Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Bone and Lord Robathan

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

8. How much his Department expects to spend on advertising in 2012-13.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

Nearly all advertising expenditure by the Ministry of Defence is to attract and recruit the best personnel for the armed forces. In the current financial year, the MOD has to date had approval from the Cabinet Office efficiency and reform group to spend £12 million on recruitment marketing operations to fund general service recruitment activities. A further £18 million was approved for specific recruitment marketing campaigns to address pinch points. The efficiency and reform group is due to decide soon whether to grant a further request for £250,000 for marketing operations and just under £3 million for pinch point campaigns. Further requests may arise during the course of the year. Like all Departments, the MOD seeks to minimise the cost of advertising. Spending has, for example, been reduced from nearly £60 million in 2009-10.

[Mr Bone]

I thank the Minister for that full response. It does seem a little strange that we are spending money on advertising for the Army at the same time as we are making members of the armed forces redundant. On the surface, it looks strange: would the Minister comment?

[Mr Robathan]

I know that my hon. Friend has a personal interest in the armed forces as his son is a Chinook pilot who is still flying—I pay tribute to him. His son could probably explain that one needs a constant flow of recruits into the armed forces as otherwise one ends up with an age gap. That has happened in the past—I recall it happening in the 1970s, under the Labour Government of Wilson-Callaghan—so one must continue to recruit; otherwise one ends up with a great gap in skills and ages that is very difficult to fill. A constant age structure is needed throughout the armed forces.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Bone and Lord Robathan

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

I hear your strictures, Mr Speaker. I am not sure whether new laws are required. What is required is a greater respect for our armed forces and the truth is that most people in this country view our armed forces with great pride, which the four out of five people who are not subject to any form of abuse will recognise. Now, I notice people wearing uniform in the streets much more often, for instance. Once upon a time, that was actively discouraged because one did get abuse, typically from long-haired left-wing students, but that was just when I was young.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On the question of social housing, a problem that has come up in my constituency is what happens when someone who has been in the armed forces returns to an area from which they have been away. They want social housing, but the local council has a regulation that people cannot get such housing unless they have been there in the past year. Is that something we can put right?

[Mr Robathan]

It is, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government is talking about. When someone has been away for 10 years —perhaps they have been abroad, serving in Germany with the Army—they should have the opportunity to register for a house and to get precedence in the area where they lived for all their life before joining the armed forces to serve their country.