MR PHIL WOOLAS MP, MR KEVAN JONES MP, MS LIN HOMER AND MR JOHN PITT-BROOKE

5 MAY 2009

  Q20  Martin Salter: Would you say for the record, Minister, under the published Gurkha terms and conditions of service for riflemen, what is their contractual length of service, prior to 1997?

  Mr Jones: It is how you describe it.

  Q21  Chairman: So he is correct?

  Mr Jones: No, he is not correct because he is giving the impression that if you join as a rifleman you only have to do 15 years. That is not the case. You can go on to do other lengths of service, which is what the officers do as well.

  Q22  Chairman: The rules as put forward to you by Mr Salter on three occasions are correct, are they?

  Mr Jones: They are, but it is not correct to infer that someone who joins as a rifleman then gets to 15 years and there is no advancement on because there is. The figures I have given you are the actual numbers that would qualify under the 20 year rule.

  Mr Pitt-Brooke: The figures are indeed as Mr Salter set out.

  Martin Salter: I am not implying anything from that. Thank you for clarifying that.

  Q23  Patrick Mercer: Could you explain the precise calculations behind the Government's figures of 4,000 ex-Gurkhas and around 6,000 dependants who will be eligible under the rules you announced on 24 April, please?

  Ms Homer: The figure of 4,000, which we are confident about because this is based on actual information, is that about 2,200 will meet the 20 years of service, of which about 55% will not be officers. We think that we will then have 100 that would qualify under the Gallantry Rule, 700 under the medical rules and at least 1,000 under the combination of secondary factors. For example, there are 500 who would get a Mention in Dispatches with ten years of service. So that is how we have put together those figures which are based on the actual service that these people have provided. We are confident that those are an accurate summary.

  Q24  Patrick Mercer: Let me just return to the conditions of service. Would you confirm that below the rank of warrant officer 2nd class there is a cut-off point in Gurkha service at the 15-year point? I absolutely take the point about not joining as an officer, but if you have not progressed up to warrant officer 2nd class, in other words to colour sergeant, then the terms of service kick in and your discharge occurs at that point, does it not?

  Mr Pitt-Brooke: I do not think that is quite true. If you progress as far as colour sergeant you would retire at 19 years, not at 15. There is a sliding scale.

  Q25  Patrick Mercer: At what rank does the 15-year point apply?

  Mr Pitt-Brooke: It is 15 years for riflemen and 20 years at warrant officer 2 level.

  Mr Jones: There is a caveat to that because in 1968 some were forced to retire after ten years because of a reduction in the number of brigades.

  Q26  Mrs Dean: Ministers, is it true that there was a dispute between the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence in formulating the revised guidelines? Did that relate to the extra costs that it caused to the Ministry of Defence in the extra pension payments?

  Mr Jones: Was there a robust exchange of views? Yes, there was. The main concern that I have got is the issue around pensions. If we do away with the 1997 rule for immigration, the next case coming our way will be the issue around pensions. When I was in Nepal three weeks ago I spoke to a number of retired Gurkha organisations. Unfortunately I did not meet DESO, the organisation promoting this campaign. They were offered a meeting but then refused it and then told the local press that I had refused to meet them. The issue around that is that they want their pensions now increased to the post-1997 Gurkha level. I think the estimate is something like a £1 billion one-off payment, £500 million a year.[1] That will be the next campaign because, as the Member for Reading said in the debate, you can have a very good standard of living on the service pension in Nepal but it will not give you a very good standard of living, for example, in Reading.

  Q27  Martin Salter: I did not take part in the debate.

  Mr Jones: No, it was your colleague.

  Q28  Martin Salter: I can well understand that it is the responsibility of any defence minister to protect the affordability of the service pension. Is he not aware of the court judgment on 2 July 2008 at the Royal Courts of Justice before Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Gurung, Mr Shrestha and Mr Purja which made it perfectly clear that a cut-off date was lawful, that it was in order for the Government to have a hybrid pension and that actually any subsequent claim for increased pensions would be dismissed and a precedent would not be set? Does that not effectively blow the MoD argument of pensions out of the water on the basis of legal judgments already made?

  Mr Jones: I agree with that, but Blake said the same thing about immigration. If we then disregard the 1997 case for immigration there will be a case to come back and revisit the issue around pensions. Although I agree with what has been said, I think it would be certainly in the next campaign and would be legally challenged.

  Q29  David Davies: Mr Jones, you have given us some figures based on different scenarios. If the pensions were equalised would it still be cheaper for us to recruit, to train, to pay for whilst they are serving and then to resettle Gurkhas than it is for us to do all that with British soldiers? At the moment we get a bargain. We get soldiers for less money and they get more money than they would in Nepal. That is it in a nutshell. What would be the effect of these changes, particularly if pensions were equalised in spite of court judgments?

  Mr Jones: It is a very good question because the other side to this is about the affordability of the Brigadier Gurkhas. I am already under pressure to reduce recruitment for next year on the basis that because we are allowing people to join the Armed Forces' pension scheme people are staying now for 22 years, which is longer, which is providing a bow wave throughout the recruitment. I am resisting that at the moment, but the pressure is there from the Army for manning purposes. You raise a very good point and it is that these things do not come without consequences. One of the things that this Government is quite clear about is that we want to ensure that we can continue to recruit Brigadier Gurkhas. As Mr Mercer said, you have got to balance that against other commitments in other regiments.

  Q30  David Davies: What do you think the impact would be if it becomes the same price or more expensive to recruit Gurkhas and there is pressure to cut regiments? We have heard about the Anglians and the Royal Regiment in Wales has gone. What is going to be the impact then? Are you not going to be under more pressure to scrap the Gurkhas than you are to scrap regiments that already exist within counties in the UK?

  Mr Jones: People know that in the last Parliament a vigorous campaign was mounted to retain various regiments throughout this country. That is something which we will have to face. The other concern I have on a broader point, and it was brought into focus by what has happened in Nepal this weekend, is that if you are going to be taking nearly £50 million a year out of the Nepalese economy, whether or not it actually becomes in the interest of any future Nepalese government to continue Gurkha recruitment. I was saddened a little bit in the debate last week that the economic impact of that money into Nepal was somehow dismissed as though that was an irrelevance.

  Q31  Chairman: I was also surprised that this was raised in the debate. Is there any precedent for a British Government doing an impact assessment on another country when deciding on immigration policy? For example, Mr Woolas, have you done an impact assessment on the economy of India as a result of the points-based system?

  Mr Jones: The issue in Nepal is quite clear. The DfID budget alone is £54 million a year. We are paying a similar amount of money in Gurkha pensions. The service pensioners in Nepal have a very good standard of living. The popular image that is portrayed in this campaign is that these are people living in abject poverty, but that is not the case.

  Q32  Chairman: I do not want a description of Nepal. I want the precedent for having an impact assessment.

  Mr Jones: With respect, Chairman, I think you have got to recognise that if you take this group of individuals out of the economy of Nepal it will have an effect on the economy because they are not just bringing money in, they also have got very highly educated children and others, and to take them out of Nepalese society will have an impact.

  Q33  Chairman: And the Prime Minister of Nepal has written to you to tell you this, has he?

  Mr Jones: No. Another point which has got to be raised is the idea that somehow the Nepalese Government has not expressed a view on this. They have not. What has happened this weekend in Nepal will heighten the reasons why we need to ensure that we do not do anything to destabilise the economy of Nepal.

  Q34  Chairman: The Gurkha campaign will tell you that, as far as the ethnic minority communities are continued who have settled in Britain, they continue to send remittances back to their countries of origin. So where do you get the analysis that they will stop doing this?

  Mr Jones: In terms of direct pensions we are paying. We are paying £50 million. I met one Gurkha pensioner a few weeks ago when I was there who said quite clearly he was happy with the amount he was getting. I asked a couple of them about whether they wanted to settle here. He was quite clear that he did not want to settle here but his family did.

  Q35  Chairman: Mr Woolas, a quick point on impact assessments. Do you know this? Is this a precedent? Is this what the Government is going to be doing in future?

  Mr Woolas: The Border Agency's international strategy document of autumn 2007 looked at this question. There is not a specific in-country assessment of the type that you describe, but it is the case that the European Union Immigration Pact puts as its prime purpose the benefit of the country of origin. It is also the case that we are working on this area of policy with DfID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as other government departments to look at the impact. The debate for many years has been, "Are remissions better than development and does the points-based system give us greater flexibility in that regard?" The simple answer to the question is that migration policy, taking account of the impact on the country of origin, is something that is contained in the international strategy.

  Q36  Chairman: Whether it is contained or not, you will be doing this as a matter of course in the future, will you?

  Mr Woolas: The policy that we have is to produce proposals in that regard. This is completely separate to the Gurkha debate, of course. It is an important point, as the evidence that was given to you by the campaign did point out.

  Chairman: We will be taking evidence from them in a second.

  Q37  Gwyn Prosser: In the debate that took place between Labour backbenchers and the Home Secretary in the Chamber she issued a letter which gave the impression that Gurkha veterans, including Falkland veterans, would not be deported from the UK and that was restated in your statement in the evening, Mr Woolas. Can you both now categorically say to us that no Gurkha veterans, including Falklands veterans, will be deported or is it still qualified by the review and other circumstances?

  Mr Woolas: It is qualified in one respect and that is the general immigration law provisos that one would not wish to give a blanket policy, for two reasons. First of all, there may be individuals who are undesirable. I have no evidence that there are. I just keep that caveat. The second is that one cannot set immigration policy for groups, one can only do it on a case-by-case basis. Remember, please, Chairman, in this debate that the powers that flow from the 1971 Act give discretion over individual cases in any event. So I can make true my pledge to the House.

  Q38  Gwyn Prosser: Are you able to say that you foresee no circumstances under which any of these veterans, given the issue of undesirable evidence, may be deported?

  Mr Woolas: I may be between a rock and a hard place, Chairman, but I am not stupid! I can see no circumstances.

  Chairman: We will not look into that at the moment.

  Q39  Mrs Cryer: Mr Jones, I think you were about to tell us that there could be pressures brought to bear on Gurkha veterans living in Nepal to move to England, despite the fact that they do not want to, by their families because their families want to take advantage of their position of being able to live here. Is that what you were going to say?

  Mr Jones: Some of the service pensioners would. The real issue which was raised on numerous occasions is the issue about the equalisation of pensions, which is the next thing that is coming. Phil is just about to make suggestions to the Chairman about the way forward. I think there are a lot of counter-arguments being put forward about the facts and who said what and when. I think it is important that those facts are scrubbed clean on both sides. I think this Committee needs to look at the evidence and the figures that we have taken decisions on need to be made available to you as a Committee to come to your conclusions.