It wasn’t just the students you know…

By Bob Ainsworth

Over the last two months, much of the media attention has been focused on the situation surrounding students and tuition fees. The Liberal Democrats reneged on the pledge they made at the last general election and this has rightly been focused on by journalists and opposition politicians. However, students aren’t the only group who have been promised one thing and received another. Both Nick Clegg and David Cameron promised to rebuild the military covenant and improve pay and conditions for Armed Forces personnel before the general election. Let’s take a look at how they are delivering on these pledges.

Last week, the government announced £250 million in cuts to Armed Forces Personnel Allowances, which will reportedly lead to an average £1,400 cut in the income of every member of the Armed Forces. From 1 May 2011, they’ll be cutting something from everything; from the Day Subsistence allowance to the School Children’s Visits allowance. Nothing remains untouched.

When it comes to pay and allowances for our Armed Forces, this government has displayed some of its worst traits. In June last year, the Prime Minister used a visit to Afghanistan to announce that the government would be doubling the operational allowance for service personnel, from £14.51 per day to £29.02, meaning that a member of our Armed Forces will receive £5,280.88 for a six month tour. This was greeted with much enthusiasm by the press and widely applauded across the political divide.

However, a few days later, George Osborne in his emergency budget announced a two year public sector pay freeze for any public sector worker earning more than £21,000, which will affect 140,000 Armed Forces personnel. When you take inflation into account those 140,000 members of our Armed Forces, many of whom are currently serving in Afghanistan, will effectively be taking a 3.7% – 4.8% pay cut this year on current figures, depending on which measure of inflation you use.

Coupled with the decision to cut allowances to personnel, the doubling of the operational allowance starts to look a lot less generous. The government, or in this case the Prime Minister, giveth with one hand to garner good publicity in the press, whilst the chancellor taketh away with the other at the stroke of a pen.

The reason why this is so difficult to take is that the Tories and Liberal Democrats were vehement in their criticism of the last government’s record on Armed Forces pay and as a result both included references to pay increases in their manifestos at the last election. In the Conservative Party “Armed Forces Manifesto; A New Covenant for Our Armed Forces and their Families”, David Cameron personally committed his party to “provide better pay for those on active duty and better support for all Service families”. The Liberal Democrats manifesto committed them to “[G]ive a pay rise to the lower ranks so that their pay is brought into line with the starting salary of their emergency services counterparts”.

Neither has delivered on this. The government use the budget deficit as cover for these decisions. Everybody accepts that the budget deficit needs to be addressed. But the government still has the ability to exercise choice in when and what it cuts. The decision to cut service personnel allowances will save £250 million over three years. The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast for net borrowing in 2010/11 was £149 billion. So this measure is a drop in the ocean within the context of Britain’s fiscal position. Does David Cameron think it is reasonable to target allowances for serving personnel, causing much pain, whilst saving, in context, such a small amount of money? David Cameron said that he’d rebuild the military covenant. This is a strange way of going about it.

Our Armed Forces are doing a fantastic job around the world. They’re engaged in operations that are designed to protect British interests. They risk their lives to protect us and deserve recognition for this. So it is a shame that the government has decided to target their allowances and freeze their pay. They’ve deployed as much spin as possible in the media in the hope that we wouldn’t realise that they were doing it. Unfortunately for them we have and we’ll be holding them to account for it.