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Defence expenditure

10 years ago, I wrote a Fabian pamphlet about the Armed Services. It wasn’t a classic of its genre and, being polemical, it wasn’t always right. But it was worthwhile and it was written against a backdrop of years of Conservative Government neglect of the armed services. Defence expenditure had been radically cut in the wake of the lowering of the Iron Curtain. Military hospitals had been closed. Service housing sold off in a deal now widely agreed as awful for the MoD and which remains the main reason why much housing remains sub-standard. Moreover, the military chiefs had, it seemed to me, yet to properly face up to the new social and legislative context in which they operated. From my perspective the ordinary men and women in the services were getting a poorer deal each year and they weren’t always being backed properly up by senior officers with very different managerial and personal interests.

Things have changed a great deal since then, but of course not enough. So while accommodation is better, for example, there is still too much rubbish around. While compensation for injured soldiers is better than it was under the Tories it’s still not good enough. Welfare for families is better but it’s got some way to go. Des Browne, the present Defence Secretary, said as much at Labour Party conference. He committed himself to a white paper on service welfare, a £5 Billion spend on service accommodation and accepted that ensuring that society observed the ‘military covenant’ was being given the highest priority of the Labour Government. At face value, then it’s strange, that the political juggernaut which is the former Chiefs of the Defence Staff has come rolling down the highway with government in its headlights in a way it didn’t after many years of Tory cuts.

On closer inspection, however, it’s easy to see why. At one level, the House of Lords has many high-grade former servicemen and a great deal of expertise and when they give their trenchant views they should be listened to. This week’s debate in the Lords contributed to an important debate about the role of our armed services and their place in our society. Defence expenditure has been up in real terms every year Labour has been in power and compares favourably to our European allies, but our demands have been high too. So is Defence spending sufficient? Is it properly ordered? Do we spend too much on kit and too little on people?

At another level, though, there is blatant party political bias in evidence. Lord Guthrie, for example, chair of the Conservative Party’s Way Forward Defence Study, has made a personalised attack on Gordon Brown based on his (wrongly) recollected experiences of the then-Chancellor’s past contact with the MoD. Lords Inge and Boyce, both former CDSs, have chosen to be personally offensive about Des Browne, ‘Two Jobs Des’ says Inge. He said he’s heard soldiers say that. Well that’s all right then, is it?. Lords Guthrie, Inge and Boyce may feel they’re above politics. Actually, they were and many peers still are. But their misjudgement this week has exposed their own party political preferences and, frankly, their hypocrisy.

What were these four and five star officers doing during the 80s and 90s when conditions of service for the least well-off services were being systematically eroded by the Conservative Government? They were not powerless – they were the most senior officers in the land. Expenditure on single servicemen’s accommodation, for example, was in most cases a decision for local ‘budgetholding’ senior officers – wholly within the influence of Chiefs of Staff like Inge and Guthrie. Why was their interest being diverted when guard duties for soldier in barracks were ramped up to save money on civilian security guards? Where was Field Marshall Inge when the disgrace of service quarter sell-off took place? He was Chief of the Defence Staff. And Guthrie? Chief of the General Staff and Inges successor as CGS. Boyce? Guthrie’s successor. Did they not have a view at the time? Do they not have a view now? Perhaps they could let us know now by way of contextualising their present attacks on the Labour government. Their failure, along with some other peers, to do that during their recent comments brought them down to the level, if I can put it that way, of us lesser mortals in the political mainstream. They can’t have it both ways.

It’s high time that service personnel rose to the top of the political agenda. They make extraordinary sacrifices and receive far too little recognition for it from the society they serve. This goes way beyond government. This week, seriously injured servicemen were jeered in a pool as they tried to take exercise. A couple of months ago, local residents objected to an extension of accommodation used by service families visiting their injured loved ones at Headley Court hospital. These issues have been freely and correctly raised by the serving chiefs of staff and by the Royal British Legion and I laud them for that. The government is on the same page, too. Anyone in any doubt simply needs to look at the recent words of both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister.

The comments by the ‘noble’ Lords have done little other than harm the ability of the present chiefs of staff to speak their minds – both in private to ministers and in public where they deem in appropriate. By being so obviously close to the Tories they have party-politicised a debate which should be about the welfare of our serviceman and women. They are great men, be in no doubt about that, but their arrogance has led them to a profound misjudgement and their words will never be given the same value again. Worse, they make people question the apolitical but very worthwhile comments of serving and recently retired officers such as Sir Jock Stirrup, the present CDS, General Sir Richard Dannett, the present CGS and General Sir Mike Jackson.

But we should be clear, too, that senior officers don’t own the debate around service welfare. Every citizen has a responsibility to uphold the military covenant and those of us in public life have a profound duty to give it our highest priority. Anything less is truly to break the military covenant.