas in the middle east and elsewhere are properly kitted out. They have done that without fuss, at great speed, effectively and efficiently. Many of those unseen heroes work at Bicester and Caversfield, yet their jobs are now under serious threat.
There is a long-standing convention that Ministers do not make controversial announcements around the time of a general election, so if there is to be a poll on 5 May, perhaps Ministers hope that they can delay any announcement until after the election. However, I hope that, whenever such an announcement is made, it is not sneaked out. That is the least those unseen civilian MOD staff at DLO and DSDC deserve.
It is a great pleasure to contribute to a defence debate—the first since I joined the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I should like to put on record my gratitude and, I am sure, that of everyone who participated in it, to those who set up such an informative, varied and educational programme, which was also enjoyable.
We went to various Army establishments throughout the UK, from basic training in Bassingbourn to visiting the most senior officers in the British Army. We were all impressed with the enthusiasm, skill and quality of the people whom we met and their determination to play their part in ensuring that the British Army could deliver for the nation and that peace and stability was achieved throughout the globe.
As well as visiting establishments in the UK, we also visited Brunei and Kabul. We met the Green Howards in Kabul, where it was clear that the international force of which they were a part held their peacekeeping work in high esteem. In Brunei, we met a company of Gurkhas just returned from Kabul, and we went into the jungle with them.
It is obvious that the Gurkhas will remain a potent and able element in the British Army when it comes to jungle fighting. We were overjoyed to hear that they remained untouched by the reorganisation facing other infantry battalions and regiments. One Gurkha major told me that fighting in the jungle is wet but hot, whereas fighting in arctic conditions is cold but dry. However, Sennybridge in my constituency is both cold and wet, and one needs a high level of personal organisation to survive there.
I decided to enter the parliamentary scheme to which I referred earlier because there are various important Army establishments in my constituency, and I want to say a few words about them before I move on to the fate of the Welsh regiments. Indeed, 160 Brigade Wales is based in Brecon, and I want to pay tribute to Brigadier Ian Chalerton and his predecessor, Robert Aitken, who have done so much to build bridges between military and civilians in the area. It is in the interests of both communities that the brigade should be successful.
The most important establishment locally is the Sennybridge range—the Eppynt, as we call it. The facility had a very unhappy beginning, as people had to be moved out to allow the British Army to use the 34,000 acres there for training. Local people still talk to me about the farms and homes that they left behind, but things have moved on now. The facility's contribution to the local economy is well established, with more than 80 civilians working there. Unfortunately, they are no longer MOD civil servants, and now work for Landmarc Support Services. The TUPE reorganisation and the resulting transfer has gone moderately well, but some people are still worried about their pensions and the transfer of pension entitlement. I hope that the Minister, when he winds up, will say something about that.
I also want to pay tribute to the Eppynt site land managers. They put together a very effective scheme and at the same time maintained grazing rights for farmers in the surrounding area. They also worked to promote conservation locally, and a circular path call the Eppynt way is to be opened shortly. That will be a valued tourist facility in the area. As in other ranges maintained by the MOD, it is clear that an approach that involves people working together is achieving results.
The very important Derring Lines facility provides tactical training for junior officers and NCOs. I guess that almost every infantry NCO will have undertaken that training there at some time. A recent innovation is that 50 young cadets from Sandhurst will complete their officer training on the Sennybridge ranges rather than in Wiltshire, and I am sure that the test that they will undergo there will make them more than ready for the challenges that they will face in the Army proper. I also want to put on record my appreciation of how the company of Gurkhas permanently based there as a demonstration unit have integrated into the local community.
As the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan and other Welsh Members have said, there is a great deal of concern about the reorganisation of the Welsh regiments. The amalgamation might have been anticipated, and we appreciate that it did not touch the Welsh Guards. But the Royal Regiment of Wales and the Royal Welch Fusiliers feel that their ability to recruit and retain men may be affected by the new title.
Since I wrote to the Secretary of State on 12 January, he has agreed to meet a cross-party delegation of Welsh MPs, including the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), who has an interest in this matter. I have no wish to belittle the contribution that has been made by the Scottish regiments, which have done more than anybody could have asked of them, but I wish to note the contribution made by the Welsh regiments. The Royal Regiment of Wales was in Iraq from April 2003 to April 2004. The Royal Welch Fusiliers were in Iraq from April 2004 to October 2004. The Welsh Guards went to Iraq in October 2004 and will be there until April 2005, and the Royal Regiment of Wales will return to Iraq in April or May 2005 until October 2005, after only 12 months back in this country. The Queen's Dragoon Guards, often known as the Welsh cavalry, have also made a significant contribution, alongside the Black Watch, in areas north of Basra.
The issue is not only about tradition and crotchety old soldiers harking back to their day. It is about the future and the ability of the British Army to recruit satisfactorily in Wales. We ask the Secretary of State to consider the case that has been put forward that the names of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the Royal Regiment of Wales be put in front of the new name of Royal Welsh Regiment. It would do a lot of good to relationships in Wales if, when the cross-party group meets the Secretary of State, he could reward us with some good news. That would ensure that once again the British Army was able to recruit the very finest young men and women from both north and south Wales.
An encouraging number of hon. Members have taken part in the debate. I am sure that we all accept that the attention we give to the armed forces in the House of Commons is, inevitably, intermittent. However, the job done by the British armed forces is constant and around the clock. While we are fast asleep in bed tonight, they will still be working and defending our interests on the streets of Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and Basra.
This Government have placed unprecedented demands on our armed forces while pursuing a combination of policies that will weaken the traditions and capabilities on which the worldwide reputation of British soldiers and our armed forces is based. That reputation is sadly threatened at present by what I consider to be disgraceful and hysterical media coverage of one court martial in Germany. Of course, we are all shocked by the photographs that we have seen in the press of what happened at Camp Breadbasket, and the behaviour shown is absolutely unacceptable. However, three soldiers have been brought before a court martial—
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman of the points made by Mr. Speaker at the start of this debate. There can be no reference to the individual cases.
I have no intention of commenting on the individual cases, Madam Deputy Speaker, except to say that the disciplinary processes of the British Army have brought those soldiers there and we await the outcome and the verdict of the court martial. Those young men are innocent until proven guilty and that is why I think that the media coverage has been disgraceful and hysterical.
I was the chief of staff for the prisoner of war guard force in the first Gulf war, when the circumstances were very different. The problem we had with soldiers then was the fear that they would not be tough enough with the prisoners of war. We were worried that the guards might be overwhelmed if there was any form of rebellion, because they showed far too much sympathy for the prisoners of war, who had of course been fighting us only a few days earlier.
Today we debate this Government's policies on armed forces personnel. As Members of Parliament we have a duty to say what we believe to be right in the interests of our country and of our servicemen and women. We have a duty to question Government policies that are self-evidently not working. The Government have eroded public trust in their policy on Iraq and led people to distrust their intentions for our armed forces.
Before I proceed, I want to cover some of the points raised in the debate. Given the time restraints, I cannot comment on all the speeches. The Minister of State, as ever, made a robust speech. He took a few interventions. However, any speech lasting more than 30 minutes, plus a bit of time for interventions is rather long, and the Minister went on for 51 minutes. Perhaps he could raise the matter in his private office and ask his speechwriters to be a little more concise and less verbose.
The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) made an important point about electoral registration to which I want to return. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) created some confusion on both sides of House about the history of regiments at Rorke's Drift. My son, who is 8, has a video of "Zulu"; I shall re-watch it and lend it to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman made a much more important point when he talked about the £80 million hangar being built at St. Athan. The Minister has been talking about waste; we can identify £80 million of waste at St. Athan.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) made an excellent point about the lack of depth in the reserve, which was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson). I want my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) to know that I used to take parachute and free-fall courses at Brize Norton—[Interruption]—a long time ago. I know that Carterton has next to no facilities and that the armed forces housing is dreadful, so I was appalled to discover that it had not been renewed over the 20 years since I was last there.
I turn to the disgraceful cuts in the armed forces. The Government pretend that their manpower cuts are sensible, reasoned stages in an inexorable process towards a high-tech, 21st-century defence policy. Absolute rubbish. The manpower implications chapter of last summer's "Future Capabilities" White Paper airily begins:
"Transforming and restructuring the armed forces to meet the challenges of the 21st century will inevitably lead to reductions in manpower."
Why is it inevitable? The document certainly does not go on to say so. I remind Ministers that the USA is currently increasing the number in its Army by more than 20,000 because it realises the needs for boots on the ground. Those "reductions" are, and always will be, cuts. They have taken place against a backdrop of undermanning in the armed forces and of hugely increased international commitments in a time of conflict. Technology cannot replace real men and women on the ground.
Advances in technology have permitted the Royal Navy to reduce the size of crews on its ships, but I want to give the House the comments of the First Sea Lord on that score. He said:
"We are no longer able to drive those numbers down as much as we want to in our ships and our platforms because we need sentries, we need people to go on board and search ships, we need to leave, for want of a better word, prize crews on board . . . All of this adds to the numbers."
Personnel cuts mean that the fewer remaining sailors are required to spend more time at sea, which places increasing strains on their family life, making it increasingly difficult to stem the haemorrhaging of skilled personnel from the naval service.
The latest naval manning agency report reveals that the Royal Navy has a current personnel deficit of 6 per cent. It speaks of a
"failure to retain highly trained and capable sailors"
and says that the Royal Navy faces
"a total trained strength deficit for the foreseeable future".
That is before the current planned cuts of 1,500 personnel from the Navy's ranks.
As Lord Craig pointed out on Monday, we sent more ships to the Falklands in 1982 than we currently have left in the whole Royal Navy. The crews of HMS Chatham and HMS Diligence, who have been doing excellent work in Sri Lanka following the tsunami, know well that our traditional ability to give humanitarian assistance will be impaired by the fate of ships such as Diligence, our only forward repair ship, which is shortly destined to sail quietly into the pages of history when it is decommissioned in 2006. It will be followed shortly afterwards by six frigates and destroyers and many other ships.
In the Royal Air Force, 7,500 personnel are being axed, with all the implications for pilots, as well as boots on the ground—sentries and so on—and greater pressure on those who remain. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) described that as a hollowing out of the RAF.
Although the cuts in the infantry battalions at a time of overstretch are absolute lunacy, which has been mentioned by various Members, the Army's trained establishment will be reduced by 6,500 by 2008. How can such cuts be justified? The Government are asking our forces to do more with fewer personnel—soldiering on the cheap. As Lord Guthrie warned only on Monday in the other place,
"the Army will . . . be too small for what the Government expect it to do."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2005; Vol. 668, c. 564.]
The Government's tour interval target for overseas deployment is still 24 months, but we heard last week that the Royal Highland Fusiliers are deploying back to Iraq, even though they were there back in June or July, so that does not make 24 months so far as I am concerned. We must have more troops to fulfil the huge number of tasks that the Government keep piling on our troops.
I should like to turn briefly to the reserves, to which a couple of my hon. Friends referred. The purpose of having reserves and reservists in all three services is so obvious that it should not need spelling out, but the men and women of our reserve forces currently provide 20 per cent. of our ground forces in Iraq. The fact that they are being used means that they are no longer in reserve. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport raised this issue. Let us suppose that the current situation were to escalate, that the problems in Northern Ireland were to flare up again—as the Minister will know, that is very possible—and that there was some unforeseen conflagration, where are the reserves in all three services that every military strategist would always say are a fundamental necessity?
The Government have made it clear that the Territorial Army will play an integral role in all our future military operations. In the light of that, what are the Government doing to enable the reserves to meet the demands placed on them? Members of the TA have been sacked from their civilian jobs while they have been serving in Iraq. How can the Government expect members of the TA to join and serve overseas if they have to worry that they will be unable to support themselves and their families when they return home? Furthermore, from speaking to members of the TA, I am told that officers and non-commissioned officers in particular are unwilling to remain in the TA, especially when they have done one tour in Iraq, because their reserve service threatens their civilian careers.
Almost 140,000 service voters were registered in England and Wales in 2002, but the following year that figure had fallen by 65 per cent. to 49,000—similar falls have taken place across the country—as a result of the Representation of the People Act 2000. In a response to the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall, the Under-Secretary said that the situation was not as bad as it seemed. I hope that he will address that issue when he stands up to speak in a minute or two, because we owe it to those who are risking their lives for this country to ensure that every effort is made so that they have the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights and, indeed, to comment on the Government's policies.
Will the Under-Secretary give a commitment that all members of the armed forces at home and abroad will be given the opportunity to register themselves and their families in time for a May general election? It is not good enough to witter on about Defence Council instructions, of which there are thousands each year. A simple instruction, perhaps a DCI, needs to go down the chain of command that every soldier, sailor and airman is to be given a service voter registration form within the next month. When the Under-Secretary rises to defend himself on this matter, I hope that he will tell us that that will happen. Incidentally, he wants to try to visit the MOD website, where it is almost impossible to find out how servicemen might register to vote.
Finally, I should like to turn to the operation in Iraq—where we are, of course, the junior partner—and to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson). The Daily Telegraph reports today that the Government are trying to get President Bush to produce a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That is very sensible. We must ask what is our long-term strategy in Iraq. How long will it go on?
As someone who used to write essays on this at staff college, I should like to ask why we have ignored the lessons that we learned so painfully over the years in Malaya, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. In particular, why have we ignored the lessons on counter-insurgency that were summed up by Sir Robert Thompson's five principles following Malaya? Those basic principles should be followed even though the operation is American-led, but they have not been followed.
If the operation is part of a war on terror in which we are a junior partner, what is the long-term strategy for the war and what are the next steps? Will we broaden the war to other countries, whether they are referred to as outposts of terrorism or instability? Will the Under-Secretary tell the House the road down which we are proceeding? The armed forces, hon. Members and the general public want to know exactly the long-term aim of the Government's policy on the war on terror and Iraq.
May I say how much I have enjoyed our debate on personnel? We have heard 12 Back-Bench contributions. The hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) inevitably mentioned Haslar, and the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) talked about the Yorkshire regiments. I shall come back to the speech made by the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) later. We heard from the hon. Members for Perth (Annabelle Ewing), for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) and for Banbury (Tony Baldry). We also heard what one might call new contributions from the hon. Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who are both welcome in joining what has become a rather exclusive club of hon. Members who speak in defence debates.
May I also say how much I enjoyed the speeches made by my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—I shall return to his speech later—and for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes)? My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) was inevitably in the Chamber, as he always is for such debates.
I want to try to answer several of the questions put to me by the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), although I hope he will accept that I cannot possibly answer them all in the time available. I begin by welcoming his comments on behalf of the official Opposition about how the Secretary of State, the Minister of State and I regard the troops who have been injured. Like both my right hon. Friends, I always make seeing troops who are recuperating from injuries a key priority of any visit to Catterick, Cyprus or anywhere else.
This week's press has been thoroughly misleading, so I want to clarify the situation for the House. The latest available figures show that 790 service personnel have been evacuated from Iraq, but that number includes the full range of injuries from relatively minor shrapnel wounds and sprained ankles through to broken limbs and more serious injuries caused by enemy action. It is worth noting that some injuries resulted from road traffic accidents and sport. Our priority is for our personnel to make the speediest possible recovery, and I am glad that all parties have recognised that important fact this afternoon.
The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk asked a general question about investigations. Our troops in Iraq continue to perform outstandingly, but they are not above the law. It remains Ministry of Defence policy to scrutinise for evidence of criminal wrongdoing every instance when the actions of British service personnel might have led directly to the death or injury of Iraqi civilians. As at 6 December 2004, the number of investigations into such incidents that had been launched by service police since the start of the conflict stood at 160. The majority of those cases involved incidents in which United Kingdom forces had returned fire after being attacked. Only 19 cases related to alleged incidents involving Iraqis in British military custody, and only seven of those 19 contain any evidence of deliberate abuse. Let me say again that more than 65,000 service personnel have served in Iraq, yet only 36 have been reported for offences in connection with specific incidents by the service police, and only seven have so far been charged.
I hope that it will be helpful if I make a series of updates on personnel issues. I shall start by updating the House on operational effective military discipline and service law, and the new Bill to which I referred in our previous personnel debate.
As hon. Members know, we have been working for some time on modernising and harmonising the separate systems of service law governing our three services. Subject to parliamentary time being available, we intend to introduce legislation in the next Session to create, in place of the present three systems, which are sometimes different, a single system of service law that will better serve the armed forces in the years ahead as they increasingly train and operate together. In advance of that, the Defence Committee is currently examining our proposals, and I am grateful for its constructive interest—indeed, I shall appear before it next month.
Discipline is at the heart of service law. The authority of the chain of command depends on powers to enforce discipline to ensure the fighting effectiveness of those under command, and to be effective that authority must apply equally at all times and wherever forces are serving. It is of the utmost importance therefore that the services have a system of law that is fair, expeditious and consistent and that is subject to appropriate safeguards in order to protect the rights of service personnel. That is what we will seek to introduce in the next armed forces Bill.
We are also investing in technology with a new military personnel management modernisation programme, the joint personnel administration. The programme will introduce simplified and harmonised personnel policies and processes to each service in turn during 2006.
In partnership with leading academics, we are implementing a long-term scientific study to develop a coherent set of measures of individuals' expectations, attitudes and values and to monitor how those change over time. The study, "Measuring human capital", will get under way next month in partnership with King's college, and it should enable us in the longer term to target our resources and further develop our personnel policies to maintain satisfaction and improve retention of our people, which is an issue that many hon. Members have mentioned this afternoon.
We have embarked on a major programme to transform the management of the civilian work force. The people programme will put the MOD at the leading edge of human resources practice and maximise the civilian contribution to defence by providing modern, efficient internal human resources services. The programme will generate financial savings and will release hundreds of civilian staff as part of the reduction announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State last summer.
A number of hon. Members asked about service family accommodation, which is an issue that is often raised. This year's target was to upgrade 500 properties, but we have now extended it to 2,000 properties by increasing resources, and we expect to meet that target. Of the long-term core stock of 42,000 properties, around 23,000 are currently at standard 1 and a further 18,000 are at standard 2. As hon. Members have pointed out, it does not mean that there is room for complacency, but it is progress.
The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) raised the issue of single living accommodation. Again, we are making rapid progress. More than 1,100 bed spaces have been completed, and a further 2,100 are being designed. We expect a total of 4,000 bed spaces across several sites to be constructed very soon.
The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) and a number of others raised the issue of reserve forces. Hon. Members know that we recognise the important contributions that reservists and their employers make, and we intend to continue to improve the support that we provide. Together with the work that we are undertaking on integration, we are very conscious of our responsibilities to ensure that we do not endanger the commitment and dedication of our reserve forces or the tremendous support that we have received from employers. We have been working to clarify the way in which the MOD uses the reserve forces and to establish a set of aspirations that the MOD can work towards. Based on the lessons learned from Operation Telic, we are examining the optimum period of notice that we should aim to give reservists to report for mobilisation, and the frequency with which we can reasonably mobilise reservists on a compulsory basis. I expect to make further announcements on that in the House next month.
In his excellent opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State referred to the early service leavers initiative, which was instigated as part of the veterans strategy. It helps to improve resettlement for those leavers who are vulnerable to social exclusion. For those leaving with less than four years' service or those discharged administratively, there is now a mandatory unit-level brief and a one-to-one interview to assess vulnerability to social exclusion. Early service leavers are also advised on available housing assistance through the joint services housing authority organisation and SPACES—the single persons accommodation centre for the ex-services. A proper resettlement umbrella is therefore now in place, covering all service leavers.
I hope the House will agree that the veteran's lapel badge, which Members will note is worn by many of their veteran constituents, has been a tremendous success. Indeed, more than 35,000 have been dispatched since its launch last May. From 1 February, I am extending the badge's availability to second world war widows, but I want to go further still. Transition from service to civilian life is an important area of policy for the Ministry of Defence, so I am announcing that from 1 February a veteran's badge will be included as part of the leavers' packs, subject to certain conditions. I hope that that reinforces the high esteem in which the country holds, and the thanks that we owe to, those who fought 60 years ago, along with today's armed forces personnel, who do such a first-class job.
My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow made an outrageous attack on the work done by this Government since 1997 on Gulf veterans' illnesses. Perhaps I can refer him to the Hansard for Tuesday 18 January, when I responded to an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe). I set out then in detail the action that has been taken since 1997.
In what may have been a slip of the tongue, the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood referred to four suicides at Deepcut. He will of course be aware that the verdict was one suicide, with two open verdicts and one case still to be determined.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I am afraid that I cannot.
I am sorry, but I really do not have the time.
The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall mentioned continuous attitude surveys, and I can assure him that we take them very seriously. As he knows, the publication of much of such information was an initiative of the Government and the MOD.
The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) made a very interesting point about service education; indeed, I believe that he asked a related question of the Department for Education and Skills in the House this morning.
We did not reach it.
I am sorry about that, and I shall certainly investigate further the hon. Gentleman's point about service education.
I had hoped that the hon. Member for Blaby would give us some detail on the Conservatives' spending plans, which have been roundly trashed in all quarters, but he chose not to do so.
Interestingly, the hon. Member for Banbury talked about the Defence Logistics Organisation. If I have understood the Conservatives' review document properly, they want to merge the DLO and the Defence Procurement Agency. I do not know what that would do to the site at Bicester, which is in his constituency. The merger is meant to save £900 million, and as such contributes to the Conservatives' overall proposed defence savings. However, the two organisations are already being streamlined and reformed. They consist of essential military and civilian staff who work together very closely. Realistically, to make savings on that scale the Conservatives would be forced to make some £900 million of cuts in vital logistics and procurement. That would weaken our defence capabilities and lead to massive job cuts in British industry. It is clear that the sums have not been thought through properly—[Interruption.] As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State says, they are back-of-a-fag-packet calculations.
I want to make two final points. Much has been said about the tour interval and the restructuring of regiments. We take the tour interval issue very seriously. Tour intervals of less than 24 months are undesirable but have proved necessary, as the House knows. That is particularly true for some units. The ending of the arms plot and the other restructuring that we are undertaking in all three services—but particularly in the Army—over the next three years will better balance the enabled forces and help us to attain sensible and enduring tour intervals of 24 months. I hope that that answers the point made by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South.
This is a time of considerable change and transition for the Ministry of Defence. We have in place a comprehensive and cohesive programme of change that is designed to make defence more efficient and able to meet future challenges. At the centre of these changes are our people. We owe a considerable debt to our people, and for my part, I want to pay tribute to those men and women of the armed forces currently engaged in dangerous and serious undertakings in Iraq and throughout the world. At the same time, we should also recognise the sacrifices made by families and friends, and in the case of our reserve forces, employers, who support our people in their endeavours.
Worktrack Programme
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Ms Prentice.]
I welcome the opportunity to raise the proposed closure of the Worktrack programme in Northern Ireland.
In the budget for the Province announced by the Minister with responsibility for finance and personnel in late autumn last year, a major reduction in funding of Worktrack was announced for 2005–06, and no funding thereafter, which means its complete closure.
Worktrack is unique to Northern Ireland and allows people classified as long-term unemployed the opportunity to get back into full-time employment. It provides paid employment, often with commercial employers, for six months and, crucially, it targets the economically inactive, many of whom are returners to work, and those not eligible for the new deal programme.
People in my constituency who have participated in the scheme have told me about how the programme helped to restore their self-esteem and dignity and gave them a real chance to go out and once again earn a wage. It has given many people out of work for extended periods the chance to train on the job. For many, the best place to gain employment skills is in employment. Many of those participants have started paying tax and national insurance contributions once again. The programme is popular, and in my view, it was working, with 50 per cent. of participants placed in sustainable employment.
The programme is delivered in Northern Ireland by almost 20 lead providers, supported by a significant number of secondary providers throughout the Province. As I understand it, there are 27 contracts over a three-year period, representing every council area in Northern Ireland and running through to September 2006.
As a result of the announcement on the programme, more than 1,200 participants per year will be deprived of the chance to take the first step back into the labour market under the scheme. In addition, 200 permanent core jobs will be lost. The loss to the Northern Ireland economy is estimated at some £300,000 per week, which comes to half the cost of running the scheme. The loss to the social economy of Northern Ireland should also be taken into account, and the consequent loss of community resources, skills and capacity building.
I know from my experience in this area, of which the Minister will be well aware, the importance that the Government attach to building community capacity in deprived areas of Northern Ireland, especially in Belfast, and particularly in my constituency in north Belfast, where a dedicated community action unit has been set up by the Government. One of its main tasks is to build community capacity in areas where it is underdeveloped or non-existent.
The Government should be aware that the lack of consultation with providers before the decision was announced has done real damage to relations between the voluntary sector, the community and the Government. Given that there was little or no criticism of the way in which the programme was working—quite the reverse—the announcement came as a bolt out of the blue. Many people were taken by surprise at the Minister's announcement both in relation to this and the learndirect programme. The Government should explain why the decision was made with blatant disregard for the process of consultation.
In my own area, Community Aid 2000 is the Worktrack lead provider for north Belfast, east Belfast and Newtonabbey, and has 177 people on placement. Between October 2003 and November 2004, 347 people, well over half of whom were women, started on the programme. Since 1999, it has assisted 600 people back into work. The contracts held by Community Aid 2000 are used to assist people in the most difficult and challenging areas, with some of the worst deprivation and unemployment in the Province. It works with secondary partners in many of those communities. Many of those partners and other community groups have made representations to me, as they are concerned and angry about the decision to end the Worktrack programme. In addition, small businesses have been affected, and the Northern Ireland branch of the Federation of Small Businesses has expressed concern that people in Northern Ireland generally have been let down by the Government. In a press release of 16 November 2004, it says that the closure and other cuts in training schemes will have a negative impact on small businesses, which make huge investments in their infrastructure and staffing to enable them to offer a quality training provision. The federation fears that jobs will be lost because of the announcement and is worried about the fact that there was no consultation with providers before the decision. Only the other day, it relayed its concern and anger at the announcement about axing learndirect as well.
We are told that the reason for closing Worktrack is that unemployment in the Province has fallen significantly in recent years and that provisions such as the new deal and training for work will still be available for people who are unemployed or economically inactive. According to the Northern Ireland labour market statistics for August last year, however, more than 550,000 people are economically inactive, of whom 9 per cent. or 50,000 want to work but do not satisfy the availability or job search criteria to be classified as unemployed. Worktrack is the only wage-based programme to target those people. Just before Christmas, the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner), who has responsibility for employment and learning, said:
"the labour market has improved substantially since the introduction of Worktrack, and in the context of the current economic climate with lower levels of employment and more job opportunities the programme was considered to have a lower priority than other competing demands."
I fully understand the problems arising from a finite budget on which there are competing demands, but I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) would outline those competing demands and explain what criteria were applied in assessing the allocation of resources for training and skills provision in Northern Ireland.
The announcement of Worktrack's closure appears to be at variance with other aspects of Government policy. For instance, the skills strategy for Northern Ireland, which was announced just four days after the Worktrack announcement, suggests that it is Government policy to prioritise engagement with the economically inactive in Northern Ireland. The strategy says that, although unemployment is at a record low, that masks a high proportion of people who are long-term unemployed. Three out of 10 adults of working age in Northern Ireland are outside the labour market altogether and are not adding to economic productivity.
The neighbourhood renewal strategy identifies areas in Northern Ireland for special assistance, where many of Worktrack's secondary providers are already operating and where the scheme is operating very successfully. The draft economic vision report states:
"since 1998 employment levels are up, unemployment rates are down and Gross Value Added has grown steadily. Against that must be balanced the highest economic inactivity rates in the UK."
What we see emerging from the strategies and papers that the Government themselves have produced is that, while we have historically low unemployment, much of what remains is stubborn long-term unemployment, and the low unemployment tends to mask high economic inactivity and low levels of qualifications. Many of those who are unemployed or economically inactive lack skills and are at some distance from the labour market.
I find it odd—indeed, it is contrary to some of the objectives that they have set out in their strategies and papers—that the Government should be pointing to those issues, but deciding to close down a programme whose purpose is to tackle some of the underlying problems. I simply do not understand the rationale, and neither do the providers, the people who are participating in the programme or small businesses. It can only be a question of saving money, but as we have already indicated, the amount involved is relatively low, but it has produced enormous impacts in meeting the needs of people in highly deprived areas.
In the area covered by Community Aid 2000, there is no existing provision for providing an employment option to people outside jobseeker's allowance other than Worktrack. The new deal is concerned with those on the unemployment register and training for work is a benefit-plus training programme.
The fact is that Worktrack or something very similar will still be needed in Northern Ireland, and we need to know today what the Government propose to do. The Minister needs to address whether what is proposed is the right and sensible option. People who are economically inactive or on benefits other than jobseeker's allowance are being deprived of a proven and effective route back to work. Thus far, we have heard nothing from the Government apart from some vague comments about competing demands and suggestions that employment is now in relatively good shape across the Province, although Belfast, North has the third highest unemployment of any constituency in the Province. We need some more detail from the Minister about what is going to happen. There have been some hints from the Minister with responsibility for employment and learning about further and higher education programmes. Can we have more details on this matter?
As the Minister will know, there is cross-party opposition in Northern Ireland to the announcement that has been made. As far as I am aware, all the major political parties in Northern Ireland have expressed concern and opposed it. The Government should take note of that opposition. As the Minister may be aware, the Government were defeated just a few moments ago in the Northern Ireland Grand Committee on top-up variable fees in Northern Ireland. There was major cross-party opposition from Northern Ireland on that issue—all the parties expressed their opposition.
I hope that the Government will look afresh at this issue and spell out in detail what they intend to do. They cannot simply close the programme and not replace it with something similar. Why not leave in place a programme that has been effective, successful and popular, and let the providers get on with the excellent job that they have been doing?
I congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) on securing the debate and on the reasoned way in which he expressed his concerns. I know that he has had correspondence with the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner), and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate the way in which my hon. Friend has dealt with the issues that cause him great concern. I put on record the apologies of my hon. Friend, who was detained on other business and is probably on his way to the Chamber.
It may be helpful if I outline the major factors and rationale for the closure of the Worktrack programme. The decision was taken against the backdrop of a significantly improving economy, with significant falls in levels of unemployment over recent years. In that economic climate and with increasing job opportunity, Worktrack was proving an expensive means of supporting and creating employment. In the future priorities of the Department for Employment and Learning, there was a change of focus towards a more targeted approach to unemployment and increasing emphasis on improving skills on an individual basis of personal support. I shall expand on that.
Worktrack was introduced in August 1999 when claimant unemployment was 6.2 per cent. Its objectives were to provide training and employment opportunities for those who were not suited to, or who were ineligible for, other labour market intervention programmes. That meant that it focussed largely, though not exclusively, as the hon. Gentleman noted, on the long-term unemployed and economically inactive. Worktrack is a temporary employment programme providing 1,000 places every 26 weeks, with the key aims of developing the skills and competencies of those engaged on the programme to help ease them back into the workplace, mainly by boosting confidence. Many who have taken part see it as a means of gaining experience of a modern workplace, new skills and work-related disciplines without the perceived high pressure of what some might term a "real" job. That is not to belittle the work that participants do on those placements.
I am fully conscious of the valuable contribution that Worktrack has made in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and elsewhere in Northern Ireland. He spoke of 50 per cent. of participants progressing to employment. The rate was not quite as good as that, but it was significant—an average of 36 per cent. of participants have progressed into employment since the introduction of the programme. That is a commendable record and one to be proud of. However, we must recognise that as circumstances change, policies must change to reflect them.
Let me summarise the main arguments. First, the Government believe that the economic context in Northern Ireland has changed significantly. The employment market is much more buoyant than in former times and there are many more opportunities to re-enter the labour market. Secondly, given the changed circumstances in respect of employment, Worktrack, costing in the region of £13,000 per job, is an expensive means of creating jobs. It is important to realise that many of the people may have been offered jobs without the support of Worktrack, although that is difficult to quantify. Thirdly, given the changed circumstances, the Government considered carefully the recommendations of the employability task force report and the research behind the skills strategy, and decided that a more targeted approach to employment barriers, including the promotion of reskilling and upskilling on an individual basis was the way forward.
We have sought to create the conditions for increasing employment in Northern Ireland, as in the rest of the UK, by promoting economic stability, developing a policy framework that incentivises both entry to and progression in work, and putting in place new arrangements to assist those who are not in work. Economic stability has brought growth and the delivery of an increasing number of job opportunities. Improving incentives through reform of the tax and benefit system and the introduction of the national minimum wage have helped to make work pay. Support for those without work through the new deal and through the rolling out of the jobs and benefits offices across Northern Ireland is providing people with the help they need to move into work. The outworking of our skills strategy and the change in approach of the Employment Service will assist further in removing or reducing barriers to work for individuals.
The economy in Northern Ireland has made significant progress. The gross value added—GVA—per head rose in real terms by 17.2 per cent. between 1997 and 2002, the last year for which there are full figures. In the construction industry, it rose by some 70 per cent. compared with 45 per cent. in the United Kingdom, and in manufacturing by 21.5 per cent. compared with 3.8 per cent. in the United Kingdom.
It may be helpful to consider some of the information on the working-age population, which in Northern Ireland has risen by 60,000 people, or 6 per cent., since 1997. An estimated 721,000 people are in employment, the highest number on record. Unemployment has fallen from 8.1 per cent. of the work force in 1997 to 4.7 per cent. in the summer of 2004—a fall of some 26,000. Northern Ireland has experienced a greater proportional fall in unemployment than the UK as a whole. Since the introduction of the new deal in 1998, claimant unemployment has fallen by 51 per cent. to its current level of 2.7 per cent.
That is not to say that all the issues involved in employment and employability are resolved. It is one thing to talk about statistics and figures, but every single percentage hides a real story of people who are desperately looking for work. The hon. Gentleman made that case when, in speaking about his concerns on behalf of his constituency as well as wider issues in Northern Ireland, he made it clear that there are still issues to be addressed. I assure him that there is no lack of commitment from the Government and that our changes of emphasis and delivery mechanisms will ensure that people have help and support in getting back into work.
Let me deal with some of the points that the hon. Gentleman made. He mentioned low skills and qualifications. The skills strategy includes proposals to offer a free first level 2 qualification. Acquiring skills will be an important dimension of employment policy.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that other provisions such as the new deal do not deal with the same issues as Worktrack. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has taken that on board and is examining ways of making all the remaining provisions accessible to all, including the economically inactive. I accept that Community Aid 2000 does an excellent job, and the Department will consult it on alternative developments. It can play a role in insisting that we continue to help those in most need who are looking for work.
The hon. Gentleman expressed concern about the loss of community resources. That is not an objective for the Employment Service, and the Department for Social Development provides essential resources for community development. Having said that, the Department plans to talk to providers on an individual basis to offer practical advice and assistance on the needs of the client group that may not be assisted following the withdrawal of Worktrack. The hon. Gentleman said there was a lack of consultation, but providers were notified in time to contribute to the budget consultation process.
I hope that that deals with some of the hon. Gentleman's concerns. The strongest argument that I would put to him is that the Department is carefully and actively trying to ensure that those who would have been covered by Worktrack will be covered by the new deal and other schemes. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman's constituency has particular problems as regards unemployment. The unemployment rate is higher in his constituency, at 4.2 per cent., than in Northern Ireland as a whole, and male unemployment is 6.9 per cent. in his constituency. However, his constituency has the highest ranking in Northern Ireland in terms of local jobs, with a job density index—the number of jobs divided by the resident population of working age—of 1.48, compared with the Northern Ireland average of 0.75.
In broad terms, the picture is clear. Employment in Northern Ireland is higher than it has ever been, unemployment is lower than it has ever been, new businesses are growing at an increased pace, more people are engaging with further and higher education than ever before and the numbers taking up apprenticeships are growing. We want to do everything that we can to ensure that the hon. Gentleman's constituents participate in that prosperity. That is the context in which we must look at the ending of the Worktrack programme. We are trying to ensure that all those who would have been part of it can progress to other forms of training and skills upgrading.
Significant resources are committed to tackling those needs, most notably through the new deal with its package of financial support and opportunities. In certain circumstances, prospective Worktrack clients may have access to the full range of provisions already offered through the various new deal schemes. While it remains a priority for the Department to help people into employment, there is also a change in focus towards individualised targeting of need rather than the sustaining of direct employment programmes. In line with that change of focus, the Department will develop a menu of more flexible provision to help people into work. We know of plans in the rest of the United Kingdom to test a targeted approach described as building on the new deal, or BOND. We plan to do something similar in Northern Ireland.
It is essential for change to build on the strengths of the new deal and other programmes, as well as identifying new ways in which assistance for all who need it—but particularly those faced with the most intractable barriers to employment—can be improved. That can best be achieved through an approach that is targeted more deliberately at meeting the specific needs of individuals. Such an approach should make provision available to all groups, based on a flexible menu of modular provision.
Managers and personal advisers will be able to tailor provision according to their local labour markets and their clients' needs. Central to that will be working more closely than ever with partners in the statutory, private and voluntary sectors. The elements of the menu will be available to all clients, irrespective of the benefit that they receive. Personal advisers operating in the jobs and benefits office network will choose from the menu the type of support that meets their clients' needs most appropriately.
The Department is currently testing the client-centred approach in four pilot targeted initiative—TI—areas that have been designated because of their high levels of long-term unemployment and social deprivation. Two key components of the initiative are the introduction of a transitional employment programme—TEP—which targets the very long-term unemployed and the creation of job assist centres—JACs—which aim to strengthen community outreach services. TIs will also develop a co-ordinated service that builds on partnerships between statutory agencies, local voluntary and community organisations and employers, and will be tailored to individual needs through increased flexibility and access to employment measures. An evaluation of that approach is planned for March 2006, with the completed report expected in November of that year.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has agreed to test a series of measures designed to reform the way in which people claiming incapacity benefits in Northern Ireland are supported in their return to work. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware of those measures, which are known as pathways to work. They reflect measures currently being piloted in seven areas in Great Britain. The intention is to introduce Northern Ireland pilots in autumn 2005 and additional funds have been secured for that work.
Pathways to work programmes focus on individuals and offer tailored support to help them return to work. The structure for new claimants includes a series of intensive mandatory work-focused interviews, new rehabilitation services provided by the health service, improved links with new deal for disabled people job brokers, and improved financial incentives—a return-to-work credit of £40 a week, with pre-employment training.
Early performance indicators from Great Britain suggest that between 15 and 20 per cent. of participants have taken up elements of the support package. Furthermore, in some of the pilot areas there has been an increase of between 8 and 10 percentage points in off-flows from incapacity benefits after four months on benefit. Those monitoring the pilot schemes are also reporting significant interest among existing incapacity benefits claimants, who are not currently required to take part in the programme.
In Northern Ireland, as in Great Britain, the probability of someone ceasing to claim incapacity benefits to enter employment is significantly reduced as long as the person continues to receive the benefits. We shall be working with those who have been receiving them for up to two years.
We should all recognise, however, that some people are faced with specific barriers that must be dealt with before they can gain access to employment. Later this year, work will begin to help people throughout Northern Ireland receiving working age benefits who are trying to move towards employment but, without additional specialist support, would be unlikely to succeed because of their personal circumstances. The programme will target those with drug and alcohol misuse problems, homeless people and those with a criminal record.
I trust that what I have said gives some idea of the scale of the work that the Department wishes to undertake, and that the hon. Gentleman recognises that difficult decisions were made during the planning of budgets. I understand that all lead providers have been contacted and that the Department's desire is for the transition from Worktrack to be managed as smoothly and sensitively as possible. Worktrack was highly successful in times of high unemployment, but the time has come to look at other ways of addressing the needs that clearly exist. I assure the hon. Gentleman that what is being done and what is planned for the future represent, in the current economic climate, a realistic and deliverable alternative to meet the needs of the unemployed—
The motion having been made at Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Six o'clock.