Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I have very few military credentials I can burnish, in contrast to many noble Lords making valuable contributions today. However, I want to add my voice to those welcoming this Bill because, as a former leader of a local authority, I am utterly convinced that we need to do more to support families under pressure. This is a good way to describe military families, most of whom cope extremely well with the challenges they face, not least because of the supportive culture in which they are often immersed—often, but not always—on a military base.

The Armed Forces covenant and other measures, including the flexible working trials instigated under the new employment model that this legislation builds on, are all evidence that this Government do not want to take that supportive culture for granted. On the contrary, they want to strengthen it by modernising working practices so that they bear more resemblance to the terms and conditions available to many in the civilian population. The majority of service personnel will rejoin that civilian population, and we want to do all we can to ensure that family relationships are not undermined by the pressures of military life to the extent that they are unable to make a good transition once the forces’ support structure is no longer in place.

One big pressure on these personal relationships arises from the fact that families and the military would both be described by academics as “greedy institutions”: that is, groups which seek undivided loyalty and encourage weak or no ties with other people or organisations. Currently, many of the demands placed on forces personnel are not negotiable or optional. This can severely tax families who feel that they always come second, and serving personnel who constantly experience role strain: being a good soldier may seem incompatible with being a good husband and father now that societal norms have shifted so much that being a good provider is no longer enough. The introduction of flexible working should make important inroads into the prevailing sense that families, by default, must play second fiddle.

However, these new working patterns will not in themselves be enough to address the high relationship breakdown rates in the military, just as the right to request flexible working introduced in April 2002 in the general population has not made a significant dent in our internationally high divorce and separation rates. Neither has parenting quality vastly improved. Family support has to go beyond welcome efforts to help parents to balance work and family lives and offer them help when relationships are under strain or in real difficulties.

Statistics indicate that divorce rates, especially for those under 30, are much higher in the military in comparison with the general population, not least because marriage rates are also much higher. Moreover, when families falter while still in service, the worry and distraction can have a knock-on effect on a fighting force’s operational strength. When spousal relationships fail, this drastically undermines the support available to military personnel on the home front.

Other service-related pressures include those arising from deployment and combat. Deployment in itself need not necessarily have a long-term negative impact on relationships, but longer deployments and deployment extensions can play a part in poor mental health in the spouse left behind. Also, if there were pre-existing relationship difficulties, this makes it more likely that deployment will be linked to lower satisfaction or other problems. Finally, where deployment and combat are associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, these secondary factors seem to be what is driving poor marital satisfaction.

Surely deployment and combat are integral to military service. Perhaps more interesting and relevant to today’s debate is the finding that if the belief is held by serving personnel and spouses that the military is not supportive enough, this itself is a risk factor for breakdown. So too is perceived lack of support from spouses.

Yet many people come into the services, especially the Army, with a history of childhood family relationship adversity. They may not have had good relationships modelled by their parents, so it is perhaps not surprising that they will struggle to be the supportive wife, husband, partner—or parent—they long to be. Many of those left behind at base will need to learn how to provide meaningful support for their deployed partners and how to help their children become resilient and flourish.

Some relationship and parenting help already happens informally within the military community, and money from the Armed Forces covenant LIBOR fund has enabled Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Marines charities to team up with Relate. Serving personnel have seven free counselling sessions, whether face to face, by telephone, on webchat or through webcam, so that those deployed overseas do not miss out. Professor Jan Walker, who carried out research with British forces posted overseas in Germany, emphasises the very important role that webchat can play, given that many personnel do not want their commanding officer to know that there are problems. She also highlighted that spouses and partners back home during long deployments could benefit greatly from support—someone to talk to about their relationship who has had good training—even if the relationship is not in difficulty. In the forces culture, the wider societal view that family problems are a sign of weakness is, if anything, amplified, so confidentiality is essential but not always available in the goldfish bowl of life on a base.

This arrangement with Relate can be only temporary, which is why I ask for the Bill to be expanded a little to include a statutory offer of family support, with help for a couple as well as for parenting relationships. Organisations such as the Centre for Social Justice and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, as well as my noble friend Lord Farmer, have long argued for family hubs where someone will have answers for parents with children of all ages who are struggling.

Making effective and early family support statutorily available for this important group of families would establish a bridgehead of support that we can build on in the mainstream population. When the Government commissioned the consultancy giant PwC to draw up plans for multiplying the provision of parenting support to meet the perceived high national level of need, PwC advised that the only way significantly to build capacity was by drawing on employers. Does the Minister agree that the MoD has a unique opportunity to set an example in this area that other employers can follow?