§ 4.8 p.m.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON)My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the debate, but I think this might be a convenient time to repeat a statement which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War has just made in another place. These are his words:
"With your permission, Sir, and that of the House, I will make a statement about recruiting for the Regular Army. I promised to keep the House in touch with progress in this matter.
"The latest figures show that as far as recruiting from civil life is concerned, we arc having a good year. There is an increase of almost 12 per cent. over 1960. I believe this encouraging fact is due to a great extent to the special measures which I announced in March, and we are of course only now beginning to see their full effect. It is now quite clear that television advertising is proving a most successful way of turning on the tap. It has produced an increase of about 20 per cent. in recruits over the same three months of 1960. I have therefore decided to extend the present television campaign during the late summer and autumn. If the results continue to be good, I shall arrange 683 a further campaign for the winter and spring to begin after Christmas and extend into the middle of March. This will, in effect, double the scope of the original proposals.
"I am anxious to link the Territorial Army as closely as possible to the recruiting drive. Within their ranks are men and women who have the future well-being of the Regular Army very much at heart and who have close contacts with families from which Regular recruits might well come. I am at present in the process of consultations with the Council of Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations to see how this may be done. The Council have promised to co-operate to the fullest possible extent.
"There is, of course, another side to the picture and this I call the plug. Clearly if we are to reach our minimum target on time, we must do everything possible to stop soldiers leaving the Army once they are in it. There the picture is not so bright.
"I have already told the House of the special measures we are now taking to ensure that recruits are reasonably treated and that they should give the Army a good try. But we cannot afford to leave anything to chance and I have been carefully studying with my colleagues on the Army Council whether there are any particular features of Army life today which are causing discontent and which we can improve by removing legitimate grievances. I think there are.
"The chief one is the enforced separation of a substantial number of soldiers of the British Army of the Rhine from their wives and families because of the lack of married accommodation. I believe this is having a bad effect on the Army. We are vigorously attacking the problem and are now well launched on a programme which will result in the provision of an additional 8,000 quarters over the next three years. This will almost exactly double the existing number. The first 2,000 of the new quarters will be ready within the next nine months.
"As this programme will take time before its effect is fully felt, I propose 684 that during the next two years married unaccompanied soldiers in B.A.O.R. shall have three free leaves a year to this country. I also propose that single men in B.A.O.R. shall during the same period have two free leaves to this country each year.
"The House will recall that only recently I announced a new leave scheme for married unaccompanied Servicemen in theatres outside North West Europe. My own visits to troops in the Near and Middle East have convinced me that conditions in some stations are still such as to make a tour of two or more years without any home leave most trying to single men. Accordingly, I propose that for the next two years single men in Cyprus, North Africa, Aden and the Persian Gulf shall have one free leave to this country during a tour of two or more years. These leave travel concessions will also apply to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. I hope and believe these steps will have a marked effect on morale, recruiting and prolongation.
"The way is now therefore open to launch a drive to get as many soldiers as possible to remain in the Army at the end of their National Service or their current engagements. To this end I have decided to offer a bounty of £200 to Regular soldiers due to leave the Army before the end of June, 1963, with nine years' service or less who extend their service by at least three years. This offer will be open from to-day until the end of April, 1962. Similarly, a bounty of £200 will be offered to National Servicemen now serving who from to-day enlist on a Regular engagement.
I have already explained that I do not believe we can make any accurate assessment of the success of our recruiting campaign until later in the Autumn. But I believe that, taking into consideration the way things are going at present and with the further measures I have announced, we shall succeed.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I must say that I hope the Secretary of State for War will be successful in his last hope, and that his measures will succeed. However, 685 from this statement it is impossible to judge exactly what will be the overall effect upon the attempt to meet the requirement of, say, a total of about 180,000 men, whom you really want to acquire into the Army if you are to be successful. I do not propose to comment upon the particular measures set out here, but I hope that in this kind of pressure salesmanship of the Army the real facts of Army life are being portrayed, so that the men will know what they are going into, and that you will not have to continue every three years increasing the number of bounties you have to pay in order to get men to give a decent length of service in the Army. It looks to me rather an expensive scheme.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, may I ask the First Lord what comfort there is in the recruiting figures which are just out, in view of the fact that the Regular recruiting figures of other ranks for May, 1961, are 2,331, as compared with 2,480 for May, 1960, and also in view of the fact that on June 1 this year Regular other ranks strengths, including boys, were only 140,639—a long way from the target? May I also ask the noble Lord what percentage of Regular re-engagements there have been over the last three months, and what percentage of recruits still buy themselves out?
§ LORD CARRINGTONMy Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has said. The point that recruits should know what they are in for is very much in the mind of my right honourable friend, and he is taking steps to see that that is so. With regard to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, as so often happens, he and I have different figures. The figures for recruiting that I have for new recruits into the Army in May, 1960, are 1,552, and in May, 1961, 1,792. In June, the figures, which have not yet been published, show an increase in recruits of over 24 per cent. So the recruiting figures are not going too badly. I am afraid I have not got with me at the present time the re-engagement figures, but it is because the re-engagement figures and the withdrawals from the Army are not satisfactory that my right honourable friend has introduced this bounty scheme.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, on the question of figures, may I ask the noble Lord whether he Will look at the figures now in the Printed Paper Office, published by the Ministry of Defence, which I have quoted?
§ LORD CARRINGTONYes, my Lords, I will; and I will send the noble Lord mine for him to look at.