I am not going to take an intervention from the Minister because he will have the chance to sum up. I want to address something he said earlier about terms and conditions affecting recruitment and retention. Let us look at where the evidence lies,
starting with armed forces pay. We know that pay is an issue for members of the armed forces because the evidence tells us that. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body noted:
“In general, we heard about the lack of trust in the employer to maintain the offer in future, and an increasing feeling that people were not joining the services for a career, but to obtain training and skills before moving on to alternative (and possibly better paid) employment elsewhere.”
That is compounded by the public sector pay freeze, which, when inflation is taken into account, is a cut. Army privates who, on a salary of £21,000, are among the lowest-paid members of the armed forces, have had a cut of £400 per year. The Minister should look at the evidence in front of him—this is well documented and well researched—rather than simply pluck evidence out of thin air.