My Lords, I am genuinely glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, as much of what she said I could not have said better myself. I feel this strongly because no matter how sophisticated the technology at your disposal or how advanced your strategic thinking, in the end that is no better than the people putting it into practice. Those people need to be confident that their families are secure and well-cared for, and that they will have a future place in society when they have left the forces. I might take issue with her on only one small point: I do not know why she referred to preparing them, when their service is completed,
for their contribution to the private sector. I think that their contribution is equally needed in the public sector. I have often reflected on how much the public sector could benefit from some of the best elements—their experience and values—in the people who have served.
I, too, warmly thank the Minister for having introduced the Bill so thoroughly and well. I am sure that the whole House appreciated that. There is much in the Bill for which he will find support in all parts of the House. Anything that I will say is just about some things which I hoped that the Bill could perhaps have touched on, and not unrelated to what the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has just been saying.
My first job in government, way back in the mid-1970s, was to be Minister for the Navy. In those days, we had Service Ministers. I am not sure that I am altogether relaxed that that tradition has gone because it was important to have Ministers who, in the deliberations of government, identified themselves with a particular service fulfilling its part in what was needed. I certainly learned a great deal in that job. I always looked forward just as much to my discussions with the various admirals with leading responsibility as to my discussions below decks with senior ratings and others. This again relates to the point which the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, was just making. It was often when among the senior ratings that I thought, “Are we doing enough, not just to ensure that these senior ratings, who are absolutely crucial to the successful operation of the fleet, are getting the certainty of a valid career when they complete their service but to enable society to understand what a terrific contribution people who have carried that sort of front-line management responsibility have to make to society?”. I was disturbed to find how often people who had carried tremendous responsibility to good effect were ending up as car-park attendants and all the rest. These considerations seem essential to the morale and effectiveness of our armed services. I would be surprised if the noble Earl, Lord Howe, did not 100% agree.
Having referred incidentally to how I looked forward to my discussions with admirals every week, I always had particular and keen anticipation for my weekly seminar with the Chief of Naval Staff. When I hear my noble friend Lord West in action, I always think that it would have been jolly good if he had been there discussing the things on which he speaks so strongly and with so much conviction. We might have had some quite lively discussions from time to time but they would have been greatly enjoyed.
We have heard remarkable maiden speeches today, which speak well for the future of the House, but I want to pick out two or three key points. First, we need to recognise the immense demands made on our service personnel in their work. To be effective servicemen they have, above all, to be effective fighters but nowadays they have incredible other responsibilities. I heard it put very well by somebody who had served in the Balkans. He said that they would suddenly find themselves having to be diplomats, negotiating their way through a situation. They may be under order in a convoy to get humanitarian relief supplies to a community when they come up against women lying down in front of them in the road, trying to impede their progress. They cannot run over those women, so they find themselves
having to negotiate with them to get through that block and be able to proceed with their task.
Our personnel may also find themselves confronted with appalling floods—and my goodness, up in Cumbria I have seen the evidence of servicemen making a profound contribution. With the floods six years ago, let alone more recently, the contribution made by the RAF in the appalling situation in Cockermouth was extraordinary. We got through that awful episode with only one death, which was sad and felt by the whole community, when a brave policeman tried to divert traffic from a bridge, which he saw was about to collapse, and ended up drowned. The fact that the community itself got through without the loss of life owed a tremendous amount to the RAF, as it did to all the others who intervened, so there is a great range.
There is also a great demand on our personnel psychologically. Think of the servicemen operating drones: do not believe that there is no psychological strain in that situation. I saw it years ago when I was in the operations room of a new frigate. After my visit, I remember talking to a petty officer. He said, “Minister, did you see those ratings on those instruments?”. I said yes. He said, “Did you realise that the safety and survival of this ship, let alone its fighting effectiveness, depends on each one of those ratings and the instrument on which they are working?” They had to be able to interpret, and rapidly communicate, the significance of what they saw on their screens for the safety and fighting efficiency of the ship. That is terrific but it demands a great deal of certainty about the training and educational values of the men doing the work. It is no good relying on rules. I remember a Brigadier saying to me when I was the Navy Minister, “I can walk around with a copy of the Queen’s Regulations under my arm and it is useless. I would be lost”. It is leadership, the ethos and the whole value system of the service that ensures good performance. It should not be, “What is this rule telling me to do in this situation?”, but, “What is the right thing to do?”.
This relates to the searching discussion that there has been in the debate today about human rights and operations in the field. I care desperately about human rights. If we are not standing up for human rights, what the hell are we doing as a country? But of course there are tensions and what really matters are the ethos, spirit and leadership which run through the three services in this respect. It is really about instinctive decency and humanity, from which the rest follows. We need to be clear that these are fully felt and understood, which brings us back of course to education. It is not just a matter of going through some educational classes; it is about getting to the point at which you understand why these things matter, so that you do not have to think about them specifically in an individual situation just like that but have it deep in your psyche that that is what you are working for and what matters. This becomes terribly important in the age in which we are living, because one of the biggest battles we are involved in is the battle for hearts and minds, and ensuring that what we do and how we do it can be seen as an example all the time of a better society and of one worth living in. That makes tremendous demands on the services, and we must remember that all the time, including as we examine the Bill.
I have been in some very helpful correspondence with the noble Earl already on one point. I thank him for that and wonder whether it would be possible to put it in the Library, because it is quite important that the things that the noble Earl has said in correspondence with me are available more widely. The point concerns the minimum recruitment age. There is quite a lot of concern among responsible people in society that 16 is too young in the context of the things I have been talking about. I have an open mind on this issue, but it is one we ought to be looking at very carefully, because the minimum requirements at 16 are pretty modest, to say the least. Sometimes it is hard to establish that even they are being as well applied as they might be. We need to have people of real educational attainment coming into our services to have effective services, and there is an issue to be examined here. There is also evidence of a good deal of public concern about this: one of the Joseph Rowntree trusts commissioned a very responsible public opinion poll on the issue, which found that 78% of the public thought that the minimum recruitment age should be 18. From that standpoint, these are issues that we ought to be looking at.
I am also worried about the future for these youngsters who come in at 16 with minimal qualifications. They miss out on all the educational provision that is being put in place, not least by the present Government. When they come out of the services, they are going to be at a disadvantage because they did not have that, unless we are making very specific arrangements to ensure that they get support and help in acquiring the kind of education or training that would be available in civilian life. All I am asking for at this juncture is an undertaking from the noble Earl that these matters are fully recognised within the Ministry of Defence and are being taken as seriously as they should be. I am quite certain that he personally will share my concerns, but it seems to me that we need to look at this issue and make sure that there are measures in the Bill which would help in this respect.
I thank the noble Earl for having introduced the Bill so well and conclude by simply saying that I do not think this House can put on record strongly enough our appreciation and respect for service men and women and all they do on our behalf, as well as for the risks they take, the pressures on their families and the rest. It is incredible. They are so often overstretched and do not have all the equipment they need, which raises the bigger issues lying behind this legislation, which are of course our measurement of the threat, our destination in defence policy and the best way of meeting that threat, which is the fundamental question. The issues that arise in the context of this Bill then become crucial in making sure that the personnel aspects are fully covered.
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