HC Deb 30 January 1978 vol 943 cc207-20

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Marshall.]

11.58 p.m.

Mr. Neville Trotter (Tynemouth)

It is my task tonight to express the serious concern that is felt throughout the country at the decision of the Government to abolish the Army youth teams which have been in existence for about 15 years. The Minister, in reply to a parliamentary Question, described their role as giving practical assistance to youth organisations to provide young people with the opportunity to take part in character-building activities, both indoor and outdoor, which might otherwise be beyond the scope of individual clubs, to inform them about life and conditions in the Army, and by so doing, to encourage those who are suitable to join the Army."—[Official Report, 14th March 1977; Vol. 928, c. 80.] There are 79 of these teams, each composed of five men. They are recruited from local regiments, and based all over the country. All who have dealt with the activities of these teams agree that they have been a great success. It seems that the only exception to that might be the Minister, who will no doubt advise us of his views later.

The benefits to the Army have been threefold. The first is recruiting, although a low profile has been the attitude adopted in recent years. Secondly, they have improved the image of the Army. The teams have helped to dispel the false image of Army life among those who have no acquaintance with the Army. This has led to a sympathy with the aims, needs and problems of the Army. Thirdly, the teams provide excellent experience for the soldiers on them.

Warrant Officer Preston, writing in the British Army Review recently, said that the teams offer a unique opportunity to young NCOs to mature and to accept responsibility far in excess of anything which is normally asked of them at regimental duty. I have a host of testimonies from all over the country speaking of the benefit that the community at large has obtained from the duty performed by these teams. A youth club spokesman writes saying that without the teams many youth clubs will revert to the dreary old routine of darts and shove ha'penny competitions, discos and quizzes. Gone will be the wholesome and worthwhile activities for many organisations. and he names the outdoor activities for which his club relied on the teams. The chairman of a regional sports council writes saying that these teams are an essential service, especially for all that they have contributed to alleviating the problems of youth in inner cities. I have comments here from a city council and from ICI which expresses its 'highest regard for Army Youth Teams following our experience in running Adventure Training for unemployed boys. One of the particular aspects of the work of the youth teams is the help that they have given to young unemployed people who today, sadly, are to be counted in their hundreds of thousands. The head of a comprehensive school says that the school's outdoor activities…would other-have been impossible had it not been for Army Youth Team expertise. The work they do is aiding the fight against boredom and apathy amongst impressionable people. A youth centre says that the local Army Youth Team's public relations image, as far as young people and local youth workers go, has been outstanding. They have shown the Service as a modern and up-to-date professional career. A county council refers to the excellent relations which always existed between the members of the teams and the voluntary and professional youth workers.

An authority in Ulster says: I am very well aware of the vast amount of good work the Army Youth Teams did and the even greater extent of the influence they had and impetus they gave youth work in the Province, which will be sadly missed. That is particularly relevant in view of the sad situation in Ulster.

The head of a nautical school writes that The contact with the Army Youth Team has been particularly beneficial to the lads who have found enthusiasm and inspiration from these men who they have come to respect and admire. I was particularly impressed by this comment from the head of an approved school.

I could go on quoting that level of praise. There is no doubt that these teams have done an excellent and well worthwhile job. Why, therefore, are they to be disbanded, when they are leaving a clear void and when all concerned in civilian life agree that they are irreplaceable?

The first answer advanced by the Government referred to the cost. It was pointed out that the cost could be met on the Civil Estimates. So the reason was changed to a shortage of men, and that now appears to be the main argument. Are the Government seriously saying that they cannot find the 395 men required for this excellent service? It is interesting to note that a junior civil servant, writing to people in answer to their complaints about the disbandment, said that it was because the men were specially needed to fill shortfalls in field force units. What shortfalls? Has the House been informed of them? I am not aware of it? I sometimes think that the Minister is not terribly keen on Members of Parliament knowing what the problems of the Army are. He can tell us tonight how the shortfalls have come about. Have the Government allowed the Army to become overstretched? If so, how has this come about, and why?

The answer is really simple; it has arisen as a result of the Government's axe. The 1975 defence review cut 14,000 men from the Army and planned for 6,000 men to be made redundant. The plan, according to evidence given in the House, was for Army recruiting to be cut from 27,000 to 23,000 a year.

When, after the General Election, the Minister is seeking a job, he may care to apply for a job in Saudi Arabia—not, perhaps, to run the army there, but no doubt his skill with an axe will recommend him for employment as an executioner to deal with matrimonial problems.

Recruiting is to be cut by 4,000 a year. Are the Government saying that they cannot recruit an extra 40 men a year to provide the fewer than 400 needed for the Army youth teams? Perhaps the Government are finding it hard to recruit because of their lack of interest in the Services. Their attitude to Service pay has certainly harmed recruiting. However, the House will not believe that it is not possible to recruit the few men needed to man these teams.

I return to the question of cost. The running costs of these teams are £500,000 a year. The pay and allowances amount to just over £2 million. To put this in perspective, the running costs are equivalent to the loss by British Steel every eight hours of the day and, including the pay and allowances, the total costs are equivalent to one working day's loss by British Steel. Put in another way, the loss by the Crown Agents would keep these youth teams running for a century. Both the Army and the country receive splendid value for the money spent on the teams. It is a matter of priorities. The total annual cost is only half of what we can afford to give to support the Marxist regime in Mozambique.

I suggest that at least part of the cost should be borne on the Civil Estimates The teams are of great benefit to the community, and the saving as a result of young people being led along the right lines in their formative years can be very great. It as false economy to cut down by abandoning these teams.

It is disgraceful that there has been a complete lack of consultation. Was the Home Office consulted? Were the police consulted? Were the magistrates consulted? Was the Minister responsible for sport and recreation consulted? Apparently, he was not, because I have seen a letter written by him to the head of a regional sports council in which he said that he written to the Secretary of State for Defence after the announcement of the disbandment, suggesting that there was a case for expansion and not disbandment of the youth teams. Have the local authorities been consulted? They may well he prepared to meet part of the cost.

To apply the axe to the Army youth teams is a shabby and ill-considered act, destroying a most important youth support group. It is not an act of God over which there is no control. It has been suggested in letters sent to various protesters that it is an irreversible decision. It is not. It is a deliberate Government act, and as such it can be reversed.

Surely the Minister is a sincere man and not a stubborn man. I beg him, therefore, to consult, even late in the day, all those concerned with young people and to propose the transfer of all or most of the cost to the Civil Estimates or the local authorities. I am sure that his colleague the Prime Minister would not wish to see these teams disbanded. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that we are in the spring, and that things are getting better. I appeal to the Minister to work with the Prime Minister to see that there is a reprieve for the Army youth teams.

12.6 a.m.

Mr. Hector Monro (Dumfries)

It is good of my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) to give me a few minutes of his Adjournment debate time to speak from the Front Bench as the Opposition spokesman on sport and recreation and to ask the Minister to think again about his decision to disband the Army youth teams.

As my hon. Friend said, these teams have been extremely valuable, not only in the indoctrination, in the quietest and best way, of many recruits to the Army but, more important, in the close contact they have had with the community, especially in sport and recreation.

In company with my hon. Friend, I have had many objections from the Central Council for Physical Recreation, which represents all the individual governing bodies of sport in England, and from the Sports Council, which has taken an extremely serious view of the Ministry's decision. We have received objections also from the National Association of Boy's Clubs and the Girls Venture Corps, which, I know, has used the facilities of the Army for its adventure training.

I endorse what my hon. Friend said about consultation. I am surprised that there has been so little consultation between the Ministry of Defence and all those who are involved. I want the Minister to explain why he apparently did not have full consultation with our sports authorities and with the local authorities. All in all, we seem, for a comparatively small saving, to be losing something really worth while, which has been much appreciated since its inception some years ago.

The only comfort I had from the Minister was his letter to me in November, when he gave me his assurance that there would be no reduction in the joint use of shared Service facilities for sport. I know—I have visited the facilities at Aldershot—that this has been of great benefit to sport in this country. Although that is to continue, the physical participation of the youth teams with the local community will be lost. That is the serious loss about which we are complaining tonight.

I believe that the value of the teams far outweighs what could be set against the Ministry of Defence budget. I do not believe that, if the spirit of Ministers was willing to continue this most worthwhile involvement by the Army in sport and recreation, in which it is particularly active and keen to help, this most retrograde step would have taken place.

The Minister is getting rather more time than he expected, because I promised to speak very briefly. Perhaps this will give us a chance to intervene in his reply if we do not agree, which I fear is likely. I emphasise that he should think over this decision and have the courage of his convictions, which I am sure must be to continue to encourage the Army and the community to work together in this joint venture.

12.11 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Robert C. Brown)

I have listened with much interest to the hon. Members for Tyne-mouth (Mr. Trotter) and Dumfries (Mr. Monro). I thank the hon Member for Tynemouth for raising this matter and providing an opportunity to discuss a subject that is, as I am well aware, of great concern to many hon. Members on both sides of the House as well as to the general public.

It is fair to say that, in my three and a quarter years as Under-Secretary of State for the Army, I do not think that any issue has raised as much cross-party interest as this one. In that respect, I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White), who, I hope, will not mind my saying that no one in the House has hectored and badgered me on the issue as much as he has. Had he not been away ill I am sure that he would have been here for this debate, in a not uncritical manner.

The Army has been well aware of the good will won by the Army youth teams, and the decision to disband them was taken only after long consideration and with the greatest possible reluctance. However, as I have explained in anwer to several parliamentary Questions, there were pressing reasons which could not be gainsaid. In particular, the need was paramount to find financial savings throughout the Services as part of the defence review, and, most important of all, the need to find extra trained manpower for areas of greater priority, particularly in the combatant branches of the Army.

To deal with the financial aspects first, I should explain that the defence review has made it necessary to reduce recruiting expenditure in the three Services by nearly £3 million in this year and a further £3 million next year. Therefore, the decision to disband the Army youth teams was only part of a much larger package of measures that had to be taken, such as the replacement of single-Service recruiting offices with combined offices for all three Services wherever possible. Forty-three recruiting offices alone are due to close by April of this year, and 58 military posts and about 45 civilian ones will have been abolished by the same date.

When considering the position of the Army youth teams, several possibilities were looked at in an effort to find the necessary savings without affecting their work too seriously, including the reduction of the size of the teams or the maintenance of a much smaller number of teams. Unfortunately, cuts of sufficient size to yield the required saving would have meant reducing the youth team strength so much that they could no longer have performed a meaningful task.

The financial decision, which was inevitably a compromise, was to disband the youth teams completely by 5th April 1978 and to transfer some of the men to the cadet training teams, where they will continue to carry out a more limited range of the work they now do as part of the youth teams. The actual date for disbandment is set by district commanders, according to circumstances, and some teams have already disbanded.

Mr. Trotter

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether the remaining men will be able to give help to the bodies that are not part of the cadet force? Can he also tell us what efforts were made to get civilian Departments to bear the cost of the youth teams?

Mr. Brown

Of the 395 men in the youth teams, 102 will join the cadet training teams. The particular work they will continue will be the provision of adventure training facilities to the Army cadet forces and the organisation of visits to Army units under the work experience scheme.

Some may ask why it was decided that these aspects of the Army youth teams' work, that is, support for the cadet forces and visits to Army units, are to be continued at the expense of others which may seem of greater immediate benefit to the community, particularly at a time when, as I recognise, with high unemployment among the young the role of youth clubs in providing recrational facilities and constructive work is at its most important. The simple answer would be to say that the cadet forces must have first call on defence resources and that support to them can be provided more effectively, more cheaply and with less administrative effort than it can to other organisations. However, I should like to elaborate a little.

First, it must not be forgotten that the first duty of the Army recruiting organisation, of which the youth teams are a part, is to recruit. Its second duty is to use the resources allocated to achieve the necessary recruitment in the most efficient and economic way. Therefore, while there is no doubt that the work of the youth teams in assisting organisations not linked to the Army, such as youth clubs and schools, is of eventual benefit to recruitment and to the Army's reputation, it does not show direct results in terms of young people joining the Army. Unfortunately, in times of financial stringency the principal function of the organisation must come first when the difficult choice between priorities has to be made.

In this context it is worth mentioning that, while the Army recruiting position is in general good, there are certain shortages at the moment in certain areas, especially technical grades. It is, therefore, essential to concentrate scarce recruiting resources in these areas. I am afraid that the Army youth teams do not have a specific role to play in this, because the shortages are in the specialist groups. This position is true of all three Services. The hon. Member will no doubt have seen the new emphasis on RAF aircrew recruiting in the Press, which is another example of the changes of approach that the recruiting organisations have to make according to circumstances.

Another important reason for concentrating the remaining resources in the cadet training teams is that their work has a more wide-reaching effect. This is because the cadet training teams' main task is to train the volunteer officers who run the cadet forces, and who in their turn train the cadets. A soldier's time with a cadet training team is, therefore, of greater value, in that this training is multiplied through the people he teaches. He can in this way reach more young people than he could by working with them directly.

The total cost of the Army youth teams in 1976–77 was approximately £2.7 million. As I have said in answer to several parliamentary Questions, the direct savings arising from their disbandment will be about £500,000 a year at present prices. That is not a great deal in itself but it is a significant proportion of the total cutbacks that have had to be made in the recruiting area—the £6 million in two years to which I referred. The remainder of the total, about £2.2 million, is the cost of employing the soldiers in the teams. This will not be saved directly, as they are to be reassigned to work of greater priority, but the overall cost, I re-emphasise, is £2.7 million.

As I explained in answering the same Questions, the need to release manpower for those areas of higher priority was just as important a consideration as the need for financial savings in the decision to disband the youth teams.

Mr. Trotter

The Minister has not said why there was no attempt to pass the bill over to the Civil Estimates or to local authorities.

Mr. Brown

If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself, I shall get to that. As I was saying, in answering these Questions on the decision to disband the youth teams, I am sure that I do not need to remind the hon. Member of the reductions in Service strength which have taken place in recent years, or of the increased demands that the Army has had to meet and will have to meet for some time to come. Short-term emergency duties, such as those created by the firemen's strike, do no more than add to a burden that is in itself already onerous.

There have been many similar crises recently and the Services, in particular the Army, have had to handle them all. The unsuccessful general strike in Northern Ireland last year, the disturbances in Bermuda and the continuing tension in Belize are only the most recent examples. At the same time, as part of the defence review the Army is currently carrying out a major restructuring programme in an effort to reduce manpower without a corresponding reduction in the number of units in the field.

Finally, as the hon. Member is well aware, we have continuing commitments to NATO and the need to provide adequate security forces for Northern Ireland. In these circumstances it is difficult for units, especially infantry battalions, to work to acceptable annual training routines at the same time as preparing for and carrying out emergency tours of duty.

At the same time new, more modern, weapons and equipment are being introduced at an increasing pace and they are more demanding in terms of both training time and training standards.

Lastly, there is the ever-decreasing amount of recreational time and the constant separation in family life that the reduction of manpower to a minimum inevitably entails. It is against this background that the need to release the men of the Army youth teams for service in operational units should be viewed. Even such a small number as 293 will in these circumstances make a significant difference, especially as a high proportion of those men are officers or NCOs and all of them are very highly trained. Even the junior ranks are exceptionally experienced and responsible as they have to be to work with young people.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science is aware of the decision to disband the youth teams and regrets it, as we all do. She is aware of their great contribution to the Youth Service and the gaps that their withdrawal will leave. However, no doubt there will be discussions locally among organisations and authorities to decide what, if any, additional facilities may be made available.

Although, as I have said, the soldiers currently serving in the youth teams are urgently required in other areas of greater military priority and cannot be spared, I am sure that the garrison commanders in each area will give the local authorities all the cooperation possible in any schemes they wish to start on their own initiative—dependent, of course, on the availability of soldiers and of Service facilities.

Mr. Jim Craigen (Glasgow, Maryhill)

Was there any discussion with the Scottish Office abut this matter? My hon. Friend has referred to the Secretary of State for Education and Science, but did he consult the Secretary of State for Scotland?

Mr. Brown

That I cannot say. There was discussion generally about education.

It has been suggested many times that the simple way to keep the facilities of the Army youth teams would be a simple transference of £500,000 from the Department of Education and Science Vote to the Defence Vote. I only wish it were as simple as that. It is not usually appreciated that it is for the Secretary of State for Education and Science to disburse money, but that it is for local education authorities to decide how to dispose of that money.

If the hon. Member for Tynemouth is a fair-minded man I am sure that he will appreciate that it is not just a simple question of the transferrence of £500,000. Indeed, I do not think that my right lion. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science would feel that I was downgrading her job if I said that she was a cheque signer. She signs cheques to universities and local education authorities, and they decide how the money shall be disbursed.

Mr. Trotter

Surely the hon. Gentleman's colleague who is responsible for sport and recreation is not so tied and could have been the person who dispensed the money. In many ways the local authorities, if consulted, might have been prepared to accept that burden.

Mr. Brown

The hon. Gentleman and I spent many years together serving on a local authority. I know that he is not so naive as to suggest that agreement among the multitude of local authorities down throughout the country would be easy. I do not think that it would. It is something that might well be pursued in areas with groupings of local authorities. I hope that it will be.

So far, I have been painting a very negative picture, I know, and there is indeed no pleasure to be gained in making the decision to disband such a worthwhile organisation. One of my correspondents wrote that he thought that the good will created by the Army youth teams was beyond price. Unfortunately, in the present circumstances good will is not beyond price—far from it.

It is not, however, either my intention or that of the Army to allow the good will won by the youth teams to evaporate without vigorous efforts to preserve it. As I have said, the cadet training teams will continue some of their work, and the cadet forces will now be the main focus of the Army's efforts to maintain contact with the young. Although one of the purposes of the cadet forces is to give an insight into the Services to those who may be considering a career in the Regular or the reserve forces, their first aim is to develop in young people the characteristics of good citizenship and a spirit of service to the community, which benefits from the responsibility and maturity they acquire. At the same time, Service men in the United Kingdom will be given every encouragement to continue on a voluntary basis the work that the Army youth teams now do. It will, of course, be only a small proportion of the previous amount of assistance that can be continued—as I have said, soldiers' recreational time is under constant pressure—but I hope that it will, with understanding from the public, help to continue the high reputation won for the Army by the youth teams.

Similarly, commanding officers will be encouraged to open their facilities, such as shooting ranges and assault courses, to outside organisations whenever they are not in use and the necessary manpower is available to run them.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigton), I can say that no one will be more interested than the present GOC Scotland, Sir David Barrett, in seeing at least the same spirit of the Army youth teams being pursued by the Army in Scotland. They will also try and take on some of the youth teams' work on a short-term basis should resources become available. I know that the Army is keen to carry on Army support to handicapped children at the very least.

In conclusion, I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks—I am sure that the House would wish to join me in this—to the many Service men who have served with the Army youth teams and by their professional and human efforts shown that the Armed Services can make a valuable contribution to the needs of the younger elements of our society and forge valuable links with local communities. I share the regret on the passing of the youth teams, and I assure all hon. Members that it is for this reason that every opportunity—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Monday evening, 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 twenty-eight minutes past Twelve o'clock.