As many Members will know, my husband served as a Royal Navy officer for 17 years. As a result, I want to speak almost exclusively about the impact that serious budget cuts have on personnel.
It is often said in the military that the most important part of a weapon system is the human being. If the human being is not maintained with due care and attention, as other parts of the weapon system are, the Government are undermining the fundamental principles of our armed forces: defending our nations, promoting
democracy and protecting human rights. The men and women who serve in our armed forces are used to the warm words of this Government. Unfortunately, pledges of support ring hollow, however, when the everyday reality of forces life is being made far more difficult by chronic under-investment and cost-cutting.
If the human being is to continue to be the most important part of our weapons systems, personnel must be central to any defence strategy. Unfortunately, they appear to be an afterthought. Considering the journey of a typical soldier throughout their career, we see that a number of areas must be improved. Recruitment should play an important role in our defence strategy, but this has been outsourced to a private company, Capita. Leaving aside the £44 million annually that Capita is creaming off to perform the service, I must ask why we are relying on a third party—possibly one with no knowledge of service life—to recruit those who will defend our nations. Instead of wasting millions on a failing contract with Capita, the Government should invest in a fair pay rise for personnel. It was revealed in response to a written question in October 2017 that the Government had increased spend on recruitment advertising by nearly 50%, yet Army numbers have continued to fall.
When recruits join up, they are faced with housing conditions that in some instances have been described as squalid, as a number of Members have mentioned. Military personnel may accept that as being just part of the job, but what about when families and children are involved? Relationships are already put under huge strain by service life, but the additional pressure that poor housing puts on relationships is immense. How can children study when there is no internet or when the central heating boiler does not work? Meanwhile, we continue to refer to our service personnel as “brave” and their families continue to be lauded. I am sure they do not feel the same way.
Then comes the time to take some well-deserved leave—leave to which service personnel are fully entitled. In the submarine service, where my husband served, five days’ leave used to mean heading off on a Friday afternoon or early evening and not returning until a week on Monday, so there was a full week and two weekends at home. Now, it is far more common for five days’ leave to start on a Monday morning, with submariners expected to be back in post on Friday night. How is that sustainable? How can relationships survive such neglect? Those submariners are not central to any defence thinking.
Worse still, the reality for some is that they are unable to take their leave at all because of personnel shortages, or part of their leave has to be spent doing mandatory training such as health and safety, conduct after capture or equality and diversity. No one would argue that that training does not have to take place and in isolation no one would object to it, but when they are back from operations, personnel need to fit in such mandatory training, operational training and leave. That has come about slowly over a period of time and is now simply accepted as the reality. However, when the operational stretch is such that the only time training can take place is during leave, I question once again whether personnel are really central to defence thinking.
I want to talk again about the children, who can have a variety of educational experiences. In Army regiments, the families often move with the unit. The solution
presented is to send the children to boarding school. When I was faced with that possibility for my son, we took the decision to remain in Glasgow—me in my job and my son in the local comprehensive school. However, the educational experience of many children is disjoined, resulting in poor outcomes and children’s attainment not always matching their potential. If personnel are central to defence thinking, we must think more creatively. We must think about things like the distance between family homes and bases, and how we can ensure educational continuity.
Equipment has been mentioned by a number of Members so, in the interests of time, I will move on to veterans. We celebrate our veterans’ service and thank them for their sacrifice, but in many cases, unfortunately, we then leave them to get on with it. There are fabulous veterans’ organisations, but they are scrabbling about for funding—funding that should come from the Government. Organisations such as Combat Stress deal with the most psychologically damaged veterans and centres such as the Coming Home centre in Govan in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) provide a vital lifeline for veterans, but they are struggling to keep in the black because of cuts and a lack of funding. Are those veterans central to our defence thinking?
All the personnel issues are compounded by chronic disinvestment. What makes this infuriating is the voicelessness of the personnel. The Netherlands has four trade unions that represent the armed forces. They act as a go-between that can liaise between the Government and the armed forces. Morale is so high and conditions so good in the Netherlands that special measures have been introduced to encourage personnel to retire at the age of 55 to make way for younger recruits. We need to establish a representative body on a statutory footing to give a voice to our armed forces—a representative body that is able to liaise directly with Government and ensure that personnel are central to defence thinking. Ultimately, the chronic disinvestment must be addressed. Our most important weapons system must be maintained, not neglected.
I will finish by quoting, like my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), from General Sir Richard Barrons, who gave evidence to the Defence Committee in November:
“The people who are in defence have to keep going every day. They are never going to say publicly, or to themselves, their enemies, or their allies that we are broken, but when they fly, sail, or deploy on the land and they look at their equipment, their sustainability, the shortfalls in their training, and at their allies, they know that they are not fit for purpose.”
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