Their competence may put striking workers to shame, but we need military personnel to focus on the defence of the nation
It has been difficult to empathise with the unions’ cause after they launched coordinated strikes over pay across the festive period and into the New Year, putting lives at risk and heaping further pressure on the beleaguered NHS. It is no understatement to say that there is now blood in the water.
While the Unison, Unite and GMB unions opportunistically assert themselves in a revanchist effort to negotiate a pay deal for their members while also enjoying the added boon of inflicting pain on the Government by creating a winter of discontent, it is their non-striking public-sector peers who bear the brunt.
This Christmas, more than 1,000 Armed Forces personnel were trained to cover strikes by the Ambulance Service and Border Force. The PCS union was soon caused some embarrassment as it was shown how efficiently passport control can function when the vast majority of passengers aren’t treated as suspected traffickers or terrorists.
For many of these service personnel it meant a Christmas away from families – doing a job which paid no overtime. They will have to take on this job once again during next week’s planned ambulance strike. It is the latest example of how reliant we now are on the Armed Forces to pick up the slack.
The Ministry of Defence’s role in providing military aid to civil authorities comprises two major aspects: those capabilities that the Armed Forces already possess and that would make little sense to replicate via a civilian agency, such as bomb disposal, and a second broader requirement for the military to support civil authorities when capacity is overwhelmed – a service it is supposed to provide using its own spare capacity.
It is the latter that the Armed Forces has found itself increasingly relied upon to perform – seemingly as a first, rather than a last, resort.
According to David Williams, the MOD Permanent Secretary, current contingency planning sees 2,500 personnel, roughly equivalent to two battlegroups, earmarked to cover essential services at a cost of £10 million per week. The intentionally high cost has proved little deterrent to requests for support from departments happy to pay the premium.
An additional 200 specialist fire crews have been scoped to cover duties should the Fire Brigade Union vote to strike in January. After the FBU rejected a 5 per cent pay offer, we find ourselves with yet another instance in which service personnel, already paid less than firefighters and whose own pay increase is lower than that turned down by the FBU, will be expected to cover for those manning the picket line.
It is easy to forget that the Royal Navy’s commitment to patrolling the Channel for small boats is set to end on January 31, with operational control returning to Border Force – assuming that it isn’t still on strike.
The Armed Forces are stoic by design. They cannot strike, they undertake every task adroitly and professionally, and they take pride in being able to turn their hand to anything with aplomb. Their ability to achieve the myriad tasks they are asked to perform, above and beyond their specialist roles within defence, is testament to their capability and competence. But this competence has proved to be a double-edged sword; the Armed Forces provide better support to a department – even at an increased cost – than could be quickly attained via other means.
The pay increase for the Armed Forces announced last summer was 3.75 per cent, significantly below that which the unions are currently demanding or in some cases have already refused. It was described as the largest percentage increase in 20 years – a period that includes the Iraq War, highly kinetic operations in Afghanistan and even the tail-end of operations in Northern Ireland. Given what we have asked of our service personnel in recent times, perhaps we should reflect on how little we have paid them for it.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph last month, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, made the point concisely and diplomatically, stating: “We’re not spare capacity. We’re busy and we’re doing lots of things on behalf of the nation. We’ve got to focus on our primary role.”
That primary role is the defence of this nation and its interests, particularly given the ongoing situation in Ukraine. If we are to maintain a smaller, streamlined and more technical Armed Forces we cannot also expect them to maintain a side-hustle as the go-to whenever the unions decide to indulge in political brinkmanship.
