Lib Dems launch Fair Pay for Our Armed Forces Campaign

1.05.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 2nd Sep 2009

Newcastle East Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesman Greg Stone comments:

I am proud to support this important campaign.

The Lib Dems believe that the Government should be doing more to support our troops by ensuring that they have proper protection and equipment in the war zone, as well as proper medical care and accommodation when serving in the UK.

The Lib Dems also want to see the important role of our frontline troops recognised with fairer pay.

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Nick Clegg launches 'Don't Short Change Our Troops:

Fair Pay for Our Armed Forces'

Wed, 02 Sep 2009

Liberal Democrats believe that we must take action now to restore the military covenant between the Armed Forces and the people.

Nobody can put a price on the sacrifices made by our Armed Forces, but recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have revealed the disparity between what we expect of our soldiers and how they are rewarded.

Liberal Democrats believe that we must take action now to restore the military covenant between the Armed Forces and the people.

As a fundamental part of this we would put service personnel and their welfare at the heart of defence policy. We will ensure that no soldier, sailor or airman goes into harm's way on less basic pay than a new recruit to the police or fire service.

There is widespread dissatisfaction over pay among the lower ranks. This has a dreadful impact on morale and retention. We will find the money to pay for this from inside the MoD. It's ridiculous that we have one civilian for every man or woman in uniform, and almost 1000 people working in communications alone.

Major reform is necessary to reduce costs within the department. Those savings should go to where they are really necessary, to the people prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice."

1. The Problem

Over 51,000 (over a quarter of the Armed Forces) receive less in basic pay than a new recruit police constable or fire-fighter. The basic pay for the lowest paid Private is £16,681.

13,000 lower-ranks personnel receive under £17,000 a year basic pay. Even with operational allowances, they receive less than a new recruit to the police force.

46.2 hours per week during 2007-2008 - average hours worked by Junior Ranks according to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body.

£6.74 is the average hourly pay of a Private. There is an operational Allowance of £2,380 and Separation Allowance of £1,100 paid to all personnel on operations and no opportunities for overtime pay

2. What Our Troops Say

There is dissatisfaction with basic pay among the lower ranks, almost half unhappy with their pay (around 40%). 60% of lower ranks in the Marines are dissatisfied with their pay.

3. Our Solution

Our proposals would bring the pay of the lower ranks in line with the hourly-rate of trainee and development-level fire-fighters, as well as new-entrant police constables. Under our proposals no service personnel would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level fire-fighter.

•A fully-trained Private would receive an average basic hourly wage of £9.44 from current £6.74 per hour. This amounts to £430 per week, an extra £115 a week.

•The average pay across the ranks of Private and Lance Corporal would rise to around £25,000. An average basic hourly wage of £10.40 an hour from current £8.80 per hour amounting to £480 per week, an extra £73 a week.

•Other Non-Commissioned Officers would receive pay rises of £20-30 per week (around £1000 per year depending on rank).

4. Policy cost: Around £300-400million or 1% of the MOD's total budget.

At the moment there is 1 desk job for every 2 servicemen. We believe the ratio should be reduced, particularly as so many desk-jobs in MOD are already done by serving officers. The Defence budget and Department itself are in such chaos that there the next Strategic Defence Review will have to make tough choices.Now is the opportunity to ensure that pay levels are not compromised or salami-sliced further.

Therefore savings can be achieved through a headcount reduction in MOD staff of around 10% (around 10,000):

•By rationalising procurement practices in the MOD

•Reducing non-essential staff such as PR / press officers (currently almost 1000, equivalent of a whole infantry battalion!)

•Through natural wastage over course of next Parliament

•Re-alignment of priorities of the Strategic Defence & Security Review

5. Misguided Priorities: Where that money is going now/how it is being wasted

In equipment terms we could raise the pay of all Privates and Lance Corporals for the price of:

•4 Eurofighters (unit cost around £70million). Widely regarded as an expensive Cold War white elephant.

•The loan that Lord Mandelson has given to keep production of the ailing A400M aircraft going (£340m).

•The amount wasted on the bungled FRES armoured utility vehicle programme.

Also…

1 Eurofighter would pay a battalion of Privates (400) for a decade and the budget over-run on the new Destroyers alone covers the salary increase for five years (Destroyers reported as having over-run by £1.5bn).

Please visit NickClegg.com/armedforcespay to find out how you can get involved.